WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The consensus was clear after the Rev.
Jeremiah Wright finished speaking at the National Press Club Monday
morning. The pastor had smacked one out of the park.
Just ask any of the black church leaders and theologians who
came out to hear him in person yesterday morning. Nothing he said
was shocking or controversial. Wright had spoken truth to power.
And his eloquence had made power tremble.
"I thought the presentation was wonderfully balanced and thought
out," said Ian Straker, a professor of church history at Howard
University. "It was classic Jeremiah Wright."
Straker actually had one of the milder responses. Marcus D.
Cosby, a member of the conference board that organized the event
and an occasional guest-preacher at Wright's church, called the
presentation "absolutely phenomenal."
Anthony Evans of the National Black Church Initiative in
Washington went further still. "It was a brilliant presentation. I
believe that God has appointed the Rev. Jeremiah Wright as the
modern prophet to teach America how to spell democracy. He is the
right prophet at the right time with the right message," Evans
said.
MOST MEMBERS OF the audience were there as part of the Samuel
DeWitt Proctor Conference, an annual gathering of black religious
leaders. This year's symposium is entitled "Prophetic Witness in
the African-American Religious Experience: Crisis, Calling,
Critique, and Community." Wright's remarks at the National Press
Club kicked off the event.
In other words, the audience was full of Wright's friends and
peers. They did not view him as some crazy old uncle either. The
press handout for the event called Wright "a man of faith, a
homiletic genius, a theological scholar, and a pastor's pastor." It
further said that Dr. Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ has
"long [been] considered in theological circles a model for the
Black church."
Wright took the podium Monday morning to a lusty standing
ovation and left with an even stronger one. In between the audience
members, including Cornel West, could be heard saying "yes" and
"uh-huh" throughout as Wright explained his controversial remarks.
They occasionally broke into raucous laughter and cheers.
Most reporters (including this one) watched from a balcony area
or from the back of the room. We had to. There was no other space,
the event having been announced as sold out last week.
WRIGHT'S SPEECH ITSELF was comparatively mild. He ad-libbed the
line about the attacks on him really being an attack on the black
church (it wasn't in the prepared remarks) but mostly dwelt on the
origins of his particular theological tradition, "Black Liberation
Theology," and the need to keep it alive.
It was during the Q&A session that things really heated up.
In response to questions read by USA Today reporter Donna
Leinwand (the tradition in these club events is to have the
audiences' questions written down and handed to a moderator),
Wright was alternately passionate, angry, mocking, and at times
simply baffling.
He repeatedly challenged the premises of questions, claiming he
had been misunderstood, misrepresented or taken out of context --
and then amplified the original charge.
The very first question asked him to explain his comment about
how 9/11 was America's "chickens coming home to roost." Wright said
that if the person had not heard then whole sermon the line came
from then that nullified the question. He added: "You cannot do
terrorism on other people and expect it to never come back on
you."
Asked about his connection to Louis Farrakhan, he offered that
he and "Louis" didn't agree on everything but said the media was
harping on a comment Farrakhan made 20 years ago -- about how
Zionism was a gutter religion. Wright also called him "one of the
most important voices of the 20th and 21st century."
Probed on his apparent claim that the government created the
HIV/AIDS virus and spread it to the black community, he replied: "I
believe our government is capable of anything."
He even made a direct threat to his most famous congregant. "I
said to Barack Obama last year that, if you get elected, then
November 5 I am coming after you because you will be representing a
government whose policies grind under people," Wright said.
WRIGHT'S Q&A SESSION did leave some of the people upset -- with
the questions.
"I thought some of the questions were kind of unfair and
intended to keep the controversy going not so much to understand
Rev. Wright as a pastor," said one participant, a former congregant
of Wright's now living in Richmond. Wright was "just doing his best
to answer the questions in the manner with which they came."
Howard University's Straker said Wright took the questions a
little personally but that he had reason to be frustrated. Wright
was being "condemned and maligned" for remarks when people "haven't
heard the entire context."
"Yes, Wright has condemned white racism but he has never
condemned white people. In fact, in comparison to others in that
rhetorical tradition, his work has been rather mild and his call
for reconciliation is a distinctive addition." Stacker
explained.
Nobody seemed to worry much about whether Wright's speech would
hurt a certain someone's chances of getting elected. "I don't think
he is out to hurt Senator Obama. I think everyone knows that. I
think he is out to help him as much as he can but he is also out to
protect that church tradition with everything that is within him
because he is accountable to God," Cosby said.
Asked to explain why he was speaking out now, Wright paraphrased
from the book of proverbs: "It is better to be quiet and be thought
a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."
He didn't mean himself, though. Rather he meant that the media
had opened its collective mouth and removed the doubt. As for
Wright, he was just setting the record straight. "How long can you
let somebody talk about your faith tradition before you speak up
and say something?" he asked.
Funny how these proverbs work.
topics:
Barack Obama, Religion, NATO, Africa
