I’ve seen some discussion about how much of white America just doesn’t “get” the African American church experience. But I haven’t seen much mention of how Jesus himself could have easily become the subject of a Fox News-style hit job. Consider, just for starters, his encounter with the Syrophoenician woman:
Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet he could not keep his presence secret. In fact, as soon as she heard about him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an evil spirit came and fell at his feet. The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.
“First let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.”
Did you catch that? Jesus just called that woman a dog! (And you do know what the specific word for “girl dog” is, right?) Should he be denounced as sexist or racist? Knowing Fox News–and much of the SCLM–probably both.
Some people will say that you can quote scripture out of context to make whatever point you like. But it’s more than that. You can take quotes from any person out of context, string enough of those moments together, and make that person “untouchable”.
I believe it is well past time to demand better than that from our media.
I know the point has been made before, but I think it bears repeating, given that “pastorgate” is taking place during Holy Week. It is very easy to imagine that if Jesus walked among us today, candidates would be under pressure to “reject and denounce” him. He railed against the domination systems of his day, and was ultimately excecuted as something akin to a “terrorist”. Many Christians commemorate that on Good Friday. (Jesus’ Terrible Horrible No-Good Very Bad Day).
Anyway, I’m working on putting together a collection of “sound bites” like the one in this diary. (If there was a Fox News in the first century, you can bet they’d be showing the footage of Jesus turning over the moneychangers’ tables over and over and over again.)
“I think I’ve seen you somewhere — I remember
You were with that man they took away
I recognize your face”
“You’ve got the wrong man lady I don’t know him
And I wasn’t where he was tonight — never near the place”
“That’s strange for I am sure I saw you with him
You were right by his side and yet you denied –“
“I tell you I was never ever with him”
“But I saw you too — it looked just like you”
“I don’t know him!”
Hate the sin, but love the sinner.
The Pastor Wright flap will dissipate.
via Drudge (the irony) – Ben Smith at Politico and Andrew Sullivan notes:
Jeremiah Wright was President Clintons White House guest
One commenter had this observation:
” Rev. Wright came to pray with and for them, yet in his own hour of need, when he’s being trashed in holy week they, the Clintons, knew him not.”
The Clintons remained silent.
Perhaps Obama should “denounce” Martin Luther King, Jr. as well. E.J. Dionne brings up a point that Martin Luther King, Jr. had some pretty harsh words to say about America a couple months before he was murdered – and I’d argue that there was a causal relationship between those two events – in a sermon entitled The Drum Major Instinct. Excerpt: