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.
John Lennon sang that: “Women are the “n”s of the World”
As a woman in this country–in this world–where women are physically abused, mentally abused, and silently left waiting on the men in this world I take great offense at this pastor’s rant against Hillary Clinton. There is plenty of sexism, racism, and other isms to go around in this country and this world. As woman who grew up in the 60s and 70s I know what it was like to be denied access to sports programs, to be denied access to certain types of education, to worry about sexual assault and rape, to be in the house before dark, to worry about walking to my car in a quiet and isolated area or parking lot, to be told to shut up, to hear that women deserved to be abused by husbands and that it was a man’ s right. Domestic violence has only come to the light of the courts in the last couple of decades. Women did not have the right to vote until 1921. Come on. Get real. I have been demeaned and assaulted with the “c” word, with the threat of rape, with the sexual harrassment (which wasn’t even talked about until the last couple of decades) and I have been denied opportunities because I am female. There is enough pain and discrimination to around—Obama says he does not agree with this man, yet they have been friends for many, many years and yet Obama has been attending this church for many, many years….What is up with this? I am very disappointed. Yeah. This is change. Just not positive change. I am over this candidate and I will no longer support him. And not just because of this–but this is the last straw. As a white woman, I have never been called the “n” word, but didn’t John Lennon sing that “Women are the ‘N”s of the World?”
I’ve known about this hater (Wright) for a while now, but it is definetely appalling to actually see him “preach” the words to people yelling “Amen.” Obama Team, you may believe that White people and America are the two biggest evils on the planet, but hopefully, we are not as stupid as you think we are. Anyone who remains seated in a church with this preacher for 20 years has more than an casual acquaintance or passing fancy for the preacher. Obama is thoroughly wrapped up in this thinking. White people, do not invite the abuser to run the plantation.
Maybe, after listening to Rev. Wright for 20 years, we can understand Mrs.Obama’s reasons for never having been proud of her country until now.
LOS ANGELES–New evidence has surfaced linking the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to the introduction of crack cocaine into Black neighborhoods with drug profits used to fund the CIA-backed Nicaraguan Contra army in the early 1980s.
This evidence has given credence to long-held suspicions of the U.S. government’s role in undermining Black communities.
According to a series of groundbreaking reports by the San Jose Mercury News, for the better part of a decade, a San Francisco Bay Area drug ring, comprised of CIA and U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency agents and informants, sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles.
Millions of dollars in drug profits were then funneled to the Fuerza Democratica Nicaraguense (Nicaraguan Democratic Force), the largest of several anti-Communists commonly called the Contras. The 5,000-man FDN was created in mid-1981 and run by both American and Nicaraguan CIA agents in its losing war against Nicaragua’s Sandinista government, the Cuban-supported socialists who had overthrown U.S.-backed dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979
Will Barack have the audacity to distance himself from this hatemonger?
Obama has said that his pastor is his mentor and he praises him in his book. Obama was married by his pastor.
Obamas pastor is a racist but that’s okay with Obama. But anyone says anything about race in this campaign he gets offeneded. Obama is a 2 faced cry baby.
Obama has been friends with Rezko for 20 years. Rezko is a criminal. Obama bought discounted property from him.
This shows that Obama DOES NOT have good judgment like he claims. He is trying to fool everyone. Obama is real Chicago underground dirty politics hiding in a well educated Harvard grad persona.
We don’t need Obama to unite us, the United States is already united. We need someone to fix the real problems America is facing. Do you think Obama is actually going to consult the people before he votes on an issue. We need a politician that will actually fix problems and that has real solutions. Hillary Clinton is the only one who can lead America in the right direction.
GO HILLARY!!!!!!!!!! NObama!!!!!!!!!!
This man has to be a crazy person or maybe he is just plain stupid??Obama has been a member of this church for 22 years ? I do not think I want someone who asociates himself with this kind to run our country. People had better wake up and see where we are headed.
thanks,
And this guy is the spiritual advisor to the man who may one day be President of this country? If he were spouting rhetoric like this and was John McCain’s pastor, this would be front page news in every newspaper in the country, and Katie Couric would be leading with it nightly for weeks.
Ok, so now we’re attacking Obama’s Pastor, how much lower will you go???
Senator Obama should be obligated to fully repudiate Rev. Wright and Louis Farrakhan. Without unconditional repudiation of these two anti-semitic, anti-white bigots the Senator places himself at their low level and, certainly, does not deserve the honor of running for president.
Speak up Barack!!!!