There is no doubt that our country has known its share of political tension wed to religious fervor. From the first movement of Europeans across the great ocean, to the destruction of indigenous cultures and the enslavement of Africans, to our discomfort with the residue of such situations, our socio-political, economic and cultural geography has been mapped in relationship to our religious leanings and assumptions. From then until now, religious commitment and religious informed political opinions have wrestled with the pressing issues of the day.
Popular imagination and public debate in recent weeks, surrounding Sen. Obama's pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, has highlighted the manner in which the Black Church Tradition plays into religious engagement of political concerns in the United States. I do not lament this debate, but I do regret the rather limited scope of the conversation, the way in which what is really a long and robust tradition of critique and celebration of the United States in black churches has been reduced to a few inflammatory sound bites.
Beginning with the emergence of the spirituals, people of African descent applied scriptural lessons to their daily concerns and social predicament. Through a merging of scriptural moral and ethical principles drawn from biblical characters like Moses and Daniel with their experience of oppression, they expressed their hope for a better life. This reading of life through the Bible allowed slaves to sing “Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel, and why not everyone?†and it provided the framework and language for struggle against oppressive circumstances writ large. As the Christian thought and practice of enslaved Africans grew into visible churches, this evaluation of life arrangements through the insights and principles of scripture continued.
This mode of expression included not just song but the black sermonic style. From the First Great Awakening in the 1730s on, enslaved Africans and free Africans preached the word of God in revivals, camp meetings, and pulpits. In some cases they gave these sermons from pulpits within their own churches and, as of the 1800s, within local congregations associated with black denominations. From pulpits across the land ministers spoke to the pressing issues of the day in light of the unchanging truths of the gospel message.
Some churches, of course, moved in a direction that is commonly called an “other-worldly†orientation through which the priority in preaching and practice revolved around personal salvation and little sustained attention was given to social activism–a posture against the world. Others, however, representing the more celebrated approach, advanced a “this-worldly†orientation, using the preached moment as an opportunity to advance life options that diminished racism. What they preached was the social gospel–the scripture-based assumption that Christian commitment requires social activism.
There is nothing distant and disinterested about the black sermonic style, but rather it utilizes body movement, shifts in tone, to push the urgency of the theme. And this dynamic approach to the preached word is often combined with language meant to demonstrate the sustained importance of the topic. At times this language is inflammatory, radical, demanding. Yes, this can involve a critique of the United States, a critique of its shortcomings, its failure to live up to its democratic principles and religious rhetoric. Without this type of critique, for example, we don’t have the Holiness Movement and we don’t have the Civil Rights Movement.
We found out just how inflammatory, how challenging this language can be when small segments of a few of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s sermons hit YouTube and national television programs. The question was raised ad nauseam: “How can Senator Obama maintain membership in a church whose (former) minister would say such things about the country?†There is no doubt that some of Rev. Wright’s comments are inflammatory–yes, yes, yes, inflammatory. Yet, do we gain a full sense of his 30-plus-year ministry through a few statements taken from his sermons?
If one imagines that his sermons probably average thirty minutes in length, what do we learn from a three-minute clip? What of the better than sixty outreach ministries found at Trinity Church? Do they speak to hopelessness, defeatism, “un-American†attitudes? What do they tell us about Rev. Wright’s take on the gospel message, his commitment to the improvement of life in the United States? His deep disappointment with the failures of the United States is connected to a profound hopefulness that the moral and ethical principles that have served to frame our country can be enlivened, and both are presented in passionate language not dissimilar from that used by Hebrew Bible prophets such as the reverend's namesake, Jeremiah. Rev. Wright’s sense of ministry, his read of the Bible, when placed in context extends beyond a few questionable comments and speaks to the social gospel representing the best of the Christian Tradition in the United States, and the earmark of the Black Church Tradition.
Pinn is the author/editor of 15 books, including The Black Church in the Post-Civil Rights Era (Orbis, 2002).
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