Back in September 1988, I was a young man searching for a spiritual direction. The Christianity of my youth did not suffice for the questions that I had.
The milquetoast theological explanations of the church I was forced to attend at gunpoint by my parents caused me to reject Christianity as a young adult, and more importantly, reject the teachings of Jesus. At the time, I was seriously considering orthodox Islam.
So it was rather serendipitous, as I later reflected, that I received a last minute phone call from a friend to attend a service at the Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland. My immediate inclination was to decline, but my attraction to the woman who asked me to attend overruled my gut reactions.
Little did I know that I would hear a sermon that not only changed my view of the teachings of Jesus, but also put me on a path that would lead to attending seminary and ultimately being the only pastor/syndicated columnist in the country.
The title of the sermon, "What Makes you so Strong?" was preached by Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright. The power, the intellect, and the spirituality of the message were like nothing I'd ever heard. I left that night with more questions than I was given answers, but it unleashed a curiosity that remains to this day.
With love at the foundation, Rev. Wright presented Jesus as a radical, revolutionary, and deeply subversive individual who sided with those on the underside of life, and was committed to changing the status quo.
Over the years, I've heard Dr. Wright preach numerous times; the majority has been of the same intellectual and spiritual nature of that initial sermon. But there were times I believed he crossed an ethical line. I've heard him say things that, in my opinion, trump the controversial sound bites that have been recently aired.
But Trinity United Church of Christ, under the leadership Rev. Wright, is not some racist/xenophobic cult that the isolated sound bites might suggest. It is an oasis in the wilderness of poverty, black on black crime, and under performing public schools that plague Chicago like it does practically every other urban city.
By admitting Rev. Wright's influence on my spiritual path must I now must now denounce him or risk banishment to the island of irrelevance? Granted, I'm not running for president, but few of us are the sum total of a sound bite.
As inflammatory as those statements appear, they are sound bites. Sen. Obama's rejection of the statements, which he was right to do, does not mean that Rev. Wright doesn't have a truth.
If we really want to end racism there must be a courage to hear and understand a truth that may differ from our own.
Byron Williams is an Oakland pastor and syndicated columnist. He is the author of "Strip Mall Patriotism: Moral Reflections of the Iraq War." E-mail him at byron@byronspeaks.com Or go to his blog, byronspeaks.blogspot.com