The Latest

Damn You Rich!

Guest Post:
by "devilstower" (see more by this DailyKos blogger)

Damn you rich! You already have your compensation.

Damn you who are well-fed! You will know hunger.

Damn you who laugh now! You will weep and grieve.

Damn you when everybody speaks well of you!

A rant from a radical preacher? Without a doubt. Someone on the Obama campaign? Well, Sen. Obama says so. That's the Scholars Translation of Luke 6:24-26, and the speaker is Jesus of Nazareth.

In the King James Version, the first part of Luke 6:24 reads "But woe unto you that are rich!" That comes off as quaint and a lot less shocking to modern ears -- not the kind of preaching that nets you space on Fox News. But Jesus meant his words to be shocking. He meant them to strike against the status quo and shake up the comfortable.

God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human.

God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.

That's Jeremiah Wright.

Is the vision of a pastor standing in his pulpit shouting "God damn America" shocking? Yes. But don't mistake Wright's (or Jesus') statement for what some drunk in a bar would mean using the same phrasing. Wright isn't saying "FU America!" he's saying "these actions of America are worthy of God's condemnation." He's just saying it in a way that cuts through the Sunday morning sleepiness and makes people sit up in their pew.

From Gandhi to King, it's in the nature of spiritual leaders to grab their audiences by the throat and their nations by the short hairs. This was true at the time of the Civil War and during the Civil Rights movement. Martyrs did not become martyrs by appealing to the status quo.

Don't take this to mean that I agree with every word that Wright spoke (e.g. the United States did not create AIDS), but neither do I feel like his words require that "his church should lose it's tax exempt status" that he's a traitor, or that he's an embarrassment to his church or to Senator Obama -- all comments that have appeared on this site.

Do I think that 9/11 was the "chickens coming home to roost?" Yeah, I pretty much do. Of course the terrorists bear the personal responsibility for their actions and the deaths that resulted. But to pretend that decades of actions overseas had nothing to do with that terrible morning is far more delusional than anything said by Rev. Wright. If you jab a stick into a hornet's nest and shake it for fifty years, the hornets might do the stinging, but you can't blame only the hornets. Actions have consequences, and though we may pretend to both purity of motive and prescience about outcomes, the truth is that violence tends to generate violence in return. Or, as that radical I quoted above said "those who take up the sword, will die by the sword."

The purpose of a good sermon isn't to placate, ease, and make people comfortable. A dangerous religion isn't one that challenges people and makes them squirm. Makes them angry. A dangerous religion is one that is too amicable to what you already think, one that pats you on the head and sends you forth in assurance of your own righteousness. If you want to search for "traitors" in the pulpit, turn your eye toward those who never find anything wrong in the actions of this nation.

I understand why Senator Obama finds it necessary to distance himself from Rev. Wright. There were plenty of things in those sermons that I don't agree with, and I'm suspect many of the ideas that grate on my nerves also strike the Senator as either wrong or unsustainable politically. These days, three isolated words on the news seem far more important than context or intent. But I wish he didn't have to do so.

Because getting your personal beliefs regularly challenged, rather than reinforced, is important.

4 comments:

ryan charisma said...

Um, no.

I don't need a lesson in the Bible.

The main point is:

Obama attended this man's sermons for twenty years. TWENTY.

You're explaining away - one (1) sentence. What about the other "things" this pastor said that you don't agree with? Obama sat there for TWENTY years listening to that? Donating money to that type of talk. TWENTY YEARS.

In twenty years he couldn't have found a new pastor/church/religon? Of course he could have, but he didn't.

So for the sake of your troubles, put the "damn you America" diatribe behind us. What about the twenty years of Obama's inaction, while listening to this Mr. Write hate? What about twenty years of sitting there listening to that drivel with his wife, and now his daughters are learning it; and so the circle of hate continues.

No free pass for Obama this time.

Mark D. Snyder said...

So far I have not read one thing I disagreed with as far as Obama's pastor. You have to look at it within the context of social justice and oppression and what he was trying to say and the emotions he was trying to evoke.

Obama's church does amazing things for Social Justice and I think you're neglecting some important historical and cultural things.

To ask a family to leave their church is really really hard. My family's pastor says things they don't agree with too, but they don't leave the church.

The church isn't just its pastor, it's the people - who are often like family.

John Hosty said...

Ryan, I'm kind of shocked to hear this opinion from you. I have to side with Mark on this one; I've not read one thing the good pastor has said I take offense to.

I've read your posts for years and until now I've never sided against you. My respect for your opinion is high enough to make me question my own judgement.

I'm not proud of everything my country does, but I love my country with all my heart even still. I don't see it as unamerican to speak your disapproval of certain things our nation has done wrong. Hell, that's the only way we ever take notice and action is when someone speaks out.

"I do not agree at all with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to speak it." ~Voltaire

I think it is healthy that the pastor has his voice to say his views and you yours that you can disagree so vehemently. Somewhere between the two I'll bet we find the truth. I'd love to hear more of why you feel so strongly.

Mark D. Snyder said...

While Obama's pastor supports social justice, and LGBT rights - this is who Clinton prays with:


"Through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the Fellowship. Her collaborations with right-wingers such as Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) grow in part from that connection. "A lot of evangelicals would see that as just cynical exploitation," says the Reverend Rob Schenck, a former leader of the militant anti-abortion group Operation Rescue who now ministers to decision makers in Washington. "I don't....there is a real good that is infected in people when they are around Jesus talk, and open Bibles, and prayer."

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/hillarys-prayer.html

Ryan, I'm curious to know how you feel about this one?