Posted: 3/28/08

Pastor’s role in Obama campaign
spotlights race, pulpit freedom

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

ASHINGTON (ABP)—While the political consequences of Sen. Barack Obama’s recent speech on race created chatter for cable-news channels, the episode is noteworthy for another reason, according to experts in religion and politics.

For the first time in modern American history, a presidential candidate’s pastor and congregation are the cause of a major campaign controversy.

Also, according to experts on the African-American tradition of prophetic preaching, the division over the Illinois Democrat’s former minister casts light on the difficulties black and white Americans still have in understanding each other’s religious culture.

“I just can’t come up with a good example—a good analogy—of one church, one pastor, even one sermon having this kind of effect on a candidate,” said Laura Olson, a Clemson University professor and expert in religion and politics.

Asked to think of a parallel situation in American presidential politics, Ouachita Baptist University political scientist Hal Bass had to reach nearly a century.

“Back in the late 19th and early part of the 20th century, when anti-Catholicism was hot and heavy in the United States … there were frequently allegations that the Catholic candidates for president—like Al Smith in ’28—were in the pocket of the pope,” he said. But comparing that to the present situation was like comparing “apples and oranges.”

Obama’s campaign has been assailed for weeks because of comments made by Jeremiah Wright, who recently retired after 36 years as senior pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Snippets of the messages—containing comments that many have interpreted as anti-American and anti-white—have been posted on YouTube and publicized by innumerable media outlets.

Obama has been an active member of the predominantly African-American congregation more than 20 years and has credited Wright with helping bring him to Christ and being a spiritual mentor.

In response to the uproar over Wright’s comments, Obama delivered a speech in Philadelphia in which he denounced his pastor’s most controversial statements. But he also asked those offended by Wright to understand the context in which a black preacher raised under the oppression of segregation might feel compelled to make controversial statements about race and a United States whose founding ideals were, as Obama put it, “stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery.”

Nonetheless, the candidate added, Wright’s words “expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country—a view that sees white racism as endemic, that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America.”

In that sense, Obama continued, Wright’s comments “weren’t only wrong, but divisive—divisive at a time at which we need unity.”

But to African-American ears, those divisive words can ring pretty true, according to Bill Leonard, dean of Wake Forest University Divinity School.

“In many ways, Jeremiah Wright exists in a community that both expects and needs him to wear the prophet’s mantle in ways that sound very painful in the public square—to the principalities and powers that occupy the public square,” said Leonard, who is white but has been an active member of historically African-American Baptist congregations for 16 years.

Olson, the Clemson political scientist, said one has to note the ministry context in which Wright preached. Trinity is a large congregation—the biggest in its denomination, which is overwhelmingly white. It has a tradition of social activism and operates multiple ministries for the disadvantaged. It is located in one of the poorest and most crime-ridden parts of Chicago’s South Side.

“So, you have to think a little bit about what the target audience is,” Olson said. “In a sense, if you’re Jeremiah Wright … you’re trying to inspire and you’re trying to give people hope and you’re trying to rile people up and get them to see things in a way that they maybe wouldn’t have seen things, and that you’re maybe trying to shake people out of a cycle of hopelessness. I mean, you’re not trying to tear down white America; your comments aren’t meant for that purpose.”

Many commentators have denounced Wright’s comments as “racist” or “anti-white.” But many African-American preachers—and a handful of their white colleagues—have defended Wright vigorously.

Alfred Smith, pastor of Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland, Calif., and an early leader in the civil-rights movement, has been one of the most outspoken.

Wright’s white critics, Smith said, are “living in privilege in suburbia where a suburban gospel is preached. And we’re living in the inner city, where the cry of the cross is perennial. And we have to give hope to people where the hope, unborn, has died.”

Leonard noted the historical emphasis in black churches on the value of a free pulpit.

“Jeremiah Wright won the right to talk straight with this people because he married them and buried them and was there when they were sick and hurting,” he said. “And so, a great many people … because their preacher has been a pastor to them, are willing to let their pastor, in a free pulpit, let he, she say whatever … they feel led to.”

Bass and Leonard both said the Wright episode also shows that many in the mainstream news media still have a difficult time understanding Christianity in all its forms.

“In spite of all the religious conversation that has gone on, often growing out of the evangelical participation in the public square … the public media still, in general, does not know what to do with Christianity, left or right, with the rhetoric and the commitments and the contexts of Protestant preaching and culture,” Leonard said.

Bass said that, while he was not trying to “establish an equivalence” between Wright’s comments and those of many conservative evangelicals, when taken out of context, evangelical preachers often are misunderstood by those outside their own context in the same fashion that Wright may have been interpreted.

“I think we all are, shall we say, victims of selective perception. We hear what we want to hear, we disregard what we don’t want to hear,” Bass said. “I think, after natural disasters (and) in anticipation of natural disasters, you’ve seen prominent conservative-oriented religious leaders speak of God’s judgment on parts of America or America as a whole.”

Leonard said churches also need to be aware of how comments could be perceived in the wider public in the YouTube age.

“Pulpit rhetoric in Protestant churches, left and right of center, in the context of most churches … sounds like prophetic conviction,” he said. However, “in light of American pluralism, when it gets on CNN, it sounds like bigotry. And religious communities have to understand that.”

Posted: 3/28/08

Black liberation theology provides
the doctrine behind fiery rhetoric

By Rosemary Parrillo

Religion News Service

NEWARK, N.J. (RNS)—Jeremiah Wright’s condemnation of the United States—particularly pronouncing damnation on America—looped hundreds of thousands of times on YouTube and news broadcasts. In the process, the pastor preached himself and his most famous church member, presidential contender Barack Obama, into a political maelstrom.

Quickly the question of race developed into a speed bump for the streaking Obama campaign, leading the candidate to try to set the record straight about his relationship with Wright, the fiery pastor who recently retired from Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ.

What has not re-ceived much coverage, however, is black liberation theology, the doctrine behind Wright’s rhetoric. The theology, which grew out of the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, embraces a black-centered Christianity aggressively focused on eradicating racism.

Liberation theology had its roots among the poor in Latin America. In the United States, the originator of black liberation theology is James Cone, an African-American Protes-tant minister who grew up in the segregated South and now teaches at Union Theological Seminary in New York.

Cone took the idea that the God of the poor is much different from the God of the rich and privileged and created a doctrine that sought to make the gospel speak to African-Americans suffering oppression in white society.

Black liberation theology accepts traditional Christian beliefs, such as Jesus as Savior. But it teaches that Christ’s message today would be one of fighting for racial, political and economic equality.

Cone described an early “crisis of faith” that led him to try to create a theology reconciling the nonviolent Christianity of Martin Luther King Jr., and the “by any means necessary” philosophy of Malcolm X—in effect, a religious answer to the secular Black Power movement of the day.

This led to his seminal works on the subject, Black Theology & Black Power (1969) and A Black Theology of Liberation (1970).

Cone, 69, is now a professor of systematic theology at Union Theological Seminary and continues to lecture on black theology. Appearing at Harvard Theological Seminary in 2006, Cone said his goal was to “make sense of the Christian gospel in the face of the horrific suffering of black people in the U.S.”

In a somewhat prophetic interview with the New York Times in 1989, Cone noted that serious theological scholarship is needed to inform the messages delivered in black churches.

“Without strong theology, preaching becomes entertainment, and there is a tendency to make church life center around the preacher.”

Posted: 3/28/08

Obama pastor’s tough sermons just
part of long, prophetic tradition

By Adelle M. Banks

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)—The longtime pastor of Sen. Barack Obama’s black megachurch in Chicago has come under fire for sermons that many have called racist, offensive—and even dangerous.

Jeremiah Wright has called the federal government the “U.S. of K.K.K. A.” Just after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Wright said “America’s chickens are coming home to roost.”

Observers of the black church say Wright’s sermons may seem incendiary, but they reflect a proud history of what Walter Earl Fluker of Morehouse College in Atlanta calls “prophetic preaching, which is the trademark of the black church tradition, of which Jeremiah Wright is perhaps one of the most illustrious exemplars.”

Peter Paris, professor emeritus of Christian social ethics at Princeton Theological Seminary, attended seminary with Wright in the 1960s and said Wright fits in the prophetic tradition of both the black church and the Bible.

“Prophets are basically reformers and not revolutionaries,” said Paris. “There’s a line beyond which one is no longer prophetic but one is revolutionary. He’s not there, but the language may appear from time to time to be there.”

Even those who disagree with Wright’s comments—politically or otherwise—maintain his right to preach the truth as he sees it in the pulpit.

“For many African-Americans, everything that Jeremiah Wright said would be considered true,” said Harry Jackson, the conservative black leader of the High Impact Leadership Coalition and a pastor in Lanham, Md. “It is the spirit in which he said it, the attitude even of bitterness, that comes through in that particular piece, that’s the thing that taints the whole thing.”

And some, including white evangelical activist Jim Wallis, say Wright’s comments, however incendiary, reflect reality in black America.

“That the country is mostly run by rich white people, that’s a pretty broadly based opinion among most people in the black community, including black churches,” said Wallis, the founder of Washington-based Sojourners/Call to Renewal.

Those who know Wright, and who have observed the black church, say he fits squarely in the truth-telling tradition of prophetic preachers who speak truth to power and say things others might not.

Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, professor of African-American studies at Colby College in Maine, wasn’t surprised to hear Wright combat racism.

“If you’re really a Bible-believing Christian, you’ve got to take seriously the issues of poverty, the issues of racism, the issues of oppression,” said Gilkes, assistant pastor of a Baptist church in Cambridge, Mass.

Marvin McMickle, professor of homiletics at Ashland University in Ohio, said it is inappropriate to assume Wright’s words also would be Obama’s simply because the senator worships in his church.

“I think the notion that because your pastor says something, it must necessarily either be shared by each member, or it reflects the unspoken views of the members, or he is in some sense a surrogate for Obama, is completely false,” said McMickle, author of Where Have all the Prophets Gone?

Storylist for week of 3/31/08

• Tarleton students see encounter with accident-victim as no accident

• Aggie BSM students minister at ‘Mardis Gras of the North'

• Baylor students serve in Louisiana & New York, collect gift cards for Union

• Beach Reach volunteers make positive impact on South Padre

• DBU students have fun in the sun, building homes in Louisiana and Georgia

• Harlingen church trains champs during spring break

• HBU students drill well for Nicaraguan villagers

• Rice students serve in San Antonio over spring break

• UNT student missionaries show God's love to Mexican orphans

• Houston students minister to needy in Bay area

• UMHB students fan out to serve over spring break

• UT Southwestern medical team brings healing to Juarez

• Wayland students on mission in Plainview over spring break

• Howard Payne students assist community center in Austin

• Lamar students minister in South Texas

• Sam Houston State teams at Mission Arlington

Previously posted Spring Break stories
• For UT students, spring break missions was Grand

• TCU students focus on giving during spring break

• Texas State students minister in Mexico



• New Baptist Covenant: Another meeting approved, but no permanent structure

• Baptist Briefs


• ANALYSIS: Living in the gray with the Man in Black

• Supreme Court to revisit decency standards

• Faith Digest


• Books reviewed in this issue:The Great Awakening by Jim Wallis, The Betrayed by Lisa T. Bergren and May I Walk You Home? Sharing Christ’s Love with the Dying by Melody Rossi.


• Texas Baptist Forum

• Classified Ads

• Cartoon

• Around the State


• EDITORIAL: Race relations, pastors & grace

• DOWN HOME: From ‘Please, Jesus!' to a new morning

• IN BETWEEN: Welcome, all Texas Baptists

• RIGHT or WRONG? Political correctness

• Texas Baptist Forum



• Bible Studies for Life Series for March 30: Living with passion for Jesus

• Explore the Bible Series for March 30: Renewing your commitment

• Bible Studies for Life Series for April 6: Moving out of your comfort zone

• Explore the Bible Series for April 6: When others hate you



Previously Posted:
• DBU president's leukemia in remission

• For UT students, spring break missions was Grand

• TCU students focus on giving during spring break

• Texas State students minister in Mexico

• Obama campaign spotlights
race, pulpit freedom

• BRIEFS: Hymnal contents released

• Theologian urges greater sensitivity to suicide

• Is Religious Right dead or part of new center?

• IRS scrutiny of Obama's denomination may signal political-speech crackdown

• Program offers stress relief for South Texas families

• BCFS gets first-time parents off to a Great Start

• Does the ‘evangelical center' include moderate Baptists?

• Will evangelical center emerge to rival waning Christian Right?


• See articles from the previous 3/17/08 issue here.

Posted: 3/28/08

Tarleton students see encounter
with accident-victim as no accident

About a dozen students from Tarleton State University traveled to South Padre Island to offer free van rides, pancake breakfasts and words of Christian witness to partiers on spring break. But they never expected to render emergency first aid to accident victims and minister to anyone in a hospital.

“Our group had an experience unlike any I have ever encountered at beach reach in the past three years,” said Stephen Alexander, Baptist Student Ministries intern at Tarleton.

At about 1 a.m., the volunteers who provided van rides came upon an accident scene. Fortunately, one of the Tarleton students, Brian Salge, is an emergency medical technician and trained first-responder.

“He was the first EMT on the scene and immediately started giving first aid,” Alexander recalled.

The other students prayed and comforted the friends of the two students involved in the accident.

Later, the Tarleton team learned the injured couple—Steven Clements and his friend, Stacy—had been hit by a car while trying to cross a street.

“Steven had used his body to protect Stacy and had suffered a severe knee injury,” Alexander said. “Our group was able to take seven of their friends to the hospital that night to visit them, and we had the opportunity to pray and minister to that group the entire night.”

The Tarleton ministry team continued to visit the couple in the hospital. They learned Steven was from Scotland and was in the United States on a scholarship.

“We were able to talk to them about how God must have plans for their lives to keep them safe like he did,” Alexander said. Stacy was discharged the next day with just minor cuts and bruises, but Steven had to remain hospitalized and undergo three operations on his knee.

“On the third day we went to visit Steven, he asked us for a Bible and asked us if we could pray for him before we left,” Alexander recalled. “He told us he could not understand it, but when we prayed with him, he felt no pain and a peace that he had never felt before.”

The student missionaries gave Steven and Bible, advised him to start reading in the Gospel according to John, and told him they would be back the next day.

“When we went back the following day we talked about what he had read and what it meant to be born again. Steven accepted Christ that day was ready to tell the world about it,” Alexander said.

“It was amazing to see God’s hand in all these events from Brian the EMT being in the van to our arriving on the scene just moments after the accident. God was in it all. Stacy has returned to school in Oklahoma and Steven will be going back to Scotland for rehab on his knee. His hopes and prayers are to recover and be able to play soccer for the Lord now.”

Posted: 3/28/08

RIGHT or WRONG?
Political correctness

More and more, when I treat people as I believe a Christian should, other people dismiss my actions by saying something like, “That’s so PC”—politically correct. Even Christians seem to reject Jesus’ statement, “Love one another.” How should I respond?

One good way to begin to respond to your Christian critics would be to quote more of the words of Jesus. For example, Jesus made it clear that loving God and one another are the two great commandments. Jesus said: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:37-40).

How far does this second commandment reach? Hear again the words of Jesus: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. … For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:43-48).

That’s a tall order, obviously. But it’s one Christians must strive to meet. Meeting that obligation includes loving all God’s children, including our enemies and those who differ from us in their skin color, religion, gender, nationality, sexual orientation, and political attitudes and affiliations.

Does loving all God’s children mean that we must affirm (or keep silent about) actions that violate spiritual standards? No. After all, Jesus had words of correction regarding actions that crossed the line. For example, he condemned not only the failure to love one’s neighbors, but also showy piety, the worship of money, self-exaltation and apathy toward the plight of the poor, the sick and the hungry. Likewise, we should hold fast to Christian standards and call for faithfulness to them.

But in doing so, we should remember at least three other biblical admonitions. First, we should deal with the “logs” in our own eyes before attempting to remove the “specks” in others’ eyes (Matthew 7:1-5). Second, we must speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). And third, we should remember we see through a glass darkly—we cannot know all God knows (Corinthians 13:12). As I read the Bible, we are called to practice this kind of love. It is not “political correctness” or any human invention. It is a gift from God, and it is one that we must share with others.

Melissa Rogers, director

Center for Religion & Public Affairs

Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, N.C.

Right or Wrong? is sponsored by the T.B. Maston Chair of Christian Ethics at Hardin-Simmons University's Logsdon School of Theology. Send your questions about how to apply your faith to btillman@hsutx.edu.

Posted: 3/26/08

DBU president’s leukemia in remission

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

Dallas Baptist University President Gary Cook has learned his leukemia is in remission, and the possibility of a recurrence appears slim.

“I have wonderful news. God has healed me,” Cook wrote in a March 25 posting on the DBU website. “The 1 million-cell genetic study has been completed, and I have no cancer cells. I am in remission!”

The study confirmed the findings of recent preliminary pathology reports from a bone marrow biopsy.

Cook was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia during his annual physical Oct. 12, 2007. He was immediately hospitalized at Baylor Medical Center, received a platelet transfusion and began chemotherapy. He completed the last round of chemotherapy Feb. 13.

Ninety percent of the patients with AML who go into remission never experience a recurrence, Cook reported. He will continue oral medication for the next year and half.

In his statement on the DBU website, Cook expressed thanks to all who had prayed for him and his family during his illness and treatment.

“I am so blessed that the Lord has allowed for this to just be a bend in the road and not the end of the road,” he wrote.

Posted: 3/26/08

Bible Studies for Life Series for April 6

Moving out of your comfort zone

• Genesis 12:1-8; 13:5-9, 14-16

By Gary Long

Willow Meadows Baptist Church, Houston

“Burning bush” moments are hard to come by these days. That is to say, when we read the Bible and grasp the ways in which God has spoken in ages past, we might be tempted to think God doesn’t operate in understandable ways anymore—at least not in our lives. Perhaps the reason for this has to do more with our inattentiveness to God, a fear to follow God or a lack of faith that God actually will lead us somewhere.

Abram was presented a two-part challenge we are called to hear as well. He was told to “leave” and “go.”

Leaving home

Genesis 12 starts with the simple assertion that Abram hears God’s voice telling him to leave home. Your learners can find easy identification with Abram if you can help them connect to their experiences of leaving home.

Consider sharing one of your “leaving home” experiences, then ask them to share as well. You will likely find common threads in the stories of leaving, including fear, anxiety, excitement and a sense of adventure.

When we are called to go someplace new, it naturally causes anxiety. There are many different situations under which people leave home. Soldiers leave home for war with a legitimate fear they may never see loved ones again. College freshmen leave home with wings spreading in flight. Even adolescents preparing to leave for something short term like summer camp can identify with the angst surely Abram experienced. Some of your learners may have left troubled marriages and consider the escape from an abusive spouse as an exodus that took a huge amount of courage and faith in God.

Go to the land I will show you

Recently, I took a trip out of town with a friend who has a device called a Garmin. It is a hand-held electronic unit that stores maps of the world and displays them on the screen. It works with global positioning satellites to let you know where you’re located. What’s more, it can be programmed to give you directions from where you are to any coordinates on the map. It will say, “right turn in 200 feet.” Or it will say, “U-turn and go back to the proper turn.”

I was impressed with the gadget and got hooked. I was glad we had the Garmin for the trip because it helped us find various destinations without asking directions, or really even thinking about where we were driving.

When I came home from the trip, I missed the little Garmin because I had to go back to thinking about how to get to my destinations in the car.

Abram’s story is different in obvious ways—humans had not even discovered electricity then, much less learned how to launch satellites into space. Abram took off to a new land by way of faith when he took God’s word to “go to the land that I will show you.” God offered no Garmin, no Google maps, not even an AAA “trip tik.” It was a simple command to “go” and trust that God would reveal the path along the way.

I grew up on a farm with cousins for neighbors. Unlike the rows of houses in suburban settings, our houses were separated by acres of corn.

One night, my dad asked me to run to my cousin’s house to get something. I slipped on my heavy coat for the bitter cold night and grabbed a flashlight to walk across the field of cut corn. There was no moon that night and as soon as I got out of the light cast by my own porch light, I was engulfed in complete darkness.

My little flashlight didn’t reveal very much, just a few feet ahead of me. While I knew the general direction of my cousin’s house, I still couldn’t track the path clearly. I had to rely on the little flashlight and take a few steps in what felt like the right direction. That would open the path to new spot of ground, and I could take a few more steps. I repeated this over and over until the light of his house showed up and I could navigate more clearly.

God’s calling of Abram seems to reflect that experience in that little by little he made his way to the land God would give him.

There is a call from God in our lives, too, that says, “Take a few steps. Don’t worry about the final destination, because I have that all planned out for you.”

Followers of God are called to take steps forward that, at times, may seem risky. The steps may seem to be going nowhere. But with a little light we see the path opening up for us gradually over time. So what light should we use?

The Psalmist says, “Your word is a light for my feet.” Perhaps a serious reading of the Bible will shed more light on your path. It is possible to read the stories of the heroes of the faith and learn from their experiences to shed light on our own paths. Or maybe the conversation with a close and trusted friend who shares your same beliefs in God can shed more light.

I’m also convinced that working on faith in community—with church family—has the ability to bring difficult situations in life into sharp focus.

The bottom line is that God expects us to pursue and discover his will for our lives. And God also expects us to act on our best understanding of God’s will. God always is calling the Christian forward in life, opening up new ways of engaging the world, new ways of trusting in God.

Each and every time we step forward in faith, we can be assured God is with us, God is directing us (if we will seek it) and God will not deprive us of what we need to deal with the changes that come at us in life.

Posted: 3/26/08

Explore the Bible Series for April 6

When others hate you

• Genesis 37:2-11, 17-20, 28

By Donald Raney

First Baptist Church, Petersburg

Humans were created to be in relationship with other humans. It is one of our most basic needs. That need can create in us a strong desire to be accepted by others. We often look for validation of ourselves through seeking the approval of others. This in turn can lead us to exaggerate in describing our accomplishments and blame others for our faults or shortcomings.

Yet, despite our best efforts, we find not everyone likes or accepts us. Even when we are truthful about ourselves, it seems there always will be someone who dislikes us.

These experiences usually start early in life and can have a formative effect on the person we become. This especially is true if those who seem to shut us out are relatives.

Often when we look back to the patriarchs of Israel, we have an initial or overriding vision of heroes of faith who always walked with God. But as we read their stories more closely, we find what would certainly qualify as dysfunctional families.

The story of Joseph’s relationship to his brothers is a prime example. Parental favoritism, jealousy, ill-advised words and actions all led to a situation in which nine older brothers hated their younger brother and sought to get rid of him. As we look at the story of Jacob’s sons, we can learn a lot about how to deal with those instances when we encounter people who seem to hate us.

Seek to do right (Genesis 37:2-4)

The stories of Israel’s patriarchs are full of sibling rivalry. It began with Isaac and Ishmael and seems to have intensified with each successive generation. Compounding the situation was the presence of blatant paternal favoritism. While one might expect Jacob would have learned the effects of such favoritism from his own experience with Isaac, it is clear he did not, and indeed lavished his preference for Joseph openly before his other sons.

This clearly created jealousy and tension between the brothers. The dislike which the older brothers held for Joseph only grew deeper as Joseph insisted on reporting on all of their activities to Jacob. The fact that no specifics are given and that Jacob did not appear to discipline the boys suggests the actions Joseph reported were not significant. When combined with the events which follow, these verses may indicate Joseph’s favored status had given birth to pride which blinded him to the consequences of his own actions.

As it does many other times, the Bible seems here to teach us what to do by presenting the opposite. While we should not be consumed with always doing whatever it takes to earn the approval of others, when we are aware of negative feelings others have toward us, we should always seek to do what is right and avoid unnecessarily providing fodder for their hate.

Seek to communicate wisely (Genesis 37:5-11)

Everyone knows by experience the truth that: “No man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison” (James 3:8). We all have said things we later regretted or would have been best left unsaid. We do not mean to hurt feelings or cause others to form negative opinions or attitudes. Yet it often is the case that the reason one person or group dislikes another is less about who they are and more about something he or she said.

As we already have seen, Jacob’s favoritism of Joseph had laid the foundation for deep dislike between the older brothers and Joseph. That favoritism seems to have led Joseph to feel he could say anything and most often what he said only deepened the breach within the family. In fact, his descriptions of his dreams not only further alienated him from his brothers, but led to objections from Jacob. Joseph’s actions seem to lend support to the old saying that simply because something is true, does not mean it needs to be said.

This especially is true when it would lead to division within a biological family or within a church family. While we should always be willing to speak the truth in love, we also should always seek to carefully consider whether our words would build walls between us and others. In every situation, seek to use words wisely.

Seek to perform duties (Genesis 37:17-20, 28)

Abraham Lincoln wisely stated you cannot please all of the people all of the time. Despite our best efforts to the contrary, some people may simply refuse to like us. That, however, should never distract us from doing the work we feel God has called us to do, even in acts of reaching out to those people in loving service. Even though he certainly knew his brothers disliked him, Joseph continued to obey Jacob and assist his older brothers with their duties. One may wonder to what extent Joseph was aware of the depth of his brothers’ hatred and whether he assisted them out of love for them or duty to Jacob, but the fact is that Joseph did not allow his brothers’ feelings or attitudes prevent him from doing what he should.

Perhaps as we focus on pressing forward with performing our duties, we might disarm those who hate us and prepare a way for reconciliation and unity.

Posted: 3/20/08

Obama campaign spotlights race, pulpit freedom

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

WASHINGTON (ABP)—While the political consequences of Sen. Barack Obama’s March 18 speech on race created chatter for cable-news channels, the episode is noteworthy for another reason, according to experts in religion and politics.

For the first time in modern American history, a presidential candidate’s pastor and congregation are the cause of a major campaign controversy.

Also, according to experts on the African-American tradition of prophetic preaching, the division over the Illinois Democrat’s former minister casts light on the difficulties black and white Americans still have in understanding each other’s religious culture.

“I just can’t come up with a good example—a good analogy—of one church, one pastor, even one sermon having this kind of effect on a candidate,” said Laura Olson, a Clemson University professor and expert in religion and politics.

Asked to think of a parallel situation in American presidential politics, Ouachita Baptist University political scientist Hal Bass had to reach nearly a century.

“Back in the late 19th and early part of the 20th century, when anti-Catholicism was hot and heavy in the United States … there were frequently allegations that the Catholic candidates for president—like Al Smith in ’28—were in the pocket of the pope,” he said. But comparing that to the present situation was like comparing “apples and oranges.”

Obama’s campaign has been assailed for weeks because of comments made by Jeremiah Wright, who recently retired after 36 years as senior pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Snippets of the messages—containing comments that some have interpreted as anti-American and anti-white—have been posted on YouTube and publicized by innumerable media outlets.

Obama has been an active member of the predominantly African-American congregation for more than 20 years and has credited Wright with helping bring him to Christ and being a spiritual mentor. The pastor married Obama and his wife, Michelle, and baptized the couple’s two daughters. His campaign autobiography, The Audacity of Hope, is named after one of Wright’s sermon titles.

In response to the uproar over Wright’s comments, Obama delivered a speech in Philadelphia in which he denounced his pastor’s most controversial statements. But he also asked those offended by Wright to understand the context in which a black preacher raised under the oppression of segregation might feel compelled to make controversial statements about race and a United States whose founding ideals were, as Obama put it, “stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery.”

Nonetheless, the candidate added, Wright’s words “expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country—a view that sees white racism as endemic, that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America.”

In that sense, Obama continued, “Rev. Wright’s comments weren’t only wrong, but divisive—divisive at a time at which we need unity.”

But to African-American ears, those divisive words can ring pretty true, according to Bill Leonard, dean of Wake Forest University Divinity School.

“In many ways, Jeremiah Wright exists in a community that both expects and needs him to wear the prophet’s mantle in ways that sound very painful in the public square—to the principalities and powers that occupy the public square,” said Leonard, who is white but has been an active member of historically African-American Baptist congregations for 16 years.

“And by that I mean, at least in the context of African-American preaching as I have experienced it for many years now, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Amos and Elijah and their very painful message to their culture is a living, breathing reality in African-American pulpits.”

Among the most inflammatory of Wright’s comments were ones taken from a 2003 sermon in which he discussed the U.S. government’s historically inequitable treatment of African-American citizens.

“The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no. God damn America—that’s in the Bible—for killing innocent people,” Wright exclaimed. “God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.”

A message Wright preached the Sunday after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks also has drawn significant fire. In it, he noted Americans seemed shocked and bewildered that anyone would want to visit their country with violence.

“We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye,” he said in the Sept. 16, 2001, sermon. “We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.”

Olson, the Clemson political scientist, said one has to note the ministry context in which Wright made such statements. Trinity is a large congregation—the biggest in its denomination, which is overwhelmingly white. It has a tradition of social activism and operates multiple ministries for the disadvantaged. It is located in one of the poorest and most crime-ridden parts of Chicago’s South Side.

“So, you have to think a little bit about what the target audience is,” Olson said. “In a sense, if you’re Jeremiah Wright … you’re trying to inspire and you’re trying to give people hope and you’re trying to rile people up and get them to see things in a way that they maybe wouldn’t have seen things, and that you’re maybe trying to shake people out of a cycle of hopelessness. I mean, you’re not trying to tear down white America; your comments aren’t meant for that purpose.”

Many commentators have denounced Wright’s comments as “racist” or “anti-white.” In March 18 comments on MSNBC, former GOP presidential candidate Pat Buchanan—himself no stranger to racially charged language—accused Wright of “hate speech” that is “anti-American” and “anti-Christian.”

But many African-American preachers—and a handful of their white colleagues—have defended Wright vigorously.

Alfred Smith, pastor of Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland, Calif., and an early leader in the civil-rights movement, has been one of the most outspoken.

Wright’s white critics, Smith said, are “living in privilege in suburbia where a suburban gospel is preached. And we’re living in the inner city, where the cry of the cross is perennial. And we have to give hope to people where the hope, unborn, has died.”

The main reason people are upset with some of Wright’s comments, Smith added, is because he believes “America is in denial of the fragility of her humanity. America believes that she does not sin. America believes that she is saintly. Therefore, instead of saying, ‘God bless the world,’ we have to say, ‘God bless America.’”

Critics have also denounced Obama for not leaving Trinity, saying they would have walked out on any pastor who made such comments. Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson, once President Bush’s head speechwriter, asked in a March 19 column why, if Obama disagreed with Wright’s more controversial comments, he remained an active member and supporter of the church for two-plus decades.

“Obama’s excellent and important speech on race in America did little to address his strange tolerance for the anti-Americanism of his spiritual mentor,” Gerson wrote. “Barack Obama is not a man who hates—but he chose to walk with a man who does.”

But Obama said Wright is a more complex man—and Trinity a more complex congregation—than has been represented in the recent media uproar.

“I confess, if all that I knew of Rev. Wright were snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop” on TV news programs, and “if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures that have been peddled by some of the commentators, there is no doubt” that he would leave, he said.

But, Obama continued: “Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety. … The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and—yes—the bitterness and biases that make up the black experience in America. And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Rev. Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me.”

Leonard said that’s a common sentiment in churches—such as historically black ones—that place a strong emphasis on the value of a free pulpit.

“Jeremiah Wright won the right to talk straight with this people because he married them and buried them and was there when they were sick and hurting. And so, a great many people … because their preacher has been a pastor to them, are willing to let their pastor, in a free pulpit, let he, she say whatever … they feel led to.”

Bass and Leonard both said the Wright episode also shows that many in the mainstream news media still have a difficult time understanding Christianity in all its forms.

“In spite of all the religious conversation that has gone on, often growing out of the evangelical participation in the public square … the public media still, in general, does not know what to do with Christianity, left or right, with the rhetoric and the commitments and the contexts of Protestant preaching and culture,” Leonard said.

By comparison, Leonard noted, that two GOP presidential contenders this campaign cycle—former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Arizona Sen. John McCain—had closely associated themselves with controversial San Antonio preacher John Hagee.

“Hagee is on television every day talking about the need to nuke Iran as a part of his view of biblical eschatology, and nobody has raised apparently any question about” Huckabee preaching at Hagee’s Cornerstone Church or McCain seeking, and getting, Hagee’s endorsement before the Texas primary, Leonard said.

“Jeremiah Wright didn’t want to nuke anybody. And so I think there’s a great deal of rhetoric, left and right, going on that grows out of context.”

Bass said that, while he was not trying to “establish an equivalence” between Wright’s comments and those of many conservative evangelicals, when taken out of context, evangelical preachers are often misunderstood by those outside their own context in the same fashion that Wright may have been interpreted.

“I think we all are, shall we say, victims of selective perception. We hear what we want to hear, we disregard what we don’t want to hear,” Bass said. “I think, after natural disasters (and) in anticipation of natural disasters, you’ve seen prominent conservative-oriented religious leaders speak of God’s judgment on parts of America or America as a whole. And I think there was outrage expressed (by politicians) without necessarily disengagement from their support for them or appreciation for them.”

Nonetheless, he added, Wright’s “statements themselves, out of context, do sound outrageous and do need to be rejected.”

Leonard said churches also need to be aware of how such comments could be perceived in the wider public in the YouTube age.

“Pulpit rhetoric in Protestant churches, left and right of center, in the context of most churches … sounds like prophetic conviction,” he said. However, “in light of American pluralism, when it gets on CNN, it sounds like bigotry. And religious communities have to understand that.”

He noted infamous comments from former Southern Baptist Convention President Bailey Smith. In 1980, the Oklahoma City-area pastor became the center of national controversy after declaring, at a highly publicized meeting, “God Almighty does not hear the prayer of a Jew.”

“How many times did Bailey Smith say that across Oklahoma, and he always got an ‘amen’” before getting criticized for it in a different context, Leonard asked. “That’s what religious communities have to know about sound-bite theology in the public square.”

To Alfred Smith, though, the criticism of Wright smarts very personally for him and other black preachers, because the African-American preaching tradition has, of necessity, been uniquely prophetic.

“My white peers who have gone to seminary and sat beside me in class go back to a church that requires them to preach a muzzled gospel—a domesticated gospel,” he said. “And I believe that Jeremiah Wright is a paradigm of the liberation pulpit, the prophetic African-American church—and it was not so much an attack on him as it was an attack on all of us.”

Posted: 3/20/08

Bible Studies for Life Series for March 30

Living with passion for Jesus

• Revelation 1:9-13,17-18; 3:14-22

By Gary Long

Willow Meadows Baptist Church, Houston

I researched to verify this and cannot, but I think it was the great preacher John Claypool who said: “The opposite of love is not anger. It’s apathy.” That is to say, we get angry or passionate over the things we care about. If apathy aptly describes a relationship, then the relationship probably is in trouble.

That’s nearly the same sentiment at work in the focal verse for this week’s lesson, wherein the church at Laodicea is warned about being “lukewarm” in their faith. Jesus sent the angel to call on the First Baptist Church of Laodicea, and pastor Luke Warm opened the door. What followed was a tongue lashing for the church that would’ve surely embarrassed the members and brought shame upon them.

Jesus is sending a message to the church to shed their self-reliance and their sense of accomplishment based on wealth. It also is a message to take off the blinders and see them as they truly were—wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. They were labeled lukewarm because they were not very passionate about their faith, and it was evidenced in their deeds.

That lukewarm metaphor meant a great deal to the people of Laodicea because their drinking water came via aquaduct over a great distance, and so by the time it got to Laodicea it was lukewarm. What’s more, the town was situated between Hierapolis, six miles to the north, and Colossae, 10 miles to the east. Hierapolis was known for its natural hot springs and Colossae got drinking water from the Lycus River, which was notably cold, according to Bible scholar Joseph Trafton.

In other words, Laodiceans would have gotten the double entendre about as clearly as a Texas Baptist hearing “potluck dinner” and knowing right away what to do. 

The point of this week’s lesson is simple: If you’re going to follow Jesus, do it with passion. Do it with zeal. Do it with energy.

But this message isn’t new to us, and it wasn’t new to the church of Laodicea. It’s not even new to the Jews who heard Jesus say, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and strength.” 

Everything

The problem is not that we lack the ability, or even the desire. We lack the action it takes to be something other than lukewarm. So how can you help your learners see this gap between belief and practice of their faith? Here’s an illustration that you might share:

Just stick your head into any sports bar and you’ll see the evidence that fanaticism is alive and well in the course of human existence. It’s March now, and that means college basketball has fans at a fever pitch. As you deliver this lesson to your students they will likely be watching the second round of the annual three-week tournament dubbed “March Madness.”

This basketball extravaganza has grown men slipping out of the office to cheer like little kids for their favorite teams. It illustrates the fanaticism we are capable of exhibiting, but even an infection of “March Madness” doesn’t garner the kind of commitment Jesus is looking for.

See, rooting for a team is pretty easy. Even when they’re losing, it’s not all that hard. But saying “yes” to following Jesus isn’t as simple as cheering for the right team. It’s a matter of discipleship, commitment, service and study. It is a matter of prayer, reflection and discernment. And ultimately, our faith is useless unless it transforms on the “inside” in a way that shows in how we act on the “outside.”

Parker Palmer, in his wonderful little book Let Your Life Speak, describes what he calls the “Rosa Parks” decision. When asked why she refused to give up her seat to a white man according to the law, she answered simple, “I was tired.” Palmer suspects that while she was physically tired, she was also fatigued in another sense. He suggests her refusal to yield her seat was her saying she tired of living on the outside in a way that was incongruent with whom she was on the inside.

The church at Laodicea received a stern warning from Jesus because they knew better. On the “inside,” they knew what their deeds should be. But their actions did not reflect that belief on the outside. They knew of Jesus’ life, death and marvelous resurrection. They knew the message of the gospel that had been given to them, and they understood the great grace poured out on them. They just didn’t let that influence their deeds and were living in a way incongruent with their beliefs. 

As for us, the passion we see in Jesus is a passion which we should strive to imitate in our daily lives.  Followers of Jesus first earned the name “Christian” because were perceived by others as “little Christs.” When our passion mirrors the passion of Christ, we will be known as true disciples of Jesus. We can have right theology, we can have our Bible memorized, and we can be on every committee at church. But until we get those actions lined up, our unwillingness to live out our beliefs makes us equally lukewarm with those Laodiceans.

Posted: 3/20/08

Explore the Bible Series for March 30

Renewing your commitment

• Genesis 34:30-31; 35:1-7, 9-15

By Donald Raney

First Baptist Church, Petersburg

The Bible is full of great stories. Some of these inspire us to stretch our faith while others teach us insights into the character of God or the nature of the Christian life. Still other Bible stories shock and perhaps even disgust modern readers and many wonder why such stories were included in the Bible.

The story of the defiling of Jacob’s daughter Dinah is one of those stories. More than a few readers have encountered this story and asked what purpose it could possible have. Yet while we may be at least initially offended by the events recorded, this story has much to teach about living out our spiritual commitments in the real world where horrible things take place. It teaches us that when life is settled, there is a danger of becoming lax in those commitments and drifting away from God unless we are continually watchful.

As we look at Jacob’s response to the events and the reaction of his sons, we see the need to regularly evaluate our spiritual commitments as well as the steps involved in renewing them.

Evaluate your actions (Genesis 34:30-31)

After his reunion with his brother Esau, Jacob purchased a plot of land near Shechem and settled into his new home. The son of his neighbor raped Jacob’s daughter Dinah and desired to marry her. When Dinah’s brothers Simeon and Levi learned of the attack, they formed a plan to get revenge. They lured the men of the town into an act apparently designed to create a bond with Jacob’s family and then killed all of them when they were most vulnerable.

When Jacob found out what they had done, he was very upset and told them their actions had created problems for the family. While Jacob likely understood their motivation, he questioned whether they had done what was best in handling the situation.

There are many times in everyone’s life when we react rather than respond to our circumstances. Something will be said or done which we take as a personal attack. Our initial reaction is to lash out against the one who offended us. Too often we follow this initial instinct and act to “make the wrong right.” Too often that reaction is the product of our human nature rather than our Christian walk.

Jacob teaches us that the first step in renewing our commitment to God is to carefully evaluate our actions and reactions and seek to do only those things in line with those commitments.

Purify yourself (Genesis 35:1-4)

The events in chapter 34 may have revealed a need for Jacob and his family to renew their commitments and relationship to God. Perhaps when life became settled, they had gradually lost sight of their need for God. God therefore told Jacob to take his family to Bethel and to build an altar there.

Yet before he could do this, Jacob knew they needed to remove all the false gods that had crept into their lives. Though they knew of their family’s close relationship with God, they had allowed pagan influences to become a part of their lives, likely accompanied by a variety of rationalizations. Before they could renew their commitment to God, these foreign deities had to be removed.

While few today have actual pagan idols, many have allowed sinful habits or attitudes to creep in. We often can even rationalize or justify these ungodly influences. These may include pursuing one’s own agenda or goals in one’s own way, a spirit of jealousy or unforgiveness, or some secret “pet sin.” Some may seek to draw closer to God without consciously addressing these issues and wonder why they do not hear God.

These verses clearly show us that if we desire to renew our commitment to God, we must acknowledge the presence of our “foreign gods” and purify ourselves by removing them from our lives.

Renew your devotion (Genesis 35:5-7)

Having heard God’s call and put away all foreign gods, Jacob and his family followed God’s lead to Bethel where Jacob immediately built an altar to God. Renewing one’s commitment to God involves more than a turning away from sinful influences. One also must turn toward God through refocusing devotion.

It is not insignificant that God lead Jacob to Bethel in order to renew his commitment. Bethel had been the site of God’s single greatest revelation to Jacob. It was at Bethel that Jacob had been given the vision of the heavenly staircase leading to God’s throne. God led Jacob away from the surroundings of his daily life and back to the place where God had first spoken to him.

It often is difficult to rededicate ourselves to God from the midst of our regular daily activities and routines. In that place, the same forces which had caused a decline in the level of our commitment can hinder our efforts to refocus on God. In our efforts to renew or commitment to God and his call on our lives, we may need to withdraw from daily life. While we need not physically return to the place where we first encountered God like Jacob, it often is helpful to consciously recall that experience and use that recollection to help us realign and renew our devotion to follow wherever God may lead.

Remember God’s promises (Genesis 35:9-15)

When Jacob and his family arrived in Bethel, Jacob quickly was reminded by God of the promises God had made to Abraham regarding the land and his posterity. Jacob was reminded of God’s giving him a new name and purpose. Jacob was called to multiply within the knowledge of these promises. Jacob then built a memorial that would help future generations recall God’s promises and renew their commitment to him.

God has granted to each of us many promises. Yet the busyness of life, or perhaps the sameness of every day life, can cause us to lose sight of them. As we periodically seek to renew our commitment to follow God, God will bring to mind his great promises. He will remind us that as believers we bear a new name which carries responsibilities with it. These reminders will help us to deepen and strengthen our recommitment to God.

As this happens, we should remember to build a memorial to God’s faithfulness. While it does not need to be a physical monument, it should be something specific which becomes a part of our story and legacy to remind ourselves and our posterity of the need to always maintain our commitment to follow wherever God leads.