What became clear to me was that he was presenting a world view that -- that -- that contradicts who I am and what I stand for.

Well, first of all, in terms of liberation theology, I'm not a theologian. So I think to some theologians, there might be some well-worked-out theory of what constitutes liberation theology versus non-liberation-theology.

I went to church and listened to sermons. And in the sermons that I heard, and this is true, I do think, across the board in many black churches, there is an emphasis on the importance of social struggle, the importance of striving for equality and justice and fairness -- a social gospel.

So I think a lot of people would rather, rather than using a fancy word like that, simply talk about preaching the social gospel. And that -- there's nothing particularly odd about that. Dr. King obviously was the most prominent example of that kind of preaching.

But you know, what I do think can happen, and I didn't see this as a member of the church but I saw it yesterday, is when you start focusing so much on the plight of the historically oppressed, that you lose sight of what we have in common; that it overrides everything else; that we're not concerned about the struggles of others because we're looking at things only through a particular lens. Then it doesn't describe properly what I believe, in the power of faith, to overcome but also to bring people together.

It was these particular quotes that generated my personal and professional crisis this week, as they went at the heart of who I am and what it is that I do.

As I've talked with other ministers this week, we've talked about the role of the clergy in the larger society and even in our own congregations. How many of us have congregants that spend years listening to us, but do not get the gospel we are proclaiming?

What became clear this week is not only how ignorant the larger population is about liberation theology or the black church, but how many people are ignorant of mainstream Christian theology, about the office of pastor, and about the role of the church.

When Rev. Wright said Obama said what he did because Obama is a politician and Wright is a minister, Obama misinterpreted that in my opinion. Wright was discussing the different roles people play and that he understood (as we all do) that politicians do have to be more cautious and at times circumspect in what they say. Every intelligent person gets that. Wright was saying that he doesn't have to be so cautious, in fact, to be cautious would be a violation of his calling as a minister.

What I do think Wright did not realize until Obama's statements was that this congregant had sat there for years and never heard what he was saying. Though the social gospel and liberation theology are related to one another, they are distinct. The social gospel arises out nineteenth century liberal evangelicalism and believed in the power of humanity through progress and history to change the world into the kingdom of God. Liberation theology, coming post-Barth, post-Neibuhr, post the World Wars, post the Holocaust, realizes how naive is the social gospel because it does not account for the power of human sin. Dr. King' teachigns, by the way, were far more Neibhurian than social gospel.

And, thus, my statements earlier in the week that Obama does not get it. And why I was so surprised that he does not get it.

The prophetic voice of the church critiques sin as a power that is at its worst in groups of people and in institutions. These structures of sin are capable of the most horrendous evil -- and have demonstrated this fact in the last century (the New York Times once said that original sin was the only empirically verifiable Christian doctrine).

Obama went further to suggest that all Americans should be offended by Rev. Wright. For those of us who were not, I guess that means we are un-American.

And though I'm used to figures on the Religious Right saying that about me, I'm not used to figures in the center-left saying that. Particularly when what is un-American about me is my Christian faith and my calling as a pastor.

The crisis that this episode created for me is that I was suddenly aware of how much difficult work we have to do if the nation so seriously misunderstands and is afraid of Christian teaching. And particularly someone whose experience and education and previous writings had suggested that he did understand.