Some women became possessed by the Holy Spirit, keening as their sisters encircled them, cooling them with paper fans.
Comment: OK. Chalk up another NEWSWEEK scribbler in the Can For Obama. Can you people tell us something that we do not already know?
Comment: For all the critics of Rev. Wright, I have one question. Have you ever taught school? If you have, then you know that the lecture (AKA the sermon) is an extremely ineffefctive teaching method. You are lucky of your students retain only about 10% of what you tell them. Furthermore, the attention span of the average adult is about 17 minutes - probably less if you've been struck by the Holy Ghost. Why a preacher, like Rev. Wright, foolishly believes that he can preach 'til Kingdom Come and expect is congregation to remember anything he's said is really beyond me. From a strictly pedagogical standpoint, you're expecting way too much from the Holy Ghost.
So if Barack Obama is not able to retain all the hate-white rhetoric Rev. Wright spews,that's not Obama's fault - it's Rev. Wright's - for foolishly believing that he is above the laws of common educational psychology.
In any rate Obama is no different than the average church-goer. As a church goer myself, I believe in judging a church goer by what he or she does - not by what his preacher says.
Incidentally, Rev. Wright is not the only preacher with nutty ideas about 9/11 or AIDS. REv. Roertson also believes that we brought 9/11 on ourselves because of our moral depravity (namely permitting gays and lesbians to live rather than burning them to the stake. Remember the Bible tells us that we should not permit a witch, a gay or lesbian to live. Also a number of evangelical preachers including John Hagee and James Dobson believe that gays cause and spread AIDS. John McCain is doing everything he can to get their support.
Do I need to say anything more about Rev. Wright. He has gotten far more attention than he deserves.
Comment: NEWSFLASH: There is no way on God's green earth that Rev Wright could have grown a church from 87 to 8000 members spouting off fringe/strange conspiracy beliefs at each and every of the 3 sermons on Sunday. There are many topics within the Bible to pontificate upon to keep people coming back in droves and obviously there was good fruit or the church would not have continued to expand or considered him worthy of the gifts they bestowed on himt hrough out the years. One of the wonders in life is how God uses even broken vessels with "weird" or "offensive" ideologies to get things done in his Kingdom here on earth.
Wright may have his not-so-conventional ideas which may or may not line up with all of the word of God, but I can assure you people like Obama go to churches like Trinity because the actual word of God is taught, the pastor is for the most part erudite and challening in his sermons, and there is a vertical outreach to others who are not as well off. The parts that are less palatable are just tuned out, much like most catholics practise some form of birth control and do not adhere to the concept of birth control being a sin. It is ridiculous to think that during all 3 sermons every single Sunday, Rev Wright only talked about a white government inventing AIDS for blacks. He thinks it's plausible, but he is entitled to his opinion.
There was very little actually wrong with most of what Rev wright said when he made his rounds. People were horrified because he said Obama is a politician, but he was not exactly wrong. Much as I like Obama myself, he and Rev wright have 2 very different missions and they are each required byt heir Maker to be responsible for their individual callings. I think people don't realize that as a preacher, Wright's first mandate is to fight for his faith and as the leader of an 8000 person congregation, we are requiring him to give Obama special treatment at the expense of all the other members, which is not fair.
As for the handwringing going on about Black Liberation Theology, the fundamental message has everything to do with God identifying with the oppressed and the oppressed moving past victimhood. They choose to do so by seeing themselves as beautiful, even though different in skin tone, not deficient. The oppressed believe in self-help, which many whites keep telling blacks to do, until blacks actually attempt to do so, then all of a sudden, the schizophrenic whites get intimidated and start saying we are separatist etc. You want your cake, but you want to eat it too, under very specific conditions.
Comment: "...Some women became possessed by the Holy Spirit, keening as their sisters encircled them, cooling them with paper fans..."
What a condescending, patronizing thing to say.
Let's try it this way: "Some women became filled with the Holy Spirit, celebrating as their sisters encouraged them, cooling them with paper fans."
Worship is just that: worship. How a person chooses to do so is a personal choice, and one that does not deserve denigration or scorn.
Next time, check your personal biases at the door, or don't write the article.
Comment: The comment below is from Bill Moyers essay on Jeremiah Wright. I do not take credit for this writing. I wish I could.
Comment: Behold the double standard: John McCain sought out the endorsement of John Hagee, the war-mongering Catholic-bashing Texas preacher who said the people of New Orleans got what they deserved for their sins. But no one suggests McCain shares Hagee's delusions, or thinks AIDS is God's punishment for homosexuality. Pat Robertson called for the assassination of a foreign head of state and asked God to remove Supreme Court justices, yet he remains a force in the Republican religious right. After 9/11 Jerry Falwell said the attack was God's judgment on America for having been driven out of our schools and the public square, but when McCain goes after the endorsement of the preacher he once condemned as an agent of intolerance, the press gives him a pass.
Jon Stewart recently played a tape from the Nixon White House in which Billy Graham talks in the oval office about how he has friends who are Jewish, but he knows in his heart that they are undermining America. This is crazy; this is wrong -- white preachers are given leeway in politics that others aren't.
Which means it is all about race, isn't it? Wright's offensive opinions and inflammatory appearances are judged differently. He doesn't fire a shot in anger, put a noose around anyone's neck, call for insurrection, or plant a bomb in a church with children in Sunday school. What he does is to speak his mind in a language and style that unsettle some people, and says some things so outlandish and ill-advised that he finally leaves Obama no choice but to end their friendship. We are often exposed us to the corroding acid of the politics of personal destruction, but I've never seen anything like this ? this wrenching break between pastor and parishioner before our very eyes. Both men no doubt will carry the grief to their graves. All the rest of us should hang our heads in shame for letting it come to this in America, where the gluttony of the non-stop media grinder consumes us all and prevents an honest conversation on race. It is the price we are paying for failing to heed the great historian Jacob Burckhardt, who said "beware the terrible simplifiers".
Comment: Lisa Miller has the unmitigated gawl to perpetuate the media's misguided views of the Black Church as an institution and its quite insulting. Millers choice of words- women became "possessed" by the Holy Spirit. A more accurate and befitting choice of words could be overcome and even overwhelmed. That congregation along with many blacks churches have members who have overcome many a trial and tribulation. You diservice to the entire church anfd the communites of faith. Do not speak of what you have no knowledge of or even you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all.
Comment: Lisa Miller's article The House that Wright built perpetuates the media's misguided view of the Black Church as an institution. How dare you diminish a sincere worship experience as to belittle it and refer to it as women becoming "possessed" by the Holy Spirit. A more accurate and befitting choice of words were in order, example overcome, overwhelmed to name a few. These woman and many parishioners in Trinity have over overcome
Comment: 'in prayer and awash in the music'? my goodness. i think the journalist herself is keening. what he was really doing, is thinking about all the votes he was going to get. all the political contacts he was making. and how and when he'd throw jeremiah out the window.
Comment: The so called Reverend is worse than a witch. I care less what happens to him or his "church". He preached hate, bigotry and damnation to the US and to the whites living. How can anyone believe he is a man of God. Please do not insult our Lord and Savoir, the Almighty God, the one Messiah!!!!!!
Comment: Save it, chatty--white churches have been preaching hate for centuries. Where was the "white" church during the time the native Americans were being the victims of GENOCIDE for several centuries? Where was the "white" church when slavery was being practiced for centuries? Where was the white church during "Jim crow" laws, when blacks were being lynched. They didn't even join in during the Civil Rights Movement! Shut the HELL up! The white church has been part of the "DAMNATION" of every race in this country that is NOT white! White churches have either been preaching the same hate and bigotry you are accusing Wright of, or they have simply been idle when it comes to fighting for non-whites rights.
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