Why Rev. Wright's Comments Matter

Bryan McGraw, MoJ reader and visiting fellow at Emory's Center for the Study of Law and Religion, responds to my post of Frank Schaefer's comments on Sen. Obama and Rev. Wright:

Don’t you think Franky is being just a *wee* bit disingenuous here?  First, Wright went far beyond just condemning America for its “racism and violence” and complaining that no one had used the “N-word” about Hillary.  (It would have been strange if they did, and I’m sure that people have used similarly degrading language about her).  He claimed (and given his theological commitments, it seems reasonable to think that these aren’t simply one-off lines) that America was fundamentally unjust, structured at its core around white domination and dedicated (through things like the creation of the AIDS virus) to the destruction of blacks.  He wasn’t being prophetic, he was wandering into crank-land.

A good parallel might be a candidate who was a member of a reconstructionist church.  Suppose, for example, that George W. Bush, in the course of the 2000 presidential campaign, turned out to be a member of a church built around a charismatic pastor who demonstrated a sincere and abiding commitment to the theological views of Rushdoony, North, etc.  And suppose further that that Bush credited this pastor with his spiritual turn-around and had been a prominent member for a couple of decades.  How do you think things would have gone for him had videos surfaced of that pastor “damning” America for its abortion politics or toleration of homosexuals?  Not well, I suspect.

On a broader note, I don’t think that problem is so much that Wright thinks God might judge America for its sins, but rather that the fact that Obama seemed (until the last couple of weeks) so comfortable with, even proud of, the church and its pastor suggests that he at least thinks (or thought) Wrights views not beyond the pale and maybe even at times correct.  I don’t mean to make Obama responsible for his pastor’s every utterance, but it’s implausible to think that his membership and participation in the church says nothing about who he is and what he thinks.