The Problem of Racial Disunity is Rooted in a Spiritual War

"... Where is your brother, Abel?" He said, "I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?" And the LORD said, "What have you done?" Listen: your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground!"

Genesis 4:9-10

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against authorities, against cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Ephesians 6:10-12

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

John 10:10

It was quite an incendiary video clip that was being played over and over on Fox News, taken from the social video site, YouTube. A video snippet from a Chicago- based preacher had gone viral (Thanks to some surreptitious, political trickery from both Democrats and Republicans, and a couple of cable television talk show hosts who aired the edited sermon material almost daily) and the controversy surrounding it, seemed to threaten the presidential candidacy of then, Illinois Senator, Barack Hussein Obama. The Reverend Dr. Jeremiah Wright was captured in full preaching rhythm and sermonic intonation as he deepened his voice and shouted, "The government ... wants us to sing, "God, bless America. No. ... no no, not God bless America ... God damn America! It's in the Bible, for killing innocent people ... for treating her citizens as less than human!" With the controversy over the sermon clips building, and the fact that Senator Obama's church membership was held at Trinity United in Chicago, where Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright had been pastor for nearly three decades, Senator Obama and the watching nation had to once again, come to grips with the issue of race in America, in the spring and summer months of 2008. The issue of what really constitutes racism, prejudice and anti-American hate speech came to America's living rooms, vis-à-vis a bold, well-read, scholarly, fiery, black pastor who was captured shouting into church cameras at a climactic moment in his sermon, what was for some, unpatriotic vitriol or even unchristian, blasphemy; and yet for others, what was heard was passionate, provocative, focused, edgy, preaching in the prophetic tradition of an Amos, Micah, Jeremiah, and even Jesus, all who called for and warned of God's impending justice and judgment that would confront sinning and unrepentant nations. And yet, because of a combination of factors, like: The political machinations of those who wanted to eclipse the meteoric rise of Senator Obama's political star, coupled with a sometimes shallow understanding of the wide and varied biblical tradition that has been given to us by God as a gift to the nation's populace; and a fundamental lack of familiarity, among most whites and many blacks, with the kind of liberation-themed preaching that has marked the black church's pulpits for centuries through preachers like Frederick Douglass, Jarena Lee, Mordecie Johnson, Vernon Johns, Benjamin E. Mayes, Wyatt T. Walker, William Hannah (my late mentor), and Martin Luther King, Jr.; to preachers today like Jessie Jackson, Johnny Ray Youngblood, Charles G. Adams, Gina Stewart, John Bryant, Vashti Mckenzie, Father Michael Pfleger, Frank Reid III, Frank Thomas, Tom Benjamin Jr., Otis Moss Jr., Otis Moss III, Rev. Freddy Haynes, Al Sharpton and Susan B. Cooke, to name a few. The nation was all knotted up in a media driven frenzy. Consequently, the church and nation were shown (via a plethora of dialogues and debates among political pundits, social scientists and clergy) to be made up of fundamentally two different Americas – one Black and the other White; essentially the very thing the Kerner Commission Report had revealed four decades earlier.

African Americans, on the whole, were not as outraged as white Americans were by the Black Liberation Theology rhetoric of Wright; offended by some of his language? Quite possibly, but outraged? Not so much. Whites of all political persuasions (except maybe those who could be categorized as being a part of the far left) were, for the most part, outraged and or shocked, by the kind of speech articulated in the sermon clips that had gone viral. It must be mentioned that it is believed in some circles, that it was Democrat operatives, supporters of Hillary Clinton's bid for the white house, who were behind the initial effort to bring attention to Jeremiah Wright's controversial sermon material; illustrating that playing upon peoples' racial fears has been an equal opportunity tactic used by both white Republicans and Democrats.

This incident had provided another seminal moment in American spiritual/political history. The hot flash of outrage was sending waves of heat throughout the cable television, and social networking world; in town halls and in barbershop and beauty shop hamlets throughout the country. Again the nation was in a position to dialogue, agree, disagree, cry, laugh and shout about the issue of race in America. Not since the O.J. Simpson murder trial, 13 years earlier, had the nation had the mirror of its racial soul held up so closely to our collective racial consciousness. Many political pundits, both liberal and conservative whites, advocated that then Senator Obama quickly denounce and renounce his pastor. Others, especially many of the African American cable news pundits, advocated on behalf of Obama, Wright and the prophetic tradition of the Black Church. Many blacks (though, not all) came to the defense of this candidate and the prophetic religious tradition expressed in his pastor's sermons, in efforts to defend the black church and insulate to some degree, the first really viable African American presidential candidate from what they perceived as a damaging attack from the right wing. Also some pundits, scholars and preachers desired to use this as a teachable moment, and therefore they attempted to explain to the larger populace the rich social gospel, prophetic and liberation tradition that was part of...