AS A WHITE minister in the United Church of Christ I'd like to share my sense of the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, a man whose ministry I know well, and whose cartoonish demonization by the television media brings me great sadness.
From 1999 until 2007, I served as the minister of Epiphany UCC in Chicago. Trinity UCC is well regarded by most midwestern Congregationalists, most of whom are white. In a region where Congregationalism is largely unknown, Trinity is famous as the UCC's largest congregation, as our most generous, and as one of our most faithful. Indeed, under Wright's leadership the people of Trinity do an amazing job of praying with their hands and feet. Not only has Trinity donated millions of dollars to our denomination, Trinity has long been an agent of healing on the south side of Chicago and beyond. In the words of UCC President Rev. John Thomas, Trinity is "the flagship church" of our denomination.
While I served in Chicago, my church partnered with Trinity to work on issues of workplace justice which affected the lives of men and women of all races. I attended many meetings at Trinity and was always greeted warmly and with terrific hospitality by both Jeremiah Wright and members of his congregation.
That experience and many others make me scoff at the notion that Trinity is a "black separatist" congregation. There are obvious distinctions to be made between Trinity's Afrocentrism and an ideology of racial separatism. Charges that Rev. Wright is practicing reverse racism seem similarly thin.
None of this erases the fact that the clips from Wright's sermons can seem offensive. But, before passing judgment on the man, please consider that a good sermon is a conversation between three partners: scripture, a preacher, and his or her congregation. YouTube and Fox News have allowed us to eavesdrop on 15-second sound-bites from one partner in such a conversation.
Finally, anyone well acquainted with Congregationalism knows that the UCC is a nondoctrinal church. Our members are not asked to receive their ministers' sermons uncritically. Instead, in our free-thinking tradition, a sermon functions like a whetstone. A church member's belief functions like a blade. It is in the dynamic interchange between the two, often in the resulting sparks and tension, that a keen and sharp faith can develop.
REV. MATT FITZGERALD
Senior Minister
Wellesley Hills Congregational Church, UCC
Wellesley
The senator's minister's vocabulary of violence and hatred presents the perfect opportunity to denounce the senator. After all, he attended his church for years, he was one of his advisers, and both the minister and the senator are black. Accordingly and automatically they inhabit the same racial stereotype. Therefore the senator is not fit to be president. If, in fact, he becomes just another casualty of our prejudice, the loss will be our own.
FRANK ROONEY
Newburyport
If Obama were truly the transracial candidate, he would disown Rev. Wright with the same conviction employed when he demanded Don Imus's head. For not to do so reinforces the real double standard, that it is acceptable for a black man to promote racial violence and intolerable when a white man utters racial epithets.
PHILIP LEES
North Attleboro
His scripture may be the Sermon on the Mount, but the Christian spiritual message is utterly compromised by the type of analogy he routinely chooses. One should seriously question the religious faith and moral compass of anyone who would sit under that ministry for 20 years.
NOLAN NELSON
Eugene, Ore.
