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.
I would be very surprised that Senator Obama hadn’t heard about these controversial comments from the pastor by fellow parishoners long before the news broke in the media. Had I (and I think most Americans) heard such anti-American statements from the paster especially immediately after 9-11, I would have walked of that church in a heartbeat and dropped my membership immediately.
The pastor’s anti-American comments were clearly not uplifting or inspired by God but ones of division.
I find it very troubling that Obama, a man running for the highest office in our land, a position that epitomizes love of country, accepted this until now. He should have denounced the pastor’s comments long ago and distanced himself from such a controversial church if he didn’t want criticism.
Even now he still indicates that he will maintain his membership is such a controversial church. That is even troubling for one seeking the Presidency of the United States of America.
The fact most of the left-wing media didn’t even report on this, save FOX, until it really got out there, shows how biased the media is in this country.
Only God can help us if either of the Democratic presidential candidates, or should I say neo-Socialists, win the Presidency with a Democratically-controlled Congress. The Democratic party has strayed so far from the beliefs, ideals and policies our founding fathers fought hard for that they will drive this country to ruin in short order. They legalized abortion, they legalized pornography such that it is in every drugstore, every grocery store, they legalized gambling such that casinos are accessible everywhere and people are becoming gaming adicts and losing their retirements, they force us to send our kids to public schools where they attempt to brainwash them with secular humanism, need I go on. I shudder to think what it will be like four years after a Democrat is elected President if there is a Democratically-controlled Congress with him/her.
in less than a week Obama loses two important people from his campaign, after Powers had to leave a few days before. If he keeps on losing staff members at that rate, a few weeks and he will run a one-man-show. Bradley could be the next for accusing Clinton of lying (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article3511833.ece).
Makes you wonder about his ‘judgment’. Especially if you consider that Tom Daschle, who runs his campaign, voted for the Iraq Resolution. So did his major endorsements Kerry and Dodd.
I would like to hear some discussion about a past story fox ran. It involved Senator Obama not feeling comfortable wearing an american flag lapel, or covering his heart during the pledge or something to that affect. I remember seeing a photo of him next to Hillary and other candidates during the pledge.
With the revelations of the anit-American sermons his church obviously endorses, I can see why he wouldn’t feel comfortable showing his patriotism.
Matt O’Brien
Hattiesburg, MS
I do not want a president that will not condemn the man, not his words, for off the reservation views. Jeremiah Wright is a radical, racist, idiot that harms more than he will ever help. Shame on Obama for even continuing to acknowledge this fool.
Every logical mind should be able to work out that 911 was planned years ahead and brilliantly executed. If you don’t know that, don’t even bother to read any further.
Many have said Senator Obama possesses a rare combination of skills, in fact so rare, no single other politician comes even close. What is not realized is the Senator also possesses a brilliant political mind. He knows everything he does, he does it with finesse, when he is not sure, he tests the waters to verify his plan. If he finds the test results satisfactory, his plan goes in.
This man knows full well he cannot win in November, so for now he goes in as the Peace Messiah. Nobody even knows or suspects he is testing the waters.
The Iran hate Bush plan was executed with perfection. After that Ferraro and the race conflict. Nobody can point a finger at him. He rides across the screens hands clean, the Grand Uniter, Peace Messiah. Inside he knows he is closer to his goal than the day before. He knows it perfectly well.
You don’t believe this? Let me tell you his next big step[test] is Denver. If he fails in Denver he knows he will have to withdraw. But don’t think you know his private definitions of fail or win.
Herein lies the point. Senator Obama will win August if Denver erupts in flames. That is the grand and final test for him, inside him. So either way he wins. He simply cannot loose, whichever way it goes. …. Superbly confident, because everything has worked according to plan so far. He is the “Yes, I Can” man.
Another comment somewhere said: “don’t afterwards say you did not know I was a snake when you took me in.”
You can fool all the people some of the time; and you can fool
some of the people all of the time; but you can’t fool all the
people all the time. It is totally disingenuous that Obama
want’s us to believe that he never heard or agreed with this
“preacher’s”hate speech against the USA. If Obama didn’t know
Rev “Wrong’s” character and his seething hatred for white
Americans after attending Wright’s church for over a decade,
how can we trust Obama to choose a cabinet or appoint judges.
Obama voted for Rev Wright by staying in this “church” and
supporting it. Obama gave $22,500 to this “church” in 2006
alone. Birds of a feather flock togehter. Take heed America,
Obama and his wife hold tight to Rev. “Uncle” Wright’s beliefs
no matter what disavowals they make now just months before
convention time.
Anyone from this day forward who casts a vote for Barack Obama is only supporting Racism against the White Race and Treason against America.
This stuff was taught to Obama for 20 years by his “Uncle Mentor,” Grand Wizard and Anti-American, Jeremiah Wright.
Obama agrees with it or he would never have continued to attend this Church over a 20 year span.
He’s lied about everything else, NOW, he’s trying to lie his way out of this!!!!!!!!!
This has nothing to do with this article, but interesting info on Obama and Rezko..
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9049.html
Yeah, Barack’s preacher is like an uncle to him. Barack has been going to this same church for years and years. The Reverend Wright is Barack’s “spiritual leader”. And only now does Obama know the types of sermons this guy has been preaching and is appalled by them. Who believes this? In my opinion, only complete idiots, and there are plenty of them out there. Even if Barack Obama speaks the truth about this issue, would you want such a clueless person as your president?
This reflects Obama’s poor judgment. For twenty years Obama has known Hopkins, his pastor. Obama refers to Hopkins as his “Uncle” & mentor. Hopkins preaches sermons filled with anti-Americanism and anti-white demagoguery and Obama claims he had no prior knowledge of this. Obama is a con artist. This is not the America that Reverend King spoke about and not the America that he hoped would happen. Obama’s minister “Hopkins” preaches hate and bitterness. Rezko is another problem and sooner or later the media will refer to him as “Syrian American” or maybe “Muslim”.