{"id":16,"date":"2008-03-16T00:28:11","date_gmt":"2008-03-16T00:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/03\/turning-jeremiah-wright-into-l.html"},"modified":"2008-03-16T00:28:11","modified_gmt":"2008-03-16T00:28:11","slug":"turning-jeremiah-wright-into-l","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/03\/turning-jeremiah-wright-into-l.html","title":{"rendered":"Obama’s Best Line, and His Worst"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cMost importantly, Rev. Wright preached the gospel of Jesus, a gospel on which I base my life. In other words, he has never been my political advisor; he’s been my pastor. And the sermons I heard him preach always related to our obligation to love God and one another, to work on behalf of the poor, and to seek justice at every turn.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

First a small thing: I predict Obama will come to regret saying that the sermons he heard Wright speech \u201calways\u201d related to spiritual matters. That\u2019s just the sort of unequivocal word that prompts investigative journalists to find the gotcha example that contradicts the statement.
\nMore important, those first two sentences in this passage from his Huffington Post statement<\/a> are key to Obama turning the Jeremiah Wright controversy from a potentially devastating negative into a positive. In addition to repudiating Wright\u2019s statements (which he\u2019s now done), Obama also has to further remind people that the main purpose of church (and Rev. Wright) is spiritual not political.
\nThis serves two purposes. First, it reminds people that Obama is not Muslim. No kidding. I think every sentence of elaboration that Obama can offer about his walk with Christ will both help with the Wright situation and the \u201cB. Hussain Obama\u201d issue.
\nSecondly, it subtly highlights something that people find irksome about the way preachers play, and are depicted, in the political world. Most of the ministers that get TV air time in political season are political preachers, or what my colleague David Kuo calls \u201cpoli-pastors.\u201d If you see Pat Robertson or James Dobson on TV enough you come to think that the purpose of most preaching is influencing politics. But the poli-pastors are the exceptions, not the rule. I\u2019m not one who decries the religious influence in politics, but we should remember that most of what most preachers preach most of the time is spiritual not political.
\nBy emphasizing that about Wright, Obama both helps with his political dilemma and also signals that he actually understands what it\u2019s like to sit in the pew on a regular basis, and that for him, his spiritual home is mostly, well, spiritual.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cMost importantly, Rev. Wright preached the gospel of Jesus, a gospel on which I base my life. In other words, he has never been my political advisor; he’s been my pastor. 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Wright preached the gospel of Jesus, a gospel on which I base my life. In other words, he has never been my political advisor; he’s been my pastor. 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