A conversation implies two or more people talking about something. How do you have a conversation when one of the participants holds the power of appointing the other participant to outer Mongolia, or when one participant has the space to thoughtfully develop an idea, while the other participant gets a paragraph that must first be approved, and is then assigned to oblivion. To hint that Rev. Wright was being prophetic is to do injustice to the concept. How can someone be prophetic and yet use “ ... bombastic expressions and unsubstantiated theories ... ?” I do not recall biblical prophets speaking that way. To speak out against our country's moral failures is, of course, necessary and biblical. The problem becomes which moral failures. If a Methodist minister damned America for homosexuality, he/she would be assigned to the interior of outer Mongolia. It is ironic that slavery is not forbidden in the Bible, but homosexuality is, and yet slavery can be preached against but the other cannot. I am only using this as an obvious example. So please do not dismiss the point because the example makes you feel uncomfortable. My dilemma is who will choose the issues that are politically correct enough to wax prophetic? I fear that the United Methodist Church has become so politically correct as to not be able to be prophetic, or perhaps to even know what the word really means.

James Renault
First United Methodist Church, Dade City