I reminded Skunky yesterday of the that time about five years ago when he was pretty much in Obama's shoes.
We went to a wonderful old downtown church in Shreveport, Louisiana. It was called Holy Cross, and was led by Fr. Kenneth Paul. The church was the oldest Episcopal Church in Shreveport, but a new Cathedral had replaced it and all the hoity-toity people attended the cathedral. That left Holy Cross with the most beautiful building (it has real Tiffany stained glass and a mural of priests who came to help with the yellow fever epidemic in the 1850's and died there) and was very small, with an eclectic group of attendees. The church had wonderful ministries, and there was a great program for the homeless. Fr. Paul was a spectacular pastor, well-educated and insightful...he'd gone to Oxford but would also mention his "trashy" beginnings in Alexandria, Louisiana, and often made jokes about his mother's bad girl reputation. We loved him.
He was also a bit of a liberal. He allowed an openly gay member to read the Prayers of the People, he went out with the black ministers of the city to protest the shooting of a young man who didn't drop his cell phone when confronted by the cops. And when it became clear that the U.S. was about to go to war with Iraq, Fr. Paul sent his wife Virginia on a fact-finding mission to Iraq. The group visited schools an hospitals, and she had pictures of Baghdad that looked like they could have been taken in Shreveport. She spoke out against the propaganda of the Administration. Fr. Paul publicly opposed the war from the pulpit and would pray for the President to have the wisdom to change course.
At the time, Skunky fully supported the President and thought I was crazy to oppose the war so adamantly. He patted me on the head as though I was a mischievous child. He'd squirm in his seat when Fr. Paul went into one of his anti-war rants, or said unkind things about the administration. It didn't change his love and respect for Fr. Paul, and he never once suggested we leave the church. I suspect Skunky thought of Fr. Paul as the crazy uncle whose good far outweighed the bad. He may have thought Fr. Paul's comments were unpatriotic. I always saw him as the biggest patriot I knew. He said what he believed, even when it was unpopular. And believe me, Bush and his war with Iraq were incredibly popular in Shreveport. This town had a big party and had everyone bring their Dixie Chicks cd's and they ran over them with a steamroller. In a time when pastors are so tuned in to the political, Fr. Paul was inspirational.
Sometimes, extreme rhetoric is used in ways we can't approve of -- especially when we take it out of it's context. I'm sure if Skunky had seen Fr. Paul calling Donald Rumsfeld a traitor to all this country holds dear on TV before we had attended the church, he would have refused to go. But we'd attended the church, become involved in that community, we knew what a truly good man Fr. Paul was, and how he worked to serve the least among us, even if some ladies changed churches because they didn't want to share the cup of Christ with a gay man or a black person or an alcoholic.
I am proud of Skunky because he looked past the venom in some of Fr. Paul's words to see the experiences and love that prompted him to speak those words. It was easy for me, I agreed with many of the sentiments. Skunky didn't, but still loved the man who would have a blessing of the animals and thought it important that Ellie and Patrick receive the Lord every year at the Feast of St. Francis. I don't know that I would have been as tolerant had the shoe been on the other foot.
A great religious leader SHOULD challenge us. He should question authority. And if we all decided to leave our churches if they said things we didn't agree with on occasion, the church experience in this country would be shallow indeed.
CCK, I have to say that I'm a little disappointed by your comments. I understand you to say that religion is only theology, not the works of church. If it's not okay to question the tenets of a person's faith, is it really okay to question his choice of pastor and to play the four most contemptible snippets from 35 years of sermons ad nauseum and and declare that because a man attended the church where those words were said, he is unfit for the Presidency? That he is not a patriot? I remember you being very upset by the fact that Mike Huckabee was going into churches and giving sermons and refusing to allow cameras or press. When you use Rev. Wright's words to detract from Obama, you show that he was right to not allow cameras in those churches. If we say it's okay to point to the churches that are not like ours, to those "other" churches, and say because a man loves a church that you or I probably wouldn't want to attend because it is so different from what we are used to, to what we think is an appropriate way to worship he is not fit to be President, we make that kind of intolerance okay.
IMHO, dragging out obscure footage of Rev. Wright -- and remember all of his sermons going back 20 years are available, so those things were not typical of the church services -- is putting on display something that makes Obama seem "different" and therefore scary and untrustworthy -- but in a way they people can label it as not being uncomfortable with his race or his slightly more fiery Christianity -- but as a concern about his patriotism.
thanks for sharing. poor skunk. 
