Pastor Wright

Recently Barack Obama has taken some heat for what his former Pastor said. The video above is one of the sermons that people objected to.

The sermon is hard hitting but from a non-American view point, I don't see anything to object to. About the only thing wrong is that it was said a week or two after 9/11 which in hindsight might have been a tad insensitive... BUT NOT INACCURATE. The reality of 9/11 is that it was America's imperialist foreign policy coming home to roost.

I think the response of the white Christian American establishment is an illustration of just how pervasive culture is to our way of viewing matters of faith. Some time back I posted an interview with Pastor John MacArthur who was interviewed around the same time as this sermon. Pastor MacArthur was arguing that there was biblical justification for attacking Iraq. What a contrast to this sermon!

Jumping to our own setting... 2008 New Zealand... I wonder what ways we are "corrupted" by our culture??? I suspect our goal orientated, time poor take on life impacts. Our individualistic, self sufficient approach must impact. And how about our approach towards Maori and Polynesian, Asian, Somali and African immigrants?

As Pastor Wright says... times like this are not a time for judging others... rather a time for looking at our own relationship with Jesus and his merry band of misfits (The Church).