For now at least, the mainstream media and the blogging world have, for the most part, left the Jeremiah Wright controversy behind. That's too bad in a way and it showcases the problem with what has become not a twenty-four hour news cycle, but a constant assault of headlines, sound bites, video clips, and rapid fire stereotyping often devoid of context or real analysis.
Before 1980, when TV network news was established as part of a pantheon of journalistic outlets, joining newspapers and radio, supplanting the latter and in some ways, supplementing the former, there was time to develop stories responsibly, covering multiple aspects. There was even a place for a dispassionate analyst to give nightly commentary, as was true of Eric Sevareid five nights a week on CBS News, his wise words treated almost like wisdom from Mount Sinai.
I'm grateful for the Internet. It allows for an increased public dialog and has made it possible for even someone like me, a preacher in a small Ohio town, to reach an audience I could not have otherwise reached. (And every writer wants people to read what they have written, no matter what other motives they may have.)
But the Internet of today is a bit like the media landscape of Europe in the 1500s, after Gutenberg's presses had started to make their presence and potential apparent, or of the young united colonies, then United States, immediately before and after the Revolution. In both contexts, pamphleteering, those eras' equivalents of blogs and YouTube videos, became major sources of information and ideas.
In the case of early-16th.-century Europe, the printing press and the wide distribution of his essays made Martin Luther, the Reformer of whose movement I am a part today, the very first media superstar, as others have pointed out. (That was also an era when copyright laws and royalties did not exist, proof that Luther cared not a fig about wealth, but simply wanted people to know that we are made right with God not by what we do, but by who we know.)
The Internet is a wild and woolly world. The conventional media, which includes the cable TV networks, feel a need to respond to and carry items making the news on the web in order to keep up.
But at times, this causes all of the media players--conventional and otherwise--to express opinions and pass judgments before facts have been established.
As I have delved into some of Jeremiah's Wright's thinking, my first impressions have been somewhat changed. I still think that Wright is a polarizing figure and that some of his opinions are indefensible. But, as I think my sharing of the actual content of his post-September 11, 2001 sermon demonstrates, that sermon, in any case, no matter what one thinks of the data he marshalls or the conclusions he draws, is well within the mainstream of Christian thinking, with no hint prejudices of any kind.
Even in saying that the 9/11 attacks exemplified our country's chickens coming home to roost, the military veteran who volunteered for several tours of duty in Vietnam, was not disparaging the United States, as he clearly was elsewhere.
In his comments on the first installment of this series, my colleague, Pastor Jeff, provides links to several communiques from Jeremiah Wright. They are disturbing and I will take a look at those in the next installment. As will become apparent, I abhor some of the things Wright said there and in other places. So much do I abhor them, in fact, that I cannot imagine being a member of any church pastored by Wright.
But I do hope that what I've written and will write about him, about preaching, and about the Biblical tradition of prophetic preaching, will serve as a reminder, at least to anyone who shows up here, that the best thing we can do when an Internet tempest cranks up, it's best to bide our time, bit our tongues, pray, research, and reflect.
The Internet gives us access to all sorts of information and ideas. It also gives an unprecedented capacity to put in our own two-cents' worth. But we shouldn't allow the low cost of admission to cheapen our discourse. Even Jeremiah Wright deserves a fair shake.
4 comments:
Have you considered expanding this series?
You ought, by my lights.
The phrase "... still, small voice ..." keeps coming to mind ... .
I would probably not have felt comfortable in Obama's church, but I see the whole Jeremiah Wright controversy through the lens of my own experience. I grew up in the segregated South, where friends and family regularly used shocking racial epithets. I attended the church that my friends went to. While my pastor didn't say things along the lines of those said by Wright, I disagreed with and ignored, much of what he said. I didn't leave the church because my friends were there, my community.
Beyond this, I have friends who do believe some of the outrageous things that Wright said from the pulpit, including the notion that HIV is man-made, and that American foreign policy has fed hatred against us. Believe it or not, there is evidence to support both viewpoints. For example over 60 scientists back in the 1960s and 1970s urged research into the possibility of creating a virus that could attack the very cells that battle viruses. And for an unflinching view of how the USA became the enemy of Islam, check out "From Beirut to Bosnia," a 3 hour Robert Fisk special aired in 1993. Indeed we have done much to ignite rage against us.
In any case, even if I find some of my friends' beliefs to be nutty or wrong, I don't feel the need to renounce or denounce them or throw them down the stairs. Those who know me know what I believe. I take Obama at his word that he does not believe these things Wright said, and I both understand and forgive his decision not to renounce or walk out on those who believe differently, even if one of those is his pastor, just as I disagreed with much of what my pastor said, yet did not leave the church for my own personal reasons.
Judge not lest ye be judged. I'm glad you finally had took the opportunity to view the Rev. Wright through your lens, but do you remember the charactherizaitons you made before you were so kind to actually listen to the mans words. I believe you called his expressions hateful, anti semetic as well as several other things.
What was insidious about the Rev. Wright story is that every report of those videos on TV, and in the reports of print media the description of the sermons as hateful etc were repeated over and over again. Many Americans like yourself view the reports of the media as actual truth. So regardless now of the actual context and meaning of his words he will be forever thought of as hateful and the 32 year career of a stalwart servant of God, is forever sullied.
That should disturb me, but I think I can estimate the heart of the Rev Wright. If only one soul is saved by hearing more than just 10 seconds of the word of God he will consider the condemnation worth it. That the storm over his sermon led to Obama’s speech on race he would consider a blessing.
I hope you will now endeavor to correct people when the call the Rev. Wright hateful etc, and I believe you further owe him an apology. I also feel I must let you know that no one and especially the Trinity UCC is going to cry one tear if you would not grace that church with your presense. The days of black people having to cow tow and beg for the acceptance of the likes of you is blessedly passed.
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