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 voted for Obama and I for ONE want my vote back. I can we trust this man after this for 20 plus years you say you never knew what your Rev said jeez . I for one would like my vote back if Obama wins for the democrats my vote is going to nader one thing is for sure I bet that it will come out the Obama sat in church during.Im all for freedom of speech but this man speaks for all of us when he is president and I want no part of that.
Too late Obama it took you twenty years. You are trying to translate race and you are dividing it. If my minister talks like that I will walk out in a second!
It’s humorous to me how Fox News (”Fair and Balanced”) focuses on Barack Obama’s Pastor. Why don’t they look a little more into the “squeeky clean” life of John McCain? If you want to put a candidate down, at least look at THEIR life NOT their Pastor’s sermons.
I still dont know why fox is still talking about this, the guy has already rejected and denounced him. Why are u not speaking about MC cain andall the racist pastors who have endorsed him. You are supporsed to be fair and balanced just like u claim to say. If obama was awhite person and republican would you be talking about this? To me it sounds like you do not want to see a black president in this country. ND WHO ARE YOU TO SAY THAT OBAMA SHOULS RESIGN FROM HIS SENATE SEAT BECAUSE OF SOME REMARKS HIS PASTOR SAID. WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT KIND OF PIPO ARE YOU, YOU ARE NO DIFFERENT FROM THE REV WRIGHT. RACISM WILL NEVER BE OVER IN AMERICA BECAUSE WHITE PIPO ARE SO IN DENIAL AND SUPERIOR,JUST LIKE THEY WERE DURING SLAVERY. BLACK PIPO ARE STILL HURTING HAVENTT YOU DONE ENOUGH ALREADY? EVERYONE IS ENTILTED TO THEIR OPINION SO DOES REV WRIGHT. OBAMA DID NOT SAY THOSE WORDS HE DID, SO WHY ARE WE STILL TALKING ABOUT THIS. YOU NEED TO QUESTION YOURSELVES TOO, I THINK U TOO ARE RACISTS.
I will never understand why people even attend churches where so called “ministers of God” preach like crazy nuts. It serves no purpose to act like that and jump around and rant and rave. I find it disgusting and it is happening all across America. This is NOT Christian and these types of so called pastors should be boycotted, once and for all and maybe this type of behavior in our pulpits would stop. It is only serving the speaker’s ego to act like that.
This pastor is not doing anything to help close the divide between Blacks and Whites he is a man with a lot of hate and should not be using the word of god he needs to be heal himself before trying to help others.
Re: The Media coverage of Dr. Jeremiah Wright
Dear FOX News:
I wish to make several points in response to the media’s reactions and the interpretations that your journalists are promoting relative to sermons by Dr. Jeremiah Wright.
It is important to realize first that what is presented in a theological context cannot easily be translated to a journalistic sound bite without serious risk of distortion. In order to be accurate, one must first seek to understand the theological essence of Dr. Wright’s message. Where he may see himself as one responsible for pronouncing the condition of humanity from a spiritual point of view, others (including the media) may see him as not promoting what is comfortable or palatable from a political point of view. How else can the “preacher” effectively challenge humanity? The only way is to not be compromised by the need to be accepted in certain circles in a political sense.
Journalists might do well to be aware of the role that the “prophets” played in the world of the biblical “Old Testament” and Christ’s role of confronting the establishment in the “Gospels” of the biblical “New Testament.” Perhaps our problem is that too few “Ministers of the Gospels” are willing to “speak truth to power”. If we were accustomed to such behavior by pastors, perhaps, such a story would not be as newsworthy.
The second point is that use of snippets from Dr. Wright’s sermons by the media has missed the overall spiritual context of his messages; and has distorted the essence of his sermons. What were the Scriptures on which he based these sermons? What were the Titles of these messages? Are the snippets illustrations to emphasize the contemporary application of the overall messages?
We must put the media’s criticism into a historical as well as cultural context. Remember for a moment the comments of the late Rev. Jerry Falwell or
Rev. Pat Robertson. They endorsed presidential candidates subsequent to their controversial comments. These Republican presidential candidates were never required to denounce and repudiate these individuals or their positions.
The tests for the media should be two-fold before running such a story. The first is to seek to understand the theology (both spiritually and culturally) and to keep the comments within the essence of the overall message being delivered. The second is a challenge to the media to be fair and treat these matters as other religious-based stories have been treated; i.e., with great caution and care!
Sincerely,
Rogers Davis
San Diego, CA
From The Astute Bloggers.
RICH LOWRY FOUND THE GOODS.
A QUOTE IN BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA JUNIOR’S FIRST BOOK.
FROM OBAMA’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
WRITTEN A DECADE BEFORE HE WOULD EVEN CONSIDER RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT OF THE USA.
HERE’S AN EXCERPT - (OBAMA IS QUOTING A SPECIFIC SERMON OF WRIGHT’S - ONE WHICH OBAMA FELT WAS PARTICULARLY MOVING AND PARTICULARLY IMPORTANT TO HIS LIFE):
“It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks’ greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere…That’s the world! On which hope sits!”
And so it went, a meditation on a fallen world. While the boys next to me doodled on their church bulletin, Reverend Wright spoke of Sharpsville and Hiroshima, the callousness of policy makers in the White House and in the State House.
THIS PROVES THAT OBAMA LIED TODAY WHEN HE CLAIMED THAT HE HAD NEVER HEAR WRIGHT PREACH IN A RACIST WAY.
WITH ALL THE DEMOCRATIC HOOPLA ABOUT THE RACE CARD BEING PLAYED BY
OBAMA AND THE CLINTON CAMPAIGN, THINKS THIS RACE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE
IS IN THE BAG? THEY WILL BE SADLY MISTAKEN.
THERE ARE REAL ISSUES BEING DECIDED THAT WILL MAKE THEM
THE FOIL FOR THE SPOILERS.
THEIR ANTICS AND TACTICS WILL BACKFIRE ON THEM COME NOVEMBER.
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE NOT STUPID, NOR IGNORANT OF THE CHARGES
BEING LEVELED AT THE DEMOCRATS, AND, THE REPUBLICANS, ADMINISTRATION.
THEIR OWN TACTICS AND OBSTRUCTIONISM IN THE SENATE AND THE CONGRESS,
HAVE MADE THEM AND BACKED THEM INTO A CORNER.
NOW THE REPUBLICANS, ALSO HAVE THEIR FAIR SHARE OF BLAME,
BUT THIS IS NOT ABOUT THAT. IT IS ABOUT WHATS BEST FOR THE COUNTRY
AND THE NATION AS A WHOLE, NOT AS SEPERATISTS AND DEVISIVENESS OF;
THE, PARTY LINE. NOT, WITHSTANDING THE BACKLASH OF THEIR NEGATIVITY AND
CONDENSATION TO THE FAR LEFT WING AND ADAMENT POLITICAL RETORIC.
THAT WILL AFFECT NOTHING BUT, MOORE AND MOVE-ON, THEM TO DEFEAT
AND MORE GRIDLOCK IN THE CONGRESS AND THE SENATE!
WITH VETO AFTER VETO FROM THE WHITE HOUSE FOR THEIR
OBNOXIOUS AND ARRAGANT CONDUCT; OF THE COUNTRIES BUSINESS AND OUR,
INTERNATIONAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY, INTERESTS AROUNT THE WORLD.
DON’T EVER FORGET, AND NEVER COMPLAIN ABOUT THIS ADMINISTRATION WHEN THE
PARTY POLITIC OF THE (DEMOCRATS) ARE THE INSTIGATOR OF THE CURRENT CRISIS
IN THE ECONOMIC SECTORS. AS WELL AS,
“THE DEFENSE! OF THIS NATION, AND THE BORDERS.”
AND THE ILLEGAL IMIGRATION, ISSUES ALL ARE THE DECIDING FACTORS!
THEY MUST ADDRESS THESE ISSUES BEFOR THEY GET TO THE NOVEMBER GENERAL ELECTION.
AND MR. McCAIN; IS OUT DOING THE JOB OF THE COUNTRY WITH HIS UPCOMMING
OVERSEAS VISITS THAT, WILL HAVE THE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN OVERVIEW TO
STRENGTHEN OUR DEFENSE AND INTERNATIONAL ALLIES SUPPORT FOR THE WAR ON TERROR.
IN OTHER WORDS, BEING THE RIGHT CANDIDATE TO DATE; FOR AS HE IS CONSENTRATING ON; THE WORLD VIEW, AND THE BIG PICTURE, THE DEMOCRATS HAVE IGNORED AND ARE BLIND TO, WITH THEIR HATE OF BUSH AND BASHING THIS COUNTRY WITH THEIR, SOCIALIST DOGMA AND AGENDA.
THEIR CONVENTION AND THE SUPER DELEGATS, WILL NOT GET EITHER ONE OF THEM ELECTED, IN NOVEMBER. FOR THE REPUBLICANS AND THE PEOPLE WILL TAKE ALL THIS INTO CONSIDERATION; FOR THEIR SELECTION IN THE NOVEMBER ELECTION.
END TRANS: MARV!
WOW! SHOCKING!
We let people like Rev Wright live in America.
http://www.stop-obama.org/?author=4
http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/03/13/my-own-special-comment/#more-1801
Well, I was once a Barak HUSSEIN OBama supporter because Uh…he inspires me and……he speaks for Change and Hope.
Now I come to my senses after seeing what he is really about and regret I voted for him in VA Prime
I believe his speeches do not have any “Beef” in it.
If Ya need “Hope” you are already hopeless…..
Inspiring does not put food on the table and pays for your college tuition.
Now I don’t see too many of Hussein’ Obama ’s supporter posting anymore…….
Too little far too late Hussein supports!