You will be hated by all on account of my name

I should be happy right?  Last month Barack Obama squirmed while his preacher shot his mouth off.  Now it's John McCain's turn to squirm, as one of his boosters gets caught anointing Hitler as the second coming of King Cyrus.  This tit-for-tat religious weirdness should limit the damage Rev. Wright has done to his parishioner, No?

But I'm not happy.  It means that the public face of Christianity in America just gets uglier and uglier. 

Jeremiah Wright.  John Hagee.  T.D. Jakes.  Joel Osteen.  Al Sharpton.  Pat Robertson.  Jesse Jackson.  Jerry Falwell.  Hacks.  Heretics.  Peddlers who falsify the gospel, they are motivated by selfish ambition, envy and rivalry.  They traffic in grievance.  They're shallow.  The increase the suffering of those who proclaim Christ out of love.

There may be more to Wright and Hagee than nutty statements about the government concocting AIDS to kill black people, or how today's Middle East conflict is all foretold in the scriptures.  But it's right to condemn these statements. 

And it's right to want something better. 1 Peter cautions its readers, "If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed... But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief... or even a mischief maker."  We haven't had a Christian in public life who's suffered for the right reasons in quite a while.  Maybe since MLK.  We've been cursed with a bunch of mischief makers who, outside their little personality cults and media empires are held beneath contempt, for entirely understandable reasons.

My prayer is for public Christian leadership that's hated for all the right reasons.

Comments

[Elaine]

Beautifully said.

Thank you.

Elaine
Norman, Ok