DoC Minister: Wright sermons "waaaay over the top"
Friday, March 14, 2008
Here's one minister with the courage to say what needs to be said. Rev. Dennis Sanders is a DoC minister with standing in the United Church of Christ. From "Notes from a Black Pastor":
Most African American preachers will inject social concerns into their sermons. Because of our experience with slavery, and later segregation, we tend to see Christianity in a more prophetic role, where God is on the side of the downtrodden. While I mostly preach in predominately white churches (and I tend to have a more subdude style than most black preachers) I do tend to talk about care for the poor and about the fact that God loves and accepts all regardless of color or sexual orientation. I believe that as Christians we are called to strive for justice and I do try to make that point in my sermons.
That said, the sermons by Rev. Wright are go waaaay over the top. He paints an America that I don’t recognized and throws in falsehoods and a tinge of anti-Semitism that I believe shames all African American preachers.
There is no way you can explain away Wright’s belief that 9/11 was basically “just desserts” on America, especially a few days after the event. Then there is his giving into dark conspiracy theories such as the one where the government gives black people the drugs. Or, his talk of Zionism as white racism.
There is just something wrong about what Rev. Wright is doing. It’s not that he isn’t patriotic enough as some on the right as yelping: it’s that this man seems an inverse of the late Jerry Fawell: a mean spirited preacher that uses the Bible to further his agenda.
4 Comments:
commented by 
Anonymous, 7:54 AM
Anonymous, 7:54 AM
Wright is a great preacher. He is taking action against "the money changers in the temple" -- not just endlessly repeating fine words.
He moves me to want to take action against the injustices in the world -- for which the U.S. bears major guilt. If you don't know that, then you haven't been paying attention. The U.S. has a long history of (often secretly) exploiting and manipulating other countries for its own ends - taking advantage of your intellectual laziness.
He brings a tear to my eye -- and I'm a gray-haired white woman!
He moves me to want to take action against the injustices in the world -- for which the U.S. bears major guilt. If you don't know that, then you haven't been paying attention. The U.S. has a long history of (often secretly) exploiting and manipulating other countries for its own ends - taking advantage of your intellectual laziness.
He brings a tear to my eye -- and I'm a gray-haired white woman!
Dear "RequiredField":
The soft underbelly of all Liberation Theology is that it becomes the very thing it rails against. If you don't accept this premise, take a quick trip to Zimbabwe.
The soft underbelly of all Liberation Theology is that it becomes the very thing it rails against. If you don't accept this premise, take a quick trip to Zimbabwe.
"subdude"? that about covers it.
That said, we are all well-served to remember that the prophetic role is to bring God's message to the people, and urge the people to come to God (often, with fear and trembling).
But at the heart of it all is God!
I suspect that Pastor Wright is too much at the heart of his own sermons...and that his pulpit has often been used as the anvil upon which he hammers out his own vision of life. That sort of preaching may, indeed, inspire.
Yet the question remains as to the source and direction of such inspiration.
Are people inspired to show greater justice and mercy as a result of Wright's sermons? Or,
are they rendered only bitter and distrustful of their neighbors?
Can the fast and loose handling of facts truly inform? Or, is it designed merely to inflame?
Those seem to be the key issues in Wright's style of preaching.
Taking the Holy Scriptures into one's hands, and standing before God's people to speak His Word are tremendous obligations (which also carry tremendous joys). I'm always reminded as I prepare to preach that it is God who has a word for His people... not me.
And so I find wisdom in Rev. Sanders' comments, and I share his sentiments that Pastor Wright's preaching is "waaayyy" over the top.
God asks that we be faithful... not necessarily "flashy"... and His kingdom advances one soul at a time.
Blessings upon those, like Rev. Sanders... who labor faithfully to bring God to the people and the people to God.