The New Republic

"I don't wish to excuse this unproductive outburst ... but ...".  This is unworthy of you, Dayo. Both Pfleger and Wright are pieces of work, I'm sorry. I know, I know, they do good work. But if I even tried such a defense in an analagous case involving a white church, people would come down on me like a Manhattan crane. No, I am not equating the black experience with the white. It is just that people of color deserve better than this. For every person he gave solace to, how many dreams did Jeremiah Wright kill with his paranoia and his hatred? I have been called down on this website more than once for describing Trinity as a hate-filled church. That is not all it was but it was that, too. What else do you call accusing the federal government of spreading AIDS? Tuskegee was disgusting and abominable but if that experiment licenses Wright's brand of paranoia, then what else will it sanction?

- liberal reformer

June 2, 2008 at 1:37pm

Pfleger and Wright make people, especially Christians, very uncomfortable, for they insist on  reminding us of the enormous division in the Christian faith, between Paul's call for personal redemption and James' call for helping the less fortunate, between revelation and good works.  Reading Paul's letters and then the Book of James leaves no doubt that the division today as reflected in Wright's and Pfleger's sermons is no less than the division in the first century.  Me, I side with James, the brother and disciple of Jesus, rather than Paul, who never met Jesus, whose letters do not reflect the teachings of Jesus, whose history is one of persecuting (executing) the brothers, and whose "revelation" conveniently could never be proven or disproven.  

- raylward

June 2, 2008 at 1:54pm

Pfleger causes an interesting problem.  While he really adds on to the "crazies" supporting Obama, which basically negates Obama's ability to attack McCain for Hagee, the Republicans can't effectively show him in the same ad with Wright because, being white, Pfleger undercuts the "angry black preacher" argument.

- anonevent

June 2, 2008 at 1:58pm

Dayo, you are, without a doubt, my favorite columnist; you are a breath of fresh air in the cloying smog of agnosticism and athiesm.

- GSpinks

June 2, 2008 at 2:06pm

raylward, fwiw, the letter (not Book) of James was almost certainly not written by James the brother of the Lord.  Who did write it, and when, is a matter of considerable dispute, but that James the brother of the Lord wrote it is a distinctly minority position.  Your positing of a division in the first century church between metaphysics and morals is thus of little merit.

To pick a nit or two, btw, I would wager that Pfleger said "narcissistic" rather than "nationalistic," and that he said "Revelation" rather than "Revelations," the latter of which does not exist in the New Testament.

- timteeter

June 2, 2008 at 2:17pm

Sorry, LiberalReformer, but this preacher hysteria has jumped the shark.

Nobody cares about this silly Pfeger flap, and it's debatable whether anyone outside of the pundit bubble ever cared about Wright. (To put that a different way: is there any issue that a minority of people wouldn't eventually come to consider important if it were the only thing on TV news for a month? Given the frenzied coverage and discussion of Wright, you'd think it would have disrupted Obama's standing in the polls more significantly.)

It's clear that only when candidates are black are the sermons of their preachers considered to be something worth parsing. I've been a political junkie for way too long, and I can't remember anything like this Obama church pile-on. You can attack Obama's faith leaders all day, and Obama can parry and explain all day. At the end of the day, he'll still be black, and you'll still be a racist -- so what's the point in even going through the motions?

African-Americans (and particularly those who aren't running for office) don't have to ask your permission to be distrustful or angry; you may be offering your "license," but nobody's applying for it. Racists will always insist that a black candidate is unfit for office until he "distances himself" from every black person whose level of "paranoia" exceeds that which a rich white lawyer thinks is appropriate. In other words, the problem isn't that Obama has dark skin, or that he holds scary black viewpoints; the problem is that he'll never be able to "distance himself" from all of those other black people, with their crazy views. Thus, even though none of us is racist, we'll all ultimately have to agree that blacks shouldn't be allowed to run for office.

- Hungarian Great Bela Tarr

June 2, 2008 at 2:19pm

Dayo is right- what the hell was Pfleger thinking with this?  He is smart and a political shark- he knows what the fallout would be.

Interestingly, though- remember when in one of Hill's speeches she mocked Obama for being hopeful and was really, really patronizing and justmean-spirited?  Why is what someone else says about her a bigger deal than that?  I don't think either should have been a deal, but it is still annoying.

- boneill

June 2, 2008 at 2:48pm

The real double standard with all of these preacher issues is not black versus white, but right versus left.  The general public, the media and even many liberals have become so inured to right wing attacks on society from evangelicals and fundamentalists over the last 30 years that they've convinced themselves that the wingnuts have a point (e.g. maybe we shouldn't be burning books, but primetime TV sure is pottymouthed).

When the religious social critcs are lefties, however, the media just becomes unglued.  The idea that non-rich people, or African-Americans might harbor a grievance or 2 with American society just sends the pundit class over the edge.

- tomsperanza

June 2, 2008 at 3:12pm

HGBT: Give it a rest, please. The white religious right in this country has been endleslly dissected, in measured accounts by the likes of TNR's own Alan Wolfe and in hystreiac accounts, such as the book by Chris Hedges.

- liberal reformer

June 2, 2008 at 3:14pm

I love the social justice aspect of Phleger's (and Wright's) approach to religion and would like to see more of that.  I'm pretty hostile to religion overall, but I'm especially appalled by an uncharitable, ungenerous Christianity which *seems* (to this non-scholar-or-reader-of-religious-texts) contrary to the spirit of the thing.

What's more, I don't care that Phleger mocked Hillary for her crying episosde.  The fact is, that episode was the focus of a great deal of commentary, much of it suggesting (rudely?) that it was a crass political move.

So, Phleger's words wouldn't bother me at all *except* that he throws the racial aspect in there.  I have no doubt that Hillary felt entitled and outraged by Obama's line-cutting.  (As in, how dare this new kid on the block take away the shot that's rightfully mine?)  But I find it highly unlikely that that was an instance of white supremacy even subtly rearing its ugly head.  I doubt that Hillary felt as she did because she's white and Obama's black or thought that she was more entitled because of the racial difference.  To aggressively suggest otherwise is not *rude* so much as dumb, destructive, very likely wrong, and "backward-looking" as Obama put it.  The thing that these guys seem to do -- trade on racial victimhood even where it clearly isn't apt -- signals that they're holding fast to a 60's-style racial anger, and perpetuating that anger without a willingness to acknowledge any progress, which is profoundly, how shall I say?, unhelpful.  It's something Obama doesn't share and wants to get past.

That said, I am continually astonished by racist attitudes I encounter, not among angry blacks blaming whitey, but among whites.  Frankly, on several occasions when I've interacted with white folks of a different (lower) socioeconomic status, I have been treated to unsolicited racist commentary appropos of nothing, as though the topic is an all-purpose mental go-to.  That is frightening and chastening to anyone (such as myself) who has ever been tempted to view racism as a social problem we've largely licked.  Not so, apparently, so I'm not as quick as some to completely dismiss anger about it as antiquated or total bullshit or, worse, racist in itself....

- jhildner

June 2, 2008 at 3:55pm

libref, fwiw, we're going to continue to call you down until you to stop being overly opinionated regarding one particular church , or until you start to exhibit legitimate understanding of the subject matters involved. Having said that, I guess its time to come down on you like a manhattan crane.

"What else do you call accusing the federal government of spreading AIDS?"

This sounds like run of the mill conspiracy theory to me. I hear stuff like this all the time from white liberals like yourself "9/11 was an inside job", "the lunar landing was faked", "we are avenging the deaths of all those people Saddam 'cleansed' by invading Iraq". I find it interesting that you seem to call it hate speech, and insist on describing TUCC as a 'hate-filled church' because of Wright's theory.

"That is not all it was but it was that, too."

Can you actually recite any information regarding TUCC off the top of your head to support your "allegation" that "that is not all it was", or are you just trying to be condescending?

"No, I am not equating the black experience with the white. It is just that people of color deserve better than this."

Better than what? You have yet to exhibit any significant understanding of what black people are receiving in the first place; you've exhibited several biased opinions, and attempted one or two analogies, but you have yet to exhibit any sort of understanding regarding the issue.

"Tuskegee was disgusting and abominable but if that experiment licenses Wright's brand of paranoia, then what else will it sanction?"

What can I say except that if Wright were white you would have chalked this up to run-of-the-mill conspiracy theory and moved on, yet here you continue to dig at this issue as key to your argument of Wright's hate-filled theology.

- GSpinks

June 2, 2008 at 4:07pm

GSpinks: Translation: You are going to continue to call me down until I adhere to the party line. You need a good dose of John McWhorter. McW engineered one of the best takedowns ever some five or so years back in TNR when he ripped Randall Robinson's book on reparations to shreds. McW contends - with a lot of evidence to back him - that the politics of victimology does not advance the cause of black America. It seems to me that for you, as long as the ideology is correct, there is no need for further inquiry or development. You can just see the condescension dripping from the writings of some liberals and even more, from certain leftists. These poor African-Americans have been victimized, so they cannot possibly be treated like adults. You may have never witnessed this phenomenon; I have seen all too much of it. This is the antipode of the ridiculous right, e.g. Dinesh "The End of Racism" D'Souza. A pox on both of their houses. You appear to be connecting me to conspiracy theories. Even you cannot be that fatuous, I hope? I loathe conspiratorialists.

- liberal reformer

June 2, 2008 at 4:36pm

Translation incorrect. I am going to call you down until you start exhibiting some actual understanding regarding blacks and religion; it really is that simple.

I can't say anything bad about nailing a reparationist, I was never keen on the idea in the first place; but I am a big fan of due process, so if there is a grievance (imagined or otherwise) it should have its day in court and be ruled upon accordingly.

The politics of victimology has never advanced anyone's cause; if there were any doubts before this election cycle, they should be dispelled now. I see very little victimology coming from TUCC, especially from the actual preachings of Wright.

I am not so fatuous as to call you a conspiracy theorist, I'm calling you the guy who has misdiagnosed a simple conspiracy theory as hate-speech, and I'm wondering aloud how an otherwise bright individual like yourself has come to the misdiagnosis in question. Wright is obviously a conspiracy theorist, which may explain your loathing.

- GSpinks

June 2, 2008 at 4:58pm

I'm really getting tired of the way in which you dance from one position to the other when people challenge you, LR.  GSP wasn't asking you to adhere to a party line, he was asking -- as I have had to do already -- for you to provide some evidence or coherent argument for your declaration that Obama's church was full of "hatred and paranoia."

Remember, you can clarify this quite easily.  If you are (a) talking about specific sermons, speakers, and the like, then you may well have a point.  But Obama has shown he wasn't present for some the the problematic ones, so that doesn't seem much of a point after all.  If, however, you are (b) trying to say that the church was through and through hate-filled and paranoid (that is, not just intermittently but consistently and knowingly), then it looks very like an accusation that Obama must have known that and if he put up with it then either he agreed with what he heard or was just cynically putting in the time at a black institution to gin up his race-cred score.

I dispute your assertion -- if indeed it is (b) -- and request, if you wish to continue asserting it, some evidence that supports said assertion.  If you can't supply that, please stop asserting things which are not true.

- ironyroad

June 2, 2008 at 5:15pm

Pfleger was simply wrong about Hillary - she may feel entitled but race has nothing to do with it.  She'd have been just as pissed-off had any other first-term Senator tried to take her place in the White House.  This is so obvious that it places Pfleger's racial interpretation in a very harsh light and makes it the equivalent of Geraldine Ferraro's racist resentment.

What is apparent to me is that Obama, as the only real candidate left on the Democratic side, has to take severe steps to deal with Pfleger's racism, but Hillary seems to be encouraging the antics of people like Ferraro.  What the hell was that rally about this weekend except for the exercise of unbridled ambition and a repulsive sense of entitlement?

Neil

- purcellneil

June 2, 2008 at 5:26pm

Timteeter, that James was not written by James the brother of Jesus is of course not the end of it.  Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, by most accounts, were not written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, and the "Luke" of the Acts of the Apostles is not the "Luke" of the Gospels.  Whoever wrote the Book of James (it is considered a "book" of the New Testament), the author exposed the division when he writes: "What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works?  Can his faith save him? If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit?  So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.   ....  Do you want to be shown, you foolish fellow, that faith apart from works is barren?  Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered his son Isaac upon the alter?  You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by works.... For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so faith apart from works is dead."  If not to Paul, who says that faith alone is justification, then to whom was the author speaking?

- raylward

June 2, 2008 at 5:42pm

Ironyroad: I am tired of the double standards of the Obamaphiles out here. The fact that you are impatient with me says far more about you then it does me. I have blogged out here repeatedly that I am a former Clinton supporter; when I was a Clinton backer,  I was increasingly critical of her. I am not you people's opposite number. Theoretically, I am one of those people you should be trying to win over. As I have said for the last few days, a lot of Obama supporters are much more interested in venting their spleens than in building bridges and coalitions. Now there is an ironyroad for you. I have been chagrined by the nightmare of identity politics that this race has become. I am not so sure but what a McCain victory would not be the end of the world. This would - one hopes - wring the identity politics out of the Democratic Party, if only on a superficial, pragmatic basis at first. Go back and read GSpinks again. If you can't ferret out the Puritanical equivalent of a left-liberal hectoring me, I sugget hermeneutics classes for you.

- liberal reformer

June 2, 2008 at 6:32pm

actually, libref, irony was pretty on the mark in regards to my post.

"Obama supporters are much more interested in venting their spleens than in building bridges and coalitions"

perhaps, just maybe, its not that we actually care about which candidate you support as it is about debating the particular issues? building bridges and coalitions is great political work, but this is a social gathering place where intellectuals from all walks of life come together voice opinions and debate positions and expound on ideas.

- GSpinks

June 2, 2008 at 7:40pm

GSpinks: Intellectuals from all walks of life? Y'all mean gangsta-like wannabes? You made me laugh harder than anything out here besides every other williamyard post. The Obamaphilia that regularly disfigures the blogs at TNR Online is anything but intellectual. And the issues? Obama is a largely unknown, untested quantity. I predict a lot of surprises if he is elected (no. 1: No precipitous pullout of troops in Iraq). As with so many others, you conflate rhetoric with issues. I have seen many hot air baloons in my life but Obama is a serious contender in the top tier.

- liberal reformer

June 2, 2008 at 8:31pm

What amuses me the most is the good Father Pfleger talking black.  He's even worse than Hillary on this score.  I can't believe actual black people go for this kind of pandering.  But, I hear them eating it up.

And you guys want a guy who sat in a church like this with all these morons both on the pulpit and in the pews-- you want this guy to sit next in the Oval Office?

Talk about Devo.

- ChanRobt

June 2, 2008 at 8:48pm

LR writes:  "As I have said for the last few days, a lot of Obama supporters are much more interested in venting their spleens than in building bridges and coalitions."

Possibly, but I wasn't venting my spleen, and neither was GSP as far as I could judge.  I was asking you to either (a) provide some evidence for your extreme assertion, or (b) cease asserting it if you can't.

And I wouldn't worry about hermeneutics -- in your case, I'd devote some thought to reading ability and discourse ethics.

- ironyroad

June 2, 2008 at 8:51pm

Ironyroad: Discourse ethics? My goodness, more projection. Obamaphiles can say anything they wish and their fellows never call them on it. Discourse ethics, in this context, means something like "recieving the seal of approval of the Obama acolytes". I can imagine if I employed an adjective like "bats---" yoked to a noun like "insane". I would recieve another lecturen in DE.

- liberal reformer

June 2, 2008 at 9:05pm

remember LR, i before e except after c.

No, in this context, discourse ethics means operating within an agreed structure of argumentative communication, including for example the willingness to either provide evidence for an assertion or to desist from making the assertion.

"Acting like an adult" would be an alternative way of expressing it.

- ironyroad

June 2, 2008 at 9:45pm

Channy, as a note, that is not actually "talking black". And yes, I happen to want a guy who sat in a pew with a bunch of undereducated blacks who are just trying to get by in America behind the desk in the Oval office. I want a person like that because the average undereducated black person you decry so haughtily has more of the basic decency that makes America what it is in their pinky finger than you've exhibited since I've joined.

- GSpinks

June 2, 2008 at 10:54pm

libref, is there a point to your name-calling, or are you just trying to avoid the discussion of your inherint need to opinionate and there expose your lack of understanding regarding issues of race and religion?

- GSpinks

June 2, 2008 at 10:57pm

GSpinks: Oh, no opinion at all from the Obamphiles. I suppose the entire field of taxonomy is simply name-calling to you. I don't avoid anything but there isn't much to discuss with you. There are intelligent Obama supporters out here that are worth my time so I shall discourse with them.

- liberal reformer

June 3, 2008 at 12:33am

The only time I ever felt Hillary had or showed a sense of white entitlement was when she made the MLK/LBJ comparison. When she contrasted talkers and doers, and said "it took a president" to sign the civil rights act into law. Here she is equating Obama with MLK [in a derogatory way of course!] - as the sign waving protest guy, marginalized and not powerful like the prezdint iz. It made no sense - not just because she completely discounted the power that MLK had, but because Obama is running for president. He can sign a bill into law if he's president, right? I think she just on some level cannot imagine a black guy as president. They're the sign wavers to her. The Al Sharpton ragtag parade. The recipients of lady bountiful's largesse. That's what it feels like.

- psantillana

June 3, 2008 at 5:54am

Chan I think he talks like that when he's speaking - he has a very strong southern accent. What he's doing in that sermon is kind of "preaching" black. I think when you're surrounded by something and you absorb it and it becomes your own language or style then you aren't pulling a Hillary "no ways tired". It's not fake at that point.

- psantillana

June 3, 2008 at 6:01am

I love this: "I’d think every pastor in the nation would like to turn out a Barack Obama."

Ah, yes. Another man of "God" brimming with pride over a member of his "flock."

How exactly did Wright et al. "turn out" Obama? Did they start with a piece of sheet metal and pass it through a press? Or was Obama a crass boulder they thoughtfully and artfully sculpted, like Michaelangelo chipping away to make David?

Pfleger's self-delusion is to be expected. We are all beaten down by our fate. We witness but cannot rectify the horrors around us--even when we see them repeated, again and again. Darfur does not exist in Chicago, but it exists. Here's ten bucks that says Darfur, or something worse, will exist when everyone reading this is dead.

One by one, loved ones leave us, precede us, into death, which rushes toward us unrelenting. Our hearts and minds--good people that we want to be, that sometimes even the worst of us are, if only briefly--seek a way out, any way out.

Arrogance seems to be the escape route of choice for this most recent campaign. The preachers, the ex-Presidents, the pundits, the screaming minions hoisting their placards at made-for-TV rallies--all with the glare of arrogance in their eyes, the downward snarl of their lips, the indignation in their voices, the "Me! I know! I am the wise one!" in their hearts--as if any of them has the slightest idea what true suffering is, what it takes to make a man or woman behave as they do, what anyone's future, including and especially their own, holds in store for them.

Show me a man who is broken, all the way down, and I will show you a man who knows when to shut the fuck up. The rest are mere, preening pretenders.

If I wanted to "turn out" a Barack Obama, I would not preach to him from a pulpit. I would send him to fight in a pointless war. I would ensure that he saw children blown to bits. I would have him cross an Arizona desert on foot in search of work. I would have him crew a boat in the North Atlantic in winter looking for nonexistent fish. I would have him check in with his VA counselor, then check in to his luxury suite under a highway overpass. I would have his pregnant 15-year-old daughter drop out of school, give birth in a McDonald's rest room, then toss the infant in the nearest Dumpster.

Of course, I would not end up with "a Barack Obama." I would end up with something else again.

Father Pfeger needs to join the 21st Century. Why use a hammer and chisel to sculpt a man, when you can use dynamite, a backhoe, and a wrecking ball?

- williamyard

June 3, 2008 at 1:13pm

Wiliamyard: Incredibly beautiful and poignant.

- liberal reformer

June 3, 2008 at 2:41pm

Yard - that was something!

- sleepyavl

June 4, 2008 at 3:57am