I am an Anglo pastor to a mostly Native American church. Today's lectionary readings included Paul's beautiful proclamation to the philosophers on Mars Hill. Much of its power lies in Paul's ability to reach out to people where they were and lead them into the truth. Wright reaches out to people who have experienced racism and pulls them into lives of activism and caring for others who have been marginalized. We may wish they could just listen to NPR and then go out and do likewise, but that's not where they start out.

In Paul's story, and in so many others, Paul had to move on and let the Holy Spirit continue God's work in that place. Paul couldn't close the deal. He wasn't perfect. He made mistakes throughout his ministry. But he grabbed onto people, and that required going where they were.

I am a Clinton supporter, but I am also a student of prophetic preaching. This country needs more of it. It's not white bread; it's hard stuff to hear. But if it makes someone — even you, Joan — think, "racism is wrong, no matter which direction it comes from," than the Spirit is working in Jeremiah Wright. It's a language you may not understand, a language with which you may not be comfortable, and a language of which I frequently disapprove, but it's the real deal, and it's not the heresy you'd like to think it.

also profoundly depressed by Joans post. I found myself thinking this post might be either too short, or too long,

for Joan to win back the Salonistas. It's too long because already, for some people, the thrill is gone, the honeymoon

is over, even Joans's fans are starting to ask tough questions. It's too short because the "conversation about Joan" we all keep promising to have has barely begun, and it would take longer than November to hash out how much

Joan's role in Salon should mean to her. But Joans post had

to be troubling to anyone who cares about race relations, American politics or the campaign. Now there are new and longer excerpts from Joan's other postings, and Joan will also post again monday morning. Clearly the Joan story isn't going away. My goal in this post is to try not to treat Joan the way Joan seems to treat the idea of America; to not utterly damn Joan because some of (a lot of? I'm not sure) what Joan has said is disturbing and wrong. I am grateful to Joan for posting so much. I enjoyed her thoughtful conversation with herself. But the whole idea that Joan has been attacked over "soundbites," and if we saw her entire posts, in context, we'd feel differently, now seems ludicrous. The long posts Joan posts only confirm what was in her snippets (and the longer excerpts out today are even more troubling) and it could be especially deadly for Joan but that's not why I am posting - I profoundly would like to get in contact with AJCalhoun and Tom Payne and if you read this -

please contact: "schwarzfilmdo@aol.com.

MCcain's already using Wright to paint Obama into a corner. Any more obvious observations? You're so astute it's almost cute.

claiming to be so worried about Joan and Salon. They should worry about their candidate, Obambi, who is dying like a dog out there. Has to go crawling to Fox News to get the report of his influence peddling off the front page.

If this article appeared under the name of Lanny Davis, James Carville or some other obvious Clinton surrogate, it would not trouble me in the least.

But the Editor of Salon.com's name is the author.

There are only two possible explanations for an article like this one appearing on Salon:

1. Ms. Walsh is a closet Clinton surrogate; or,

2. The Clinton campaign apparatus has actually convinced the media, including but not limited to Salon.com, that not only is the Wright/Obama relationship and important issue, it's THE most important issue!

In the midst of a presidential election that finds the country mired in 2 wars, the capital markets undergoing a revamping unseen since the days of the Great Depression, the housing market imploding upon itself---values are down by 40% in some parts of the country; when we see the nation's wealth being transferred abroad to countries like Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran and Venezuela; when the economy sits flat in recession mode and the average citizen has to endure gasoline prices that have the same effect on their household budgets as do tax hikes....

Salon's Editor is doing an exegesis on the text of sermons by an obscure pastor from a little church in Chicago.

Let's check and see if McCain has an old Navy buddy that he's known for 20 years who may have made some outrageously racist, for example, comments. Or maybe HRC had a prof at Wellesley during her college days that she's kept in touch with and who proudly to this day considers herself a Marxist (the prof, that is.)

Instead of helping citizens understand the real and complex issues that the nation and its leadership must confront, the media unwittingly is parodying itself by lavishing coverage on nonsense.

I thought Wright made it clear that his condemnation of America for failing its promises was a damning of government, by definition fallible (as he indicated any government is), for its sins in the eyes of God. It did not seem to me that he was an extremist; it seemed he was someone who has read and understood the Bible and its meanings. I say meanings because Wright made it clear throughout the conversation that culture must be part of the equation since culture determines how we see and hear. In this sense, what the brouhaha over Wright has to say about the prevailing American culture is, definitely, cause for depression, but for reasons having little to do with Jeremiah Wright.

I was enraged when I heard the extended excerpts from Wright's sermons--enraged that he had been so smeared, that his remarks had been so distorted. His sermons did not seem to me extremist, at all. If anything, they seemed conservative, in the true sense of that word--an appeal to conserve the values and traditions of both the Bible and our country, which we have forsaken over and over. I found his conversation and the excerpts of his sermons thought-provoking and challenging. They challenge us to lift ourselves to the better part of our nature, to live up to our promise. He spoke of our treatment of Native Americans, of the Japanese, of blacks and the poor to illustrate his claim that we have not lived up to our promise and that equality remains a myth. I don't think anyone needs to look any farther than the 47 million who live without health insurance to know that this claim is based in reality. What's extreme is the reality, the distance we allow between the ideals we espouse and the many ways we spurn them.

Wright sees the world through, as he put it, the hermeneutics of religion, and this is obviously going to affect his vision of everything. He is clearly learned and steeped in the Bible and history. (As a friend who lives in Chicago pointed out, you don't get into the University of Chicago unless you're very, very smart.) I found myself so compelled by his remarks and the conversation that if I lived in Chicago, I'd go to his church. I'd go just for the mental stimulation. I'm not religious, but I'd go. Wright's rhetorical skills, his ability to shift from one level of diction to another so seamlessly, his gifts as a motivational speaker--all of these seemed so obvious to me as I listened to him that I couldn't imagine anyone, having watched the interview, ever wondering again why Obama would attend Wright's church. One of the things that draws him must be language itself.

I was depressed by the conversation only in this sense: the public dialogue has been so debased that conversations like this rarely occur. Before the conversation was aired, I saw the soundbyte that had been wrested from it that had Chris Matthews screaming Obama would be even more damaged by the interview. (Yes, Chris, if you keep playing the misleading soundbyte and screaming.) After the conversation, I heard Bill Maher make the same point as Matthews and call Wright a dick. (At least Maher's doing a comedy show.)

This is what should be filling all of us with despair.

Jeremiah Wright is wrestling with complicated theological problems. He has spent his ministry trying to unite his church with the world around his church. That he began 41 years ago with 87 people in the congregation and built that number to over 6000 says something about him and his gifts. He is not leading a cult. He is leading people who seek meaning in their lives. I for one admire Obama for choosing such a pastor.