In this speech, Obama played off a Neihburian realism against the ideals of King and Ghandi, and his Christian faith. His conclusion was that while King, Ghandi and of course Christ called us to something entirely transcendent, the needs of state unfortunately demand something much more prosaic. Yet as McKenna argues
What if Obama had not taken a step back from the Black Churches (in which he had come to faith) because their impassioned prophetic rhetoric became a liability in cultures were we like God to bless our agendas, not challenge them? What if Martin Luther King Jr. had lived to preach his next sermon, which he had titled “Why America May Go to Hell”? Would Obama still have referred to him? It would be hard for any President to be part of King’s congregation that day, let alone respond “amen.” How much harder to not just claim King as a hero but Christ as Lord? Yet in our sinfulness we seem immensely skilled in sanitizing and sidelining examples that show us that Jesus’ Way of costly love and risky nonviolence is not just practical, it’s the narrow road that will lead out into life. There is a danger in quoting King and Gandhi as embodiments of abstract ideals to admire rather than fiercely pragmatic examples to follow. Instead of following them as they follow Christ we might just end up “believing in him” while playing chaplain to Empires the likes of which put him on the cross. Instead of living Martin King’s dream we might find ourselves collaborating with the nightmarish forces that assassinated him a year to the day he publically called for an end to the war in Vietnam.On Christmas day, it would be well to reflect the extent to which the Church has become a neo-Constantinian church -- a church in the service of empire -- by and for the rich and powerful and largely unaware or scornful of God's preferential option for the poor.
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