Friday Mar 14, 2008 1:47 pm

Which is worse?

By Adam Doster

I'll outsource my church leader commentary today to the succinct Larry Handlin.

Jeremiah Wright criticized America for not being inclusive and metaphorically said God should damn America.

Rod Parsley, John Hagee, Falwell, Robertson and many other right wing preachers say literally God damned America for being tolerant and sent hurricanes or terrorists.

Which is worse?

16 comments ·

Actually, I think Wright was more quoting Malcolm X than he was the diplomat. It’s very unclear exactly what he was attempting to attribute to Peck. It appears Peck didn’t even appear on Foxnews during the time period, although he surely has the same general world-view as Wright.

But that’s not really relevant here. The point is that Wright obviously ALSO believes what he said OR attributed. And that, in a nutshell, is that America had 9/11 coming.

Most Americans are not in acceptance of this view, and don’t take kindly to someone in effect making excuses for the terrorists of 9/11. They’re simply brainwashed animals, who are not worthy or capable or even desirous of being reasoned with.

-----
Posted by Natalie on 2008-03-22 22:38:56

Pastor Wright did not damn America for bombing the Japanese. If you take the time to actually watch the full clips of his sermon, you will learn that the pastor was quoting an American diplomat who made those remarks. Of course, Fox News doesn’t show you THAT part. Gee, I wonder why? Well, here’s a tip. When you have to advertise that you’re fair and balanced, you’re not. Wake up and think for yourselves folks. When you hear stuff as ridiculous as this, check it out before you comdemn someone simply for something they may have heard from someone else. In this country, we are supposed to judge someone on their actions, their character. To prejudge someone based on comments from someone he knows is…. dare I say it? Yup, it downright un-American.

Posted by Joe Lang on 2008-03-22 03:32:20

Natalie - one also might believe that if we waited until both sides (whichever sides they ended up being) had a stockpile of nukes, the damage would have been far greater. Certainly one of the outcomes of the nuking of Japan was the realization of how terrible the weapons actually were, and the extreme use of restraint that followed ever since (but if the crazies in the Middle East get them, all bets are off).

Posted by Kim on 2008-03-19 10:32:50

Given that Japan caused the death of between 3 and 10 million people from 1937 - 1945, you may be correct, Kim. Almost certainly untold tens of thousands, I probably should have said.

Today we’re used to the luxury of having essentially an unbeatable military, what with laser-guided smart weaponry and of course the nuclear last resort option that we’ve demonstrated a willingness to use. But imagine if mankind had still been years away from being able to drop a nuclear bomb, and/or if we had lacked the will to take it to our enemies. It’s easy to see how WWII could have turned out far differently, with the kinds of forces of evil responsible for that quarter billion deaths prevailing and continuing their murderous ways.

Contrary to Wright’s shallow implication, the nuking of Japan was one of the most moral acts of courage ever carried out by any nation in the history of the planet. Moreover, the United States, albeit not perfect being made up of flawed humans, is surely the most benevolent world power the planet has ever hosted. Even slavery and bigotry, Wright’s roots of discontent, were essentially given a delayed death sentence by the wise founders of this nation, far more than can be said for much of the rest of the world, where oppression and discrimination continue aided by the force of unchangeable law.

Posted by Natalie on 2008-03-18 15:04:38

“Our use of it brought an end to the war, saving untold thousands of American and Japanese lives, and changed the Japanese empire from a killing machine into a remorseful lamb, and today one of our best allies. “

Well said, though i would venture *millions* were spared rather than thousands. One of whom was to later become my father.

Posted by Kim on 2008-03-18 09:58:18

“If you think nuking Japan was morally justified, you have no idea what morality is, with all due respect.
Posted by Natalie on 2008-03-18 00:22:16

Oh, I should mention. I look like Barack Obama, so much so that we could be related.

There is huge context to Wright’s comments, but they don’t diminish my opinion of Obama in the slightest - to the contrary. So far, according to polling, Wright hasn’t hurt him at all - to the contrary. So if you’re an Obama supporter, this may be entirely academic, and you may have nothing at all to worry about at all. Absolutely nothing.

On the other hand, experts are apparently raising the possibility of the worst economic situation since the Great Depression. If Wright and those who agree with him were speaking prophetically and were indeed right, we would all do well to pay close attention.

Posted by johnOneOne on 2008-03-17 20:47:55
Dear Natalie…

Let’s get to the moral questions.

Were Hiroshima and Nagasaki military targets? Whether they were or not, what makes them any different than NYC? If you were Japanese when those bombs hit, how would you view it?

What was the single most destructive use of a weapon in the history of Planet Earth?

What country used that weapon?

If you think nuking Japan was morally justified, you have no idea what morality is, with all due respect. Better you just stick to the simple facts.

Here’s how I view moral questions: God judges. So I do try to stick to the simple observable facts. If observations and evidence don’t add up to facts, I don’t embellish with my own moral opinions so as to clean them up in my favor.

I have a Ph.D. in Computer Science and a graduate education in mathematical logic, Natalie, so the simple facts are the issue to me, because I don’t have to make them be anything - they are what they are.

My original reference to truth and falsity was a Biblical reference. It was not about my way of judging things - it was about a metric God put forward in Scripture (you may not believe in Scripture - fair enough, but I do). And I was just applying that metric God put forward, in this situation. The kind of moral judgement you tried to substitute for evaluation of the evidence as simple facts, I don’t see as my place, at all - God makes the moral judgements, not me.

By the way, are you black or white, by American standards? I qualify the question because most of us who are considered black, who even call themselves black, are as much white as they are black, just like Obama. He was raised by his white mother, after all, not his black father who left the family.

I have no hidden agenda, Natalie. I just place a very high value on objectivity, and I recognize how extremely difficult it is.

Posted by johnOneOne on 2008-03-17 20:40:15
“Everything he said is true…”

Hardly. Much of what Wright spews is flately false, and for the rest he ignores context. He is certainly not helping heal race relations; he is perpetuating hatred and division.

“This whole controversy is not about what Dr. Wright said. It
Posted by Natalie on 2008-03-17 19:19:49

I’m 61,, so Sunday school and vacation bible school are in my distant past, but I still remember that God sent prophets like Micah and Jeremiah to warn the kings of Israel to turn away from idolatry and other sins. The prophets were ignored, and Israel was destroyed. I think the Rev. Wright speaks in this prophetic tradition. Everything he said is true, and if God really doesn’t like injustice and hypocrisy, we need to turn the U.S. around and hope it’s not too late. Jesus said that you judge the tree by its fruits. Dr. Wright’s church is famous for the good it has done in Chicago. This whole controversy is not about what Dr. Wright said. It’s deliberate race-baiting, and I’m sick of it.

Posted by Kris on 2008-03-17 17:56:43
Wright is clearly a nutcase. Worse, he uses the pulpit for political purposes, rather than spiritual ones.

Lucky for him the US is not as he asserts. If it were, he would be rotting in a prison somewhere.

How fortunate to live in a country where one can vent against the government without government reprisals!

Posted by Kim on 2008-03-17 15:45:32
O.K., johnOneOne, yes, the U.S. nuked Japan. But of course that’s not the issue, and I have no idea why you’re trying to make it be. He was saying the U.S. should be damned for that action, which is surely as looney as Falwell saying lesbians caused 9/11, or whatever he/they said. And the Japan reference is probably the LEAST looney and the LEAST offensive thing he said.

But my intent is not to argue technicalities or to score these guys on the looney scale, that was your thing. My point was that this is a problem for Obama, because his long and close association with Wright doesn’t fit with his campaign themes. Obama supporters can try to somehow excuse things by pointing to the right’s kooks, but unfortunately Obama’s the man up to bat right now, and he’s the one with the intimate 20 yr. mentor, performed my wedding, baptized my kids relationship to his kook.

Regardless of how you view the technical or moral correctness of Wright’s statements, the fact is that they are highly offensive and divisive to the majority of Americans, evidenced by the swift distancing from them by Obama.

Posted by Natalie on 2008-03-16 23:41:34
Natalie, did the US nuke Japan or not? I don’t have to ask you - it’s a historical fact that the US bombed Japan. If you want to say someone is in error, use an example that supports your case.
Wright was not wrong on that point.

Whether or not the US was justified by some rationale for nuking Japan, does not change the fact that the US nuked Japan. Wright said the US nuked Japan, and the US did nuke Japan.

Now admit you’re wrong about him being wrong, and maybe I’ll engage you in a discussion about the other stuff - none of which has anything to do with anything I heard him say on the clips that have been playing.

I don’t like anyone damning anyone or anything else - I said that. I don’t like that Wright did that. But to say he was wrong to do it would be a moral judgement. On those things I heard him state as fact, however, there was nothing he said that was wrong - that I heard, of course. I’ve never heard him speak personally, never been to his church, etc. I’m referring only to what has become part of the public dialogue.

Posted by johnOneOne on 2008-03-16 13:12:54
No, there’s GREAT error in what Wright has said, just as in the case of the others. He damns the nation for bombing Japan, without a mention of the reasoning and necessity for doing so. To listen to him, we just did it for fun. He talks in dispiriting tones as if it were still 1955, and I can’t imagine exposing children or young people to such negative reverse-racist crap.

America invented aids. Everything was a plot to destroy the black man. How ridiculous. If he’d like a little accuracy, he might mention planned parenthood and its roots in the desire to rid the country of blacks and other “undesirables”.

http://www.blackgenocide.org/sanger.html

Wright’s message is misguided, inaccurate and unhealthy, just as is often the message coming from his polar opposites in the clergy. That’s what Obama needs to say, forcefully, and in no uncertain terms.

Problem is, whatever he says at this point may be too little too late.

Posted by Natalie on 2008-03-15 22:47:56
There was no error in what Wright said. There was clear error in what Falwell, Robertson, Hagee, Parsley, and their like have said.

Still, I would not want God to damn any country.

I believe there is still such thing as prophecy, and only in that case should a Christian evoke such an image as a country being damned, but unfortunately from that perspective, I agree with Wright, that America has been and still is on the wrong side. Its death embrace of capitalism, which Jesus himself said precluded service to God, would be enough all by itself.

The scripture says that there is a test for prophets. The word of a true prophets is also true; the word of a false prophet is false. The others were speaking falsely as they spoke. But nothing Wright said was anything but true, and by my estimation, America is not doing so well these days - the jury is out on whether America still might be damned by God.

But again, since I live here, I’m not rooting for its damnation; I’m praying for its undeserved salvation - Christians call that salvation through grace, and believe there is no other kind - just as I believe Jesus would have me do. In fact, I’d guess Wright’s comments were offered in exactly the same spirit.

Posted by johnOneOne on 2008-03-15 18:59:06
Of course they’re both pathetic, ridiculous and offensive. The problem for Obama is that his guy is now the one in the spotlight, and the others are old news and a known and expected quantity.

Most people would probably assume that an Obama preacher would naturally talk only about love, forgiveness, sweetness and light. But that’s far from reality, and will come as a surprise and shock to many.

In general, we shouldn’t paint an entire party or even a candidate in the same picture as a nut-case who happens to be a friend or supporter, as of course has been regularly done with Robertson/Falwell/et al. However, Obama’s long and close association with and admiration for this guy, who apparently regularly spoke in highly divisive, bitter and hateful terms, is certainly newsworthy and seems to reveal a certain hypocrisy on the part of someone advocating “working together” and “inclusiveness” as a central part of his campaign.

What does Obama REALLY believe, and when did he REALLY come to believe it? It’s hard for most to fathom that the Obama they’ve come to know willingly sat in this guy’s church for 20 years. They’ve been led to believe better of him.

Posted by Natalie on 2008-03-15 13:03:35

Email this article to a friend

The ITT List

Which is worse?

16 comments ·

Get the Latest News & Updates

About this Blog

Email this article to a friend

The ITT List

Which is worse?

16 comments ·

More by Adam Doster

Get the Latest News & Updates

About this Blog

RECENT ITT LIST POSTS