This is the way forward. I don't know if it would bring church attendance figures up but its opposite, the kind of passive liberal Christianity that Chris Hedges condemns in similar terms as Rev. Wright does governments, has not worked. You can hear the entire context of the sound bite taken to distort what he said on this video. When you hear the comparison between the American empire and its sins with those the prophets condemned in ancient Israel, you can hear that what he said was completely distorted. You can compare the various damnings form people like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and others, claiming that God brought hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and plagues FOR DOING JUSTICE and know that there is all the difference in what Rev. Wright said. And you can see from contrasting the reaction of the American media between the two that justice was the real target of their misrepresentation.
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Rev. Jeremiah Wright on Black Liberation Theology With Bill Moyers
This is the way forward. I don't know if it would bring church attendance figures up but its opposite, the kind of passive liberal Christianity that Chris Hedges condemns in similar terms as Rev. Wright does governments, has not worked. You can hear the entire context of the sound bite taken to distort what he said on this video. When you hear the comparison between the American empire and its sins with those the prophets condemned in ancient Israel, you can hear that what he said was completely distorted. You can compare the various damnings form people like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and others, claiming that God brought hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and plagues FOR DOING JUSTICE and know that there is all the difference in what Rev. Wright said. And you can see from contrasting the reaction of the American media between the two that justice was the real target of their misrepresentation.
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In your initial video just below, Rev. Wright was introduced as the person who took his church from 87 members to 8000 (IIRC). Mega-church status, in other words; and he did it without recourse to Calvinism (Mars Hill) or Dale Carnegie-ism (Robert Schuller) or the Gospel of Wealth (Joel Osteen).
ReplyDeleteI'm not a fan of size=success=blessed by God, but neither do I think the Rev. Wright did anything so terribly wrong to get a congregation of that size. What's most interesting is that no one had ever heard of him until Obama's first campaign (even within the UCC) and to this day no one wants to acknowledge (well, with rare exception) what he preached and taught and how valuable it might well be.
Maybe because his church is in the wrong part of Chicago, and he's the wrong color and (more importantly) flavor of Xian?
It's similar to the disappearing of liberal religion in the media, I'd think. If there is one thing that the people who own and control the media don't want it's someone preaching the gospels and the prophets in terms relevant to people today. It is like Noam Chomsky said, it's radical. If Pope Francis presses social justice, he will be disappeared too, or worse turned into a toy like so many of the saints have been in the Catholic church.
ReplyDeleteI am grateful to Rev. Wright for pulling me out of the depression I've been in for months.
Santorum is already insisting Pope Francis doesn't really mean his statements about social justice, he only means them in the context of salvation (i.e., first get saved, then worry about who gets to eat).
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty disgusting, and I don't know how long the delusion on Santorum's part will last; but there is engrained in many (and so in the press, especially since religion in America became Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, and no one else) that religion=salvation from damnation, and not a thing more.
Wright preaches that religion is about how we live now, not whether we live later. But, as the old saying goes, that's when the preacher stops preachin' and goes to meddlin'. We've always preferred our preachers to stick to the metaphysical (salvation) and leave the physical (social justice, etc.) to others. Preferably others with the power to grant or withhold, and the money to make that decision "right."
As you say, it's radical. We don't want somebody taking the Magnificat literally now, do we? THAT would be awkward.....