Controversial pastor Jeremiah Wright, infamous during the 2008 presidential campaign because of his incendiary political rhetoric while Barack Obama was his parishioner, came to a suburban Northern Virginia church to commemorate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Mostly avoiding controversial statements during his January 14 remarks, Wright emphasized the continuity of black people’s history.
“You mean to tell me that Africans didn’t do nothin’ before slavery?” Wright humorously quipped at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Woodbridge, Virginia, which hosted a black tie banquet for him. “God’s presence was with us before slavery, at the origins of civilization. God’s presence was with us during slavery—from Harriet Tubman through Nat Turner. God’s presence delivered us from slavery. After being free we did not say ‘Thank Abraham Lincoln almighty,’ we said, ‘Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’…Tell them about God’s presence in the valleys, and in the victories.”
Wright’s recent comments in Virginia contrasted with his controversial earlier declaration in to 2008 that the 9-11 attacks were “America’s chickens coming home to roost,” and his call for “God [to] damn America!” Now retired from Trinity United Church of Christ, where he is pastor emeritus, Wright was the featured speaker for Ebenezer Baptist Church’s fundraiser called: “Inspired by the Past, Embracing the Future.” Proceeds from the evening were earmarked for the church’s “community-focused program,” such as breakfasts for the homeless and holiday meals for the needy. The church described Wright as an “internationally acclaimed theologian, scholar and author.”
Emphasizing the central importance of passing down one’s story for future generations to hear and to live into, Wright applied this theme to the African-American context, in the spirit of celebrating King’s legacy. He urged attendees to remind their children how God has actively worked in the lives and history of His people.
The text Wright based his address on came from Joshua 4, in which God instructs Joshua to choose one representative from each of the tribes of Israel to gather a stone from the Jordan River. Wright’s interpretation of the text was predominantly centered on a portion of verse 6: “In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’” Wright answered the question using his own words: “Tell them about our past, tell them our story.”
Wright made his point by citing some of the well-known political revolutions throughout history, encouraging African-Americans to participate in a similar undertaking. He specifically highlighted the French Revolution and the Haitian Revolution [though interestingly not the American Revolution] before going on to observe: “Every people—except black people—wrote their story down, passed down their story, told their children their story, preserved their story in history.”
Though Wright was referring to the distinct history of African-Americans, his address centered on God as the focal point of their past, even as He continues to be in the present and will be in the future. “Tell them about God’s presence, tell them about God’s provision, and tell them about God’s promise,” he urged as the threefold thesis of his lesson.
Wright went on to make several points referencing the unique and ambivalent history of the African-American story. Through it all, though, he emphasized the continuity of God’s providence tracing back God’s faithfulness to His people—as He was to Moses and Joshua, and as He has been in the lives of African-Americans.
To make his point, Wright quoted the late, provocative black psychologist and sociologist Bobby Wright, who coined the term “mentacide,” which described how he believed white society has historically brainwashed black people, robbing them of their culture and historical memory. “If you keep starting your story at slavery, you will forever have a slave mentality,” Rev. Wright quoted Bobby Wright as saying. This evoked the essence of Rev. Wright’s address—that African-Americans ought not to forget their past. They rightly acknowledged God in the darkest of valleys (i.e. slavery and segregation) and in the greatest of triumphs (i.e. abolition and the success of the Martin Luther King, Jr-led nonviolence movement).
More broadly, Christians as the holy and catholic Church ought not forget that personal experiences and histories are always subject to a greater narrative, something Rev. Wright may have been well served to articulate. This narrative is proclaimed in the Holy Scripture and indeed continues to be played out even today. It is then an obligation to properly situate the various subplots of history within a context that transcends particularity of individual experience. This rightfully points us toward the witness of God’s work, truth, and providence throughout history, even as we remember and pass down to succeeding generations how God has faithfully worked in our various situations and histories—in this case, African-Americans.
Perhaps Rev. Wright would agree that such recognition entails requisite spiritual dispositions, such as humility, to deny our own work in these various and particular histories. Whether it is that of African-Americans or any other, Christians must ensure that the glory and praise is rightfully given to the triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—faithfully carrying out and responding to our unique contexts and callings as the body of Christ.
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