Obama, Bishop T.D. Jakes and me

Thursday June 12, 2008

By Ellis Washington

Bishop T.D. Jakes

For me it was almost déjà vu as I sat with my son. I remembered a little over 40 years ago watching the famous King speech with my dad. Similarly, I watched with my youngest son last night as a historical moment unfolded. He and I saw the dreams of slaves come true as the sons of slaves and the slave owners clapped their hands in one progressive sweep.

~ Bishop T.D. Jakes

Since my last column, "Obama, me and our pastors," received many encouraging replies, I thought I would continue this theme in today's column regarding a recent controversial CNN.com commentary by megapastor Bishop T. D. Jakes praising Barak Obama, "Obama nomination gives 'goose bumps.'"

Why would Jakes last Saturday get "goose bumps" of awe-inspiring emotion listening to Obama's speech claiming the Democratic Party presidential nomination? Obama, a certified Marxist, an enemy of the Christian evangelical movement and a unapologetic friend of the most reactionary forces in American society. Could Jakes and I be talking about the same man?

At the onset I must confess that Jakes' CNN commentary on Obama threw me for a loop. I first heard of the story Monday morning while listening to radio talk-show host Mike Gallagher. My inner conflict is this: While I have little respect for the man and I view Obama as a Manchurian Candidate who seems incapable of putting two sentences together without his handy teleprompter, without stuttering or saying one of the following: "uuuhhh," "uuuhhhmmm," or "you know," I do have an abiding and personal respect for Bishop Jakes as a Christian leader whose ministry has been a central part in my life since about 1994, long before he became the megapastor he is today.

Kirkland & Ellis Law Firm, Chicago, Ill., circa 1994

I first came to know of Bishop T.D. Jakes and his ministry through a co-worker while I worked as a legal assistant at a blue-chip law firm in Chicago. This was a particularly stressful and turbulent period in my life as I moved from Atlanta to Chicago based on a tacit promise to be accepted into a graduate law program at John Marshall Law School there was reniged upon. Also, the stresses of a new marriage, studying for the bar multiple times, working a flunky job for arrogant lawyers who had little regard for me as their peer, all caused me to have a crisis of sprituality.

Sensing my distress, a perceptive co-worker at the firm gave me a couple of sermons by Bishop Jakes and my intellectual, spiritual and psychological approach to life was gradually transformed. Jakes taught me to stop looking at external solutions to solve internal problems. In other words, the seeds to your greatness are within you; they just have to be activated by faith in God. This wasn't Oprah New Age spiritualism or Norman Vincent Peale's positive thinking, but applying simple, profound biblical precepts to real-life problems.

With such classic sermons as: "The Joshua Generation," "The Puppetmaster" and "Woman, Thou Art Loosed," Jakes taught me to think above and beyond my despairing circustances to apply the Scriptures in fresh, new and transcendent ways.

After listening to sermons of Bishop Jakes for about two years, I began sketcking the outline to my first book, which I published in 1999, "The Devil is in the Details: Essays on Law, Race, Politics and Religion," followed by my second book in 2000 (revised ed. 2004), "Beyond the Veil: Essays in the Dialectical Style of Socrates," a book of 90 essays on a variety of subjects, many of them directly inspired by the sermons of this great preacher.

That said, Bishop Jakes getting "goose bumps" from listening to Obama's acceptance speech has caused me great distress and perplexity. Why? Because I knew that Jakes is a true stalwart of the faith, and unlike Dr. Jeremiah Wright, Rev. Michael Pfleger, Rev. Al Sharpton, Rev. Jesse Jackson and other poverty pimps who built their careers on exploiting black pathology and anger, Bishop T.D. Jakes wouldn't sacrifice moral truth on the altar of political expediency, or exchange the priceless gifts of God for filthy lucure and for the capricious applause of mere men. No, no, no, not Bishop Jakes!

After listening to talker Mike Gallagher's analysis of Jakes' commentary, I quickly pulled it up on the Internet and saw that the story was indeed true, that none other than the great Bishop T.D. Jakes had fallen prey to the intoxicating siren call of Indentity Politics – blacks for blacks, whites for whites, white women for white women, homosexuals for homosexuals, one-legged, transgendered midgets for one-legged, transgendered midgets, etc.

On Obama, Bishop Jakes said:

Last night, I like most Americans of all stripes, watched with visible goose bumps as history was made. I sat with my 13-year-old son and looked from the screen to his eyes as Sen. Barack Obama became the first African-American in history to lead a U.S. major-party ticket when he claimed the nomination for the Democratic Party for president of the United States.

As if this weren't bad enough, Jakes went further in his effusive praise of Obama:

As the days and discussions of this political season continue, it is my sincere hope and prayer that we do not sink back into the abyss of political pettiness that has plagued our country and our lives for so many years. I am grateful to Sen. Hillary Clinton for giving, through this campaign, a chance for my daughters to see that their femininity is not a liability. Today both my sons and daughters came to understand that their ethnicity isn't viewed by progressive Americans as a limitation or a liability. … Congratulations, Sen. Obama.

It greatly pains me that Jakes has tarnished his reputation by joinning his great name to Obama, but I am not in utter despair. Why? If it's Martin Luther, MLK Jr., Jerry Falwell, or Pat Robertson, while I admire the man, I try not to be a sychophant to any man.

When I discovered that German theologian and father of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther (1483-1546), contradicted his entire life's work by frequently ranting against the Jews, calling them the vilest of names, I was saddened, I was outraged, but I then went into triangulation mode – I separated Luther's crisis of judgment, his anti-Semitic views and clung to his venerable theological ideas based on the legitimate, prudent, eternal truths of the Bible.

For Jakes to consider the nomination of Obama, a man with the most extremist voting record of the 535 members of the U.S. Congress, as "a victory for democracy that proves that our country provides possibilities for all people," is beyond the pale, and I hope after Jakes hears the public outcry that he will do as Obama did to Rev. Wright and denounce him (or at least stand mute). In the meantime, I'll keep listening to the excellent sermons of Bishop T.D. Jakes, but will ignore his political pronouncements, because while Obama gives Jakes goose bumps, his ideas and policies gives me and many other American citizens of good will the hives.

Ellis Washington, former editor at The Michigan Law Review and law clerk at The Rutherford Institute, is a graduate of John Marshall Law School and a lecturer and freelance writer on constitutional law, legal history, political philosophy and critical race theory. He has written over a dozen law review articles and several books, including "The Inseparability of Law and Morality: The Constitution, Natural Law and the Rule of Law" (2002), "Beyond the Veil: Essays in the Dialectical Style of Socrates" and He has just completed the manuscript to his latest book, "The Nuremberg Trials: Last Tragedy of the Holocaust" (2007).

Washington's latest book, "The Nuremberg Trials: Last Tragedy of the Holocaust," can be pre-ordered by calling 800-462-6420, promotion code "UPREPUB."

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