MORE JEREMIAH WRIGHT

The following is excerpted from the speech given by Sen. Barack Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, at an NAACP dinner in Detroit on April 27.
Throughout its 99-year history, the NAACP has been built by people of all races, all nationalities, and all faiths on one primary premise, which is that all men and women are created equal. The nation's oldest civil rights organization has changed America's history. Despite violence, intimidation and hostile government policies, the NAACP and its grassroots membership have persevered.
Now, somebody please tell the Oakland county executive that that sentence starting with the words "despite violence, intimidation, and hostile government policies" is a direct quote from the NAACP's profile in courage. It didn't come from Jeremiah Wright.
Otherwise, he will attribute the quote to me and continue to say that I am one of the most divisive people he has ever heard speak. When he has never heard me speak. And just to help him out, I am not one of the most divisive. Tell him the word is descriptive.

I describe the conditions in this country. Conditions divide, not my descriptions. ...
One of your cities' political analysts says in print that first just my appearance here in Detroit will be polarizing. Well, I'm not here for political reasons. I am not a politician. I know that fact will surprise many of you because many in the corporate-owned media have made it seem as if I had announced that I'm running to for the Oval Office. I am not running for the Oval Office. I've been running for Jesus a long, long time, and I'm not tired yet.
I am sorry your local political analysts and your neighboring county executives think my being here is polarizing and my sermons are divisive, but I'm not here to address an analyst's opinion or a county executive's point of view. I am here to address your 2008 theme, and I stand here as one representative of the African American religious tradition which works in concert with other faith traditions, believing as we work together that a change is going to come. ... The support of the Jewish community, the Muslim community, and the Christian community, Protestant and Catholic, is in concert with the credo of the NAACP and a definite sign that a change is definitely going to come. ...
I believe that a change is going to come because many of us are committing to changing how we see others who are different.
In the past, we were taught to see others who are different as somehow being deficient. Christians saw Jews as being deficient. Catholics saw Protestants as being deficient. Presbyterians saw Pentecostals as being deficient. Folks who like to holler in worship saw folk who like to be quiet as deficient. And vice versa. ...
Whites saw black as being deficient. ... Europeans saw Africans as deficient. Lovers of George Friedrich Handel and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart saw lovers of B.B. King and Frankie Beverly and Maze as deficient. Lovers of Marian Anderson saw lovers of Lady Day and Anita Baker as deficient. ...
In the past, we were taught to see others who are different as being deficient. We established arbitrary norms and then determined that anybody not like us was abnormal. But a change is coming because we no longer see others who are different as being deficient. We just see them as different. Over the past 50 years, thanks to the scholarship of dozens of expert in many different disciplines, we have come to see just how skewed, prejudiced and dangerous our miseducation has been.
Miseducation. Miseducation incidentally is not a Jeremiah Wright term. It's a word coined by Dr. Carter G. Woodson over 80 years ago. Sounds like he talked a hate speech, doesn't it? ...
Turn to your neighbor and say different does not mean deficient. It simply means different. In fact, Dr. Janice Hale was the first writer whom I read who used that phrase. Different does not mean deficient. ... Dr. Hale showed us that in comparing African-American children and European-American children in the field of education, we were comparing apples and rocks. And in so doing, we kept coming up with meaningless labels like EMH, educable mentally handicapped, TMH, trainable mentally handicapped, ADD, attention deficit disorder.
And we were coming up with more meaningless solutions like reading, writing and Ritalin. Dr. Hale's research led her to stop comparing African-American children with European-American children. ... She discovered that the two different worlds have two different ways of learning. European and European-American children have a left-brained cognitive-object oriented learning style, and the entire educational learning system in the United States of America - back in the early '70s, when Dr. Hale did her research - was based on left-brained cognitive-object oriented learning style. ...
African and African-American children have a different way of learning. ... Those same children who have difficulty reading from an object and who are labeled EMH, DMH and ADD. Those children can say every word from every song on every hip-hop radio station half of whose words the average adult here tonight cannot understand. Why? Because they come from a right-brained creative oral culture like the (greos) in Africa ...
What Dr. Janice Hale did in the field of education, Dr. Geneva Smitherman did in the field of linguistics. ... Linguists have known since the mid 20th century that number one, nobody in Detroit, with the exception of citizens born and raised in the United Kingdom, nobody in Detroit speaks English. We all speak different varieties of American. ... Linguists knew that nobody in here speaks English, but only black children 50 years ago were singled out as speaking bad English.
John Kennedy could stand at the inauguration in January and say, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." ... Nobody ever said to John Kennedy that's not English. ... Only to a black child would they say you speak bad English. ... Ed Kennedy today cannot pronounce cluster consonants. Very few people from Boston can. They pronounce park like it's p-o-c-k. Where did you "pock" the car? They pronounce f-o-r-t like it's f-o-u-g-h-t. ... And nobody says to a Kennedy you speak bad English. Only to a black child was that said. ...
Different does not mean deficient. Tell your neighbor one more time. ... (This) is also true in ... biblical studies, black sacred music and black worship. We just do it different, and some of our haters can't get their heads around that. I come from a religious tradition that does not divorce the world we live in from the world we are heading to. I come from a religious tradition that does not separate the kingdom of heaven that we pray for from the devious kingdoms of humans that keep people in bondage on Earth.
... I also come from a religious tradition that say if you feel excited about something, be excited about it. ... Listen to how bombastic he is. Isn't he bombastic? He's stirring up hate. ... I come from a religious tradition where we shout in the sanctuary and march on the picket line. I come from a religious tradition where we give God the glory and we give the devil the blues. The black religious tradition is different. We do it a different way. ...
I believe a change is going to come because many of us here tonight, at least 11,900 out of 12,000, many of us are committed to changing how we see others who are different. Number one, many of us are committed to changing how we see ourselves. Number two, not inferior or superior to, just different from others. Embracing our own histories. Embracing our own cultures. Embracing our own languages as we embrace others who are also made in the image of God. ... When we see ourselves as members of the human race, I believe a change is on the way. When we see ourselves as people of faith who shared this planet with people of other faiths, I believe a change is on the way. ... Many of us are committed to changing, number three, the way we treat each other. The way black men treat black women. The way black parents treat black children. The way black youth treat black elders and the way black elders treat black youth. We are committed to changing the way we treat each other. ... The way the have and have-mores treat the have nots. The way the educated treat the uneducated. The way those with degrees treat those who never made it through high school. The way those of us who never got caught treat those of us who are incarcerated. ...
We are committed to changing the way we treat each other. ... It's going to take people of all faiths including the nation of Islam, but we can do it. It's going to take people of all races, but we can do it. It's going to take Republicans and Democrats, but we can do it. It's going to take the wisdom of the old and the energy of the young, but we can do it. It's going to take politicians and preachers ... but we can do it. It's going to take educators and legislatures, but we can do it. If I were in a Christian Church, I would say we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. If I were in a Jewish synagogue, I would say is anything too hard for Elohim? If I were in a Muslim mosque, I would say Sha Allah we can do it. If I were pushing one particular candidate, I would say yes, we can. ...

JEREMIAH WRIGHT'S 911 SERMON

Editor’s note: CNN Contributor Roland Martin has listened to several of the sermons of Rev. Jeremiah Wright from Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Portions of the sermons have been excerpted in recent stories.
As this whole sordid episode regarding the sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has played out over the last week, I wanted to understand what he ACTUALLY said in this speech. I’ve been saying all week on CNN that context is important, and I just wanted to know what the heck is going on.
I have now actually listened to the sermon Rev. Wright gave after September 11 titled, “The Day of Jerusalem’s Fall.” It was delivered on Sept. 16, 2001.
One of the most controversial statements in this sermon was when he mentioned “chickens coming home to roost.” He was actually quoting Edward Peck, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and deputy director of President Reagan’s terrorism task force, who was speaking on FOX News. That’s what he told the congregation.
He was quoting Peck as saying that America’s foreign policy has put the nation in peril:
“I heard Ambassador Peck on an interview yesterday did anybody else see or hear him? He was on FOX News, this is a white man, and he was upsetting the FOX News commentators to no end, he pointed out, a white man, an ambassador, he pointed out that what Malcolm X said when he was silenced by Elijah Mohammad was in fact true, he said Americas chickens, are coming home to roost.”
“We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, Arikara, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism.
“We took Africans away from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism.
“We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel.
“We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenage and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard working fathers.
“We bombed Qaddafi’s home, and killed his child. Blessed are they who bash your children’s head against the rock.
“We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to pay back for the attack on our embassy, killed hundreds of hard working people, mothers and fathers who left home to go that day not knowing that they’d never get back home.
“We bombed Hiroshima. We bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye.
“Kids playing in the playground. Mothers picking up children after school. Civilians, not soldiers, people just trying to make it day by day.
“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff that we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.
“Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism. A white ambassador said that y’all, not a black militant. Not a reverend who preaches about racism. An ambassador whose eyes are wide open and who is trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised. The ambassador said the people we have wounded don’t have the military capability we have. But they do have individuals who are willing to die and take thousands with them. And we need to come to grips with that.”
He went on to describe seeing the photos of the aftermath of 9/11 because he was in Newark, N.J., when the planes struck. After turning on the TV and seeing the second plane slam into one of the twin towers, he spoke passionately about what if you never got a chance to say hello to your family again.
“What is the state of your family?” he asked.
And then he told his congregation that he loved them and asked the church to tell each other they loved themselves.
His sermon thesis:
1. This is a time for self-examination of ourselves and our families.
2. This is a time for social transformation (then he went on to say they won’t put me on PBS or national cable for what I’m about to say. Talk about prophetic!)
“We have got to change the way we have been doing things as a society,” he said.
Wright then said we can’t stop messing over people and thinking they can’t touch us. He said we may need to declare war on racism, injustice, and greed, instead of war on other countries.
“Maybe we need to declare war on AIDS. In five minutes the Congress found $40 billion to rebuild New York and the families that died in sudden death, do you think we can find the money to make medicine available for people who are dying a slow death? Maybe we need to declare war on the nation’s healthcare system that leaves the nation’s poor with no health coverage? Maybe we need to declare war on the mishandled educational system and provide quality education for everybody, every citizen, based on their ability to learn, not their ability to pay. This is a time for social transformation.”
3. This is time to tell God thank you for all that he has provided and that he gave him and others another chance to do His will.
By the way, nowhere in this sermon did he said “God damn America.” I’m not sure which sermon that came from.
This doesn’t explain anything away, nor does it absolve Wright of using the N-word, but what it does do is add an accurate perspective to this conversation.
The point that I have always made as a journalist is that our job is to seek the truth, and not the partial truth.
I am also listening to the other sermons delivered by Rev. Wright that have been the subject of controversy.
And let me be clear: Where I believe he was wrong and not justified in what he said based upon the facts, I will say so. But where the facts support his argument, that will also be said.
So stay tuned.
- Roland S. Martin, CNN Contributorwww.rolandsmartin.com

AUGUSTINE

Ask the loveliness of the earth, ask the loveliness of the sea, ask the loveliness of the wide airy spaces, ask the loveliness of the sky, ask the order of the stars, ask the sun, making daylight with its beams, ask the moon tempering the darkness of the night that follows, ask the living things which move in the waters, which tarry on the land, which fly in the air; ask the souls that are hidden, the bodies that are perceptive; the visible things which most be governed, the invisible things that govern—ask these things, and they will all answer you, Yes, see we are lovely. Their loveliness is their confession. And all these lovely but mutable things, who has made them, but Beauty immutable?- Augustine Sermons 214.2

MOTHER'S AGAINST THE WAR

He will leave again.
Again, I'll be broken, a relic
of that young woman I was when
I stood over his bassinet and
hoped his rash would heal
if I changed to cloth.
……………………………………………………………………………………


He left it out
of sight, as if recalling
my refusal,
when he was a boy,
to buy him one.
The only evidence
it existed, a small
brown square of paper,
slightly buckled,
three holes shot
through at the heart,
lying on the table
by his will.
…………………………………………………………………………….







His head was freshly shaved.
A blue square bandage
on his shoulder covered
the small pox shot they all get
before they ship out to Iraq.
In days he'd be cargo on some army plane,
and I'd be in New York City listening
to his message on my machine.
I save all his messages.

………………………………………………………………………………………….

Last Mother's Day,
when he was incommunicado,
nothing came.
Three days later, a message
in my box; a package,
the mail room closed.
I went out into the lobby,
banged my fist against
the desk. When they
gave it to me, I clutched it
to my chest, sobbing
like an animal.
I spoke to no one,
did not apologize.
I didn't care about the gift.
It was the note I wanted,
the salt from his hand,
the words.
……………………………………………………………………..


Frances Richey
....................................................

OSCAR A ROMERO

Those who have created the evil are those who have made possible the hideous social injustice our people live in. Thus, the poor have shown the church the true way to go. A church that does not join the poor in order to speak out from the side of the poor against the injustices committed against them is not the true church of Jesus Christ.- Oscar A. RomeroThe Violence of Love

Had it been me...

As easy as it is for those of us who are white to look back and say, "That's a terrible statement," I grew up in a very segregated South, and I think that you have to cut some slack. And I'm going to be probably the only conservative in America who's going to say something like this, but I'm just telling you: We've got to cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told, "You have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie. You have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant. And you can't sit out there with everyone else. There's a separate waiting room in the doctor's office. Here's where you sit on the bus." And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment. And you have to just say, I probably would too. I probably would too. In fact, I may have had ... More of a chip on my shoulder had it been me.
- Mike Huckabee, offering his perspective on the preaching of Rev. Jeremiah Wright. (Source: MSNBC)

TAN FU

YANGISTS LIKED TO QUOTE THE EXAMPLE OF TAN FU,
AN ANCESTOR OF THE ZHOU KINGS,
WHO HAD RENOUNCED THE THRONE
RATHER THAN FIGHT AN INVADING ARMY:
" TO SEND TO THEIR DEATHS THE SONS
AND YOUNGER BROTHERS
OF THOSE WITH WHOM I DWELL
IS MORE THAN I COULD BEAR,"
HE EXPLAINED IN HIS ABDICATION SPEECH' .

PISTIS

Faith
(Pistis, fides). In the Old Testament, the Hebrew means essentially steadfastness, cf. Exod., xvii, 12, where it is used to describe the strengthening of Moses' hands; hence it comes to meanfaithfulness, whether of God towards man (Deuteronomy 32:4) or of man towards God (ps. cxviii, 30). As signifying man's attitude towards God it means trustfulness or fiducia. It would, however, be illogical to conclude that the word cannot, and does not, mean belief or faith in the Old Testament for it is clear that we cannot put trust in a person's promises without previously assenting to or believing in that person's claim to such confidence.
It seems a surprising way to begin talking about happiness by Saying, .. Blessed are the poor in spirit." there are two ways m Which we can come at the meaning of this word poor.
As we have them the beatitudes are in Greek, and the word
That is used for poor is the word ptochos. In Greek there are two Words for poor. There is the word penes. Penes describes a man Who has to work for his living; it is defined by the Greeks as Describing the man who is autodiakonos, that is, the man who Serves his own needs with his own hands. Penes describes the Working man, the man who has nothing superfluous, the man Who is not rich, but who is not destitute either. But, as we have Seen, it is not penes that is used in this beatitude, it is ptochos, Which describes absolute and abject poverty. It is connected With the root ptossein, which means to crouch or to cower; and It describes the poverty which is beaten to its knees. As it has Been said, penes describes the man who has nothing superfluous; Ptochos describes the man who has nothing. At all. So
This beatitude becomes even more surprising. Blessed is the man Who is abjectly and completely poverty-stricken. Blessed is the Man who is absolutely destitute.
As we have also seen the beatitudes were not originally
Spoken in Greek, but in Aramaic. Now the Jews had a special Way of using the word poor. In Hebrew the word is 'alii or Ebion. These words in Hebrew underwent a four-stage develop Ment of meaning. (l) they began by meaning simply poor. (2) They went on to mean, because poor, therefore having no Influence or power, or help, or prestige. (3) they went on to Mean, because having no influence, therefore down-trodden and
Oppressed by men. (4) finally, they came to describe the man Who, because he has no earthly resources whatever, puts his Whole trust in god.
So in Hebrew the word poor was used to describe the humble And the helpless man who put his whole trust in god. It is thus That the psalmist uses the word, when he writes, " this poor Man cried, and the lord heard him, and saved him out of all his Troubles" (psalm 34: 6). It is in fact true that in the psalms the' Poor man, in this sense of the term, is the good man who is dear To god. "the hope of the poor shall not perish for ever"
(psalm 9: 18). God delivers the poor (psalm 35: 10). "in thy Goodness, 0 god, thou didst provide for the needy" (psalm 68: 10). "he shall defend the cause of the poor of the people"
(psalm 72: 4). " he raises up the needy out of affliction, and Makes their families like flocks" (psalm 107: 41). " i will satisfy Her poor with bread"(psalm 132: 15). In all these cases the poor Man is the humble, helpless man who has put his trust in god,
Let us now take the two sides, the Greek and the Aramaic,
And put them together. Ptochos describes the man who is Absolutely destitute, the man who has nothing at all; 'ani and Ebion describe the poor, and humble, and helpless man who has Put his whole trust in god. Therefore, " blessed are the poor in Spirit" means
Blessed is the man who has realized his own utter helplessness. And who has put his whole trust in god.
If a man has realized his own utter helplessness, and has put His whole trust in god, there will enter into his life two things Which are opposite sides of the same thing. He will become Completely detached from things, for he will know that things Have not got it in them to bring happiness or security; and he Will become completely attached to god, for he will know that God alone can bring him help, and hope, and strength. The man Who is poor in spirit is the man who has realized that things Mean nothing, and that god means everything.
We must. be careful not to think that this beatitude calls Actual material poverty a good thing. Poverty is not a good Thing. Jesus would never have called blessed a state where People live in slums and have not enough to eat, and where Health rots. Because conditions are all against it. That kind of Poverty it is the aim of the Christian gospel to remove. The Poverty which is blessed is the poverty of spirit, when a man
Realizes his own utter lack of resources to meet life and finds His help and strength in god.
I
Jesus says that to such a poverty belongs the kingdom of Heaven: ,why should that be so? If we take the two petitions of The lord s prayer and set them together:
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven,
We get the definition: the kingdom of god is a society where God's will is as perfectly done in earth as it is in heaven. That Means that only he who does god's will is a citizen of the Kingdom; and we can only do god's will when we realize our
Own. Utter helplessness, our own utter ignorance, our own utter inability to cope With life, and when we put our whole trust in
God .. Obedience is always founded on trust. The kingdom of God is the possession of the poor in spirit, because the poor in Spirit have realized their own utter helplessness without god And have learned to trust and obey. '
o the bliss of the man who has realized his own utter Helplessness and who has put his whole trust in god For thus alone he can render to god that perfect
Obedience which will make him a citizen of the kingdom of Heaven!
Abraham had now become not merely the father of the Jewish people but the ancestor of all the faithful. His 'faith' (Greek: pistis, a word which, it is important to note, should be translated as 'trust' rather than 'belief) had made him a model Christian, centuries before the coming of the messiah. When scripture praised Abraham's faith it was referring 'to us as well': 'Scripture foresaw that God was going to use faith to justify the pagans, and proclaimed the Good News long ago, when Abraham was told: In you all the pagans will be blessed.' 41 When God commanded Abraham to abandon his concubine Hagar and their son Ishmael in the wilderness, this had been an allegory: Hagar represented the Sinai covenant, which had enslaved Jews to the Law, while Sarah, Abraham's free-born wife, corresponded to the new covenant, which had liberated gentiles from Torah obligations.
The author of the epistle to the Hebrews, who was probably writing at about the same time, was even more radical. He was trying to console a community of Jewish Christians
We should also recognize the changes in the meaning of our English verb, "to believe." Its use in mediaeval and Elizabethan times conveyed the sense of trust in a person, loyalty or commitment to a person. That is the sense in which Paul and all other biblical authors used its Greek equivalent, pisteuo when speaking of believing in God or in Jesus Christ. Since the time of Hobbes, Locke and Mills in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, it has gradually taken on the force of a proposition, "to believe that .... " In the 1959 edition of Chambers Encyclopedia, the article on "Belief" states, "what we actually believe, in the strictness of the language, is always a proposition or set of propositions. Of these, creeds are composed." (Quoted in Smith, Wilfrid Cantwell, History and Belief. Charlottesville, VA. Virginia University Press, 1977, p. 49; n. 30, p.109.)
Faith is the noun corresponding to the verb "believe," for which the Hebrew is heemin, the hiphil form of aman, and the Greek (LXX and NT) pisteuo. The latter is a key word in the NT, being the term regularly used to denote the many sided religious relationship into which the gospel calls men and women, that of trust in God through Christ. The complexity of this idea is reflected in the variety of constructions used with the verb (a hoti clause, or accusative and infinitive, expressing truth believed; en and epi with the dative, denoting restful reliance on that to which, or him to whom, credit is given; eis
and, occasionally, epi with the accusative, the most common, characteristic, and original NT usage, scarcely present in the LXX and not at all in classical Greek, conveying the thought of a move - ment of trust going out to, and laying hold of, the object of its confidence). The Hebrew noun corresponding to aman (emuna, rendered pistis in the LXX), regularly denotes faithfulness in the sense of trustworthiness, and pistis occasionally bears this sense in the NT (Rom. 3:3, of God; Matt. 23:23; Gal. 5:22; Titus 2: 1 0, of man).
A further argument for free will is that God's commandments carry a divine "ought" for man, implying that man can and should respond positively to his commands. The responsibility to obey God's commands entails the ability to respond to them, by God's enabling grace. Furthermore, if man is not free, but all his acts are determined by God, then God is directly responsible for evil, a conclusion that is clearly contradicted by Scripture (Hab. 1:13; James 1:13 - 17).
Therefore, it seems that some form of self determinism is the most compatible with the biblical view of God's sovereignty and man's responsibility.
who were beginning to lose heart by arguing forcefully that Christ had superseded the Torah, was more exalted than Moses I and that the sacrificial cult had simply foreshadowed Jesus' priestly act in giving his life for humanity. In an extraordinary passage, the author saw the entire history of Israel as exemplifying the virtue of pistis, trust in 'realities that at present remain unseen'." Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets had all exhibited this 'faith': that had been their greatest, indeed their sole achievement." But, the author concluded, 'they did not receive what was promised, since God made provision for us to have something better, and they were not to reach perfection except with us.'
In this exegetical tour de force, the whole of Israelite history had been redefined, but in the process the old stories, which had been about far more than pistis, lost much of their rich complexity. Torah, temple and cult simply pointed to a future reality because God had always had something better in mind. Paul and the author of Hebrews showed future generations of Christians how to interpret the Hebrew Bible and make it their own. The other New Testament Writers would develop this pesher and make it very difficult for Christians to see Jewish scripture as anything more than a prelude to Christianity.
Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before.