A particular passage of scripture speaks to me this morning.  When one takes into account the John Hagee/John McCain controversy of the past week, I am reminded that the pure ideal of Christianity or, for that matter, any spiritual movement can easily be co-opted and corrupted by human hands.

My dad sent me a link to this film and asked me if think it's valid.  Take a look:

In a word, no, I don't think this is valid.

Not surprisingly, Jeremiah Wright divides voters:

In network exit polling, about the same number of voters in each state said they considered the situation with the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. "very important" to their vote as those who said it was "not at all important." And most who gave the issue a heavy weight voted for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), while those who said it was not a factor went for Obama, the Illinois senator, by wide margins.

In both states, frequent churchgoers were more apt to say they were influenced by Wright than were less actively religious voters. In North Carolina, among those who said they attend religious services weekly, nearly six in 10 called Wright important to their vote, almost double the figure among those who never attend services. Even among Obama's own supporters in the Tarheel state, 45 percent who attend services weekly called the controversy important to their vote; among those, a third who rated it "very important."

In Indiana, the issue also split voters: About half of those who attend services weekly or occasionally rated the Wright issue important, while only a third of those who never attend services said the same.

This reflects one pre-existing divide in American society and one emerging. The latter is that the most religious voters (as measured by frequency of participation) are becoming increasingly distinct from the rest of society. And by "distinct," I really mean " conservative." Most everybody else is headed in the opposite direction.

This frequent-flyer cadre has every right to their political opinions, of course. But I'm not clear why it is that they should be given control over our political discourse, especially since they continue to age and shrink. There's some kind of weird fetish that holds them up as the "real Americans," while everyone else is apparently French. (This is spoken by someone who works for them, by the way.)

Of course, by "weird fetish," I really mean " wankers like Michael Gerson obsess over them or their absence":

It is also a striking reversal of fortunes. Obama is easily the most religiously fluent and informed Democratic presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter. But, over time, Obama has assumed a much more familiar Democratic electoral profile -- the candidate of the young, the educated and the secular (he has consistently won religiously nonaligned voters), who also gets nearly universal support from African Americans. He increasingly resembles Bill Bradley or Gary Hart -- a candidate of new liberalism -- with this additional element of black enthusiasm.

What, exactly, is wrong with putting together a coalition of the young, the educated, the secular and the black? Why would Gerson assume that white regular church-goers should take precedence over everyone else?

I'm not just being snippy here: I honestly don't see why it is that one subculture should be prioritized over another or have its opinion on a pastor deferred to, especially when their numbers are on the wane. There are other religious people in the US, and simply showing up each week doesn't guarantee an intelligent opinion. Just ask the people who have to put up with my sermons.

This Newsweek piece on Barack Obama's faith - by which the reporter really means his campaign's faith - is mostly useless. It does contain a mini-profile of Josh DuBois, who's a swell guy. So that's welcome.

But the last few paragraphs are worth the price of admission:

The rift between the candidate and the pastor had been growing for months. Wright was wounded when Obama—already worried about stories questioning Wright's controversial views—disinvited him from delivering the opening prayer when Obama announced he was running for president. Obama knew the pastor was not pleased with his Philadelphia race speech, in which the candidate said he disagreed with Wright's controversial comments but could no more disown him than he could his grandmother, who had also held opinions he did not share. Obama reached out to Wright during the controversy surrounding his sermons and offered to help him manage the onslaught of reporters who were coming at him day and night. But Wright refused. The pastor didn't even bother to tell Obama about his upcoming trip to Washington. The campaign learned about it from reporters.

Aides and friends describe that night as the toughest of the entire campaign for Obama and his wife, Michelle. They were anguished and dismayed. Wright had been a friend and mentor. Obama had said before that he couldn't cut him off; but after this bitter performance, how could he not sever his ties? "It was a circus," says the senior Obama aide. "Not only was Wright repeating things that were objectionable, but he was also impugning Barack's sincerity."

This time, Obama did not try to temper his remarks or put them in a larger context, as he had done in his measured Philadelphia speech. On Tuesday, he called Wright's speeches "appalling" and a "show of disrespect to me." He said he had given Wright the benefit of the doubt before, but now said "there are no excuses. [His words] offend me, they rightly offend all Americans and they should be denounced. And that's what I'm doing very clearly and unequivocally here today." Now guys like Roemer and DuBois can give a simple answer when they're asked about Obama's relationship with the controversial preacher: it's over.

This opens for me an intriguing possibility that it was in fact Wright who threw Obama under the bus, not the other way around. Some folks have speculated that Wright might have been deliberately provocative to give Obama the opportunity to reject him. The thought had crossed my mind. But this article suggests something even beyond that: Wright didn't want his friendship with a middle-of-the-road politician gumming up his ability to critique American politics and society. So he came out guns a-blazing, making it clear that he wasn't going to let small details like Obama's electability get in his way.

It's worth a thought. And since Obama's stronger if anything post-Wright, if true, it was a gamble that seems to have paid off in the end.

I've read this a couple of times now. It's still stupid.

Even setting aside the usual asinine implication that the denomination leadership is responsible for every piece of less-than-glowing press that comes its way, nobody has ever said that Rev. Wright is a typical black church pastor. He is an admitted anomaly in the mostly-white UCC, and his views are aggressive, even if they're not extreme.

Nonetheless, he is representative of the black church in a way that even some blacks are at some pains to deny. He is forthrightly proud of his ethnic identity, as is his congregation. Somehow it always gets left out that Wright didn't create black liberation theology or Afro-centric worship all by himself. He was a student of a pre-existing tradition, and his congregation pushed him every bit as much as he pushed them.

Wright also speaks to a need for hope, liberation, and justice that persists in the black community. I know we've been over this territory before, but apparently it needs to be said again: some people apparently don't feel like they're getting free or a fair shake out there. There are thousands of them in Trinity UCC, and millions of them in black churches across the land. They're getting the shaft, and they know it. They may not agree with Rev. Wright on all the particulars, but I'll bet you dollars to donuts they think he's talking about things that need to be discussed.

Wright is a representative of the black church in that he articulates their belief that racial, social, and economic problems persist in the black community. That's what got to be denied, come hell or high water.

The unthinkable has happened: Peggy Noonan has published a column I almost agree with:

Few voters will be more inclined to vote for Barack Obama because his friend, mentor and pastor is extreme. They will think it makes Mr. Obama less attractive. They will not think Mr. Obama handled the challenge with force, dispatch and the kind of instinct that turns dilemma into gain.

And yet . . . it doesn't get my blood up. It doesn't hurt my heart. It doesn't make me feel I need to defend my country. Because I don't see it as attacked, only criticized in a way that is not persuasive.

Mr. Wright seems to me to be part of the great "barbaric yawp," as Walt Whitman called the American people fighting, discussing, making things and living. I like the barbaric yawp. I don't enjoy it when it makes me wince, but at least when I am wincing, I know the yawp is working.

I believe Wright is persuasive, and I do get something out of his message. But Noonan is exactly right in her conclusion: as Whitman says, America (the cultural construct) is built on discourse. Good, bad, ugly, it matters not. What matters is the discussion itself:

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric YAWP over the roofs of the world.

Amen, and preach it, Brother Walt. That's the way an American citizen should be, and whatever else you want to say about Rev. Wright, he exemplifies that to a T.

Thanks to Sister Margaret for bringing us that message, even if we think she's full of it most of the time.

Gershom Gorenberg is having second thoughts about Isaiah:

Just in case I’m ever struck by the mad thought of running for political office in Israel, I’d like to set the record straight: I don’t agree with the prophet Isaiah’s political views. He doesn’t speak for me. No way.

It’s true that I’ve enjoyed some of his sermons, and I took some comfort from the spiritual stuff, like that vision of heaven, with the six-winged creatures praising God. But I attended to Isaiah strictly for the religion, not for the politics. I mean, I’m a patriotic Israeli (even if my lapel pin got lost in the wash, honestly).

I’m pretty sure I wasn’t even there the day he said,

   Ah, sinful nation!
   People laden with iniquity!
   Brood of evildoers!
   Depraved children!
   They have forsaken the Lord,
   spurned the Holy One of Israel,
   Turned their backs on Him!

but if I was there, I slept through the sermon. Otherwise, I would have told him that I might just run for office, and therefore I cannot tolerate him cursing my country.

And on it goes from there. Read the whole thing.

Fair is fair. I said yesterday that I hadn't heard too much criticism of Jeremiah Wright coming from black folk. Naturally, no sooner had the words appeared on the interwebs than contradictory evidence started to come in.

Pam Spaulding thinks some of Wright's appearance at the NPC was helpful but

Other parts added nothing positive to the dialogue showed a public  unraveling of the id. Wright felt dissed, and took it before the cameras, damaging his own credibility -- and he either doesn't seem to realize it -- or care.

I see clips from the NPC appearance and wonder what's next -- Rev. Wright lobbying for additional 15 minutes of exposure to  " play the dozens" with Barack Obama? I'm sure the media would be down with that too. And that's because they never dig deeper to see what's really beneath the surface.

I'd actually like that, but only because a good game of dozens between two sharp orators is a lot of fun.

Anyway, Gene Robinson disagrees with me on Jeremiah Wright being a representative of the black church:

The problem is that Wright insists on being seen as something he's not: an archetypal representative of the African American church. In fact, he represents one twig of one branch of a very large tree.

It's understandable, given how Wright has been treated, that he would want to attempt to set the record straight. No one would enjoy seeing his 36-year career reduced to a couple of radioactive sound bites. No preacher would want his entire philosophy to be assessed on the basis of a few rhetorical excesses committed in the heat of a passionate sermon. No former Marine would stomach having his love of country questioned by armchair patriots who have done far less to protect the United States from its enemies.

Given Wright's long silence, I thought he had taken to heart Jesus's admonition to turn the other cheek. Obviously, I was wrong.

I don't agree with Robinson, obviously. I think it's a more complex organism than he gives it credit for being. But he's got more credibility for having grown up in the church, and for now being a member of the UCC. Not that that gives him special dispensation, but obviously, criticism is a little different when it's coming from one of your own.

None of this directly contradicts what I had to say yesterday. In fact, it appears that both sides are right: Wright is, um, correct to say that his thought is well-grounded in black liberation theology and the black church. But Spaulding and Robinson are equally correct that that doesn't mean that his last couple of appearances have been helpful.

So it goes.

Tonight, Dennise and Maria were watching TV, and some clips of Rev. Jeremiah Wright came on from his National Press Club appearance last night. Among other things, these were clips where he was again blaming the government for AIDS, and calling American soldiers terrorists.

The following is a mostly verbatim transcription of the conversation that ensued...

This post by The Left Coaster's Steve Soto is wanklicious:

Obama's pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Jr. managed to reignite the controversy surrounding his sermons this morning in a speech at the National Press Club. Wright told the national media that the recent criticism weren't attacks against him but rather attacks against the black church in America.

Sorry Reverend, no sale. While some of the attacks against Wright were unfair and the result of a cut-and-paste hit job by Obama's political enemies, both he and Obama should have known this would happen and also have accepted the fact that every minister in this country is responsible for their words and actions. When I criticize John Hagee and any other evangelical preacher and supporter of John McCain who uses his pulpit to smear or diminish others, I am not criticizing those churches or the faith itself; I am criticizing the leaders for spreading a divisive counter-Jesus message under the cloak of being a faith leader. Similarly, there are many black churches in this country that preach a message different than Wright's, who weren't the target of the pushback against Wright. And yet today, Wright tells us that he and his comments weren't the issue. He wants to evade personal responsibility and shift the blame to society for being against the black church.

I have to think that the Obama campaign must have known about Wright's appearance at such a notable place as the National Press Club; it would be hard for the campaign to plead ignorance of his appearance and his remarks. They may have known therefore that Wright was going to inject race once more into the campaign today, by turning the critique back towards society as a whole with a specious claim.

I'm pretty angry tonight.  People are being stupider than usual and if you know my general attitude toward humanity you know that's saying something.  The source of my discontent this evening is, of course, the incestuous Beltway Bendover for Ass Access Butt Sniffing Feces Flinging Media and their Hollywood for the Ugly Uncle Brother Wife Sisters in the institutional political class.  

Reverend Wright IS Right!

Crossposted as The Stars Hollow Gazette @ DocuDharma

Does anybody else find it at all ironic that a member of a legislative body named for its Roman predecessor who is also a veteran of an armed forces that is by far the most dominant in the world and occupying a Middle Eastern nation would say this?

Senator John McCain delved on Sunday into remarks made by Senator Barack Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., saying it was “beyond belief” that Mr. Wright had likened the Romans at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion to the Marines and had suggested that the United States was acting like Al Qaeda under a different color flag.

John McCain: an American president for the historically and biblically illiterate.