Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s preaching and what should be Senator Obama’s response as a parishioner engages our American media understandably.
The matter really comes down to several considerations. A pastor preaching and pastoring is not called on to be a mirror in which the congregation can identify themselves. He or she is called on to be a kind of clear window through which congregants are called to see the vision of what they ought to be and do individually and collectively.
Jeremiah Wright, my friend, used sharp, cutting language. Butl a cancer needs more severe and radical treatment than does a simple pimple. The question of race is not a marginal, minor feature of our history. One of the participants in the Constitutional Convention observed that there was a sleeping serpent under the table where the founders met. He meant “race.”
There is a deeper question. Is everyone entitled to freedom of worship? Is there a religious test by which one is deemed suitable for public office? This was the question faced by John Kennedy as he sought the Presidency.
I am a Baptist. Every Baptist, at least those who would be true to their core Baptist beliefs, would insist on freedom to worship or not to worship according to conscience. A corollary of that position would be no religious test for public office. Opposition for these principles is to commit treason against the idea of America and its political creed.
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