A Gospel of Controversy

So, I actually took a few days off from the political stuff to delve into my other hobby. Playing music in nightclubs. I love that part of my life, and I’m glad I didn’t “grow out of it”, making it something I miss. I still get to jump up there and make way too much noise for small money and tips.

It’s good to be back at my keyboard though. It seems like there’s been some noise being made out on the DNC campaign trail while I was busy. Something about a fire and brimstone preacher pissing off the white folks with some super-hated rhetoric from a few years back. A preacher who Barack Obama’s church congregation hired and didn’t fire for getting a bit worked up after 9/11 and a few other instances. And apparently Barack had the audacity to allow this fire-brand to do the nuptials for his wedding to the Mrs., as if there’d be any possible way to NOT allow him to perform the ceremony without directly insulting the man , as well as the entire church.

Sure, Barack is cool, but no one is that cool. Especially in an Evangelical congregation, which I spent my own years a member of when I was stationed in the Air Force at Griffiss AFB in Rome, NY. If you’re a member of one of these families, they can become as dysfunctional as any family, but that doesn’t give any member the go-ahead to get all “high and mighty” with any other member. Unless the elders get involved and make the official determination concerning the sins of that member. That’s just how it goes in these kinds of congregations. One thing is for sure. You definitely don’t attack the preacher if that preacher is doing his job. Not if you want to stay in good standing with that congregation and the folks you’ve grown to love and trust in that group of people.

I had to explain to my wife, who is Catholic, that in an Evangelical congregation, the preacher is NOT the leader of the congregation, and often has to be reigned in by the congregation’s elders (who actually run the congregation) due to sermons every now and then. The preacher’s job is to get asses into seats and inspire those folks to open their wallets when the basket comes around. He usually doesn’t even teach Sunday school. The elders choose the teachers, they choose the fundamental slant on the biblical tenets that the congregation is going to accept, they hire (and fire) the preacher, and they deal with all matters concerning the members of the congregation.

The elders rule the roost. They consist of a small group of older men, who have raised a family of believing children to adulthood, and whose adult children are still believing members of either that congregation or an associated congregation. They’re chosen by the congregation to be elders due to this display of even temperament, judgment, and focus on the congregation as life-long heads of households that have stayed stable and true to the faith of the congregation. Very simple. Non-Evangelicals, often, don’t understand how this works, and see the preacher as the leader of the flock. That only happens in dysfunctional Evangelical congregations, and in non-Evangelical congregations.

This particular preacher, who is either retired now or semi-retired, has apparently been very popular over the years due to his ability to get folks to show up and keep showing up. This Chicago congregation, from what I’ve read, is where most of the prominent local political movers and shakers of Chicago go to church, which would be why Barack Obama would never leave it over one or two rogue sermons throughout the last 20 years or so. The issue would be that if he really wanted to make a difference in a community (which is what Obama came back to Chicago to accomplish) then he’d have to join the folks he’d be dealing with at some level. The safest level to join them would be through their shared church congregation.

It’s like joining the Elk’s Lodge or Kawanis Club if you want a leg-up in local business. I can’t imagine a guy, who is trying to organize local businesses, politicians, and community leaders, leaving the most prominent Evangelical congregation in the city for any reason whatsoever. Especially over a periodic sermon, here and there, where the preacher went off and got out of line with a couple statements concerning social issues that impact the local minority community. Especially if Obama knows that the folks he’s got to work with probably agree with everything the preacher is saying.

You don’t get anything done by being super sensitive to the words of every person you have to try and work things out with for the benefit of the people who are depending on you to improve their lot in life. That preacher – by all accounts – has had significant impact in the local community where Barack spent years as a community organizer. Same thing with that real estate developer guy that’s on trial in Chicago right now. Both men had the power to shut this young skinny lawyer down in a heartbeat and prevent him from getting anything accomplished for the people of that community, if they decided that he thought he was “better” than them.

Abraham Lincoln was considered the most two-faced guy of his political era, but he lied for the people he served, not for the people he was forced to deal with. I see that same quality in Barack Obama. Not every person you deal with in life is a high quality individual, but that doesn’t prevent them from being a person that you’ll be forced to work with if you have important work to do. In fact, in every important work that there is, there are really lousy people who are key to getting that important work done. A successful person knows how to work with them, and even befriend them, without becoming like them.

I don’t have an issue with what Barack’s preacher says. I’m not voting for Barack’s preacher. Barack’s preacher has his own view of the world, and it’s not required that Barack agree with that secular view of the world for him to agree with the man’s spiritual view of the relationship between God and man. If anything, a healthy separation between a politician and the church he or she attends is what we need right now. Even Jesus said to “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God what is God’s”, and he wasn’t just discussing money.

This preacher appears to be from the 1960’s school of social progress via the pulpit. Not unlike a lot of the white Evangelical super-church preachers that present a GOP approved gospel of tax-cuts and inflated defense spending to their faithful hordes before marching them all down to the local election precincts for their God-directed duty of pulling the lever for the Republican candidate of their choice. Nothing different with this preacher than with those preachers. Except, maybe, the target of his outrage.

Then again, it’s hard for a man who sees his flock being decimated by the policies of a racist agenda to actively shill for that agenda on Sunday morning. Or to even allow that agenda to go unchallenged when he feels it to be necessary. He is speaking in God’s house, in his way of seeing things, and has that responsibility to be as honest in how he sees it all as he can be. In short, you won’t see a man with these kinds of community ties, to this kind of community, preaching the gospel of cutting social services, the moral imperative of a forward leaning military diplomatic strategy, the scriptural basis for God-approved pre-emptive invasions, or the ever-popular faith-brings-wealth theology. That kind of Christianity is for the suburbs, where folks can pretend that poverty is only the result of bad choices and laziness.

As if Jesus’ ministry was all about telling poor people to get off their lazy asses and get a job.

Ugh

Don’t get me started on that today.

Okay, so Barack Obama’s preacher said some messed up sentences over the decades that he’s been preaching. I remember when Ronald Reagan said that one clever quip while testing a microphone, “I’ve just signed legislation outlawing the Soviet Union. We begin bombing in five minutes.” I actually thought that was funny as hell, when I heard it. The Soviets didn’t think so, but since they don’t vote in our elections, Reagan went on to win easily. Even after casually suggesting global nuclear holocaust over a live microphone to a room full of media. Seems kind of stunning, given the reaction to Barack’s preacher’s words lately.

Maybe if Reagan’s minister had been the one who joked about nuking the USSR instead? Maybe Jimmy Carter would’ve kicked his ass back to California if the minister had said that line instead of it being the guy who actually ended up with his finger on the button? Then again, Jimmy Carter was a Baptist Sunday school teacher back then, and the Evangelicals hadn’t mounted their invasion of the state houses yet. Ministers and preachers didn’t have that kind of political power at the time. Their words didn’t affect elections back then like they do now. Apparently, no one’s words affected elections back then like they do now. Not even the candidates’ words.

It’s times like these that it becomes really clear just how much crazier this country has become in such a relatively short span of time. I can’t even imagine this place in another 28 years.