The Prophetic Imagination of Jeremiah Wright

Like many people interested in both religion and politics, I've closely followed the controversy surrounding Barack Obama and his retired pastor, Jeremiah Wright.

My interest is multi-faceted: I'm a committed Obama supporter; I've visited Wright's church, Trinity UCC, on several occasions and have had positive experiences each time; and since moving to Chicago, I've learned a lot about the dynamics of the black church and black preaching, something that the majority of white America seems woefully ignorant about.

I've written about this on my Fourth Church Youth Blog: Pastors, Prophets and Politicians and This Is a Religious Issue. My pastor, John Buchanan, has made public statements about this, both from the pulpit and in the editorial page of The Christian Century.

Now, thanks to Mike Leaptrott, I've found a statement about Wright from my academic and pastoral hero, Walter Brueggemann. Brueggemann's book, The Prophetic Imagination, has been one of the most profoundly influential books in my life. In this book he describes the nature and practice of biblical prophecy and suggests how the church can embody truly prophetic ministry today. I knew he would have good things to say about the Wright controversy, and I was pleased to find his comments.

You can read his statement in its original context here, but I will also quote it in full.

The current spasm of "righteous indignation" concerning Jeremiah Wright, Sen. Barack Obama's pastor, smacks of embarrassing ignorance. Such a critique of Wright is ignorant of black preaching rhetoric and the practice of liberation interpretation. It is also disturbingly ignorant of the prophetic traditions of the Bible that regularly expose the failures of society in savage rhetoric. I am grateful for the ministry of Wright, a colleague of mine in the United Church of Christ, who for a very long time has been a faithful pastor and a daring prophetic figure. It is odd when right-wingers misconstrue this belated Jeremiah as they do the original Jeremiah, who knew about God's passion for truth-telling in risky places.