As a follower of US politics, I watched the rise of Sen. Obama with interest. He appeared on the scene and became the bearer of the hopes of many Americans for a different kind of politics.
This is what I wrote about Obama after his win in Iowa. Excerpt:
Unless Obama has some scandal hidden that comes out of the woodworks or if he totally bungles debate performances that shows he isn't ready for prime time, he may well be the Democrat nominee and the next president.Obama is backtracking on his long association with Pastor Wright. This association reflects a connection to an old style of politics: the politics of grievance, anger and conspiracy.
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What worries me is that Obama is a blank slate and people are stampeding to him. People are investing all this hope for the future on what is essentially an unknown quantity.
The claim coming from the defenders of Pastor Wright is that he is being taken out of context. Here is an attempt at some context with audio files of larger swatches of his sermons and transcripts.
My early years in my Christian faith was in a Southern Baptist church founded to serve Chinese immigrants to Los Angeles. Being good Southern Baptists, we had some "fire and brimstone" style preaching! Yes, indeed, Chinese preachers could peel the paint off the walls with their oratory with the best of them!
However, I found Pastor Wright's approach to be far beyond anything I ever experienced in my ethnic church community upbringing in terms of sheer volume of decibels, levels of anger and wildness of assertions.
Pastor Wright makes some good points on social justice issues but they are overwhelmed by his other remarks.
Though I spent much of my early Christian journey in an ethnic congregations, we were consistently reminded about Gal. 3:28, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
As such, I have never been fond of looking at life through a race-based filter. However, I understand the need for ethnic congregations for outreach to immigrant populations as a practical matter. I also understand that racial background is part of who we are but I've been taught to make a conscious attempt to see people as individuals.
There is no question that America has had and still has racism.
The historic Chinese immigrant experience in America though not comparable to slavery had its share of injustice. Every immigrant group had to "swim upstream" against discrimination of both flagrant and subtle varieties. These facts of life should be acknowledged but do they reflect the situation today? Do we continue to hold "a grudge" against past injustice?
I have never felt the USA is the kingdom of God, nor do I believe the view that the USA is the greatest source of evil in the world. In regards to race relations, we can and must do better. However, to my knowledge (perhaps my knowledge is incomplete) there is no analogous politics of grievance within the Chinese or Asian-American community that would find common ground with Pastor Wright.
Here is a snippet from Pastor Wright's church about us page.
We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian... Our roots in the Black religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent. We are an African people, and remain "true to our native land," the mother continent, the cradle of civilization. God has superintended our pilgrimage through the days of slavery, the days of segregation, and the long night of racism. It is God who gives us the strength and courage to continuously address injustice as a people, and as a congregation. We constantly affirm our trust in God through cultural expression of a Black worship service and ministries which address the Black Community.Can one imagine writing a mission statement like this but substituting some other ethnic group? How would it sound to you?
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