Rev. Jeremiah Wright returned to the pulpit of Trinity United Church of Christ on Sunday, reports Manya Brachear of the Chicago Tribune. Will the networks notice that Wright suggested ABC and CNN were "the gates of Hell"? They might enjoy Wright suggesting Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly were Satan, but he also listed the Chicago newspapers and Time magazine. He also mocked Elizabeth Hasselbeck as factually challenged -- even as he insisted that December 7 was the day the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima instead of Pearl Harbor Day."Jesus said upon this rock I will build--listen to the promise--my church," he said. "And the gates of Hell--listen to the promise--the gates of Hell--neither ABC nor CNN--the gates of Hell--neither Hannity nor O'Reilly--the gates of Hell--neither Time, Time magazine, Chicago Sun Times, Chicago Tribune ... the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. Nothing will be impossible with God."At the 11 a.m. service, Wright belittled "baby milk believers," who, he said, suffer a delusion that politics don't belong in the pulpit. He pointed out that "Luke the evangelist, not Wright the radical" lambasted the oppressive policies of the Roman government in the Gospel story that recounts Jesus' life.
"Any preacher who dares to point out the simple ugly facts found in every field imaginable is demonized as volatile, controversial, incendiary, inflammatory, anti-American and radical," Wright said, taking time out to note the thousands of Japanese civilians who died 67 years to the day when American warplane dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. (Actually, Dec. 7 marks the day when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.)The U.S. bombed Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, so Wright was wrong about the day, and of course, wrong about the number of years as well. But Wright was on a roll:
He implied that his previous use of derogatory language to describe Italians in a past sermon referred to the Roman oppression Luke condemned.
"Emperor Augustus in Rome--that's in Italy, dizzy blond on the View," Wright said, presumably referring to conservative television personality Elisabeth Hasselback, who has railed about Wright on the ABC daytime talk show.
Wright also thanked an employee at Fox News -- "a saint in Caesar's household" -- who advised him to cancel his October speaking engagements because the network had an advance copy of his schedule.
But if modern-day Italians can be mocked for what the Roman Empire did, does he think it's okay to say derogatory things about African-Americans over what the Africans did 2,000 years ago? That's a very odd line of argument to justify ethnic attacks on Italians and their "garlic noses." Factually speaking, Augustus Caesar ruled Rome when Jesus was born, but not when he died. Tiberius was the emperor at that time.
I would expect the media elite will try to ignore Wright as non-news since Barack Obama left the church. But where is the media in asking which church Obama will pick in Washington?