Obama’s Pastor’s Sermon: ‘God Damn America’
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., senior pastor, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, March 2005. (Trinity United Church of Christ/Religion News Service)
In a fiery sermon taped and available on DVD, Barack Obama’s longtime pastor and spiritual adviser can be seen and heard saying three times: “God damn America.”
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., in his taped sermons, also questioned America’s role in the spread of the AIDS virus and suggested that the United States bore some responsibility for the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Confronting the content of some of Wright’s sermons, parts of which have been aired this week on FOX News, Obama on Friday moved to condemn the remarks in his firmest statement on the matter to date, after initially stopping short of a full repudiation.
“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.”
Obama said he never personally heard Wright preach the statements at the center of the controversy, but that he first learned of them when he launched his presidential campaign.
Click here to read the full Obama statement.
Wright’s supporters say his Afro-centric sermons accurately portray black America, and they contend his sermons are widely studied by theologians. But critics are now calling attention to his more incendiary words from the pulpit.
The pastor delivered his final sermon last month and retired as leader of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Obama has attended the church for 20 years and calls Wright his spiritual adviser.
Click here to visit the Trinity United Church of Christ’s Web site.
In a fiery sermon in April 2003, Wright said: “The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes three-strike laws and wants them to sing God Bless America.
“No! No No!
“God damn America … for killing innocent people.
“God damn America for threatening citizens as less than humans.
“God damn America as long as she tries to act like she is God and supreme.”
In DVD copies of his sermons available for purchase, Wright can also be seen questioning America’s role in the spreading of the HIV virus that leads to AIDS. In another speech, made in the days after 9/11, he suggested that American foreign policy invited the terror attacks.
“We bombed Hiroshima. We bombed Nagasaki. And we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye,” Wright said.
“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because of stuff we have done overseas is now brought back into our own backyard. America is chickens coming home to roost.”
The pastor also said: “The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government lied.”
Amid calls to fully repudiate Wright, the Obama campaign said late Thursday it has distanced itself from certain Wright comments.
“Senator Obama has said before that he profoundly disagrees with some of the statements and positions of Reverend Wright, who has preached his last sermon as pastor at the church,” Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said. “Senator Obama deplores divisive statements whether they come from his supporters, the supporters of his opponent, talk radio, or anywhere else.”
That preceded the lengthy campaign statement issued Friday.
Last year, Obama rescinded an invitation to Wright to deliver the invocation at his announcement that he was running for president. He also issued a statement saying personal attacks have no place in politics after Wright delivered an attack on Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton.
But Obama’s longtime relationship with Wright is continuing to spark controversy.
“This is not just someone that Barack Obama has a casual relationship with,” said Tom Bevan, executive editor of RealClearPolitics.com. He noted that Wright married Barack and Michelle Obama, and Wright’s words were the inspiration for the title of Obama’s book, “The Audacity of Hope.”
“Barack Obama has not out and out distanced himself from all of these comments … ,” Patricia Murphy, editor of CitizenJanePolitics.com, said before the campaign responded Friday. “It’s unclear if he rejects all of these statements. I would assume that he does, but I think he is going to be pushed where he needs to come out and fully explain his relationship with his pastor.”
Some of Wright’s statements have raised eyebrows at a time the Internal Revenue Service is scrutinizing tax-exempt religious organizations for alleged violations of rules barring them from participating in political campaigns.
Prior to his retirement last month, Wright delivered commentary from the pulpit in which he praised Obama, as well as remarks focusing on the racial divide between Obama and Clinton.
“There is a man here who can take this country in a new direction,” Wright said during his Jan. 13 sermon.
During a Christmas sermon, Wright tried to compare Obama’s upbringing to Jesus at the hands of the Romans.
“Barack knows what it means living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people,” Wright said. “Hillary would never know that.
“Hillary ain’t never been called a nigger. Hillary has never had a people defined as a non-person.”
In a Jan. 13 sermon, Wright said:
“Hillary is married to Bill, and Bill has been good to us. No he ain’t! Bill did us, just like he did Monica Lewinsky. He was riding dirty.”
So far the Clinton campaign has been quiet over Wright’s comments.
Wright has declined interview requests from FOX News.
FOX News’ Jeff Goldblatt contributed to this report.
Sounds to me like a kid apoligizing after he has been caught. A true and careful follower of the Bible would not sit thru any such tirade as this;;;;
You don;t see many comments ’cause all of Obama’s supporters are ignorant of what he really stands for.
We do not know enough about Barack Obama and I cannot believe the American people cannot see this man for who he is. He knows what kind of man Jeremiah Wright is. For God sakes, the man has been going to his church for 20 years. You cannot tell me that this is the first time he has heard Reverend Wright’s views on America and the white people. It will be a huge mistake for this man to take office as the President of the United States. I certainly hope the american people will wise up and take a good look at this man. Huge Huge Huge mistake. What about the comment his wife made a few weeks ago about it being her first time of being proud of America. This sounds just like something that came from Reverend White.
People better wise up…….
Heaven help us all. May God have mercy on this great nation of ours
One thing that Caucasian American’s need to be made abreast of, is that Americans of African descent have always looked upon the pulpit (and the preacher, who, historically, was often the only one literate) as their means of education and political information in addition to spiritual enlightenment.
It is the role of the preacher to spur the conscience of their congregants, whether they’re precisely accurate in their information or not. Whether you agree or not, Blacks have been subjected to the wiles of the government in the past; most notably the Tuskegee Experiment. When you cuff the hands of the Black preacher, you cuff the greatest freedom Black Americans have had. If you recall, the same Jesus that Europeans exposed to Africans after they were transported to America, was the Christ that spoke against His Roman government - and He was condemned also - primarily by those with the ability to broadcast it; much like our present news media.
Barach Obama can not, and should not be judged where he attends church by the news media and anyone else. First, where he worships is his spiritual right; secondly, it’s his Constitutional right. And if others took the liberties that the media have taken on dissecting a sermon with spiritually naked, critical eyes, we would be able to destroy the sermonic deliveries of any preacher of any era, in America.
Ultimately, the news media has taken too much liberty when you reduce Obama, a human being - yes, a human being - down to words that come from his spiritual advisor’s mouth.
However you translate the dichotomy of Obama’s ancestry, he is still and will remain - a Black man. A Black man that carries all the social distresses that history has given him, and the same distresses that White America would love for every Black American to soon forget. But a loss of memory is not in the foreseeable future. Stop trying to plant labels on any of the Presidential candidates; it’s not your job. You’ve gone past reporting; you’re editorializing to the cliff of nausea.
Then, may I say, good for Pastor Wright of Chicago. He did exactly what he has been anointed to do; prick the minds of the listener. He’s delivered a direct hit; little did he know just how much impact his sermon would make. Because he’s sure raised the hairs of your media outlet.
Tell me why the nation is even allowing this anti-americian run for President, YES God Bless America,, We had better keep God in our hearts and our nation.. GOD BLESS OUR TROOPS and our Nation… In God we trust and always will..
Before we let the media quick to condemn Senator Obama for his relationship with Pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. over the last 20 years, we should first judge for ourselves by asking the question of:
- For the last 20 years, on record, has Senator Obama ever practiced or holds the same anti- American and racist views of his mentor Pastor Wright.
If the answer is no, then we should accept and believe in Senator Obama’s response in his public denouncement of Pastor Wright inflammatory sermons. Since action speaks for itself, no one can pretend to be a different person for over 20 years.
I was going to vote for Obama, I will not after hearing his Pastor.
I asume that you aren’t posting replies because:
1) they’re too incendiary.
2) someone is buying them (good ideas cost money)
3) you have a bunch of liberals on staff, and they’re boycotting the thread.
I won’t guess which one is the correct answer.
I think that Wright justed damed Obamas’ hope for becoming President.
SEMPER FI
JIM ROBBINS