I suppose I should, in some weird and twisted way, be grateful to the news media for bringing this pastor to my attention. This might hurt my chances of becoming president one day, but I like this guy and what he has to say (not everything he says by any means, I'm sure, but I thought this was really good). What I don't like so much, and have a growing intolerance for, is the insistence on the part of "political warmongers" to misconstrue another's words and then attack that misconstrual as though representative of that person. Growing up in an Evangelical Christian subculture, I developed an intolerance for Christians who would take a bible verse completely out of context and then use it to rationalize or justify whatever screwball idea they had about God or how to live (one that comes immediately to mind is the rationalization that speaking in tongues is somehow the pinnacle of one's faith, when the scripture that this comes from actually says almost the opposite). We see this all the time in the political "silly season" (as Obama refers to it), this ripping statements out of context in order to tear down opponents, arguments pretty much based in lies (misconstruing, misrepresenting another's words and thoughts). God forbid anyone shouting against Reverend Wright should actually sit and listen to more than an out-of-context soundbite before they make a sweeping judgement of the man and anyone he associates with. Here's a fuller context of one of the minor "inflammatory" things he had to say:
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