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 looked like a whipped puppy on fox news but I think he will continue to try and spin his realtionship with Wright thinking the American public are stupid. Guess he thinks we are all caught up in his little “yes we can” hype. I think the damage is done for him and now it will have to sort itself out in the mind of anyone who watched the pastor’s hate speech. Dragging up all the hate and dirt from the past is very discouraging for people like myself who has overcome any rascism as a child and now walks in harmony with all colors. Obama needs to make a public statement that he is leaving that church because all the hate that has been preached there for the 20 yrs of Wrights reign has been soaked into the people still attending and will not go away for many years. Hate takes time to work out of a person and comes when one takes responsibility for their own actions instead of blaming another race for what has happened. Today is a new day to form a new chapter on one’s life. Obama is weak and chicken not to go all the way with his stand on that man, Wright, and it says to me that we do become like those we associate with. We need a President with strong convictions and sound judgement which he has been saying lately he does not have.
remarks? discussion? There is no need to make a remark about a fact that speaks by itself.
It always come out in the wash! Is anyone really surprised? Obama is DONE
Barak Obama is lieing in regards to this. He has been a member of that church for 20 years. If he publicly quit that church and made a statement he didnt beleive the racist sermons of that so called pastor, then he might have more credibility. As for Michelle, that wife of his who calls America a mean country and now is the first time in her adult life she is proud of this country, I see where that comes from in light of these sermons. That church is an off shoot of the Islam Nation, they have an agenda and very wealthy members, such as Oprah. If something is not done, we will see the splintering of this great nation in just 2 short years. Obama in my opinion is enemy number one domestically.
What’s Up?
I condem what Pastor Wright has said, and I do not care how hurt you are with the policies of the United States, you do not blame the country that affords you freedoms that are not available in other countries of the world. I know of no Christian Pastor who is racist, Except Pastor Wright, and they do not blame and point the finger. Instead they follow the example of Jesus, and speak of healing, turning the other cheek, and praying for enemy’s or to those who do you harm. Never does a Christian Pastor say, “God Damn America”, and not in a lifetime would he say it three times in a row. I am ashamed of this Pastor Wright, he gives Christians a bad name, and I am sure the other religions of the world wonder if all Christian Pastors talk like that. Pastor Wright needs to seek the apology of the United States, he needs to apologize to all the white people of the United States who are not prejudice and racist, and he needs to ask for forgiveness from all of the people that he has hurt with his statements. I think that Barack Obama has also shown that he has a very close allience with Pastor Wright, and Barack’s statements and his wife’s statements reflect the influence that Wright has on them. It is obvious that these are not isolated incidences, and that when Barack’s wife said in a statement that “this is the first time that I have been proud of the United States,” it is obvious that she is also a racist and reflects the preaching that they have heard. Since Barack Obama has not issued a scathing rhetoric not only firmly denouncing the Pastor, but also in refusing to quit a church that obviously has racist views towards white people, jews, and other black Americans that can negotiate the American Political Landscape. It is now obvious that Barack Obama knows of his Pastor’s orations, but also supports them. If I ever found out that my Pastor ever has those kinds of thoughts, I would leave the church immediately, and this was the church that I was Born-again. I do not support racism of any kind, and staying in a church that has endorsed this kind of rhetoric is appalling, disgraceful, and shows what his agenda really is. I predict that because of Barack Obama’s cavalier attitude, it will not only cost him the DNC nomination, but if he somehow gets it after this, he will definately lose the November General Election. This is a gut check for America, because we have never elected a President to office that has been a racist, and I can only imagine the damage that he would cause once in office. He has shown that he does not know how to pick his friends or Political contributors, and his bad judgement in character can only continue once in office.
On Obama’s Pastor…
I’m not sure I really like the idea of holding Barack Obama’s pastor up as a symbol of what he believes and thinks, but given the fact Obama has a short history as a public figure there is still alot to find out about him. We don’t know him as well….
I have notice you only discuss and show parts of Dr. Wright’s speech about things he said the US government has lied about. I don’t agree with Dr. Wright’s comments about 911 and the US giving HIV to the black community although part of what he said makes me wonder. Please, if you all can find time on your shows, discuss the things he said that were true: like the US government lying about weapons of mass destructions, in which we never found or the US government giving black men syphilis in the Tuskegee experiment. Unless you don’t want the young white voters to know that some of what he said was true.
Obama is a skillful liar who is running a fraud campaign on the American public. it is appalling what the public has bought from this charlatan, particularly blacks and do-gooder Whites seeking a measure of atonement. As an African-American I will not vote for this interloper and fraud regardless of his ability to speak articulately, his telegenic looks or his educational laurels . Obama is vastly unfit to preside as leader of this great nation.
We should all be very mindful of the type of people Barack Obama surrounds himself with. First, we have his horrible self-rightous wife who has never been prouder of America until now when her husband happens to be running for President of the United States. Then we have his foreign policy advisors running to different countries and telling them not to worry about what Barack Obama is saying as he campaigns, that it is all rhetoric. Mind you this did not happen just once but twice. Now we have a glimpse into the type of teachings from his pastor and close personal friend for many years. And to believe that he had no idea of what the Rev. Wright teaches and preaches is absolutley an insult to my intelligence. When you go to the same church with the same pastor for so many years the words may be different from week to week, but the meaning behind them are still the same. With that said does he really have the judgement of picking the right people to be by his side should he become President. I think not.