Even if you have no problem with Barack Obama and his associations with his south Chicago church, you should educate yourself about the history of black Christianity, including (especially in Chicago) it’s efforts to compete with the Nation of Islam, Marxism, the Black Nationalism/Separatist Movement, and just general apathy. Kalefa Sanneh’s big New Yorker piece on Trinity Church is a good place to start. I’d recommend sending it to some of your friends, family, and co-workers who you’ve noticed reacting negatively to the Pastor Wright news coverage. Consider it part of what Barack Obama called us all to do in his speech on race in Philadelphia.
Some people will never be reachable. There are a lot of people like Lou Dobbs who don’t want ‘cotton-pickin’ black people (in this case, Condi Rice) reminding them of the sins of the past. But it’s not our job to do the impossible. What we want to do is educate ourselves and those that are reachable. There’s no question that Barack Obama will have to overcome a politically motivated smear campaign that attempts to drive a wedge between the majority non-urban white community in this country and the black and urban people that are constituents of Trinity Church.
It might be a minor consideration in the greater scheme of things, but the people of Trinity Church are hurting badly from the way they are being portrayed. To give an example, here’s is a clip from Rev. Wright’s replacement, Otis Moss’s Easter sermon.
Moss is also given to rambling displays of erudition, sometimes with an ironic flourish; he’ll choose big words to make the congregation chuckle at his sesquipedalian flair. He started with a long riff on his love of literature—he emphasized all four syllables of the word—and, after listing favorite authors ranging from Wole Soyinka to Colson Whitehead, found his way to William Faulkner’s short story about a lynch mob, “Dry September,” which he called “a mythic but truthful novel of American life in the South.” Then, paying tribute to McKissick’s Good Friday sermon, he talked about how the ministry of Jesus ended not with a celebration but with a crucifixion—a lynching, in other words. And he paid particular attention to the plight of the apostles, who knew that this grisly spectacle was only the beginning. “No one should start their ministry with a lynching,” he said, drawing cheers of agreement and encouragement and maybe also sympathy.
Rev. Moss is beginning his ministry at Trinity with a metaphorical lynching. Even many liberals are engaging in oneupmanship to distance themselves from the church. It’s one of the most shameful things I’ve seen (on our side) in politics, but I know a lot of it is born out of fear and misunderstanding.
The more people know about Trinity Church the less they will fear or despise it and the more they will respect it. I believe that, because I believe most people in this day and age are fair-minded. There’s no helping some people that have bigotry indelibly imprinted in their character, but we can’t worry about them. The people of Trinity are good America-loving patriotic warm-hearted folks. When people attack them, they attack church-going black people all over the country, whether they intend to do it or not.
If Obama is going to be the president he will need people to defend his congregation against overly simplified distortions. It starts by educating ourselves so we can help educate others.
