As a follow-up to yesterday's post, in which I wondered why Bill Moyers was granting an interview to Reverend Jeremiah Wright, I add these thoughts:
I watched the interview and believe Moyers was not using it to help or hurt Obama, but to help a fellow minister who had been slandered unfairly.
I also believe Moyers' interview was in keeping with what he always does - attempt to educate people and help them see the world in all of its complexity, rather than just in sound bites.
Moyers has helped viewers see the complexity of the Iraq War, of terrorism, of poverty in America and around the world, of religion as well as atheism, of evolutionary theory and Biblical creationism, of global warming, etc.
Moyers, you see, is a different kind of Christian from many of the loud mouth "christians" who are constantly spewing their black and white "beliefs" on television.
He is unlike the many "born again" christians who never get very far past the birth stage, and who remain moral infants for their entire lives. He wants people to grow up.
What I saw on Moyers' show last night was a preacher who is definitely not a moral infant, and who insists the members of his congregation not be moral infants. If he wanted them to remain infants, he would confine himself to preaching syrupy sermons about how much God loved them or angry sermons about how much God hates gays and women who have abortions.
Instead, Jeremiah Wright challenged his parishoners, both before and after 9/11, to realize that even though a grievous wrong had been done to this country, the leaders of this country have also done grievous wrongs. What he said cannot be denied by any sentient being, no matter how much they might want to deny it.
What America did to the Native Americans and the Africans they brought to be slaves is unconscionable. And with the many wars it has engaged in, America does have blood on its hands. How can anyone deny that? They can't, unless they remain moral infants.
Moral infants don't want to see reality. They can't accept the fact that they might ever have done anything wrong. Have you ever seen a two year old accept responsibility for being "bad?" No, they try to blame someone else, and if mom punishes them, they get angry at her.
The role of the Christian religion is not just to count how many souls have been "born again," but to help those souls grow up and see their own role in the evils of the world so that they can reform and renew humanity.
9/11 was a terrible evil perpetrated on this country, but it wasn't perpetrated simply because Osama bin Laden was jealous that Americans own fancy cars and wear designer clothes. Osama bin Laden may or may not be crazy, but he made his cause very clear. He was tired of America's meddling in the Middle East, in his homeland, in which he believed they had no business.
Whether or not you believe America has a right to be in the Middle East, or had a right to incinerate hundreds of thousands of Japanese with two atomic bombs, or enslave hundreds of thousands of Africans, or slaughter hundreds of thousands of Native Americans, the fact is that these things are realities and many people in the world condemn us for them, even if we have a blind spot that does not allow us to condemn ourselves.
The job of a preacher, or a prophet, is to hold a mirror up to ourselves and help us see how we are not living according to the laws of God. Jeremiah Wright did that. He wasn't just interested in comforting his people who have been victimized by the ongoing racism of the country, and whose ancestors had been slaves, but to help them see what they must do to change America and help create a nation that rejects violence and discrimination.
Yes, some of Jeremiah Wright's words were unfortunate. But as he said, he was doing what preachers do. In some instances he may have gotten carried away. He wasn't timid. But he wasn't wrong.
It's hard to grow up, as a human being and as a person of faith. Judging by the hysterical reaction to Jeremiah Wright's words, not enough people in this country have done it.
