Sermons of Hatred

I watched all the Sunday talking heads shows and was extremely disgusted by what I heard. All of the Democratic leaders tried to minimize the impact of Barack Obama’s relationship to Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Every one of them agreed with each other that each candidate had someone associated with their campaign who said wrong things and it was time to put that aside and get to the issues.

Excuse me? The sermons of Jeremiah White cannot be set aside that easily. The impact of what Rev. Wright preached was so shocking to White America (to use one of his terms) that it will reverberate throughout the rest of Obama’s campaign. Set aside for now the fact that this is the church chosen by Obama. The revelation that this hatred for America and Whites is being preached in Black churches is so mind boggling that it needs further discussion itself.

After watching the many vile tapes of the sermons I always end up with the same question. Why? I keep thinking back to the atmosphere after September 11, 2001. It seemed like everyone was pulling together immediately after that terrorist attack. People were turning to each other and to their churches for comfort and assurance. Yet amidst all of this tragedy here was this church leader preaching hatred and anger and spitefulness. (I also am surprised that Obama wasn’t in the pews that day for anyone the least bit religious wanted to gather together in church the Sunday after 9/11. You would think this would be especially true of a community and state leader.)

Some pundits on TV were also upset over the church’s tie in to Africa. One of the mission statements for the church is “We are an African people, and remain ‘true to our native land’, the mother continent, the cradle of civilization.” At first I was shocked by this until I started to think about it in other terms. For example, today just happens to be St. Patrick’s Day. Back in the 1970’s and 1980’s there was a big trend (and still might be) for Irish Americans to give money to Ireland and dream of visiting their mother land. And many Jewish people still use the phrase that traditionally ends the seder of “next year in Jerusalem” and give money to their spiritual homeland, Israel. Same with Catholics and Rome. So when put in that perspective I can better understand the church’s fascination with Africa.

But as to other shocking statements by Rev. White, I repeat my original question, why? What purpose does it serve to preach those hateful things? Why would you tell your parishioners “God Damn America”? How does that tie in with the typical sermons of God, Jesus, Love, Forgiveness and Christianity? Even more disturbing were the churchgoer’s reactions. How scary it is to see them all cheering and applauding these mean spirited things. I never realized that there is such a large group of people who hate America yet are our own countrymen. It was awful enough to see zealot Muslims aroung the world cheering when the towers fell. But to now discover our own citizens were doing the same thing?

As much as the Democrats wish to brush this aside these tapes are too disturbing to forget that easily. Iromically, White America had thought we were making progress in regards to racial problems. They were even coming out in droves to vote for a Black man. I think that most would have said that racial tensions were low and people were less prejudiced than in the past. What a shock to now realize how much some Blacks hate White people. Wow. If these tapes are representative of how many Blacks feel then we are sitting on a powder keg of hatred of Blacks against Whites and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is striking the match…