Why the Jeremiah Wright issue has legs: thanks to both the left and the right wing.
I’ve listened to prophetic preachers before and they usually challenged me and made me uncomfortable. That’s their JOB! But as Tristero says:
Of course, there is much I don’t like about Wright - you can start with his defense of Farrakhan and go from there - but that is hardly the point. He was made into a campaign issue - and thereby given a national voice - by Republicans and a media who deliberately distorted his words. These are the very same people who had no trouble excusing Huckabee’s enthusiastic effort to release a serial rapist and his anti-science initiatives as governor. And who, right now, are burying McCain’s actively sought support of a Catholic-hating pastor. Some of Wright’s ideas are rotten, but hardly more so than those preached at Bob Jones. What’s different is the way those ideas are portrayed and that portrayal - which seeks to link Wright to Obama - stinks of bigotry. This is an unavoidable issue and shame on those who think it shouldn’t be raised in this context or can be finessed in general. It will be raised again and again and Obama will lose ground until liberals fight back tooth and nail rather than try to distance themselves.
EDITED to add: Must read: Pastor Dan’s righteous takedown of Steve Soto’s left-wing criticism of Wright.
FURTHER EDITED to add: Chuck Currie has second thoughts:
My natural instinct is to want to support Rev. Wright, with whom I share a denomination. He has built a great church in Chicago that continues to do good work. But this week Rev. Wright made the issue not the gospel or the church but himself and we don’t have room in this election for that. There is a war to end, a broken health care system to fix, a climate change crisis to address, and a world to reconcile.
ONE LAST EDIT TO ADD: In her usual succinct way, PeaceBang nails it:
We have played Inclusive Nice Guy for so long that when one of us dares to speak in tongues of fire in the true liberal prophetic way, we can neither protect or defend him. [...] The teaching moment is over, and it’s politics as usual.
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