This is from the comment section of the dotcommonweal blog:
by Bernard Dauenhauer on March 18th, 2008 at 9:14 am
Reports of some of Rev. Wright’s remarks certainly bothered me at first. I’m a comfortable white male whose life has been, relatively speaking, easy. But then I realized that when my wife and I talk together about a number of facets of American life, for example the constant expression in the media of America’s moral greatness and generosity, we can barely contain our anger at the travesty. That Rev. Wright, with a perspective generated by a lifetime in confronting wretched conditions, would express outrage is hardly a reason for me, or anyone, to denounce him as somehow “unAmerican.” What about the kinds of things that Dorothy Day regularly said and wrote? Frankly, when I think hard about God’s justice, I have to pray hard for His mercy, since I have lived in such comfort while so many of the poor that He loves so much and live so near me have not led me to protest more vigorously and act more resolutely to aid them.This is not a campaign speech for Obama. It is, instead, a reflection on the hypocrisy to which so many of us comfortable Christian Americans are so constantly tempted.
Reports of some of Rev. Wright’s remarks certainly bothered me at first. I’m a comfortable white male whose life has been, relatively speaking, easy. But then I realized that when my wife and I talk together about a number of facets of American life, for example the constant expression in the media of America’s moral greatness and generosity, we can barely contain our anger at the travesty. That Rev. Wright, with a perspective generated by a lifetime in confronting wretched conditions, would express outrage is hardly a reason for me, or anyone, to denounce him as somehow “unAmerican.” What about the kinds of things that Dorothy Day regularly said and wrote? Frankly, when I think hard about God’s justice, I have to pray hard for His mercy, since I have lived in such comfort while so many of the poor that He loves so much and live so near me have not led me to protest more vigorously and act more resolutely to aid them.This is not a campaign speech for Obama. It is, instead, a reflection on the hypocrisy to which so many of us comfortable Christian Americans are so constantly tempted.
1 comment:
preach. its so refreshing when someone articulates what I feel in my heart. My goal in life is to figure out how to live amidst this paradox of hyprocisy--for I too am comfortable but not blind.
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