I understand what he meant. I mean, heard in fuller context, yes, I do get what he was saying: that this country should be concerned about God’s judgment for many of the choices made by our political leadership. But, often, the words we choose to deliver our message can get in the way of the message itself. Myself being no shrinking violet, I certainly understand the phenomena of hoof-and-mouth disease. What startles me, what really gives me pause, is when the megalomania which is an occupational hazard of the office of Pastor becomes so grossly rabid that one of these loudmouthed, self-absorbed onions would allow his own selfishness to destroy not only his own credibility but derail the most uniquely productive African American social movement of this generation.

The Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr, former pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, the Chicago megachurch where the Obamas have been members for 20 years, is well-known for his fiery rhetoric. Until this week, he *used* to also be known for his keen intellect. It is that very intellect that convicts him, now, as being, sadly, another out-of-control pastoral blowhard. Too many of our pastors fall to the temptation of self, are overcome by the demonic influence of fame. I’m not sure why that is, why so many of us are so spiritually weak that we start believing our farts don’t stink. Yes, pastors are supposed to be strong leaders, decisive men of courage and vision. But, in my experience, the congregation typically goes way, way too far in blessing their pastor, their loyalty to and respect for their pastor becoming a kind of blind obedience and, ultimately, worship.

It is wrong for you to worship your pastor. Sure, show the man some respect—not respect for him but respect for God. But when you take that respect to extremes, the pastor himself becomes n idol. Many of us worship our pastors and treat them like gods. We overlook their smugness, their pettiness. We’ve caught them lying, and just let it go. We know they’re drinking, but we let it go. We know—not suspect, know—they’re sleeping around, but we let it go. We see them in the pulpit, in front of our eyes, the wheels coming of the wagon, and we just look the other way.

For some of us it is fear: nobody wants to accuse the pastor of anything, and nobody wants to stand up to the pastor. So we let it go and let it go.

And this is what we get: a man so self-absorbed, so greedy for attention and so completely in love with the sound of his own voice, that his ego supplants his intellect to the most shocking and gross extreme of possibly torpedoing the first viable black presidential candidacy. All Reverend Wright had to do was keep his mouth shut. And he couldn’t do it.

God does not inspire us to be morons. God does not inspire us to put our own need for attention over the needs of others. Reverend Wright’s utterly ridiculous “God damn America!” rhetoric was not in any way inspired by God—although he could have simply said “God *judge* America,” but then he wouldn’t have been on tee-vee. Wright is a manuscript preacher, which is to say he writes his sermons out in length rather than preach from an outline. It is, therefore, reasonable to assume he had time to consider his words, to shape them, to marinate them. To let them sit for a few days. To consider his words very carefully, knowing one of his members was either running (or abut to run) for the Democratic presidential nomination. Knowing this full well, Wright chose those words to express an otherwise reasonable concept. He chose them. He did not blurt them out by accident. He can't possibly claim to have mis-spoken. Wright knew what he was doing, knew what was at stake, did it anyway. Should Obama win the nod, Wright will be the star of many 507 political action group ads. More likely, he has fueled the visceral ballast ("gut feeling") many Democratic superdelegates need to deny Obama the nomination.

The man is an onion.

Yes, it’s important to respect our pastors. Yes, it’s important to bless them when we can and to see to their needs. But this unchecked hero worship is simply not of God. Pastors lording it over us is not of God. Our turning a blind eye and deaf ear to gross moral failure on the part of our pastors is not of God. Arrogance is not of God. Self is not of God. Certainly, being a moron who can’t or won’t police up what he’s saying at so critical a time and with so critical a connection to the leading presidential contender is most certainly not of God.

This is a prime example of the black church’s chief weakness: our unwillingness to hold our leaders or ourselves accountable. In the end, I can’t even blame the pastors. I have to blame those of us too weak in our own convictions to stand up for God and His righteousness, His holiness. To tell the emperor he has no clothes.

George Will makes a good point, that Wright’s rhetoric strikes at the very heart of Obama’s strength, first in that he is post-racial or beyond using race as an issue, and that he’s beyond what will called “the acoustics of the 1960’s,” that he is not blaming America so much as holding its leaders accountable. Wright’s rhetoric (and, to a lesser extend, Obama’s wife Michelle’s) undermines those claims and traps Obama in the malaise of race and blame-America-first. Clips of Wright and Michelle Obama will most certainly be in high rotation, if not from the GOP then certainly from the swiftboat crowd.

In the end, I suppose I have to ultimately hold Obama himself responsible for this mess. Now the hunt is on to see which Sundays Obama attended over the past twenty years, and what nutty things this guy has said during the times Obama attended. There is bund to be a clip of Wright saying something ridiculous and Obama applauding. I’d be shocked if the GOP didn’t already have it. Obama *had* to know these clips were out there. For him to get broadsided by it (I presume, to some extent, in retaliation for the Ferraro flap) seems to me an amateur move on Barack’s part. The Clinton campaign is *bound* to say, “Do we really want a guy so politically naïve answering the red phone?”

I’m not sure this blows over. I’m not sure this goes away. And, as annoyed as I am with the good reverend, I think, at the end of the day, this one’s Obama’s fault. If he was even *contemplating* running for president, he should have left that church years ago.