How well does your Pastor define you?
Barack Obama's former pastor in Chicago is in the news and folks on the right side of the political spectrum are using it against Barack. The pastor has said some pretty bold, and an occassionally unbelievable things. But then what pastor hasn't said something crazy really?
It makes me wonder a few things:
first- video outside the context of the church is not as helpful as we hope it is. The video circulating youtube and the like means something really different to the people in the church in that local community than it does to you and me. We hear it differently. (Don't read this as a defense of what he said, I haven't heard it all. But this is true.)
second - As much as the average Senior Pastor hopes, wishes or believes that his/her congregation believes the same thing they do, it's simply not true. Often, the Senior Pastor is tolerated, while the real richness of the community is what engages people. this certainly isn't news to the people in the pews. But it might be to you if you are a Sr Pastor.
Can a person go to a church and regularly disagree with the preacher? abosolutely. it happens every week in your church.
It makes me wonder a few things:
first- video outside the context of the church is not as helpful as we hope it is. The video circulating youtube and the like means something really different to the people in the church in that local community than it does to you and me. We hear it differently. (Don't read this as a defense of what he said, I haven't heard it all. But this is true.)
second - As much as the average Senior Pastor hopes, wishes or believes that his/her congregation believes the same thing they do, it's simply not true. Often, the Senior Pastor is tolerated, while the real richness of the community is what engages people. this certainly isn't news to the people in the pews. But it might be to you if you are a Sr Pastor.
Can a person go to a church and regularly disagree with the preacher? abosolutely. it happens every week in your church.
posted by mark at
1:28 PM
4 Comments:
I've heard an awful lot out of Jeremiah Wright over the last couple of days. Enough to convince me that he means every darn word.
Mr. Obama's been going there twenty years. Sure he's been going there that long and harboring serious disagreements about race with his pastor.
I'm pretty sure that even if he gets the nomination, the repeated playing of his pastor's clips will pretty much ensure that this election will greatly exacerbate racial tensions in this country and result in possibly the biggest election-day butt-kicking since Mondale lost forty-nine states.
somehow I knew that you might show up for this post Dan.
Coffee sometime man?
It's been three years of you turning me down. Perhaps it's the audacity of hope that you might actually get a cup of joe with me.
i'll buy!
I'm there for all your posts, Mark. You're on my Google Reader list. Congratulations on your fitness progress, by the way.
As far as coffee goes, I keep telling you that we've already met for coffee--I mean, you're not prepared to tell me that you absolutely know we haven't, right?
oh dan, i hold it with a very strong confidence that we have not met for lunch. but, i'm humble enough to say, that you are a man of intergrity, if you say we met, i trust you. though i don't remember meeting, or having a conversation.
forgive me, but i'm fairy sure I'd remember meeting you my friend.
and thanks for the encouragement on getting in shape.
btw my oldest son is now a yellow belt over at apollo's karate.
He's enjoying it.
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