Obama Rejects Anti-U.S. Sermons From Pastor Who Was ‘Like an Uncle’
Barack Obama denounced controversial sermons Friday by his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., shown here at a funeral service at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago in December 2000. (AP Photo)
Barack Obama describes longtime pastor Jeremiah Wright Jr. as “like an uncle” and a spiritual mentor, but the presidential candidate rejected Wright’s fiery anti-U.S. and politically divisive sermons after days of mounting pressure to do so.
Obama told FOX News Friday that he could no longer lay low as Wright’s past sermons, where he condemned the United States as institutionally racist and blamed the government for HIV and the Sept. 11 attacks, were played in heavy rotation on national television.
“Once I saw them I had to be very clear about the fact that these are not statements that I am comfortable with,” Obama said. “I reject them completely — they are not ones that reflect my values or my ideals or Michelle’s.”
Obama called his remarks “inflammatory and appalling” in a written statement Friday.
Though Obama has known Wright for 20 years, he said the pastor has never been active in his campaign and that he is no longer on his African American Religious Leadership Committee. The campaign said Wright left his unpaid post on the committee Friday, but did not elaborate.
Obama, in the interview Friday with FOX News’ Major Garrett, said he has been a member of the church since the early 1990s after working with the congregation as a community organizer on the south side of Chicago.
Obama married his wife Michelle at Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ, had his children baptized by Wright and donated money to the church, but he said he first learned of many of the pastor’s controversial statements, which FOX News reported on a year ago, only when they were aired in the media in recent days.
“None of these statements were ones I had heard myself personally in the pews,” Obama told FOX News.
He said the sermons now sparking controversy didn’t resemble the sermons he remembers from Wright, which, Obama said, stuck to messages of faith, values and helping people in the community.
Obama’s response came as critics called on the Illinois senator and Democratic presidential candidate to do more to distance himself from Wright, who, in a fiery sermon recorded and available on DVD, can be seen and heard saying three times: “God damn America.”
In his recorded sermons, he also questions America’s role in the spread of the AIDS virus and suggests that the United States bore some responsibility for the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Obama issued his more forceful statement against the sermons Friday afternoon.
“Let me say at the outset that I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy,” he said in the statement. “I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies. I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it’s on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue.”
A year ago, Wright defended his beliefs in an often contentious interview on FOX News’ Hannity & Colmes.
“If you’re not going to talk about theology in context, if you’re not going to talk about liberation theology … then you can’t talk about the black value system,” Wright said on the show’s March 1, 2007, broadcast.
Wright said his teachings are based on black liberation theology, which he summed up as “Africans speaking for themselves.”
Wake Forest University professor Terry Matthews, says in a lecture reprinted on the university’s Web site that black liberation theology “seeks to find a way to make the gospel relevant to black people who must struggle daily under the burden of white oppression.”
Wright’s supporters say his sermons accurately portray black America, and they contend his sermons are widely studied by theologians.
“I’ve been at some of those sermons,” the Rev. Dwight Hopkins, a member of the church, told FOX News. “The majority of Wrights’ sermons speak to healing, he challenges the black community … to be more responsible.”
Wright delivered his final sermon last month and retired as leader of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.
Obama told FOX News he wouldn’t have quit Wright’s congregation if the pastor’s more controversial statements were isolated, but if that became “the tenor or tone on an ongoing basis of his sermons” Obama said he would have quit.
“Obviously they are ones that are from my perspective completely unacceptable and inexcusable,” Obama said.
With the pastor retiring from the pulpit Obama said he doesn’t see an issue in his family remaining part of the congregation.
“If I thought that was the repeated tenor of the church then I wouldn’t feel comfortable, but frankly that has not been my experience at Trinity United Church of Christ.
After the interview was broadcast Friday night on “Hannity & Colmes,” Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for President Bush, suggested on the show that the controversy and the timing of Obama’s disavowal show him to be little more than a shrewd politician.
“I think there’s a reason Republicans I talk to are increasingly looking forward to running against Barack Obama,” Fleischer said.
Click here to read Obama’s full statement on Wright.
FOX News’ Jeff Goldblatt contributed to this report.
People don’t get to choose their family, and often have to put up with one or more, but a person does choose who their family goes to hear. This minister, if you can call him such, is a bigot. One who hates America and whites.
Who in their right mind would subject themselves and their family to such a man unless they agreed with that person’s doctrine?
There is now too many unanswered questions about Obama for me.
Just one more nail, just one more …….
Where was Senator Obama on October 3, 1995? Why? That’s the date of the O J Simpson verdict. So what did he say about the verdict on that day?
Barack Obama campaigns as a uniter. He chose to be an active member of this church for over 20 years. Moreover, he chose Reverend Jeremiah Wright as his spiritual mentor. In addition, Obama appointed the reverend to the campaign position of National Leader Of African American Spiritual Issues. The odds are overwhelming that over the past 20 years the reverend preached sermons similar to the numerous ones now available on DVD. The congregants appeared to be in resounding agreement with the racist, hateful, divisive words in the recently publicized sermons. Therefore, if Barack Obama is truly a uniter, and if he has good judgment, then he should have left this church 19 years and 364 days ago. Anything now is too little too late. Since Obama chose not to vote with this feet to leave the hateful church, then voters need to vote with our vote and remove him from the presidential race once and for all. I do not love either Hillary Clinton or John McCain. But I would gladly vote for either of them rather than vote for a man who claims to be a uniter while he continues to attend a racist, hateful, bigoted church. P.S. MSNBC, CBS, CNN, NPR need to get on the ball and start covering this story full on just like they so gladly cover Ms Ferraros” comments and the Haggee / McCain issue.
Sounds like the pastor is a America hating racist and if Obama has been going to his church for 20 years then he has got to have heard some of this stuff. Maybe that explains alot of Obama’s wife’s comments …like calling Americans “sloths” !!! They can take take their dog and pony show somewhere else if they do not like it in this country. Makes me sick.
NOBAMA!
Vote Hillary!
What a crock. Anything to get elected and then WATCH OUT !!!!! DO ANYTHING SAY ANYTHING.20 Years and he never heard this kind of talk. GIVE ME A BREAK. Talk about racism,shame on them.
Does anyone know what the word ‘former’ means, It means that he no longer seeks this man’s counsel for anything.
There is no way I believe that Obama sat under his pastor’s ministry for all these years and did not agree with what was said from the pulpit. If he hadn’t agreed he would have went to another church.
It makes me wonder what Michelle Obama really meant when she said for the first time she was proud to be an American.
Fox News, like all other news networks and television programs are in business to make money. The more viewers, the more money they make. It’s that simple. So, wherever they see a chance to increase ratings and make money, they do it. Taking sides is no issue. Just get people excited so they’ll watch and make the dough to keep the network in business. Regarding, Obama and the Pastor, most of us sit in church, listening to the pastor/minister, disagreeing here and there and not making a big deal out of it. I imagine many Americans sitting at home watching and listening to this nonsense, buy into it, not really getting the real picture as to what the networks are trying to accomplish. If Obama is quilty by association, so is Hillary. So which is worse, having sex with an intern or sitting in church, half asleep, listening to a wild showman who wants more people to attend, so his church makes money!!
IF THIS IS TEH PERSON GOING TO GIVE A POTENTIAL FUTURE PRESIDENT, GOD BLESS AMERICA