Pastor calls Jeremiah Wright's comments divisive, unscriptural
Bishop Jackson is a minister in Chesapeake, Virginia, and a former high-level official in the Christian Coalition. He says Wright's comments are not only anti-American, but also run counter to scripture. "For example, when [Wright] says God d**** America ... people have used the prophets to justify that. The prophets never cursed Israel. They called Israel to account for sin, but they never cursed Israel," Jackson notes.
Wright's anti-Israel bias, according to Jackson, was also displayed last year when Wright's church -- Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ -- honored Nation of Islam head Louis Farrakhan. Bishop Jackson says there are only two possible explanations for Wright's behavior. "Either Jeremiah Wright is very deeply and profoundly spiritually confused; or frankly, the man just does not know Christ. He's a professional pulpiteer, not a true Christian spiritual leader," Jackson contends.
Jackson encourages Christians across the country to stand against Wright's divisive comments. "We need to love one another and not allow what's happened with Jeremiah Wright to cause us in any way to walk away from what we know is our commitment to love each other regardless of race, color or creed," says the pastor. "I believe that one of the most profoundly important things Dr. [Martin Luther] King [Jr.] said was 'Judge one another not by the color of our skin, but by the content of our character.'"
A Harvard Divinity School graduate, Jackson says Wright's comments represent a radical liberation theology which is heretical in many ways. He believes it is vital for Christians to be educated about the candidates and their beliefs and stances on moral and cultural issues.
Salt & Light Ministries perspective
Many of Pastor Jeremiah Wright's controversial comments were seething and mean spirited in nature. It's one thing to be righteously indignant over social injustices but quite another to stir the congregation into a frenzy with wild inflammatory accusations and curses. Dr. Wright also made mention of a conspiracy theory which suggests that the United States Government intentionally developed the AIDS virus specifically with the irradiation of black people in mind. This theory is far fetched and unsubstantiated and as such must not be preached from Christ's pulpit! If Pastor Wright wants to investigate things like this on his own or in private circles he's certainly free to do so but he must be careful not to bring this before the congregation in such a manner.
Tony Perkins of the Family Research council said it perfectly, "As a nation, we have come far on the issue of race, but not far enough. Too many of us are trying to resolve these problems with political ideologies instead of the true vehicle for reconciliation--the church. While public policy can change the law, it rarely changes men's hearts."
Happy Easter everyone. Remember to Live Jesus!
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Dr. Gary Cass began in ministry preaching the Gospel behind the Iron Curtain and working with the persecuted church in the Soviet Union. For twenty years Gary served as a pastor in the San Diego area a
On the campaign trail yesterday, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) defended his support of abortion and same-sex unions. In response to a question at a stop at Hocking College in Nelsonville, Ohio, Obama said he does not support calling same-sex unions marriage, but thinks same-sex couples should be given the recognition and benefits granted to married couples. "I think that it is a legal right that they [homosexuals] should have that is recognized by the state. If people find that controversial then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans." Jesus teaches on a number of issues central to the Christian life in the Sermon on the Mount: being witnesses to the world, loving our enemies, honoring marriage - but there is no instruction on same-sex unions. As for St. Paul's writing in Romans, it is distinguished not by its obscurity but by its clarity and consistency with all of Christian teaching about the nature of sexuality and marriage. Paul writes: "They [the unrighteous] exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator - who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion." (Romans 1:24-27, NIV) Obama also told the crowd that his support of abortion (he voted against banning partial-birth abortion, and against notifying the parents of minors prior to their having an abortion) and his support of same-sex unions do not make him "less of a Christian."