Jeremiah Wright and Firestorm Coming to Fort Worth

By Eddie Griffin

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Prelude

Since I go to a church that keeps America in her prayers, I thought it best that I should deal with this “God damn America” preaching. The man who preached these sermons is coming to my hometown.

When it rains, it pours

Oh Lord! Jeremiah Wright, the fiery United Church of Christ preacher whose sermons are now the center of a political firestorm, is coming to Fort Worth to receive an award. On one side of the firestorm are patriots who are offended by Wright’s anti-American hot and fiery “sermons”. On the other side of the controversy are people who proclaim that Wright speaks truth to power, and America cannot handle it. They do not know what black people are commonly saying in private amongst themselves.

Now that ABC News and other networks see fit to let the skeleton out of the closet, Racism has taken center stage in the national political debate. The presidency of the United States is now haunted by ghosts of the past.

Back To The Future

If history repeats itself, this would mean that we have gone back to 1860, a return to the pre-Civil War era of ignorance and intolerance. There was, not then, a sane man left standing... not even now among us. Like a cat entangled in yarn, we are enshrouded in a mass mental pandemic of myopia... what-I-see-in-my-own-eyes-is-my-own-truth... this nonsense, to go along with, our terminal case of self-righteousness.

The way forward is to go back. Duh!

But Moses, we want to go back to Egypt. We’ve got a Red Sea in front of us, and the haters pursuing us. It would have been better had we never gone to the polls and voted.

When Wright is Wrong

Pastor Jeremiah Wright is wrong in saying, “God damn America.” He should have said, “God damn the world.” Now that is scripture:

First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, "Where is this 'coming' he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation." But they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. (2 Peter 3:3-7)

The other is false doctrine. There, I said it... sue me.

Where do people come up with this “black liberation theology”? Politics and the church are as separate as church and state. There is a difference between black liberation ideology and black theology of exploitation. Some people want to drag God into their personal little struggles like taking the Ark of the Covenant into battle.

It is unfortunate the Jeremiah Wright chose to pick on America because of her past sins, and let the whole corrupt world go free. 9-11 was a sin and a crime against humanity. Nobody deserved to perish like that.

But, Brother Griffin, I thought the gospel truth was about our going out into this dark and corrupt world and saving the lost. What in the hell are men preaching nowadays in the pulpit? Who is more lost than the blind leading the blind?

False Doctrine of Black Liberation Theology

What is “Black Liberation Theology”? Through the eyes of a former Black Panther, this theology was a good excuse to talk revolution from the bully pulpit, inflaming souls with words of fiery rhetoric, but when put to the ultimate test, it amounted to nothing more than idle words.

Since we, Panthers, were the embodiment of the so-called black liberation struggle, we made a distinction true revolutionaries and fakers. Even an eloquent speaker like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. could speak of freedom, justice, and equality. But all of this was not the full range of our liberation aspiration.

We utterly rejected the theology of passive resistance and turning the other cheek. We believed and advocated self-defense, which deviated from King’s theology of non-violence.

Other Misguided Liberation Ideology

The black revolutionaries of yesteryears never agreed on what “liberation” really meant. It was like asking a slave what “freedom” means, as an ideal state of our imagination, something of which we had never seen. We could only know the Promise Land, we thought, when we got there. We had no since of direction for lack of vision and leadership.

There were some black militants who saw liberation coming in the form of a Back-to-Africa movement. But that didn’t work. Back in my great-grandma’s day, in order to escape oppression and racial hostilities in America, some Negroes returned to Africa and set up a colony in Liberia.

They learned a very unfortunate lesson. The color of a person’s skin was not the same as race. We were Americanized Negroes, not indigenous Africans. All we had in common was black skin. But African-Americans were westernized and corrupted by colonial thinking. We thought we could impose a Euro-style black colony on the native population. The American Navy had to bail the black colony out of an African uprising. But, today, Liberia is what it is.

Some black militants perceived liberation as forcing the government to give up five southern states to the black populous... along with the forty acres and mule that was promised to the slaves, but never paid... plus a hundred years of accrued interest.

Tragically, this movement led to a bloody shootout and life imprisonment for some black revolutionaries.

Some believed black liberation meant giving air to black culture and arts, as the concept of freedom boiled down to free expressions that had been excluded from the mainstream of America by discrimination.

This Black Nationalism was characterized by fiery poetry and angry depictions of black life in America. The movement created black holidays, like Kwanza. People dawned traditional African garments, adopted Eastern names, and set out to redefine the Negro race.

All of these liberation ideologies, including the so-called black liberation theology, were placations by self-deception. Liberation, on the other hand, for the Black Panthers, meant a Marxist-Leninist bolshevik-style revolution... to overthrown the rich ruling class in America.

Oh brother! Where in the world did we get these insane vain ideas about freedom... freedom for people with black skin? Where are they going to go once they are free? Some people in black skin were already enjoying the heaven-on-earth high life. So, what did they have to benefit from this so-called black liberation? Instead, they set out to stop us and, in the process, became counter-revolutionaries.

And so we were self-assured of internal self-destruction, as a people per se, because every man followed his own directions, going to a place he knew not where, following ill-conceived ideals of making a better world.

Where did it get us?

God Damn the World

We should have realized from the outset that a hundred years past and a hundred years before us would be the same. Man, in the world, is lost. His imagination is vain. He is hopelessly sinful and utterly corrupt. And, if that hurts his feelings, guess what his reward will be.

Don’t Rain on My Parade

We are like children lost in Disneyland. Our parents and forefathers went one way and we went another. How in the world are we going to get home? But then, who cares about home when we are having so much fun, doing what we want to do.

Noah, build an ark. It’s going to rain.

Not on my parade is it going to rain. For as long as America has been America, it has never rained on my parade. The show must go on. Let us eat, and drink, and be merry. Nothing is going to happen. We will never have to pay for our sins.

Oh God! Jeremiah Wright is coming to my hometown of Fort Worth. And, the media will descend like rain. Let me build myself an ark.