Obama and his Church

First the rumors were that Obama was a Muslim, and now he is being assailed as a radical Christian. I turned on my television four consecutive times over the course of three days and found CNN exploring the story of Obama’s past minister, Rev Jeremiah Wright.

The Obama camp is fumbling this landmark media crisis, which is puzzling given that a campaign focus on Obama and his pastor was inevitable. Crisis PR specialist Eric Dezenhall says that “It is simply not plausible that Obama was a member of this church for 20 years and knew nothing about Wright’s point of view. While American’s don’t insist on what your religious beliefs should be, we know that whey shouldn’t be, and I believe the heartland will react with revulsion to Wright’s behavior and they won’t let Obama off the hook for it.”

The public hates to feel spun by politicians which is why Obama’s message that he was unaware of these type of comments is not working. I suspect the truth is that Obama’s framework of “change” politics has been motivated in large part by his engagement in liberation theology. While the Obama campaign has no option but to distance the candidate from Wright’s most offensive remarks, their campaign may appear more genuine if they also asserted how Wright’s ministry formed Obama’s politics.

Dezenhall suggests that Obama give a speech that characterizes his ties to Wright, and I agree. The fact that Obama connected very personally with a church that embraced black liberation theology in the mold of leading theologian James Cone is revealing. Anyone seeking to truly understand the nuances of the ministry that Obama embraced will be well served to study Cone, who Wright repeatedly references in self defense.

I attended a Cone speech in January at the Trinity Institute’s conference on religion and violence, and subsequently read some of his works, which compares and contrasts the separatist message of Malcolm X to the integration message of Martin Luther King. It’s intimidating to summarize Cone’s radical notion of Christianity, given his supersize stature among theologians worldwide. His ideas are strikingly mainstream when laid out essay style, but sharply radical when delivered sound-bite style. Cone speaks directly to the African American experience from a biblical reference point. The lessons of crucifixion and resurrection can shed light on the violence of slavery, racial discrimination, and social turmoil that marks the entire history of our nation.

An understanding of Cone’s liberation theology beyond the soundbite wars is important if this debate is anything more than spin. Cone’s theology can probably shed as much light on Obama’s formation as what Wright has preached. Cone demands that churches engage social issues, “If you live in a racist society, and you aren’t preaching against racism in that society, then you are not preaching the gospel. And I think that most white churches are not preaching the gospel”. In Cone’s world, Christianity is deeply about challenging oppression. He equates injustice with violence, and urges leaders to transform the social structure that creates violence.

In the tradition of the civil rights movement, Obama seems to use a faith-based starting point when engaging social justice. It is the theological starting point of civil rights leadership that marks the starkly divergent cultures of civil rights and feminism in this country. That may shed some light on the starkly different styles of Obama and Clinton, despite their alliance on many social justice issues. Many civil rights leaders look to the church as a historic pillar of resistance, while many feminists come to activism outside of a church experience, or in too many cases, in spite of a church experience.

All of this Democratic party turmoil has to be a delight for Republican opponents who gain when Obama is viewed as an extremist and Clinton is criticized as the establishment.

In contrast to Obama, the faith-based framework for both President Bush and his father served them well politically. It may have helped George W. Bush that he is not a regular churchgoer and therefore does not have a pastor singularly identified with his formation. The extremist comments of religious leaders that have been embraced by Bush have done little to tarnish his reputation.

President Bush issued a heartfelt statement about the Rev Jerry Falwell when he died last year. Bush called Falwell “a man who cherished faith, family, and freedom.” Falwell has a litany of divisive quotes, such as blaming the September 11 terror attacks on “the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and lesbians who are actively trying to make an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America”:

Falwell unabashedly promoted a Christian nation. “If you’re not a born-again Christian, you’re a failure as a human being”. In 1979 he said, “I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won’t have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them.”

I could go on. He asserts that AIDS is “God’s punishment for homosexuals”. He even gay-bashed “Tinky Winky”, a male character on a children’s show that carries a purse.

Bush is among many politicians who are not held accountable for the religious leadership they embrace. Republican Presidential nominee John McCain spoke at Liberty University, which was founded by Falwell, two years ago. That was a major shift from the days when McCain was calling Falwell “an agent of intolerance”. A few years prior to McCain’s visit, Karl Rove gave a commencement speech at Liberty University.

Other prominent ministers have been invited to the White House during George W’s presidency, including Franklin Graham (son of Billy Graham) and Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston,. The first President Bush had a close relationship with Cardinal Law, who later resigned over allegations that he had covered up known sexual abuse in his diocese.

In sharp contrast to the public’s embrace of the Bush family style of Christianity, Obama’s campaign appears deeply wounded by its association with Wright. The Obama/Wright crisis is still a headline story for CNN. Here is today’s advice from Dezenhall about how to get the media to move on:

“24 hour news has changed everything because now the media don’t just cover the scandal they cover how the subject is “handling” the scandal. Inevitably, the media will invite pundits on who almost always declare the crisis to have been “mishandled.” Why? because, that’s the story. I did a TV interview last year when JetBlue has all of those cancellations. The interviewer asked me “Why is JetBlue in such a mess?” My answer was “Because every half hour you invite a guest on and ask them Why is JetBlue in such a mess.” The bad news is the news cycles make it hard to respond in a way that people would thinki is effective. The good news is that if you wait a couple of hours, Britney will have driven into a tree and knock the story out of the news. I’m thinking of putting Britney on my payroll for just these contingencies.”