It seems that the machine continues to try and justify the words of Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Most recently what is being attempted is trying to equate the words of Wright with the words of well known orthodox ministers, such as Francis Schaeffer. What is hope to be accomplished is not only that Wright’s words will be seen as justified but also that orthodox ministers will be seen as extremist as Wright.
Unfortunately, it is Franky Schaeffer that is leading the charge against his own dead father’s memory. In a column written yesterday Franky wrote that,
When my late father — Religious Right leader Francis Schaeffer — denounced America and even called for the violent overthrow of the US government, he was invited to lunch with presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush, Sr.
Franky seems to forget that not all denouncements are equal. Francis Schaeffer’s denouncements were against those matters which Scripture denounces, and Franky’s Dad didn’t suggest that the sins of this country belonged uniquely to any one people group. Wright on the other hand denounced a country and a people that in the last 50 years has bent over backwards to accommodate black sensibilities — to the great harm of black and white people alike. The accommodation of which we speak has come in the form of Welfare, Quotas, Family, and Education policy and legislation and has only made muckier the mire that many black people are stuck in while at the same time impoverishing a nation while creating a new plantation massa class in governmental politicians and bureaucrats to which blacks and whites are both enslaved. Franky apparently remains too bitter towards his father and towards what his father built in order to see that not all denunciations are created equal.
Franky goes on with his immoral moral equivalence argument,
Every Sunday thousands of right wing white preachers (following in my father’s footsteps) rail against America’s sins from tens of thousands of pulpits. They tell us that America is complicit in the “murder of the unborn,” has become “Sodom” by coddling gays, and that our public schools are sinful places full of evolutionists and sex educators hell-bent on corrupting children. They say, as my dad often did, that we are, “under the judgment of God.” They call America evil and warn of immanent destruction. By comparison Obama’s minister’s shouted “controversial” comments were mild. All he said was that God should damn America for our racism and violence and that no one had ever used the N-word about Hillary Clinton.
America should be condemned for what Franky notes above. Wright fault wasn’t in saying God D*&% America. Wright’s fault is that his purported evidence couldn’t carry the weight of his indictment. Wright also made blanket bigoted statements against white people as a whole — something that his father never did regarding any people group. Wright’s comments weren’t mild because Wright’s comments, unlike Franky’s fathers, missed the mark. 1.3 million aborted children annually confirm America’s indictment. Nobody can confirm that the American government infected black people with AIDS per Wright’s indictment. If any minister is going to say that ‘we are under the judgment of God’ he better have his facts straight. Wright didn’t.
Finally, on this score, Wright made it clear on the video clip that he wasn’t going to sing God Bless America because “uh uh uh, God D*&^ America,” suggesting that his congregants would be better served singing that refrain. There are few people that are harder on the sins of this nation then myself but I sing ‘God Bless America’ with passion because it is my desire that God would bless America. I don’t want God to D*&% America though I know a just God eventually will unless we repent.
Franky, you’re comparing apples and mosquito bites.
Franky continues quoting from His Father’s book, “A Christian Manifesto” — a book that every thoughtful Christian should read,
If there is a legitimate reason for the use of force [against the US government]… then at a certain point force is justifiable….
In the United States the materialistic, humanistic world view is being taught exclusively in most state schools… There is an obvious parallel between this and the situation in Russia [the USSR]. And we really must not be blind to the fact that indeed in the public schools in the United States all religious influence is as forcibly forbidden as in the Soviet Union….
There does come a time when force, even physical force, is appropriate… A true Christian in Hitler’s Germany and in the occupied countries should have defied the false and counterfeit state. This brings us to a current issue that is crucial for the future of the church in the United States, the issue of abortion… It is time we consciously realize that when any office commands what is contrary to God’s law it abrogates it’s authority. And our loyalty to the God who gave this law then requires that we make the appropriate response in that situation…
Again, Franky wants us to believe that this language is at least as bad, if not worst then what Rev. Jeremiah Wright said. But consider that Dr. Schaeffer’s diagnosis was accurate, whereas Rev. Wright’s comments were not accurate. The reason that Wright has incensed so many people is not because he is a black man and people are showing their racism by having a different standard for him then what was applied to Francis Schaeffer. The reason that Wright has incensed so many people is that the reasons that he is giving for his indictment is either old news that no longer is the current coin(Tuskegee experiments, Jim Crow) or is just plain loopy (Government infecting black population with AIDS).
Franky complains that a double standard is also seen in the Wright case in the response each has generated. Franky says his dad was wined and dined by the Republican political establishment when he gave his sermons while quite to the contrary Wright is being vilified. Franky complains that while his dad was embraced the outcry is for Wright to be denounced. The answer to that though is easy to see. What Dr. Schaeffer was saying resonated with people. People could see that a tectonic cultural shift had taken place and they sensed that Dr. Schaeffer had his finger on the pulse of the reasons behind that shift. Rev. Jeremiah Wright on the other hand is in lala land with his accusations. They bear no correspondence to reality. It is the difference between embracing a physician who rightly diagnosis gangrene in the right leg of a sick man, calling for it to be cut off, and repudiating a physician for wrongly diagnosing gangrene in the left leg of a sick man, when in point of fact it is the right arm that is gangrenous. There is no moral equivalence between Franky’s Dad and Rev. Wright, nor is there any double standard between those who heaped accolades upon physician Schaeffer while repudiating physician Wright.
Continuing with Franky,
Take Dad’s words and put them in the mouth of Obama’s preacher (or in the mouth of any black American preacher) and people would be accusing that preacher of treason. Yet when we of the white Religious Right denounced America white conservative Americans and top political leaders, called our words “godly” and “prophetic” and a “call to repentance.”
I don’t believe this is true. Speaking only for myself if you took the exact same words of Dr. Francis Schaeffer and put them in the mouth of an inner city Black minister I would be sending checks to his ministry. Franky’s words reveal that not only does he harbor hatred for his immediate family but also that he harbors hatred for his people in general.
I am saddened for Francis that his son has made an argument that suggests that his dad was no better or worse then Rev. Jeremiah Wright.