Reverend Wright and Rome: Compare to the Sodom and Gomorrah Lesson

See yesterday's "garlic nose" entry.

Is there any doubt that Reverend Jeremiah Wright regards the present U.S.A. as a reincarnation of the most corrpt days of the Roman Empire, with the added common element of evil white people?  I don't think so.

Note that Reverend Wright has added virulent hate speech to a long time evangelical theme.  Yes, it is ironic, in a lot of ways.  Reverend Wright is drawing the same BIBLICAL lessons as Pat Robertson, and some of the fiery preachers of the Christian right (who leftists speak of with contempt, although they have never descended to the hate speech of Jeremiah Wright).

This is the old message of Sdom and Gomorrah--the message of the moral decay that supposedly brought down the Roman Empire.  If Jeremiah Wright had stopped there, or even added some racial sins to the evidence of moral decay, he would be well within a legitimate, if somewhat over the top, stain of religious preaching.  Unfortunately, Reverend Wright went well beyond the warning that God may punish us, like he punished Sodom and Gommorah.  Jeremiah Wright did not pass goal.  He went directly into the evil realm of hate speech.  You can't talk about the white U.S. government inventing the AIDS virus as a means of genocide, and providing drugs to black people so that they will end up in jail, and still claim that you are only talking about Sodom and Gomorrah.  You can't use a term like "garlic nose", and claim that you are only comparing moral decay in the Roman Empire to moral decay in the modern U.S.A.

It is NOT "hate speech" to suggest that God may be punishing us for moral decay (abortiion, homosexual conduct, loose heterosexual conduct, etc.).  It may be over the top, and not useful, but there is a BIG distinction between this Sodom and Gomorrah message and the hate speech of Reverend Wright. 

It is not all that subtle a distinction, but it may be too subtle for the thinking challenged people on the left.  If you say that 9/11 represented GOD'S PUNISHMENT on us for moral decay, you are NOT saying the TERRORISTS are justified.  You are merely saying that God may have allowed the terrorists to succeed to repeat the lesson of Sodom and Gomorrah.   Reverend Wright went much further.  He, in essence, asserted that the U.S.A. is the main source of terrorism and evil in the world, and has been so as far back as World War II, and that the 9/11 terrorists were JUSTIFIED in what they did.   That is far more desicable than the Sodom and Gomorrah message.

Do I think that evangelical preachers are in any position to say that 9/11 represented a punishment/warning from God that we have sunk too far into moral decay?  No, I don't.   I think that is way too arrogant in reading the mind of God (assuming He exists), even if you claim to be able to communicate better with God than most.   However, it is a BIBLICAL lesson--a RELIGIOUS message which is not really anti-American, racist, or hate speech.  It is a fairly normal message of a fire and brimstone preacher talking in apocalyptic terms (not materially different from the apocalyptic message of Al Gore on "global warmng").

Reverend Wright went right past the Bible into the realm of hatred.

Yet, leftists are MUCH more willing to condemn evangelical preachers than they are to condemn Reverend Wright--much more willing, as well, to condemn politicians closely associated with evangelical preachers than to condemn Obama's 20 year implied endorsement of Jeremiah Wright.

You can think that some evangelical preachers are over the top, and even more than slightly nuts.  They are still not the equivalent of a pastor who is also a grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan.  Jeremiah Wright IS the moral equivalent of a grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan (and those who think that the early Klan had NO rightful grievances do not know history, even if those grievances do not copare to the grievance of slavery).

Nope.  There is an essential distinction that HAS to be made here.  There is a huge difference between the hate speech of Jeremiah Wright and the Sodom and Gomorrah lesson.  The Sodom and Gomorrah lesson may be often wrongly applied, but it is still NOT on the same level of evil as Jeremiah Wright.  I use that term advisdedly.  Jeremiah Wright is NOT merely an over the top apocalyptic preacher.  He has been a promoter of EVIL.

That is what is wrong with Barack Obama's defenders.  They assert that no one really thinks that Obama believes in the most ridiculous/evil statements of Jeremiah Wright.  that is not the point.  As I have said before, the question is NOT whether Jeremiah Wright endorsed Barack Obama, or whether Barack Obama believes in everything that Jeremiah WRight said.  The question is whether Barack Obama ENDORESED JERMEIAH WRIGHT, and therefore was guilty of aiding and abetting evil.  It IS exactly the same as a white politician belonging to a church whose pastor is a grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan.  The white politician may not, and probably would not, believe in all of the things represented by the Klan.   But he still would be giving his ENDORSEMENT to what the Klan stands for by belonging to such a church.

This is what I find Barack Obama guilty of, beyond a reasonable doubt.