Martin Luther King in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail:

In spite of my shattered dreams, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, would serve as the channel through which our just grievances could reach the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed.

I have heard numerous southern religious leaders admonish their worshipers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers declare: “Follow this decree because integration is morally right and because the Negro is your brother.” In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard many ministers say: “Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern.” And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular.

I have traveled the length and breadth of Alabama, Mississippi and all the other southern states. On sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at the South’s beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward. I have beheld the impressive outlines of her massive religious education buildings. Over and over I have found myself asking: “What kind of people worship here? Who is their God? Where were their voices when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words of interposition and nullification? Where were they when Governor Wallace gave a clarion call for defiance and hatred? Where were their voices of support when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?”

Yes, these questions are still in my mind. In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Yes, I love the church. How could I do otherwise? I am in the rather unique position of being the son, the grandson and the great grandson of preachers. Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.

There was a time when the church was very powerful–in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being “disturbers of the peace” and “outside agitators.”‘ But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were “a colony of heaven,” called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be “astronomically intimidated.” By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests. Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent–and often even vocal–sanction of things as they are.

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.

Perhaps I have once again been too optimistic. Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world

One of my earliest memories is asking my father at the breakfast table the morning after King’s assassination, “why would anyone shoot a preacher?”

A few years later in my white church I heard rampant racist comments from many members and some Deacons. [I am proud to say that none of our pastors ever countenanced same.]

I confronted the racists, steeled in my resolve by the Word of the Lord in Scripture and the examples of my father and mother who were instrumental in integration efforts in my hometown.

Over the years that followed, I watched King’s Christian moral challenge resonate and take hold among white people, especially those in white churches.

I have attended many black churches over the years and had never heard anything approaching the hate-filled un-Christian message of Jeremiah Wright.

I certainly reject the notion that more than only a small percentage of black churches have ever abided such sermons for than two seconds, i.e. the time it would take for Deacons to escort such profane purveyors of hate out of the sanctuary.

Liberal journalist Joe Klein agrees.

Barack Obama’s pastor and mentor of twenty years, the now infamous Reverend Jeremiah Wright now asserts that criticism of his views are attack on US black churches

Much of yesterday’s prepared speech, before a largely African-American audience, was devoted to the history of black US churches. Wright argued the soundbites that have done such damage to the Obama campaign came from a failure to understand traditions of black worship.

“This is not an attack on Jeremiah Wright,” he said. “It has nothing to do with Senator Obama. It is an attack on the black church launched by people who know nothing about the African-American religious tradition.”

I have seen very few black church leaders denounce and reject this slander in the now, more than 48 hours since same was uttered.

One exception is the Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson, who has been an Amos crying in the wilderness for many years declaring a crisis at the soul of black America.

I have to admit that I am shocked that there has not been a large and loud outcry from The Black Church.

I am still confident that the overwhelming majority of black churches do not affirm Wright’s hate-filled and conspiracy kook views, and am confident that they love this country and all people, even whites.

But, I am greatly disturbed by the silence, much as Dr. King was disturbed as he languished in an Alabama jail surrounded by scores of white Christian churches.

For Christians, there is a higher calling above politics and race. Many white churches failed to answer the calling for too long in this country. Black churches in the Body of Christ are accountable to the same calling. They are failing now with their silence.

It is true that some are actually defending Wright, but they are few. The real noise is the silence of the masses.

I think this is a critical moment for America that goes well beyond Obama and the Presidency. With all the media bemoaning of suspicions of racism among whites in Pennsylvania that voted for Hillary, the fact is that Obama won the white male vote in many states, even Georgia, no less, before people learned more about him.

As evidence of his character and judgment has come out, his share of the white vote has dropped. But his share of the black vote remains constant.

So who is voting on race? Can Obama say or do anything save change his skin color and still garner nine out ten votes from those of similar hue?

The Black Church is silent. This white Christian that called out his fellow baptists over 30 years ago wonders,

Is the Black Church dead?

[UPDATE]

James Taranto’s WSJ, Best of the Web column echos and expands on this issue:

Where They Agree
Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright seem to agree that Wright speaks for black America:

• Obama, March 18: “I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.”

• Wright, April 28: “This is not an attack on Jeremiah Wright. It is an attack on the black church.”

Is Wright really representative of “the black community” or “the black church”? We noted this exchange on Fox News’s “Special Report With Brit Hume” last night:

Mort Kondracke: The idea that all this is an attack on the black church is utterly false. Juan Williams, our pal, is the author of a book on the black church, and he says that there isn’t one in ten black churches that indulge in this kind of nationalism that Reverend Wright practices.
Hume: When I was covering the Jesse Jackson campaign in 1988, he campaigned from the left and he did a lot of his speaking at black churches. And I went to those churches with him many times and I heard him speak, and he never said anything like this.

And I said that to him here the other day, and he said no, no, no, I’m not going to touch that.

Then again, if Kondracke and Hume are right, why did the NAACP invite Wright to speak at its Detroit chapter’s dinner on Sunday? The Detroit News reports on the speech:

Wright delivered an unapologetic speech on Sunday, alternately fiery and humorous as he defended the preaching that has taken center stage in the presidential campaign. . . .
While Wright’s remarks have been condemned by Republican politicians and pundits to Obama and his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, the minister got a rousing standing ovation at Sunday night’s Detroit NAACP Fight For Freedom Fund Dinner before a crowd of nearly 10,000.
Before Wright spoke, a series of Detroit religious and civil rights leaders defended him against what they called unfair media attacks and praised his ministry.

Wright is “a great champion of freedom,” said the Rev. Kenneth Flowers of Greater New Mount Moriah Baptist Missionary Church and the head of the local NAACP’s religious affairs council.

Flowers compared Wright to biblical prophets and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as a man “who’s not trying to please the establishment, but to please our God.”

One of Wright’s comments yesterday was especially pernicious:

“Louis Farrakhan is not my enemy. He did not put me in chains, he did not put me in slavery, and he didn’t make me this color.”

Wright was born in Philadelphia in 1941.

Pennsylvania abolished slavery in 1780. Wright’s description of himself as having been “in chains” and “in slavery” is merely vicarious. (Presumably he believes it was God who made him “this color.”) But what is really appalling is the suggestion that Farrakhan is praiseworthy because he “is not my enemy”–i.e., that offenses against blacks are the only ones that count. There is no getting around that this is a racist view.

Where are the moderate black clergymen and political leaders who have stepped up to say that Wright does not speak for them? That’s not a rhetorical question; if you have examples, please send them along.

The Black Church is on trial. Is it pleading the Fifth?

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“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson