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.
BOBAMA is 20 years too late, he has been a member there, WRIGHT has preached this hate USA for YEARS!!! Wright praised Louis Farrakhan, awarded him…
O’Bama could switch to another church because he was married in that church and b/c this church helps with housing homeless and with HIV and AIDS???? Am I wrong or are there not any other churches in Chicago that have those missions?
As for being married or baptised in a church as a reason for staying in the church, I am not buying it. You don’t stay in a church whose messages you do not agree with and in fact you “vehemently disagree with and strongly condemn”. When did he start disagreeing with these messages? When it became convenient to do so is when. O’Bama and company didn’t even want to respond to the questions by the media this morning and this controversy has been brewing for some time now. That doesn’t seem consistent with someone who disagrees with the statements made. I think someone is speaking with two tongues.
It only took one sermon from my church that I thought was divisive and hurtful and not representative of Christ’s love and compassion for my family to leave (and that was in reference to gays at the time). My husband and I started attending another church in the area, even though we had been married at the other church (by a different pastor) and even though this pastor was retiring soon. So, I cannot relate to O’Bama staying in this church. We went to a different church for five years before we went back to the old church which was under new leadership (entirely and not just one pastor retiring). O’Bama was part of the audience that was cheering on this pastor and agreeing with the statements or he would not have stepped foot back in there again. I can’t see a senator of the U.S. going to this church at all, it doesn’t seem appropriate since there are racist ideas being espoused and b/c someone who works for the american people doesn’t just represent one race and shouldn’t be motivated to do so by his church, in his private life or in any other forum.
Shame on you O’Bama. When will you start beign truthful. By the way, care to define “hope” and “change” yet?
This is nothing more than political expediency. After the story starts to get legs, you come out and denounce them? I’m just not buying it.
He has sat underneath this man’s pastorship for 20 years and allowed his family to be influenced by it. How inflaming and appalling could he think this man’s teachings to be if he has allowed himself and his family to remain there for 20 years?
This needs to be called what it is. The man has said a lot of stuff that Barack agrees with, but because he is now running for President, he can’t ackowledge that he agrees.
Well staying in that type of environment for 20 years says to those who are listening what Barack doesn’t have the guts to say.
Yet we are gonna allow him and his American Idol type Obamamaniacs to elect him the country’s next President?
I certainly hope not.
if this guy obama become the prez, i can see this country going to hell in a hand basket
Please, do not say this man preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ! This man does not love his brother.
1Jn 1:6 If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.
1Jn 3:10 This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love n his brother.
If Obama were white he would be put into the same league as David Duke for attending a church with such a racist message. Yesterday he referred to the pastor as an uncle that occasionally says things he disagrees with. Only after he feared it would hurt his campaign did he come out and call the pastor’s comments appalling. I was considering voting for him until now.
It Matters……it matters who you associate with, it matters how you live your life, and it matters what you believe. I feel strongly that if you are a member of a church for 20 years at some point you were there to here these view points from the pastor? What Obama….were you absent on those particular sundays to hear those messages ? come on…give us a break. Let the truth be told…..IT MATTERS!
Obama attending services for 20 years, being married in the church, having his children baptized by this pastor and writing a book based on one of Pastor Wright’s sermons?
There is credible “damage control” in some situations, but this is insulting.
Check out this website http://www.tucc.org/about. his church and their beliefs and you will see where Obama’s loyaltys are rooted.
Definately not in America. Read some of his wife’s comments. Listen to his spiritual mentor’s (Jeremiah Wright Jr.’s anti-U.S. remarks ) remarks.
Obama is an evil pied piper leading the youth of America down a path of disaster following the black lemmings who can’t think for think for themselves.
Senator Obama has repeatedly comdemned his pastors remarks,and because a person attends a church does not mean that they are going to go out and do what they have heard their pastors say.Obama has shown in many ways that he does not live his life in that manner.This story is another ploy that the media has to show that they can be tough on Obama.This is not new news this is the work of some trying to bring Obama down anyway they can.I believe that there is plenty to look at John McCains supporters the Rev.Hagee,and the Rev.Parsley. They have some views about Catholics and Islam that could be considered contraversial.This is another sad.People should judge how a person lives life on his or her merits in life.
I find it extremely difficult to believe that this minister who is definately angry and critical
about everything …. hasn’t had a habit of having angry sermons….
Didn’t seem like words spoken from the Bible….!
There seem to be so much hatred in his voice against America and blaming America
for all of his wordly troubles….
That minister is definately an angry man…
I can tell you this much, I sure wouldn’t be seeking out this man for spiritual guidance….
There is an old saying that……You are known by the company you keep….!
As my mom would say to me if she were still with us…”We need to Pray for that man…!