Obama Leaves Church Not A Moment Too Soon-But Is He Too Late?

It has just been announced that Barak Obama has resigned as a member of Trinity Church, which he attended for more than twenty years, and where he was married and he and his children were baptized. The recent statements of visiting Priest Father Pfleger seem to have been the final straw. SOme might say such a move is self-serving, but it is appropriate nonetheless

It’s one thing for a guy like Jeremiah Wright to get up in the pulpit on a Sunday and preach “God Damn America”-pastors of all stripes, liberal and conservative, do that all the time. In Wright’s case, and in all other such cases, it’s vile and sickening-and for that matter, it approaches psychotic.

When a guy like Pfleger stands up in the church and, in the midst of a “sermon”, takes any kind of stand during a political campaign in favor of one candidate over another even in mild terms, he has suddenly brazenly defied the constitution. People whom I would ordinarily consider jack-booted thugs now have every right to march into the middle of the assembly, arrest this perpetrator-in addition to any who might rise to object to his arrest-and padlock the doors of the church. If in the meantime the building ends up burning to the ground, well, that might just be a happy “accident”.

I’ll just come out and say it-at least one church somewhere straddles the line in one way or another every Sunday morning. However, they do so generally in the context of the ills of society and the need for individuals and families to be aware of the sin around them that is or might be part of their lives and how it affects them, as well as how it is encouraged by certain elements of society-including the government at times.

Pfleger, however, did far more than approach the line and dare the other side to cross. He jumped back and forth across the line and motioned his listeners to follow him over it.

What Pfleger’s rant against Hilary Clinton had to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ-in the doctrine of salvation through grace by way of faith in the crucifixion of Christ, in the shedding of his blood, his burial and resurrection, and the concept of forgiveness of sins-seems to be beyond my meager faculties of comprehension.

Nor was there any kind of social critique that made his screed in any way redeemable. It was nothing in fact but a rage against white people, from a white guy, by the way, that looks and sounds like twenty years ago he would probably be jamming to Vanilla Ice or NWA, flashing gang signs, and saying “Yo Dog, dig it,” twenty times a day.

He’s not the only one to do this kind of thing. He’s neither the first nor will he be the last. There are preachers, priests, and rabbis of all political persuasions who do this kind of stuff, to one degree or another. Black churches are among the worse offenders. I have known-and admittedly, this is anecdotal, but I have no reason to doubt it-of some black churches in which political pamphlets shared space on tables with spiritual tracts and church programs.

In some cases, it would seem that the people most inclined to rage to the heavens about separation of church and state just happen to be the worse offenders. Well, they are breaking what is among the most sacrosanct of secular laws, and in my humble opinion, that law needs to smash them like a rock.

Nor should it stop with them. It’s high time the federal government exercised its legitimate powers in enforcing the constitution and the Bill of Rights and put all of its offenders to the rack. There are a handful of mosques, especially in the heavier populated urban areas, that could probably stand a good spring-cleaning as well.

Left too long unattended, garbage begins to pile up, until it mildews and rots, whereupon it stinks and draws maggots and rodents. It’s high time we took out the garbage. In fact, it’s way past time.