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.
Where’s the apology!!! Come on, he didn’t know?? Wow!
Oh whatever . . . like he’s never heard him preach like this before . . . c’mon . . . of course he’s going to “come across” as appalled NOW . . . he has absolutely no choice - especially, when the press puts pressure on you . . . is he supposed to say he agrees with him ?? After 20 years of listening to this guy . . . it’s too little, too late - sorry.
Obama has went to that church for twenty yrs, and he has never heard him say this kind of
hate mongering at all about America?? No way,! We don’t need (anyone) like that for
President.
These comments are really concerning, I was in support of Barack, however I have grave concerns about his background and beliefs. After 20 years of participating in such inflammatory and appalling behavior it has to affect you judgement.
Obama has listened to this for 20 years and he wants my vote. No wonder his wife has all that education and she is still not proud to be an American. It seems to me Obama should have distanced himself from this type of message 19 years ago. This preacher and Obama’s wife need to realize they are living a dream and encourage others to make positive decisions and show positive actions. That is how a society can build itself up. Attitude and Activity go together.
I now know why Michelle said…for the first time in her adult life she was proud of her country. Senator Obama talks about how his judgement is better than Senator Clinton’s. Well, my judgement is better than Senator Obama’s. I would have and have left churches before that preached hatred towards homosexuals. And he has sat in those pews for 20 years? Sorry, not buying it…How can he talk about us coming together as “one” ? You need to walk the walk, not talk the talk….
I was very curious after viewing the church website a couple of months ago about how closely Obama’s thinking aligned with Wright’s and with the sort of reading material promoted on the church website. One can certainly see the influence of America-haters like Randall Robinson on Michelle Obama.
Obama’s original half-hearted and non-specific comment about not supporting hateful statements was not enough. This was the stronger response needed. It would be hard to imagine unity stemming from someone as angry and embittered as Robinson seems to be.
There is a reason BHO against the Iraq war. Why………. Nadhmi Auchi is an Iraqi-born billionaire, protected secret money for Saddam Hussein, and -Auchi also financially backed Saddam Hussein’s plan for a pipeline from Iraq to Saudi Arabia, and Auchi loaned money to Rezko (Syrian Born).
When Sadam Hussein was captured, Nadhmi Auchi was charged along with Saddam Hussein for conspiring to assassinate Prime minister (president) Abdul Karim Qasim and stood trial in 1959. (Auchi gave fellow Baath Party members machine guns from his home for Saddam Hussein.) http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/nov/16/iraq.politicalcolumnists
So in my opinion, BHO judgment against the war was only to protect Nadhmi Auchi. When BHO finally won the Senate seat, BHO finally VOTEd FUNDING THE WAR, and I think he voted because during that time Iraq war was an hot issue. So BHO voted just for political reason.
If we look at what Michele Obama said in Wyoming: “”For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country ………………… and her 1985 thesis during her year as a senior at Princeton. She wrotes that “my experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my ‘blackness’ than ever before. I have found that at Princeton no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my White professors and classmates try to be towards me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don’t belong. Regardless of the circumstances under which I interact with Whites at Princeton, it often seems as if, to them, I will always be Black first and a student second.” She further suggests that even if she assimilates into white society after Princeton, she will “remain on the periphery of society: never becoming a full participant.” http://www.newsweek.com/id/123024
Don’t you think that was the reason Barrack Hussein and Michele Obama joined the Trinity Church, Pastor J. Wright? Because what Rev. Wright preach it sound like their ideology’s background.
BHO always talk proudly that he has a better judgment to lead the country, and his supporter believe him that he has a smart person. If he has better judgment and smart, why he make real estate deal with Rezko?. If BHO smart and has better judgment, why he stays for 20 years to be member of Trinity Church, who is having pastor that tied with with Nation of Islam minister Louis Farrakhan in 1993 to visit Libyan socialist leader Gadaffi.). Why until know BHO finally has a judgment to condemn his pastor.
What a scary if BHO became a President.
Look his friends and his family; William (Bill) Ayers and Bernadine Dorhn of the Weather Underground, Obama’s cousin Raila Odinga who just became co-President of Kenya this week (after 1,000 people were killed) whom Obama is said to be close to…who signed a secret pact with Muslim jihadists who were to ethnically cleanse people? ………….. and why does Raila Odinga use Obama’s exact same campaign slogan: CHANGE….Vote for CHANGE: Look at his website: http://www.raila07.com/
He was in this guys church for 20 years and did not know him???
Obama is a not telling the truth he is manipulating it. One would have to be an idiot to believe that Obama did not know the heart of his mentor after 20 years. So if he did know his pastors heart and stayed in the church what does that mean?
It means he agrees with him and is simply selling some of the American people a load of crap so that he will get elected President of The United States.
A country he and his wife and Pastor hold in distain and ask God to Dam. A country with a population of about 250,000,000 whites and Jews that he and his Pastor hates with the passion of the old KKK.
The Truth is clear to any reasonable person.
Chris
Am I missing something or was Fox reporting this morning that this “preacher” is now working for Obama’s campaign??
How can he condemn his words??