3 posts tagged “religion”
Note: The first part of this post is written by Roland S. Martin, CNN Contributor
Excerpts follow but you can read the entire article and hear Jeremiah Wright's Full Sermon at: http://intheknowchicago.com/Issue1Link1.htm
My personal notes appear at the end....
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 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.
Note from MsGenevieve: I blogged this because I think it's important for folks to gain their own perspective on the issue and remain an advocate of finding their own truth. I've visited Trinity numerous times in my youth and heard Pastor Wright speak. He's a brilliant man with a tremendous gift for moving and inspiring his congregation. I am a better person for having had heard his words and would never denounce him under any circumstances. However, I'd heard a story recently on NPR discussing how a lot of white people have never been to a Black Church service and have no idea about our ways of worship and teaching. Although most black folk have been to a white church service at least once (remember spending that night over your white friends house on the weekend's and going to their religious services on the Sunday morning??) I wonder then if it is possible to really wrap one's mind around something when they really have no point of reference.
Jacques Berlinerblau, program director and associate professor of Jewish Civilization at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, has a posted Note to White People where he recalls his findings during research for his book on African-American oratory. He writes:
Last week the junior Senator from Illinois found himself trying to explain the pulpit indiscretions of his spiritual mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Aware that many wanted to know how he could spend years listening to such remarks without having decamped from Trinity, Obama tried to place those remarks in their proper context:
"Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear."
Things are often said in African-American oratorical contexts—sometimes the most lyrical, provocative and over-the-top things—which are rarely intended to be marching orders. Those who hear these things may indeed be dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting, but they are acutely aware that they are not hearing fighting words....I want to suggest that African-American public speakers understand that their role is to uplift, educate, entertain, and even outrage. Audiences, in turn, understand that they will enjoy, reflect, absorb and then promptly adhere to the stunt man’s credo: don’t try this at home. I am not saying, however, that nothing of substance ever comes out of the Church. When the pastor asks for volunteers for the soup kitchen across town, people cheer and sign up. When the pastor asks for congregants to help tutor children, people cheer and sign up. But on those occasions when the pastor suggests some sort of radical political action leading to macro-structural change, people only cheer.... And while Obama’s argument about taking these words in context was, in and of itself, valid, it does not in any way neutralize the advantages that will accrue to those who take them out of context.
Well that's all I wanted to post about that.
And now for a little comic relief.....
More than 200 leaders of the world’s dozen major religions got together January 24 2002 in Assisi, Italy and denounced all religious violence and unanimously agreed to make this plain, clear and bold statement to the world:
1. We commit ourselves to proclaiming our firm conviction that violence and terrorism are incompatible with the authentic spirit of religion, and, as we condemn every recourse to violence and war in the name of God or of religion, we commit ourselves to doing everything possible to eliminate the root causes of terrorism.
2. We commit ourselves to educating people to mutual respect and esteem, in order to help bring about a peaceful and fraternal coexistence between people of different ethnic groups, cultures and religions.
3. We commit ourselves to fostering the culture of dialogue, so that there will be an increase of understanding and mutual trust between individuals and among peoples, for these are the premise of authentic peace.
4. We commit ourselves to defending the right of everyone to live a decent life in accordance with their own cultural identity, and to form freely a family of his own.
5. We commit ourselves to frank and patient dialogue, refusing to consider our differences as an insurmountable barrier, but recognizing instead that to encounter the diversity of others can become an opportunity for greater reciprocal understanding.
6. We commit ourselves to forgiving one another for past and present errors and prejudices, and to supporting one another in a common effort both to overcome selfishness and arrogance, hatred and violence, and to learn from the past that peace without justice is no true peace.
7. We commit ourselves to taking the side of the poor and the helpless, to speaking out for those who have no voice and to working effectively to change these situations, out of the conviction that no one can be happy alone.
8. We commit ourselves to taking up the cry of those who refuse to be resigned to violence and evil, and we are desire to make every effort possible to offer the men and women of our time real hope for justice and peace.
9. We commit ourselves to encouraging all efforts to promote friendship between peoples, for we are convinced that, in the absence of solidarity and understanding between peoples, technological progress exposes the world to a growing risk of destruction and death.
10. We commit ourselves to urging leaders of nations to make every effort to create and consolidate, on the national and international levels, a world of solidarity and peace based on justice.
Do you believe there is intelligent life on other planets?
I may be vain, but not vain enough to believe that Earthlings are the only species to survive on a planet and thrive and progress. Or that Our planet is the Only Planet out of All the billions of planets in all of the billions of galaxies that could possibly exist. That's one of the issues I have with some religions...that Creation is presented from the limited perspective of Earth Creation (One Heaven One Earth) and not Universe Creation. That is never going to change either, because it would mean rebuilding the foundations of religions from the ground up and most folks are more than happy to believe what they've always believed (spiritually) as opposed to going through the work of incorporating New Knowledge to create their own Belief System and using it to find their own Truth(s). (but that's a rant for another post)
I am more apt to believe that we are the least intelligent as we have yet to even discover the other intelligent life On the other planets. Frankly, I don't think we'd know it if it came and slapped us in the face.
There is a song in one of my favorite musicals She Loves Me entitled Perspective. If you are unfamiliar with the show, the plot revolves around two employees of a small Budapest shop (Maraczek's Parfumerie) who are constantly at odds with each other at work, unaware that each is the other's secret pen pal (a 60's musical version of You've Got Mail).
Mr. Maraczek, the boss of a parfumerie, is extremely crass in his treatment of one of the other employees, Ladislav Sipos. Sipos is firm on his creed, "Do not lose your job" and he's very concerned with having a true "perspective" at work. AnyWay....this QoTD made me think of this song, specifically the excerpt from Perspective:
I am only one of several in a rather small parfumerie.
Which is only one of several in this city.
Which is one of many cities in this country which
Is only one
Of many countries
Which are on this continent
Which is only one of seven on this not so special planet
Which is one of several in our solar system
Which is only one of many solar systems
In this vast, and inconievable affair, that is the universe
Sooooooo
In this infinite, incomprehensible scheme
If a dot called Maraczek should scream
At a speck called Sipos
What on Earth does it matter?
Call me fool,
That's alright with me.
Here's my rule,
Never disagree.
Where's my pride?
Swallowed long ago.
Deep inside,
Where it doesn't show.
Just maintain a true perspective
And it's easy to avoid a clash of wills
Just maintain a true perspective.
And make sure you're well supplied with stomach pills.
Let me put it bluntly,
I'm a coward.
With a wife and children to support.
Actually my creed is sort and simple
Five essential words Georg:
Do not Lose Your job!
