John H Armstrong

More on Jeremiah Wright

I have made several points about Jeremiah Wright that have either brought about some not so sympathetic responses or very encouraging dialog and expressions of appreciation. This is clearly not a win-win debate. I stand by what I have written to this point and believe my central points, about race and racism, are extremely important to the missional mandate of Christ in the American Church. I stand by my point that most of us who are white are not prepared to seriously enter into this much needed dialog.

After returning home from Dallas tonight, and sorting through the news cycle of the last two days, there is much more before us about Wright's words now. This is especially true after Wright's post-speech comments at the National Press Club were digested and watched by millions of us.

First, Senator Obama seems to be correct in "throwing Jeremiah Wright under the bus," as the political commentators put it. Wright is clearly doing great harm to his campaign. Will this issue become for his campaign what the "swift boat" issue was for John Kerry? It could be. Time will tell. He could still be nominated but polls show that it will be harder than ever for him to be elected in November. I expect this will all hurt Senator Obama more than we know. (By the way, conservative black author Shelby Steele saw this coming and I mentioned his reasons some months ago.) Early polling says that this new Jeremiah Wright episode already has hurt Obama severely. Will it allow Clinton to catch him? I doubt it but we shall see. She seems adept at remaking her image on a weekly basis. Remember, I am not promoting Obama in saying any of this but making observations about our election process. I am also not promoting any candidate through my ACT 3 ministry. I have made this a clear policy for seventeen years since this mission began. I think the church, and Christian missions organizations, have done grave harm in this arena for way too long. My goal is to encourage thought about public issues from a Christian perspective that is solely my own.

Second, Jeremiah Wright has said some wonderful things that I have defended and tried to put into a proper context. But in his question and answer time at the National Press Club he crossed the line in several significant ways. His suggestion that AIDS is some kind of American conspiracy by which our government spread the disease borders on total craziness. (I have written about conspiracy theories before and will not belabor that point here but I have virtually no time for any of these conspiracy theories. Both the far left and the far right love them!) Further, the notion that the United States promotes terrorism is very far-fetched, to say the least. I can handle necessary sobering reminders that we have used terror in American history; e.g., against Native Americans, African Americans, etc. But to suggest that this historical fact is the moral equivalent of the modern terrorism of radical Islam is more than ridiculous. There is simply NO moral equivalence here unless you buy into the historical revisionism of radicals like Howard Zinn and his ilk. I do not grant America a "free pass" on our serious mistakes morally, both past and present. I am not a nationalist, but I am a patriot. I respect those who hold varying positions on the war in Iraq, to cite just one very emotional example. (There is clearly room for real patriots to oppose this war on a number of grounds.) But the terrorism of radical Islam is not the same as the sins of America for some obvious reasons. While America has never been consistent or perfect it has openly pursued a great ideal rooted in liberty, equality and freedom. And it has pursued that ideal better than any nation that we have ever known in human history. Sadly, we needed a Civil War to cleanse our worst failure to live up to these ideals. And we have needed more than 150 years to work that out, which we still haven't done. We still have a long, long way to go.

I sincerely love my country, I really do. But I love the kingdom of God much, much more. This distinction seems lost on the Christian right and the Christian left uses it to promote the "I hate America speech" lines. Christians should be more discerning than both of these two extremes. 

I had lunch on Tuesday with an African American minister who discussed all of this with me extensively. He once pastored a sister church to Jeremiah Wright and knows him quite well. He confirmed everything that I have said about Wright on my previous blogs. But he also agreed with what I am saying tonight. He said, "Wright was brilliant in his sermons and spoke the truth but when he began to answer questions and opened himself up in an unguarded way he went way over the top!" Those are my sentiments completely.

Sadly, I also think we are likely to now discover more of this in Wright's past than we knew. I hope this is not the case but either way he destroyed a great deal of the good he was seeking to do by his rants at the National Press Club.

The news media will likely turn all of this into a full-time circus. What Pastor Jeremiah Wright began will probably end in a way that will help few of us to better understand what he was really trying to say. We will only hear the anger, the foolishness and the moral blame shifting, and all the offensive words to boot. I find this quite tragic.

So, I suggest that we move on from Jeremiah Wright's rants and attacks and then try to keep a much needed conversation on race going. This conversation is still desperately needed. Race, as a social category, still divides Christian from Christian all over this land. I fear many white churches will simply see Wright as a foolish and angry man and thus never hear the insights that we needed to hear in his powerful words, some of which were obviously inflammatory. That is sad, very sad. The loss is ours in the end. Wright will be gone but our churches are still divided and troubled by race in more ways than we know and we still will not face these as we ought. 

It's Not Going Away

Rev. Jeremiah Wright is back in the news this weekend. I would have to guess the Obama campaign wishes he wasn't but the minister will not keep quiet. Personally I am glad he is not keeping quiet. These events demonstrate something the Christian Right and Left both need to see and hear---truly prophetic ministry cannot keep quiet in the face of polticial debate. Wright, you could argue, is probably harming Barack Obama's campaign. I feel sure that he not only understands this but he regrets it deep inside. But he can't be kept silent now that he has become a household name and has been afforded a national platform. He is showing both courage and biblically prophetic ministry by speaking opening and candidly.

I have watched several of Wright's addresses and watched some of the critique from the right. I am, frankly, more convinced than ever that this controversy has demonstrated the truly deep racial divide in America more than anything that we have witnessed in some years. It has opened up a discussion that could help all of us to listen and learn a great deal. I pray that it will and remain committed to the process that seeks that end. My primary commitment is to seek out black Christian leaders and then ask them to help me understand more fully how they see this discussion and understand the debate. As I have mentioned before I am also watching a lot of documentaries and full-length movie material to enter into the racial issues that plague us as a people. I have believed, for nearly a lifetime, that no issue more powerfully defines us, as to both our good and dark sides, than race. And, of course, I am reading books and articles like never before.

In Wright's comments to the National Press Club he was asked about Obama's denouncing him in his public remarks. He rightly said, "Obama did not denounce me." Wright says he distanced himself from the sound bytes and the way these were being heard and understood. He said Obama was doing what he had to do to be a viable political candidate, which is of course correct, and that this did not bother him personally. He added that he was not at Obama's side when he announced his candidacy for the presidency last year because he is his pastor not his political advisor. He noted that he privately prayed with his whole family on that day and then stepped aside and Senator Dick Durbin introduced the candidate. What a refreshing and sound approach. I wish more Christian ministers would pray and then step aside. Let our voices be heard prophetically not politically.

We have lost the power of the pulpit in this land to speak to the real spiritual and justice issues the Church ought to speak to because we have made peace with the left, or the right, and become the extensions of partisan political agendas. When someone dares to question this arrangement he is despised on one side or the other. Please understand that the Democratic Party and the Republican Party both have a history of using religious values and groups for their political ends. These parties exist to win elections and gain power. Christians are foolish to not recognize this simple fact.

And all of this has nothing to do with the church iliving faith very hoenst about it. I believed long ago that the loss of our prophetic voice directly hindered the missional mandate of Christ, the very thing that I am publicly committed to as a minister of Jesus Christ. But many of my conservative white friends do not agree. They understand the cultural mandate, which I strongly affirm as a biblical truth, includes the church engaging in partisan political debate of the sort that favors one party or the other.

Father Michael Phleger, a priest who serves a virtually all-black Roman Catholic Church near Wright's former church in Chicago, put it well when he said, "We just want America to ignore America's reality. C'mon, let's stop ignoring it. One hundred years of racism. It's not going to go away." The only caveat I have to that statement is about the 100 years of racism. It is more like 350 years. It is so much a part of the very fabric of our national identity that precious few white Christians, churches and ministers are willing to face it. Why? The honest answer, as best I can tell, is simple. They would lose their jobs if they did. It is so much easier to see all of this in terms that are clear and defensive rather than have to admit that we inherited a system that is broken and desperately needs serious "Christian" commitments to fix it.

Expelled: Documentary or Documythology?

Ben Stein’s new documentary, Expelled, is a much better film than I expected. After reading various comments on the Internet, especially those made prior to the movie’s actual release, I was prepared to not like this film as a propaganda piece with a lot of sensational claims about faith and the Bible. I also read the multiple negative reviews of the movie at rotten tomatoes (which is a collection of various reviewers) and deduced it was probably not worth seeing. I also feared, based upon reviewers comments, that it might well prove to be a careless mis-representation of Darwinism, which it is not. (I know, of course, that Ben Stein is Jewish and thus I figured he was not going to promote Christianity!)

After seeing this 90 minute documentary for myself I would describe the central thesis as “freedom, especially freedom of expression and real academic freedom." While it is clear that Stein believes there must be a Creator nowhere in the film does he tell us who he is or where we come to know him personally. He makes no claims about divine revelation whatsoever. His simple premise is that academic freedom is being compromised and by it the very freedom that makes America a great nation where any idea is allowed to stand on its own is compromised. To reject Darwinism and natural selection is be expelled by the academic establishment. This means that we have progressively surrendered our most basic freedoms to think and speak openly in America.

I am not convinced of Intelligent Design, at least as it is argued for by its true adherents. Further, I am not a rigid Creationist, at least in the widely popular sense that sees it as a simplistic framework that defines arguments about origins and can be used to explain scientific observations and ancient earth history. Thus I was glad that Stein included representatives of both real science and honest religion who embraced neither side of this divide among Christians and non-Christians; e.g. intelligent people like John Polkinghorne. And Alister McGrath’s appearances in the film were also a positive touch since he has a Ph.D. in both science and theology, a very rare fact in the modern academic world.

Stein links Darwinism to Nazism, a connection that will likely offend the most deeply liberal academic elites. I think he does make this connection fairly without ever saying, or even suggesting, that all evolutionists are Nazis. What he does say is that Nazism openly used evolution to advance its pursuit of a pure race. But we must remember, if we face the real facts, that a considerable number of American scientists have also promoted eugenics and abortion in the name of science, to give but just two major examples

Stein is a very clever interviewer. (Mainstream reviewers have mocked him on this point.) He is at his best toward the end of the movie when he ends with an interview of the famous Richard Dawkins, author of the popular book, The God Delusion. He gets Dawkins to actually admit that he “could” be wrong about there being no God. He even has him saying that some kind of higher being may have stirred the evolutionary soup and then passed off the scene at some distant point in the past. Dawkins is so totally committed to his own presuppositions that he refuses, steadfastly, to admit it. Stein unnerved him with simple questions. It was actually fun to watch. All I could think of when I watched this interview was: “ET, phone home!”

It takes faith to commit to any explanation of the origin of life of this planet. The question is really where do you go to get your faith and why? Darwinists believe in natural selection, without any explanation as to the actual means for how this all happened. Christians believe in a Creator and if they are wise they will withhold certitude on a great deal of the how questions (e.g. St. Augustine). A real discussion could actually ensue if more people simply admitted this much. Zealotry surely exists among religious fundamentalists about the way creation occurred but many (maybe “most”) biologists are equally zealous in an almost parallel way but simply will not see it or admit it. Stein catches the emperor with no clothes in this fine movie.

By the way, biologists are always the most likely to embrace evolution while mathematicians are the least likely. I will give you one guess as to why. If you know the answer you will then understand the serious point that Stein makes in this excellent documentary. See it if you can guess. A decent support base for the movie would help to get the message out to more people and “tearing down the wall” against freedom that Stein believes divides us. See it if you can. It will not harm you and it will make you think about how freedom can be lost.

Liberal Theology Keeps Killing the Church

Seabury-Western Theological Seminary has been training ministers for the Episcopal Church for 150 years. It has stopped admitting students for this coming academic year. The Evanston seminary told tenured faculty that their jobs will end next year, although officials insist the school isn’t closing. Officials at the Illinois, campus acknowledge a deep financial crisis is forcing the seminary to overhaul its approach to preparing priests for the church. Leaders are exploring more affordable models for candidates to earn degrees, such as distance-learning and short-term residential stints.

This is clearly “damage control” language and positive spin if there ever was such in theological education. The facts bear out the truth of the situation. Seabury-Western is an Episcopal Church (ECUSA) seminary that has a long history of very liberal theology in the 20th Century. It also serves a diocese that is extremely liberal that is in serious decline, like most of the Episcopal Church in Canada and America. Leaders put all kinds of spin on these developments, even arguing that evangelical churches grow faster because evangelicals still produce more children than non-evangelicals. Duh! When every action you take is anti-family and anti-mission what do you expect?

Episcopal seminaries will not all die at once. One reason is that they have huge endowments to support them, at least for a season. But the picture is indeed quite grim. No one should really be all that surprised. Meanwhile the lone seminary in North America that is training priests for the Episcopal Church, and for other communions for that matter, that is very healthy and has been growing rather positively for two-plus decades is Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry (TESM) in Ambridge, Pennsylvania. At TESM the influence of  Anglican evangelical leaders like J. I. Packer and John R. W. Stott is still highly regarded. Given the way ECUSA has responded to the worldwide Anglican Communion I do not expect much to change in the foreseeable future. If anything Episcopal seminaries will decline even more over the next ten years. Other mainline seminaries ought to take serious note but so far they do not seem to be lining up to learn the hard lessons of what an anti-supernatural and anti-orthodox perspective does to real Christian ministry.   

The New "Post-Partisan" Campaign?

Senator Barack Obama has referred to the presidential campaign this year as being "post-partisan." I do not doubt that he wants it to be that way but the statement reveals a naive side that is striking.

A partisan is someone who "takes one side, or strongly supports someone who takes one side." A secondary definition adds the idea of emotional commitment to the word and then concludes that a partisan is "blindly or unreasonably devoted." The word, thus, has various shades of meaning for sure. In the first sense Obama's comment is ludicrous. In the second it is near ludicrous since his followers are the most partisan of all in the present campaign, or so it seems to me. Obama's strongest and most devoted followers know very little about him and what he would do as a national leader since none of us knows. He is the symbol of hope, of a new direction, or a new day. Well and good. But in time he will have to define this and when he does he will look and sound more like a partisan liberal with a softer and kinder side. Is he soon to be the prototypical anti-Bush, presenting "a softer, gentler liberalism" as distinct from Bush's so-called "compassionate conservatism?"

I had hoped that Senator Obama would not fall into the politics as usual track but it now appears that I engaged in wishful thinking. He responds to Senator Clinton in all the ways politicians generally respond to their rivals in our system of things. She goes negative and then he responds with negative. On and one it goes. This is the nature of things and Obama cannot change it for all the good will in the world.

I love the idea of a "post-partisan" leader but it is simply not going to happen anytime soon. Barack Obama is certainly not the person to make it happen. A person with an ideology about how to govern and lead is inherently partisan, at least in the first sense noted above. I have read both of Obama's books and find them very appealing in many ways. The problem comes in reading how he finally arrives at decisions and where he chooses to go for his ideology. The second sense of being partisan is to be determined but Obama's followers seem to be even more partisan, in this sense, than those of Clinton or McCain, at least to this point in the campaign. A lot can and will happen over the next months.

Obama had the very real opportunity to begin a process that would help things immensely. He could still help by not attacking John McCain personally for the North Carolina Republican TV ads that use Dr. Jeremiah Wright's infamous sound-bytes to scare voters. McCain seems to have genuinely, and rightly I believe, tried to stop them from airing at all. But Obama knows full well that McCain, still only the presumptive nominee of his party, cannot tell a state party what it can and can't air as a TV ad. McCain has expressed his disgust at this ad and urged that it not be run. What else can he really do?

A "post-partisan" campaign sounds great on the surface of things but I wouldn't hold my breath for one second that it will happen in 2008. We can thank a host of both Democrats and Republicans for this reality. In some ways we have always known this in American politics. It is the nature of our democracy. But it seems to me following Watergate it got worse and then the Gingrich Republicans mastered it against Bill Clinton and the Pelosi/Reid Democrats mastered it against George W. Bush. I fully expect the Obama campaign's number one point in the campaign, as we draw near to November, to be that John McCain would just be "another Bush in the White House." (His goal will be to show how and why he will not be "another Bush" and his record suggests that he can.) Ironically, Democrats know this is not true since for eight years they have widely praised McCain as the consummate non-Bush-like Republican. Many of them even like him but they will do everything they can to spend their huge sums of money to try to convince people that he is now just "another Bush." And McCain's campaign will surely seek to reveal how liberal OBama's voting record really is, which is fair game given how he has voted. The question is will they play on race and other related fears to attack him as a person? I hope not but the way the system works it will likely happen whether McCain or Obama want it to happen or not.

What I hope for is that serious Christians will seek ways to avoid the bitterness this all injects into the wider culture. At the end of the day our first concern is not America but the kingdom of God. We can be real patriots without becoming blind nationalists on the one side, or radical America-haters on the other. For us the problem begins with how we understand our own loyalties and where our priorities are truly placed.

Preaching True Revival in North Carolina

For the past three days I have been preaching on true revival in a multi-church conference sponsored and hosted by four churches in eastern North Carolina, just a few miles from the Atlantic coast. The churches included Faith Evangelical Bible Church (non-affiliated), Father's House (charismatic), Newport Baptist (SBC) and All Saints Anglican Church (AMiA). These churches are in all in the Newport area. The pastors worked together and tomorrow evening they will conduct a concert of prayer after I have returned to Chicago. I also spoke to a Christian high school on Monday and to ministers this morning. I encouraged the four pastors to continue having a regular community Concert of Prayer in the future and to keep building their relationships with one another and to even broaden the scope of their fellowship. Tonight I met evangelical Christians from almost every possible background, including Roman Catholics as well as Protestants. (I am still amazed when people insist that Catholics are not Christians and that there are not real evangelical Catholic Christians. I meet them all the time but then maybe I just have the fortune to bump into them because I pray that I will meet and encourage God's people everywhere I go.)

Since the late 1980s I have traveled across America, and beyond, preaching on the biblical reality that has been called true revival. Though I am not a friend to revivalism, as a method and a theological system, I still believe in real honest-to-goodness biblical revival. I also believe we need it and we need it very badly. It will not cure all our problems but it would restore power and credibility to the church in America. Our state is one of spiritual lethargy and sleepiness. Awakening would restore us to God and to true holiness and power.

I sometimes ask myself: "Why keep preaching on this subject?" I am getting older and I hate travel these days. My answer is simple: "We still need for God to come and rescue us in these morally and spiritually dark times." Who knows, I might someday be in the place where God begins a new awakening that will surprise me beyond my wildest dreams.

I do know this much: thirty years of evangelical commitment to changing the culture through partisan politics has not brought power to the church or impacted the culture much at all. If anything, it has made our mission to the unchurched much, much harder. When will we stop trusting in princes (presidents or other human leaders) and trust in the Lord our God who brings life to his people and real change in this world? I am not saying we should not be involved in the culture, including running for office and voting for candidates. I am saying that what we have been doing is almost entirely counterproductive spiritually.

Paradise 08 and True Revival: The Supremacy of Christ as Lord

For some months now a major gathering of young adults has been developing. This event, called Paradise '08, is nuique in a number of ways. I am not sure of everything about this event but I do believe young people should consider going and all of us should pray that God comes in power to refresh and bless these multitudes of young people who are coming from across America to worship. If you watch several of the videos you will be impressed I think. I watched several on You Tube this afternoon.

Visit the Web site at www.paradise08.com and you will find out much more. The site will open the whole day up clearly and give you a very good sense of what is going on. I encourage all of us to pray for Paradise '08. "Who knows, the Lord might relent and send mercy."

I have believed in true revival since 1970. I have seen it and been in it before. Often such a movement begins among college students. Could this be the next thing God is doing to bring people to Christ in North America? I have to say that I genuninely like the sound of this far more than most of the previous things that we have seen fly under the banner of revivalism.

The Pope and America

Pope Benedict XVI has returned to the Vatican after a successful journey to America last week. Reading the mainstream media's reports on his visit reminds me of just how clueless so many in the media are about religion in general, and Christianity in particular. Some of the offense came from the New York Times and the Washington Post. No surprises there. But some also came from more conservatives voices.

First, on the liberal side. William McGurn noted in today's Wall Street Journal op-ed page that the pope rightly lauded George Washington, upon arriving in America last week, by praising our first president and the founders for the "timeless truths that are embodied in America's founding." President Bush responded by praising the "common law" tradition of Catholicism and by saying that he was thankful that we share a belief in a divine "law" written on the human heart. From the look of it few religion reporters picked up on how important these two observations were. Bush, the evangelical Methodist, and Benedict XVI, the Roman pontiff, had far more in common than the press realized. Frankly this caught many off guard, demonstrating how tone deaf they really are to such things.

In advance of the pope's arrival the liberal press thought that Pope Benedict would criticize President Bush about his Iraq policy. You must understand that Cardinal Ratzinger, before he became Pope Benedict, did oppose our entry into Iraq, preferring other solutions to war. But apparently Benedict also understands that a precipitous withdrawal at this point would do serious harm and many more deaths would follow than if we stayed and tried to complete the task at hand.

Further, President Bush spoke of the two men "sharing the value of each and every life," especially the defenseless unborn. This is an amazing statement from a Western leader. Measure this statement over against Senator Obama's statement that he favors abortion because he would not want his daughters to be "punished with a baby" that they did not want and you see why the pope would lend moral and personal encouragement to Bush as he did.

But more interesting, at least to me, is how some conservatives reacted to the pope's words to his own bishops during his American visit. The pope urged Catholic bishops to "continue to welcome immigrants" to our land. (This includes immigrants already here, legally or otherwise.) But Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo (Colorado) called this "faith-based marketing." This is the same congressman who wears shirts that say: "America is Already Full." And CNN's Lou Dobbs, an anti-immigration populist if there ever was one, said the pope was "insulting our country." Come on Lou, give me a break. Others, who stress security (which I do not think is the real issue in our present immigration debate) over compassion for the poor, reacted similarly. By doing so they prove that they do not understand the profound richness of Catholic thought on this issue.

This kind of rhetoric about immigration, regardless of your own view, ought to embarrass Christians but so many agree with Tancredo and Dobbs that they would cheer their silly comments. This issue often comes down to a few simple angry talking points for many of us. The pope and the president understand it very differently and have thoughtful reasons for how they respond as Christians. Protestants could learn a lot from this pope on this issue. His visit serves to remind us that Christian values are not the exclusive prerogative of evangelicals alone. In the new ecumenism there is much to be learned from both sides and in this case the Roman Catholic tradition offers far more than the populist evangelical American response.

Immigration is complex. Anyway who says otherwise is not deeply involved in real solutions. Whatever solution you come up with please do recognize that the Christian Church has been thinking about this for a long time before you came to your conclusions. This is one place where the Christian tradition is immensely important and most Christians don't even know what that tradition really says. As in many similar areas Benedict is a far better teacher of Christians than many of our conservative favorites. This is also why he speaks with an authority that is not ephemeral and politically correct, right or left.

John Smoltz on the Verge of History

John Smoltz, who I have followed for his entire major league career with great fan interest, pitches tonight against the Washington Nationals in Atlanta. If he strikes out four batters he will have struck out 3,000 batters in his career. By this feat he will become the 16th pitcher in Major League Baseball (MLB) history to accomplish this illustrious mark of excellence. Smoltz already holds a record no one else is close to: 200 plus wins and 150 plus saves. He has done all of this with arm problems and undergone major surgery once and minor procedures several more times, missing several years of time in his career. At one time he even had a baseball psychologist help him try to control his mental state on game day when he was young and often lacked control.

I have met John Smoltz, when I did chapel for the Atlanta Braves. He is a wonderful man and an outstanding Christian in his clubhouse and community. He allowed my daughter and I to sit in his sky box and we met his young children as well. John is what is good about baseball. A dedicated man he is also a hard worker who respects the game and plays it the right way. Someday I would love to be at Cooperstown when he is inducted into the Hall of Fame. Along with his teammate Tom Glavine and former-teammate Greg Maddux, this threesome was, when they were together, one of the best in baseball history. It was a joy to meet them all and to watch them pitch many times.

Smoltz has had to endure the most adversity thus I respect his numbers as much as those of any great pitcher. I believe his faith and dedication have helped him immensely.

In an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Saturday John noted that the toughest hitter he ever faced was Tony Gwynn. Now there was a ballplayer's ballplayer. Smoltz says he never struck Gwynn out. (He is wrong, he did it once!) But Gywnn was 30 for 65 against Smoltz in his career, a .462 career average. I doubt anyone else could say that who hit against John that many times.

I one asked a former major league pitcher, who was in our home for dinner, "Who was the toughest hitter you ever faced?" He said, "Tony Gwynn." I said, "How did you pitch him?" He answered, "Right down the middle of the plate. There was no way to get him out but to throw a strike and hope for the best!" That is called R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

Those Bothersome Simpsons

I have not been a long-time fan of The Simpsons TV series but sometimes I catch an episode now and then. These writers are very good and often times provocative in insightful and interesting ways. A good bit of serious theological reflection has actually gone into several full-length books and articles on The Simpsons television series.

I was thus fascinated to learn that The Simpsons is actually a cultural phenomenon in many other parts of the world, especially in South America. But Monte Reel notes in this weekend's Washington Post that Homer Simpson has succeeded in offending many people in Argentina. The reason is Homer Simpson's complaining at Moe's Pub, with his crumbling buddies, about the presidential candidates in America. Homer's buddy Carl says, "I'd really go for some kind of military dictator like Juan Peron." To many this cut too deeply since they do not think Peron was a dictator at all. And Carl's friend Lenny referred to Peron's famous, and adored, wife as "Madonna."

This episode hasn't aired in Argentina yet but it is widely known in Latin America where "Los Simpson" is one of the most popular programs of all, even more popular than in the U. S. When "The Simpsons Movie" debuted in South America it was a huge box-office success.  Somehow the show transcends its cultural categories in unusual ways.

Venezuela's telecommunications commission threatened last week to punish a station that airs The Simpsons on daytime television. In Brazil the show inflamed passions when the Simpson family visited Rio de Janeiro in 2002.  The show featured Homer being kidnapped by a taxi driver. 

The Simpsons executive producer, Al Jean, turned the heat up a notch when he said: "At 'The Simpsons' we will not rest until we have aggravated every country on Earth." If you don't find that a clever answer then you don't understand the premise that makes The Simpsons so popular.