More Notes on Rev. Wright

So many interesting comments from Drs. Blanchard and Schaff on Reverend Wright -- where to begin?

I have to admit, Wright's latest inflammatory comments to the National Press Club have caught me off-guard, not to mention in the middle of the big semester-end homework push at DSU. I haven't gotten to review the whole transcript, let alone the video. From the sounds of it, he went farther than Obama could stomach without changing his relationship with the pastor. I honestly don't know: is Wright taking advantage of a teachable moment (and I still think the Obama candidacy is a spectacular teachable moment) to get people talking, or is he just grandstanding? I need to think about that.

In the meantime, permit me to dignify Drs. Blanchard and Schaff with some responses:

--Dr. Blanchard displays his really bad tendency to tilt against the really bad arguments he wishes his opponents would make rather than addressing the actual arguments that have been made. (Remember Blanchard's argument that the International Left ignores Tibet? Yeah -- all those Olympic torch relay protestors are Limbaugh listeners.)

First, Blanchard imagines how I would would respond to a hypothetical conservative pastor who would condemn homosexuals and declare AIDS their just desserts. Surely I'd condemn such a sermon... well, probably, but not because of my politics. I suspect such a pastor would be getting theology wrong and preaching an un-Christian message of exclusion and scapegoating. Condeming homosexuals is very different from critiquing the entire nation of which one is a citizen.

Blanchard proceeds to shift the discussion away from the theology that was placed on the table in the Moyers-Wright interview. Blanchard prefers to wallow in the more radical claims that the U.S. government invented AIDS and promotes drug addiction among blacks. I'm with Blanchard there -- I have no time for such fringe conspiracy theories. Wright's delvings in such nuttiness don't help his parishioners do practical good any more than Leslee Unruh's rantings. But those rantings do not call into question the validity of the theology and history presented on the Moyers program. Tolstoy wrote some dreck, but War and Peace is still a treasure. Wright gets some important things wrong, but his discussion with Moyers about where the black church comes from still deserves our attention and agreement.

Dr. Blanchard soundly rebuts the words he puts in his opponents' mouths with this conclusion:

Suppose for the moment that the United States had never existed. Would the world today be a better place or a much worse place? I would like to think that Cory would agree with me on this one. I am not sure what Barack Obama would say, if he were being honest, and that concerns me a lot more. I am pretty sure what Reverend Wright would say.

Dr. Blanchard imputes a lack of patriotism to Senator Obama and Rev. Wright that is not supported by either man's biography. I wouldn't even make that argument about Senator Clinton (and it's possible my distaste for her exceeds Blanchard's distaste for Obama).

But I don't think Obama would make any argument in response to Blanchard's question. The world better off without America? Great premise for a Harry Turtledove series, pointless question for politics. America's here: what do we do to make sure America continues to make the world a better place?

Finally, Dr. Schaff questions whether Rev. Wright's preaching deserves to be called prophetic.

We are called to love the Lord and love our enemies. I am not sure Rev. Wright's congregation gets much of either message.

Actually, I thought that was the whole point of the sermon in which Wright spoke of the chickens coming home to roost. He was speaking on the Sunday after 9/11, trying to address the urge for revenge that he had heard from many parishioners. Anyone standing up that weekend saying the U.S. shouldn't go to war stood a fair chance of starting a fist fight.

--------------------
I may swing the big debate stick at our Northern professors, but I enjoy our conversations, abbreviated as they may be by the many competing concerns in our lives. Dr. Blanchard, Dr. Schaff, I appreciate your occasional attention to my lakeside ramblings... even when you are flat wrong.