Is Wright Wrong?
If I said in my pulpit some of the things that Jeremiah Wright said from his pulpit, I’d probably be out of a job.
On the other hand, if I don’t say some of the things that Jeremiah Wright says, I could be like the Watchman that Ezekiel speaks about who sees the danger coming and fails to warn the people.
People have been offended by some of Dr. Wright’s assertions such as “ America is the biggest killer in the world”. We could argue that American medical science, American missions, American foreign aid, and the order that American power imposes on the world saves a lot of lives and we would be correct.
On the other hand, if we are going to save the soul of America , we are going to have to come to terms with the fact that we are, by far, the world’s biggest arms dealer. We also have had a propensity to try to solve our international problems with violence. On September 11, 2001, the young Mexican woman who was staying with my sister-in-law while studying for her Master’s degree at the University of Calgary came home in tears saying to my sister-in-law, “Brown-skinned people are going to die!”
Was she wrong? She made some assumptions about how America would respond to those attacks based on America ’s previous behavior. We could argue that any other nation would have done the same. Would Canada ? Would Norway ? And, looking back at the past five years, wouldn’t it have been better to have enlisted the cooperation of a sympathetic world in treating that incident for what it was; an act of lawlessness, rather than an act of war? Wouldn’t it have been better to enlist the world’s police forces rather than our own military forces in dismantling Al Qaeda? How much more likely would it be that Osama bin Laden would be behind bars today – or dead? And how many fewer people would see him as a hero? And how many fewer people, Americans and brown-skinned people, would be dead today? We now put more of our population behind bars than any other nation. That Wall Street Journal article says:
The rate is the highest in the world, and the statistics are starker for some groups. More than 11% of the nation’s African-American men ages 20 to 34 are behind bars, the study said. Some would say that proves that Americans are more criminal than other people (and some Americans are more criminal than other Americans). Others would say that there’s something wrong with the soul of a country that tries to solve all of its social problems (drugs, poverty, and inequality of education and opportunity) by locking people up. Either way, should preachers not say anything about this? One of Dr. Wright’s most controversial statements circulating on the web is his statement about the 9/11/2001 attacks in which he is quoted as saying, “Instead of singing “God bless America, we should be saying “God #$mn America”. I wouldn’t say that. On the other hand, I have to admit that when a parishioner asked if we could sing “God bless America ” at a service we held the night of 9/11, I really wanted to say “no”. That song, that phrase, is not appropriate to a Christian viewpoint. What is appropriate is to turn it around: “ America , bless God”.
God has blessed America with riches and peace and security and power beyond that of any nation in history. And, except in times of trouble America takes it for granted (just how many “God bless America ” signs have you seen lately?) What I didn’t have the heart to say that night is that it’s not God’s job to sit around bestowing blessings on everything America wants. God is not America ’s sugar daddy. It’s America ’s job to be grateful and to seek after and do the will of God not by self-righteously imposing our power on our neighbors, but by doing justice, loving mercy and walking humbly with God.
On the other hand, if we are going to save the soul of America , we are going to have to come to terms with the fact that we are, by far, the world’s biggest arms dealer. We also have had a propensity to try to solve our international problems with violence. On September 11, 2001, the young Mexican woman who was staying with my sister-in-law while studying for her Master’s degree at the University of Calgary came home in tears saying to my sister-in-law, “Brown-skinned people are going to die!”
Was she wrong? She made some assumptions about how America would respond to those attacks based on America ’s previous behavior. We could argue that any other nation would have done the same. Would Canada ? Would Norway ? And, looking back at the past five years, wouldn’t it have been better to have enlisted the cooperation of a sympathetic world in treating that incident for what it was; an act of lawlessness, rather than an act of war? Wouldn’t it have been better to enlist the world’s police forces rather than our own military forces in dismantling Al Qaeda? How much more likely would it be that Osama bin Laden would be behind bars today – or dead? And how many fewer people would see him as a hero? And how many fewer people, Americans and brown-skinned people, would be dead today? We now put more of our population behind bars than any other nation. That Wall Street Journal article says:
The rate is the highest in the world, and the statistics are starker for some groups. More than 11% of the nation’s African-American men ages 20 to 34 are behind bars, the study said. Some would say that proves that Americans are more criminal than other people (and some Americans are more criminal than other Americans). Others would say that there’s something wrong with the soul of a country that tries to solve all of its social problems (drugs, poverty, and inequality of education and opportunity) by locking people up. Either way, should preachers not say anything about this? One of Dr. Wright’s most controversial statements circulating on the web is his statement about the 9/11/2001 attacks in which he is quoted as saying, “Instead of singing “God bless America, we should be saying “God #$mn America”. I wouldn’t say that. On the other hand, I have to admit that when a parishioner asked if we could sing “God bless America ” at a service we held the night of 9/11, I really wanted to say “no”. That song, that phrase, is not appropriate to a Christian viewpoint. What is appropriate is to turn it around: “ America , bless God”.
God has blessed America with riches and peace and security and power beyond that of any nation in history. And, except in times of trouble America takes it for granted (just how many “God bless America ” signs have you seen lately?) What I didn’t have the heart to say that night is that it’s not God’s job to sit around bestowing blessings on everything America wants. God is not America ’s sugar daddy. It’s America ’s job to be grateful and to seek after and do the will of God not by self-righteously imposing our power on our neighbors, but by doing justice, loving mercy and walking humbly with God.
If we are “commanded to preach to the people that Jesus Christ is the one ordained by God to judge the living and the dead”, then as much as we may not want to hear what Barack Obama’s pastor has to say, we need to ask, “is Wright wrong?”
