Fact is, I am just getting warmed up -and who better to oil the gears of the poetic but Mr. Dylan Thomas. But poetry is not on my mind just now. I was making excuses. Throwing in filler (nothing against you, Mr. Thomas). There is something about starting an on-going diatribe on a blank white digital page that made me choke.
Truth is, I have spent this evening and the last refreshing my memory concerning all things theological. Particularly respecting liberation theology, with which I was once familiar but have long since lost the thread.
But it all came rushing back this week, didn't it? And why? Because of the honorable Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his parishioner, Barack Obama and that ugly tangled media web in which they are both currently caught.
I am puzzled in the extreme to find examples time and time again of how completely modern Christianity seems to have lost its roots in a historical and biblical prophetic tradition. Mainstream American Christians live as though pledging allegiance to a political state and particular policies is some sort of litmus test for salvation. Rev. Wright's sermons were no more offensive or controversial then those uttered by Jeremiah, or Amos, or Hosea, or Isaiah...or Frederick Douglas or Martin Luther King, Jr....or Jesus...or anyone who has ever had the courage to say unpopular things against powerful people. I am realizing that if Jesus Christ himself came to earth and walked among us and spoke out against the evils of this world (much as he did over 2000 years ago), his very church would have him killed again and think they were acting in righteous faith.
I confess this is all very personal for me. Perhaps I should include a note about myself, where I come from, where I hope to be going. That will have to wait for another time.
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