I’m a supporter of Senator Hillary Clinton, but you wouldn’t know it from all the times I’ve had to come to the defense of Barack Obama over these past few weeks.
I like to think of myself as a loyal Clinton supporter. But American politics and the history of race relations in this country being what they are, I’ve not had the luxury of sitting on the sidelines and gleefully watching as Obama scrambles to explain his relationship to the fiery radical preaching of his black pastor back in Chicago to an aghast white America.
As a black ordained clergywoman with a doctorate in Old Testament studies who happens to support Hillary Clinton for president, it pains me to stand by and watch Rev. Wright and Trinity United Church of Christ become collateral damage in the right wing media campaign discredit Barack Obama.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I should admit that I have been a guest in the pulpit at Trinity UCC many times over the years and know Jeremiah Wright, the minister and the man, very well. Trinity has long been a standard bearer for what it means for a church to combine charismatic worship, prophetic preaching, and social justice outreach. The ministry of Wright and Trinity have been demonized and caricatured in recent weeks by the media. To present Dr. Wright’s ministerial legacy within a 15- or 30-second sound bite is an injustice to Dr. Wright’s global ministry as a biblical scholar, theologian and pastor who has intentionally worked as a follower of Jesus Christ to heal broken lives in America and around the globe for almost four decades.
Admittedly, Dr. Wright has a way of saying things that are uniquely his. We’ve all sat there cringing sometimes at the things he’s said or the way he’s said them. But we’ve also admired and respected his courage and honesty.
If the conversation on my own blog about Dr. Wright and Senator Obama’s race speech is any indication, it seems that there are whites who are now defecting in droves from the Obama camp. They can’t believe blacks feel the way that Wright describes. The logic goes something like this: If Obama listened to Wright for 20 years, then he must feel that way, too. Wright is wrong about white people, about me, about America the beautiful, and since Obama listened to that radical preacher, he is likely to be a black radical at heart. The assumption is that Jeremiah Wright probably has some Svengali-type control over Obama.
Here’s what white American doesn’t get because they don’t know, and have never bothered to find out, anything about the black religious experience beyond “those wonderfully moving Negro songs of you people.” The fiery, liberation theology laced preaching of Jeremiah Wright has been around a long time, going all the way back to slavery times. The God blacks worshipped has been different from the God whites have worshipped.

Black liberation preaching is not meant to make black people love or hate white people. Black liberation preaching is about trying to explain to a deeply wounded and disappointed race of people the meaning of the suffering, pain, humiliation, injustice, evil, etc. that they witness and experience daily in this society. Black people get it, even if white people don’t. We get it so much that we leave church on Sunday and get up on Monday and go to work for and with white Americans prayerful and hopeful that this week will be better.
White America hears Jeremiah Wright talking about race (white people vs. black people). Black people hear Jeremiah Wright talking about power (privilege vs. powerlessness).
White America hears Jeremiah Wright railing against whites. Black people hear Jeremiah Wright railing against white/Western privilege.
White America hears Jeremiah Wright and thinks possibly of “a collective hatred in black churches of white society” as one white commenter said on my blog. My response: Black people hear Jeremiah Wright and hear someone saying, “Don’t even bother hating white people. Get up. Get involved. Be the change agents you want to see in the world.”
Here’s what else America doesn’t get: The genius and mystery of the black church. That it’s possible for fiery, rambunctious, hard-hitting preaching like that of Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright to give birth to calm, gentle, reasoned, inclusive thinking souls like Barack Obama. The black church does it Sunday after Sunday. The black woman who hands you a receipt with a smile at the store and the black man who shines your shoes at the airport and plies his trade with jokes and commentary are likely products of black churches like that of Trinity UCC, where once or twice a year there’s a fiery message about God judging the rich and the arrogant and being on the side of the poor and overlooked. We don’t hear hate, we hear God’s call for us to do our part here on earth in helping to build the Beloved Community.
With the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. a week away, it seems a slap in the face to black America to hear white America dare questioning whether the black church can be trusted to produce bridge-building leaders. The black church has been the feeder institution to America when it comes to producing black leaders who’ve served admirably in recalling to America its earliest moral vision and its lofty promises to its citizens.
It seems to me that the question is not whether white people can trust the black church, or whether white people can trust a black church like Trinity UCC to have shaped a black leader white people can follow. The question is what role the white church will play in building bridges between the races in light of this presidential race.
We’ve seen what the divisive, xenophobic, hate-mongering, rabidly right wing conservative teachings of white preachers Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and John Hagee, have wrought on our society. If our current leader is the best the white church has to offer as a bridge building president, then the white church has failed miserably and owes an apology to this nation’s racially diverse citizenry.
Finally, even though Barack Obama is not the presidential candidate I’m rooting for in this election, I will not sit idly by while a son of the black church and its historic prophetic concern for social justice are called into question. I find myself wondering whether my former white divinity students who are now pastors–those who learned from me and other black professors about black religion and liberation hermeneutics—will step up like prophets to use the Obama/Wright controversy as an opportunity to educate their congregations about black religion and to get them to explore their own prejudices in light of the gospel of Jesus. God, I pray so.
Renita J. Weems, a minister and teacher is author of Just A Sister Away. She earned her Ph.D. in biblical studies from Princeton Theological Seminary. She is an associate professor at Vanderbilt University and publishes an online newsletter, Something Within: For Women Seeking Balance and Wholeness.