Cosmic Companionship

I have a very personal reaction to the question of the religious meaning of this election. Over the long months of the political campaign there were numerous moments which were alive with religious meaning for me. Here are four such moments in which the election has spoken to me.

1. Well along in the campaign, my wife and I received an email from an acquaintance. We were one of several addresses. The email began by listing a number of terrible terrorist acts, all perpetrated by "young, extremist, Muslim males." Then, referring to Revelation (the final book of the New Testament) as its authority, the email suggested that the anti-christ will be a popular and persuasive Muslim man in his 40's. Could it be that we are about to elect, in the person of Barack Obama, the anti-christ was the explicit suggestion. I have since learned that this attempt to sow doubt and fear, fueled by religious passion, was spread widely on the Internet. Never mind that there are no such words in the Book of Revelation, written 400 years before the Islamic Faith existed. We probably all learned as children that falsely yelling "fire" in a crowded theater is immoral, wrong, and illegal. The Internet is the wild-west of free speech where almost anything goes. Nevertheless, I believe it is morally wrong to try to kindle a blaze of fear and prejudice in a setting that is so easily inflamed.

2. Both Sarah Palin and Jeremiah Wright seem to me to share the similar experience of foolishly behaving as if the attention of the media and the large audiences they briefly commanded make them truly influential and important personages. But, aside from the hopefully brief ego trip Jeremiah Wright took, and despite his sometimes intemperate tone, I have been and remain a defender of his preaching. My own work, over many years, helped me to know a number of African-American clergy. This experience helped me gradually to learn that many of these preachers gave sermons whose style and content could often make my white sensibilities quiver. I began to realize that these black clergy preached in a manner that tapped into the experiences of rejection and prejudice which were the daily experience of their congregations. Experiences I could never share in the same way. I learned how the best of these preachers channeled the anger they surfaced into motivational energy to care for families, communities, and the cause of social justice.

One of my best friends and colleagues was an African-American school teacher named Verna Dozier. Verna became a popular and wonderful Bible teacher throughout the entire Episcopal Church. Verna loved poetry. One of her favorite poems, written by Countee Cullen, described the experience of an 8-year-old black child riding a streetcar in Baltimore.

I saw a Baltimorean looking straight at me. Now I was eight and very small ... And so I smiled, but he poked out his tongue And called me nigger.

The poem continues that though the child saw the whole of Baltimore over the next 6 months, "of all the things that happened there, that's all that I remember."

I believe we should all be grateful that Jeremiah Wright can speak to such experiences, fully recognizing how terrible they are, and is still able to lead people to compassionate service.

3. In June, 2006, Barack Obama gave the keynote address to a large conference of evangelical Christian leaders. Both conservative and liberal commentators called it one of the most important speeches on religion and politics in decades. I read the speech with care and concluded that Senator Obama either had an extremely well informed speech writer or the Senator's own grasp of constitutional law and political process included a refined set of theological principles.

Months later, conservative columnist David Brooks asked Obama, during the course of an interview, about his thoughts on Reinhold Niebuhr, the most influential American theologian of the 20th century. Brooks was excited and dazzled by Obama's response. Brooks wrote that Obama answered in a rush of words that he took from Niebuhr's writing "the compelling idea that there's serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain. And we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn't use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction. I take away ... the sense we have to make these efforts knowing they are hard, and not swinging from naïve idealism to bitter realism." Niebuhr once wrote that most politicians consciously practice the promulgation of "naïve and unstudied self-deception" in order to secure the devotion of citizens to the politician's causes. Obama's spontaneous, clear, concise, incisive response to Brooks' query regarding Niebuhr gave me hope and assurance that Obama understood well and carried in both his heart and mind Niebuhr's brand of pragmatic, Christian realism.

4. On May 17, 1957, three years to the day from the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, 20,000 persons rallied on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in defense of the civil rights of African-American citizens. Martin Luther King was the final speaker. The title of his address was "Give Us the Ballot." Dr. King's central point was that opposition to Brown v. Board of Education had settled on a strategy focused on "all kinds of conniving methods" to prevent blacks from exercising their voting rights. His most urgent request of the President and Congress was "give us the ballot."

A little over a decade later, in the spring of 1968 Martin Luther King was assassinated. Inner-city Washington exploded in a riot of burning and looting. A large pall of black smoke hung over a great portion of downtown Washington. Early in the riot, uniformed in a black suit and clerical collar, I drove with my friend Jack Harris to St. Stephen and the Incarnation Church located on the edge of 16th Street corridor. The Rev. Bill Wendt was the Rector. Under Bill's leadership the parish was seeking to play a significant role in reaching out to the residents of what was then largely a ghetto neighborhood. Jack, Bill and I set out to walk 16th Street to see if our black suits and clerical collars might have some calming effect upon the looters, arsonists and unruly street mobs. They didn't. All around us people were emptying storefronts and carrying away their prizes. Buildings continued to burn with no fire equipment to be seen. After several hours a small patrol of National Guard Troops with fixed bayonets came marching up the street. Their presence was only slightly more effective than the black suits and round collars.

In the early fall of this year I started getting email messages from the Obama campaign asking for volunteers from Maryland to go for several days to work for Obama in neighboring swing states. I told my wife that my memories of the dreadful time of the death of Dr. King and my experience walking the burning streets of our nation's capital meant that I had to go walk the streets for the election of Barack Obama. I volunteered to go for five days and I did. For the five days leading to the election I worked in southern Virginia and found a profound experience of hope and renewal. Dr. King's 1957 address concluded on a message of hope in themes that echoed Niebuhr's message of Christian realism. Dr. King said that we must keep faith in the future, realizing that "as we struggle for justice and freedom, we have cosmic companionship." In the kind of refrain so powerful and normal for black preachers, Dr. King said, "There is something in this universe which justifies Carlyle in saying: 'No lie can live forever.' There is something in this universe which justifies William Cullen Bryant in saying: 'Truth crushed to earth will rise again.' There is something in this universe which justifies James Russell Lowell in saying:

Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne Yet that scaffold sways the future, And behind the dim unknown Stands God, within the shadow Keeping watch above His own."

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Thank you, Mr.Anderson - beautifully said. and another thank you for saying what you did about Wright. Although I have much to argue about with things he has said, the proof is the history of what he has accomplished with his church, and for his people.

Posted by: sparrow4 | November 10, 2008 7:57 PM
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"Then, referring to Revelation (the final book of the New Testament) as its authority, the email suggested that the anti-christ will be a popular and persuasive Muslim man in his 40's"

Eh, these same people seem to figure *every* President is the Antichrist.. Including Reagan, but with the conspicuous exception of Dubya, who actually seemed to be living down to his own myth in that regard.

People that say 'Antichrist' aren't usually willing to say, 'Well, maybe later.' They don't get paid that way. :)

Posted by: Paganplace | November 10, 2008 6:07 PM
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Cosmic Companionship

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