Obama’s Church and You

As the controversy swirls around recorded sermons of Barak Obama’s pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ, I read over and over questions about whether the Illinois Senator showed poor judgment by remaining a member of the Church for so long. The fact that we even ask that question reveals a fundamental theological assumption that we should take a moment to reconsider. I am just a layperson, but it is clear to me that there is in fact One True Church under One Head, Jesus Christ.

Throughout all of Christian history there has been a struggle to maintain the spirituality of the One True Church and One True Gospel against the drifting comprehension of a vast collection of fallen people who make up that Body. We can read how Paul and the other apostles tried to steer even the first Century Church away from the errors of legalism or nascent Gnosticism. The struggle to maintain the integrity of the true Church has been pursued with great fervor and through various approaches since that time. There was a long era when Christians killed each other over arguments about what constituted the True Church. Some tried to re-establish the True Church through isolation in monastic movements or Anabaptist sects. The uniquely American model was to angrily, though not usually violently, divide and subdivide into denominations. This was done over increasingly small points of belief or practice, with each new fraction believing that they alone were the True Church.

Fortunately, we have now moved to a largely post-denominational era where we are far less likely to write others off as being outside of our True Church. That feature is good, but we have also moved to a typically American consumer model which says that if I don’t like something about a certain church, I should just shop around until I find one that is good for me. That assumption is what is behind the idea that Barak Obama should have moved-on to another Church because clearly many of his own ideals about race relations and about American politics differed from those of his pastor. If he had changed churches on principal his political opponents would have to find something else to talk about. But what that logic assumes is that if Barak Obama changed churches, he would no longer have any connection with Reverend Wright. That argument assumes that if you are a Christian living somewhere else or attending some other Chicago church, you have no connection to Reverend Wright.

That fits with the recent American consumer model of the definition of the True Church which is essentially self-centered. It says, “I’m really not that concerned with what other Christians believe or do, I’m just looking for a Church that is about what I’m about.” That attitude is certainly better than the model of killing the heterodox, but it does not fit at all well with the Biblical concept of the True Church. Barak Obama came much closer to that model when he said that he could no more disown his pastor than he could disown the black Church as a whole.

The truth is that if you are a Christian of any stripe, you can’t just disown Rev. Wright either. He is your brother in Christ and I suspect that if you sat down to talk to him you would find a great deal in common - probably more than you might find with some other Christians.

We also can’t just disown hate-filled, gay-bashing extremists who call themselves Christians. We can’t just disown the Episcopalian who thinks it is fine to have a gay bishop. We can’t just disown the Catholic who has bought into Mariology. We can certainly disagree with them and we can certainly be concerned about whether they are actually a part of the True Church, but it is God, not us, who knows whether they are or will be part of the Body of Christ. You will not likely have any opportunity to play your “priesthood of all believers” role to steer many of these folks towards the True Gospel, but that does not mean that you should not care.

What people have been saying is that Obama should have left Trinity either on the basis of high principle or out of sense of political common sense. This assumes that, as a believer, Obama should have sought out a True Church where such things are not said. This thinking assumes that we who do not attend Trinity have no connection to it. The Biblical image of the Church does not let us off the hook that easily.

There is only one True Church and anyone who is in it is part of one Body with us. If Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter are Christians (something I have trouble imagining), then they too are part of that one Body and can no more disown Rev. Wright than he can disown them. As a Christian I can proudly claim fellowship with Mother Teresa, Dietrich Bonhoffer or Erasmus, but I can’t claim that I have no connection with the perpetrators of the Inquisition or the European Christians who went along with the Holocaust.

There is no shortage of Christians whom I would love to be able to disown and probably no shortage of Christians who would love to disown me. As both a scientist that accepts evolution theory and a dedicated political moderate I know that I fall outside of many Christians’ concept of orthodoxy. The truth is that according to God’s design for the Church, we are all stuck with each other and we have to trust that God can somehow accomplish his Kingdom goals in spite of this motley band called the Body of Christ.

From our human perspective it is actually outrageous that the God of the Universe would trust a bunch like us to bear the name of Jesus Christ in this world, yet He does, and He expects each of us to help each other try to get and stay on-track in living out the mission of the True Church. Barak Obama should be doing that in his church in Chicago and they should be doing that for him. You and I should be doing that in our churches.

Getting the gospel right matters and none of us should be too quick to assume that we’ve got it all right yet. The amazing thing is that even when we fail to keep our telling and living of the Gospel message free from cultural intrusions, Jesus Christ doesn’t disown us. Just as when He was here, Jesus still associates Himself with a lot of imperfect folks. If Jesus were a figure in the political spotlight today he would be absolutely crucified over the issue of the people with whom he associates. Come to think of it, that is exactly what happened two thousand years ago.