Does Wright Represent Black Church-Goers?
Two leading experts share their diverging views
The recent comments of Rev. Jeremiah Wright have not only complicated the presidential campaign of Senator Barack Obama, who for more than 20 years has been a member of the Trinity United Church of Christ that Wright once pastored. Some of Wright's remarks—particularly his claim that criticism of his more provocative sermons "is not an on attack on Jeremiah Wright" but instead "an attack on the black church"—have also sparked wide a debate on whether Wright typifies the beliefs of millions of African-American churchgoers and their ministers. U. S. News approached two leading experts on the African-American church figures with a single question: "How well does Rev. Jeremiah Wright represent the black church in America?" Here are their answers:
Dwight Hopkins is a professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School and the author of Heart and Head: Black Theology Past, Present, and Future and many other books.
"I think his theology and his religious perspective are both very representative, especially linking the personal salvation with social justice critique. In fact, those two focii have been the hallmark of the black church in America since the black church was founded in the period of slavery. But unfortunately what has happened, particularly in the past seven and a half years, is that President Bush has promoted a small group of black clergy to represent all of black Christianity. He's promoted a theological trend called "prosperity gospel" which is basically that individuals should use Jesus Christ plus capitalism to get personally rich.
But the contribution the black church made during the period of slavery in this country was linking personal salvation with social critique of public policy—the government's public policy on slavery. Of course people have questions about the form of Wright's presentation but the substance and tradition that he practices both link back with the church that they were founded on."
Thabiti Anyabwile, a native of Lexington, N.C., is the senior pastor of the First Baptist Church in Grand Cayman and the author of The Decline of African American Theology.
"On one hand, he doesn't represent the mass of the African American church well at all. The mass of that church is largely mainstream in its politics, in its social concerns, and in its practice of church life. So in one sense Rev. Wright lies at the margins of the politically radical branch of the African American church.
In another sense, though, Rev. Wright, and the kind of comments that he made, do represent what I think is a large-scale decline of biblical-centeredness, God-centeredness, gospel-centeredness inside the African American church in particular and in the American church in general. So in that sense, he is the poster boy of the decline of bibical theology in the African American context."
Reader Comments
obama and wright
i believe that obama socializes with whoever is convenient at the time to acheive his aspirations. i also believe that he shares lots of these views but not in public just like every other politician. have to be politically correct. if a white man had the baggage that he has they would have been forced out of the race immediately. white guilt which i don't understand is the free pass. tiptoeing and pacifying blacks because of 200 yr old history is very unproductive. do we do it for the native american. NO! we will never breach the divide of racism because of both sides. extremist on both sides do not want harmony. that would lesson their cause and take away all of the excuses. it is time to start calling a duck what it looks and sounds like white or black. one is just as bad as the other.
Obama
I think Obama should drop out of the race already. I seriously do not understand how Americans are ignoring this fact that Obama has this Black Liberation Ideology infused in his brain by 20 years of following Wright. This is Anti-American for us to ignore this fact that Extreme CHANGE means Extremely giving up our country to this in experienced person
Timing
I find it strange that he average American can't understand what took Obama so long to truly distance himself from Wright.
More than likely he stayed in the church for 20 years, because it was not all bad, it has done a lot of good, he had built many relationships, not just the one with Wright over the years. More importantly is the 20 years of sermons does not equate to 20 years. Sunday comes once a week. You spend six other days making up your own mind.
I go to a church I love, been there four years. I am active and involved. I don't go every Sunday, and the pastor and I differ on several views, especially political ones, yet I still go because spiritually he usually ministers or encourages me, I have lots of other good relationships and I love ministering to other. A pastor isn't the only member in a church, which is a community of believers, and although he may be influential, it is up to each individual member how much and in what way they are influenced. I wouldn't change my pastor, I only pray he grows closer to God, because he is a man with hurts and a past like any other. I don't mind hearing his differing views, because in a way I learn to strengthen my own convictions and beliefs, even if they are not the same.
Obama's experience was not typically Atrican-American. He grew up overseas and in the mainland, with white grandparents and a single mother and an Indonesian stepfather. Unlike Obama, I am not half-white, but I can relate to the experience. I imagine sitting in Wright's church he became acquainted with the pain of the generation before him, the unforgiveness, bitterness and resentment of a broken past. It was probably in that pew he met his resolve to bridge the gap between the people he loves and relates to so much, white and black, because they both make up who he is. Listening to angry sermons, he learned of the point of blacks and the source of their hurt. Listening to his grandma he learned the source of her fear and resentment. Listening to both he figured out they had more in common than they had in war and working together they could accomplsh much more than fighting against each other.
America does not leave a comfortable place for the races to coexist, for a mixed race person to be fully accepted by both sides. Which would explain why Obama want to unite the country so badly, to create that place; to fulfill King's dream, which went way beyond racial equality to racial harmony and racial acceptance and peace. We are not there, but I believe we can get there.
Regardless of how we feel about Rev. Wright, we have to admit that focusing on, disagreeing with or defending him does not change the fact that other than attending his church, Obama's public service and private life does not reflect or align itself with the worst of Wright's views. But his life does agree with what Obama has said his view are: "We are more than what our politics would suggest."
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