The Church of Contradictions

"An effort on the part of Christians—both clergy and laypersons—to critique the United States in light of what they understand as biblically based moral and ethical guidelines isn't new," explains Anthony Pinn, a professor of religious studies at Rice University. "There is a dominant style in black churches, and Rev. Wright's preaching is a prime example of this … Some of what Rev. Wright says is controversial, but that doesn't make him unique."

The Rev. James Forbes, the recently retired longtime pastor of Riverside Church on Manhattan's Upper West Side, explained that, broadly speaking, there has been a historical division in the world of black churches. One group thinks you should work hard, keep quiet and get ahead; the other thinks you need to agitate and provoke to make progress. Forbes puts himself in the first camp but supports Wright's efforts. "Some of us wish we had the nerve that Jeremiah had," he said. "We praise God that he's saying it, so the rest of us don't have to." Does Wright ever cross a line? "I think if a person is a prophet and he's not seen as ever crossing a line, then he has not told the truth as it ought to be told."

In 1969 the theologian James Cone wrote "Black Liberation Theology," the book that so influenced Jeremiah Wright. Cone, a professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York, sees a straight line from the rhetoric of Martin Luther King Jr. through Wright to Obama himself. Indeed, in 1964, when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, King spoke movingly about—what else?—audacity and hope. "I believe that even amid today's motor bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow … I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits."

In Obama's rhetoric "the fierce urgency of now comes from his church," explains Cone. "His emphasis on hope—hope has been the most dominant theme with black people, because without hope you die. What that church represented for Obama is hope for black people." Cone sees in Obama a prophetic, King-like figure. "He represents what America wishes was true … I think the vast majority of Americans want a society without racial conflict and racial oppression. Obama strikes a note in that hope and that wish." In his speech on Tuesday Obama explicitly aligned himself with King when he retold an anecdote he first told on Martin Luther King Day at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. It's a story about a nine-year-old white girl who convinced her sick mother that she liked mustard and relish sandwiches because they were the cheapest food she could think of. She grows up to work on the Obama campaign. "It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children," he said. "But it is where we start." For their part, members of the church are just grateful that they can give the job of defending and explaining their church to Barack Obama, the person with the most explaining to do.

With Elise Soukup

© 2008