It’s either wishful thinking or willful error to say America is “a Christian nation.” Worse, those who make that claim raise the suspicion that they trying to gain some public advantage for their faith.

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Let’s admit it. Christianity, my faith tradition, has a mixed history on war. Though Jesus embodied a radical ethic of loving one’s enemy, and though early Christianity was almost wholly pacifist, Christians have also been crusaders and war-makers.

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Let’s admit it. Christianity, my faith tradition, has a mixed history on war. Though Jesus embodied a radical ethic of loving one’s enemy, and though early Christianity was almost wholly pacifist, Christians have also been crusaders and war-makers.

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If there is another place on this planet where we are required to be more spiritually sensitive and achingly careful than Israel and Palestine, I don’t know where it is.

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Governor Huckabee’s claim is breathtaking. I can say that because I have to confess that I’ve given in to the temptation of that kind of thinking.

In the 1970s I ministered in a suburban parish where I was, among other things, youth minister with a couple hundred teenagers in my charge. In a prosperous community, these kids didn’t lack for opportunities, and I was jealous of how filled their calendars were. My program—and church time in general—was usually not the great priority.

Conventional church life was then helped by a state law. Believe it or not, Maryland still had blue laws strictly regulating what stores could open on Sundays. A convenience store and a gas station were the only visible distractions in that small community. The mall, one town over, was shuttered, and we had at least a fighting chance for people’s “Sabbath” attention.

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Universal rights might be the place we should begin. My understanding of Christianity is that its contribution has been to go beyond—and in many cases has given up—its own specific privileges in the larger cause of advancing the rights of all.

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The Question: Jeremiah Wright's sermons continue to be an issue in the presidential campaign. Why? What do you think of his preaching style? What do you wish you understood better about it?

If Jeremiah Wright were like most pastors in America’s 300,000 or so congregations—baptizing, marrying, visiting the sick and burying—his sermons wouldn’t be an issue. But like the name he bears. he speaks often in the thundering tones of the prophet.

Any pastor’s sermons can be an issue for the folks in the pews. But these sermons are now in the relentless news cycle. And there, blinded by the bright lights and passions of a presidential campaign, most observers will miss the real dynamics of the pastor-parishioner relationship.

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We’re in for the long debate. Even if laws change soon—as I hope they will—the meaning of marriage should be plumbed at deep levels in both sacred and secular spheres. The penchant for some religionists to assume their superiority, and to require their insights be imposed, will foster reactivity, not moral structure or understanding. Separation of discourse might be a preferable road to social consensus.

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The judgments about Wright and Trinity have been harsh—too harsh. No amount of explaining the theological orientation—the liberation perspective on the Christian gospel—will assuage those who want to see the unacceptable.

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