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?

“’God so loved the world,’ not just the black community.” In his 4.25.08 conversation on Bill Moyer’s Journal, Jeremiah Wright quoted from the Gospel of John 3:16 to correct the widespread sound-bite-media impression that Barack Obama’s pastor preaches black racism (black racial superiority) and hatred of America. (He has been no more critical of America than the Bible’s prophets were of their people.)

“On Faith” says that “Jeremiah Wright’s sermons continue to be an issue in the presidential campaign.” Would that they were! For 36 years they have motivated their hearers to Christian hope and to extensive ministries of help in south Chicago. At issue rather are only a few inflammatory, out-of-context sound bites. I cannot image any greater distortion of a preacher’s message and ministry.

When I was pastoring there 67 years ago, that area of south Chicago was white-ethnic, so our church-style was white-ethnic: for two millenia, Christianity has shown itself to be culturally adaptable. Now, that area of Chicago is black-ethnic, and Trinity United Church of Christ is black-ethnic, with an “Africentric” church-style.

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"Three in 10 Americans acknowledge feelings of racial prejudice, and yet 9 in 10 say they believe in God. How does racial prejudice reflect on one's religious beliefs?"

1. Assuming that no Americans (indeed, no human beings) are completely free of racial prejudice, this "On Faith" question can be read to mean that only one in 10 Americans deny the existence of God, but 7 in 10 Americans deny their feelings of racial prejudice. From this reading, one might hasten to the conclusion that belief in God correlates with honesty and an uninflated self-image.

But this reading is vulnerable to its unproved assumptions (1) that none of us is entirely free of racial feelings, and (2) that the three in 10 who acknowledge their feelings of racial prejudice are believers in God, who calls all human beings to humility, self-examination, confession, repentance, and love of all humanity (in the radical instance of Jesus, love even of one's enemies).

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