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.
Obama knows the views of his spirital leader and the people of his church (as you can clearly see by the way they cheer in the backgroung). It’s not just the minister it’s the ENTIRE CHURCH which he LOVES SO MUCH THAT ARE IN ON THIS HATE OF AMERICA AND WHITE PEOPLE. Are we to believe that this minister only spoke this way when Obama wasn’t there? This man is not shy about his views, OBAMA knows, why are we pretending like he’s so smart on one hand that he can run the country but not smart enough to figure this guy out?
Obama is a liar! His pastor is a racist and a rebel! No wonder Michelle has so much hate for America whenever she campaigns. She and Barack have been spoon fed these hate-filled sermons for more than 20 years. Barack Hussein Obama is just playing the politician by denouncing those comments after the media exposed them! He had no choice since he raised such a fuss over that lady’s comments about him being fortunate the press was giving him a free pass due to his race. That was pretty light weight compared to how his supporters act!
Way to go Fox News! Obama really needs to clean up his own backyard before he thinks about attacking Hillary’s!
I find it hard to believe that the “ranting” of this minister began after Senator Obama was in Washington as a Senator. This man’s hatred of the U.S.A. hasn’t evolved recently. I am sure if someone could obtain tapes of his sermons for the last 20 years you would find his sermons filled with the same “appalling” hatred. I was weighing heavily toward Senator Obama, but after his wife’s statement, “this is the first time in my adult life I have been proud of the U.S.A.” and now this, I am afraid Senator Obama has, in my mind, is no better than Hillary Clinton in lies, questionable associations, etc.
Such a shame. He would have had a great future as a stateman.
It’s too late Obama. Now we can see your true character. You have made it clear how much you rely on spiritual mentorship by this man. You can not declare how important his teachings are to you and turn back around to denounce them as soon as they come out. If you did not agree with the teachings of this church, all you had to do was leave. Instead this man marries Michelle and you. This man baptizes your children. And you donate over 20,000 dollars to his church. To make it clear, I am neither a democrat or a replublican. Senator McCain nor Senator Clinton are not acceptable to the White House in my eyes either. I was really hoping you would have been the one to go.
Oh, so Obama had never heard of the Star Spangled Banner, Che Guevarra or the Weathermen eaither, I presume?
Taking him at his desperate word, why would we wish to elect a novice who got sucked in for $22.5 K, and intertwined the lives of himself, his wife, and his daughters with an “appalling” ideology because he didn’t have a clue it was under his nose for 20 plus years? Is that the kind perceptive trait a President needs to win the war and address our complex ills?
“Barack Obama describes longtime pastor Jeremiah Wright Jr. as ‘like an uncle’” - Maybe you’re stuck with crazy family members, but you can walk away from a crazy church. Obama did not.
“and a spiritual mentor” - and what has he learned, spiritually, from this man?
“but the presidential candidate rejected Wright’s fiery anti-U.S. and politically divisive sermons” - what else is he going to say? He wants to get elected doesn’t he? He had 20 years to reject this man and he did not.
Obama has single-handedly brought the Democratic party to its knees. Well maybe with a little help from brilliant party elders like Ted Kennedy who didn’t bother to vet him before knighting him as official successor to JFK. The Dems have stepped in it again.
Jeremiah you are a disgrace. Its sad that people listen to you and look up to you for inspiration and support, like OBAMA!
How is it that a person can sit in a church pew, view a pastor as a “mentor” and “like an uncle”, and yet neither he nor his wife know anything about this Amreica hating preacher?
This is totally incredible–and non-credible. If this is how much Obama pays attention in church, how much will he pay attention to his duties as President?
I’ve listened to Mr Obama talking about his strong Christian background. My question is how often did he really attend church if he had no knowledge of his Pastors core beliefs? He obvioulsy wasn’t in church all the times the Pastor spoke as seen in the tapes being shown on tv. He didn’t know? This man has described Pastor Wright “close spiritual advisor” and he doesn’t know his beliefs?
Anyone who attends a church regularly knows how the Pastor believes about every issue not just some. Is he using the church as a political chip to be thrown in the pot without having to be accountable for the truth of his involvements and the depths of his commitments?
Makes me question his wisdom about the people he would put in the government as his personal advisors. Scary!
What Obama pastor say. have nother to do with Obama.the new people make a big deal about it becouse they don’t want him to win.I go to church but i don’t belive everthink my pastor say. the people tell obama that his church is wrong. will i hate tell you there are a lot of church out are just as bad. what the new is tell the people who go to obama church should not live in the white house. so now tell tell us what church we should go.if we want to run for the white house.i Still think Obama will be good for us. we need a change.let go back to hill past about buy off bill girl freind who he had sex whit and about her taxes which have true in.about all money that dirt.about the people that bill paron went he was in the white house. why did bill go to jail for lie about not have sex in the white house.