Jeremiah Wright's Influence on My Ministry

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 [e-mail] Or go to his blog, byronspeaks.blogspot.com

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Comments

[OwenScottIII]

Byron, I would appreciate your response to an idea that struck me this morning while I was reflecting on the controversy over Rev. Wright. The Old Testament or Torah has numerous prophecies of God bringing down destruction on wicked nations including their own. One illustrious example is Jeremiah's Complaint, a chapter that parallels the message of our modern Jeremiah, the Rev. Wright. Consider Jeremiah 12 :10 “Many shepherds will ruin my vineyard and trample down my field. They will turn my pleasant field into a desolate wasteland, parched and desolate before me. The whole land will be laid waste because there is no one who cares. (NIV).” Anyone reading the entire chapter will recognize that Rev. Wright is preaching in the politically incorrect tradition of the original Jeremiah and his many colleagues. Back in those days, I doubt that you invited one of the prophets to your dinner party unless you wanted to get a non-PC earful of harsh and frightening predictions and judgments. These individuals warn us of what will happen if we don't turn away from our lust and iniquity. Just because the mainstream media tend to focus on right-wing prophecies of doom (like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson's immediate reactions to Sept 11 which they interpreted as the terrible swift sword of God coming down on us, although for different reasons than Rev. Wright's similar argument). Bill Moyers gave a powerfully succinct speech on the subject entitled “9-11 and the sport of God” when he accepted a Union Medal from Union Theological Seminary on September 7, 2005, Moyers discussed the Jewish, Christian and Muslim prophetic traditions of evil raining down upon the corrupt nations of the world. Why should we be surprised to find that a preacher on the left was inspired by this tradition to preach a sermon of hellfire and damnation from his socio-political point of view? Isn't this an old American tradition? Yours truly, Owen

[jim2812]

Rev Williams comments in his columns has made me a fan. I am even more so a fan because he could of faded away and not comment about his connect to Rev Wright when it could cause some of his fans to turn away.

Rev Williams is devoted to the truth, and the whole truth, as he understands it without regard to the correctionness and popularity of his view. I may not always agree with Rev Williams but I want to know his take about the issues of our day because of his intellect and his integrity. A combination, in my opinion, not often found in the media.

[JMcCoy]

Great post. Rev. Wright is being unfairly protrayed in the media but who isn't these days. Rev. Wright is a Godly man and he has a radical message; but so did Jesus. Despite the sound bites that have made the airways, he is not a racist who preaches hate; hate for non-blacks or for the US government. I knew that some would use his message against Barack Obama but that too is unfair. Judge both men by their own words and their own merits.