Wright is the real victim of a pseudo-scandal?

In the Wisconsin State Journal, Bill Wineke insists that Barack Obama's pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright has been victimized in a pseudo-scandal.

He writes:

Barack Obama 's critics have spent the past year trying to find a scandal in his life, and they finally came up with one.

Obama goes to church.

The television news shows were filled last week with titillating pictures of Obama 's pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, pounding a pulpit, denouncing American racism and making some rather bizarre claims about governmental responsibility for AIDS and other social ills. If you just read the words without context, they certainly make Wright seem un-American.

Obama critics and commentators, including some of the major liberal voices on television, have demanded that Obama denounce his pastor and renounce his ill-fated membership in Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. The fact that he hasn 't proves guilt by association is guilt, indeed, they say.

There has been guilt by association practiced in this issue, but the victim was not Barack Obama. The victim was Jeremiah Wright, whose reputation as a pastor has been trashed across the world because of his association with Obama.

I have never met Wright. He and I are each ordained clergy of the United Church of Christ, a predominantly white denomination that traces its history to the Pilgrims. I 've never heard him preach, and I 've never set foot in his Chicago church.

But I do know this: Virtually everything we know about Wright comes from three snippets of three sermons, preached over a period of years, spliced together into one 30-second sound bite and replayed endlessly on cable TV. Those snippets were incendiary, but they were snippets. They weren 't sermons or even completed ideas.

And I do know this: We in the media used those three snippets to represent an entire 36-year ministry. During all those years, Wright helped build Trinity UCC from a congregation of 87 to a congregation of more than 8,000, one that includes gang-bangers, judges, doctors and a potential president of the United States. You don 't do that by preaching hate.

No one can build a congregation by preaching hate. Wright didn 't. Conservative pastors such as Jerry Falwell didn 't. People won 't show up year after year to hear hate. They may listen to it on radio or television, but they won 't do so in church.

I do know that my fellow UCC clergy in Madison have, over the years, taken their youth groups to visit Wright 's congregation. They have told me, time and again, that the kids came back inspired by the church 's ministry to the poor and by its lively worship.

If Wright 's message was one of hate, just why is it that no hate has come from his church? Why is it that all those scouring Obama 's record haven 't found a single incident of racism? Why is it that so many Madison white folk who have attended church there have been welcomed with warmth and with respect?

There is so much to refute in this column.

A few things:

--Obama's only "scandal" is not the fact that he attends the Trinity Church of Christ. He has some shady dealings with shady people that need to be addressed. Questions still need answers.

--Wright is no victim. His reputation as a pastor has been questioned because of the message he chose to preach. I don't doubt that he gave some sermons that focused on Christ's teachings rather than his own political rantings; but that doesn't excuse how inappropriate and inflammatory some of his sermons were.

--Wineke complains about 30-second sound bites. It should be remembered that Wright promoted his church by selling tapes of the very sermons that Wineke claims were the source of his victimization. Those are the snippets of sermons that Wright wanted the world to see. He wasn't ashamed to say, "God damn America," etc.

--Furthermore, Wineke's defense of Wright runs counter to Obama's denouncement of his pastor's racist and anti-American rhetoric. Obama rejects Wright's incendiary remarks. He won't reject "old uncle" Wright, but Obama definitely has rejected some of Wright's statements. Wineke won't even do that much.

--Contrary to Wineke's belief, of course some congregations are sustained by preaching hate. All that's needed is like-minded people joined by their common hatred for a country, or those of another faith or race or ethnic group.

--Finally, I don't see how Wineke can claim with any certitude that no hate has come from Wright's church. If members buy into Wright's conspiracy theories about 9/11 or HIV/AIDS, they certainly aren't spreading the message of truth and love revealed in the Word of God.