It Looks Like Obama is Going to Educate

Yesterday in my first post on RedBlueChristian.com, I referred to a conversation with my wife in which she suggested that Barack Obama has an exceptional opportunity to educate and help America grow.

I just read an article on MSNBC.com talking about his proposed speech in Philadelphia on the topic. If he does this right, it could be great.

This paragraph struck me as precisely what I was thinking:

The fact is Wright is the man who brought Obama to Christ. He is the one who married him and Michelle Robinson. He is the one who baptized their children. He is the one who helped supply a sense of community rootedness and black identity that Obama, by his own account, says he so yearned for as the credentialed but confused son of a racially mixed marriage.

Absolutely! And those are good things that Dr. Wright supplied. Obama certainly should not deny the great things he got from his church. He needs to explain to white America the value that he gained there, and also why he is moving forward to a new approach, without making light of or putting his church in a negative light. It will be interesting to see how well he does that.

I’m delighted that he is going to try. His ability to communicate is a strong positive characteristic; one of the reasons I’m supporting him. He needs to display that ability in full measure in this speech.

Fineman, in the article already cited, notes:

But Obama can’t — and should not — try to deny that the church and the Rev. Wright are the essence of who he is. Obama has said as much, in memorable prose, in his two books. And there is no need to jettison him entirely.

Fineman is absolutely right. Those who are getting shrill about these sermon snippets would like him to deny and toss Dr. Wright out with the garbage, but that is not the right thing to do even though it may seem the way to make the problem go away. I hope that in this speech we will all learn something about how people grow, what they need, and how we can deepen our understanding of one another–even of one another’s anger.