Obama’s Church Fires Back
File; Barack Obama with Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. (AP Photo)
The Chicago church attended by Barack Obama is fighting back against media coverage of its controversial pastor, issuing a statement on Sunday, saying reports on the inflammatory remarks by Rev. Jeremiah Wright are an attempt to attack “the history of the African American church.”
“Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.’s character is being assassinated in the public sphere because he has preached a social gospel on behalf of oppressed women, children and men in America and around the globe,” the leaders of Trinity United Church of Christ wrote Sunday in a statement distributed to the media.
Claiming that Wright’s 36 years as pastor of the church — the largest United Church of Christ congregation, with 8,000 members — is being demeaned, Rev. John H. Thomas, UCC general minister and president, said, “It saddens me to see news stories reporting such a caricature of a congregation that has been such a blessing to the UCC’s Wider Church mission … It’s time for us to say ‘No’ to these attacks and declare that we will not allow anyone to undermine or destroy the ministries of any of our congregations in order to serve their own narrow political or ideological ends.”
Neither Wright nor Obama was present at the church on Sunday, but all of talk news has been on the subject of the pastor, whose many sermons have been captured on video and replayed across television and the Internet over the past few weeks.
Some of the more flamboyant sermons have included statements saying that the U.S. created the AIDS virus to kill African Americans and that the United States was asking for the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks because it had supported “state-sponsored terrorism” against black South Africans and Palestinian
Obama’s campaign has tried to distance the candidate from his Wright, the man who coined the phrase “the audacity of hope” that became the title of Obama’s bestselling book.
Speaking in a conference call on Sunday, Obama’s advisers acknowledged that the pastor was supposed to appear at the announcement of Obama’s presidential campaign last year, but was cut from the program in part because they knew he was controversial and didn’t want him to become a target or distraction, both of which he nows appears to be.
But even as attention is focused on Obama, Hillary Clinton’s supporters have refrained from pouncing on the opportunity to link Obama to his 20-year-long spiritual adviser.
“I mean, as you know, I prefer Senator Clinton for a whole lot of reasons, but I don’t cast aspersions on Senator Obama for what somebody else said,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told “FOX News Sunday.”
Calling Trinity’s social justice and outreach programs “inclusive and global” Moss added that not much has changed since the era of Martin Luther King’s sermons for equality. He claimed that African American churches, “born out of the crucible of slavery and the legacy of prophetic African American preachers since slavery” continue to treat marginalized victims of social and economic injustices in the face of prejudice.
“This is an attack on the legacy of the African American Church which led and continues to lead the fight for human rights in America and around the world,” he said, adding “The African American Church community continues to face bomb threats, death threats, and their ministers’ characters are assassinated because they teach and preach prophetic social concerns for social justice. Sunday is still the most segregated hour in America.”
Click here to read the Trinity United Church of Christ statement.
FOX News’ Caroline Shively contributed to this report.
This church and pastor attacked Oprah when she left this church years ago… Maybe Obama was afraid to leave the church… since he used it as PR for his local elections
Comment by Edward March 16th, 2008 at 7:49 pm “Antoin Rezko, a former political patron on trial for felony fraud charges, Hussein Obama” His name is Barack Hussein Obama, so your bigotry is showing. You do know that Rezko has contributed to people like George Bush? He is a long time political campaign donor and even the Clintons were photographed with him at a political fund raiser. She said she does not know the man. Same thing she said about Peter Paul, when that Hollywood Gala fund raiser got her in trouble with the FEC. Paul has new evidence to present in court and the case may just come to trial finally in mid-October. But the press does not want to bring up the Clintons long string of non-disclosure issues. No questions why Senator Clinton would take campaign money from Hoffman-LaRoche. She should be well aware of their price fixing. I question her “like it or not those lobbyists are real Americans”. I do not think Roche’s CEO’s are US citizens. Is not there bank accounts in Switzerland and France?
America is not about hate. America is about hope and dreams and about a second chance. Maybe the journalists of fox news should not be slow to interview a broad spectrum of war veterans and ask them about how they feel about they were treated when they returned home from vietnam and Iraq ( Gulf war 1 and Gulf War 2).
Only victims of war and veterans in the frontline know the reality of war. They need our understanding not our condemnation. Rehabilation is about restoration and positive integration. We need to stop this mudslinging and fiery sermons and get back on track about living true to the American dream. Errol Smythe.
Sad the people in the country have not moved a day forward in 40 years. Obama thinks the majority of American people are decent. He has done so much work on behalf of our Veterans, especially the homeless Iraqi ones, of any ethnic background. Veterans for Peace, and Iraq Veterans Against War support Obama for a reason. Like, Obama, they know our troops are low. They know Hillary voted yes to the Iran Resolution. They know Obama wrote a counter resolution to slow down the rush into Iran. They know into Iran puts us in grave danger of a united global attack to stop what is seen as “Christian terrorists” and “imperialistic bullies” and how we are creating more terrorists because it is the only way they can fight our superior military power. Into Iran surely means welcome back draft, but ya all want to crucify “the black man”. Grow up people.
“The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Why, when all of my ancestors are snake-bitten and I’m snake-bitten, and I warn my children to avoid snakes, what does that snake sound like accusing me of hate teaching?” Malcolm X
Obama is Dr. Martin Luther King to Wright’s Malcolm X.
Much has happened to black America about which white America has no clue, for instance; Did you know that the Government of this country DELIBERATELY injected black men with Syphilis from 1932 to 1972? That is a FACT.(The Tuskegee Project). Therefore, many whites don’t seem to understand the nature of the black anger. Whilst I do not think Rev Wright’s approach is beneficial to addressing the racial issue in this country, his anger stems from centuries of mental, physical and psychological abuse bestowed on the black race. And if the tables were turned and it was the white race that was made to feel inferior and had endured the decades of brutal oppression, sincerely, how do you think as a white person, you would feel today?. Be honest….
I am mad that this is now comming out. Why didn’t someone say something about Obama’s association with this very radical church and his Louis Farrakan association. It sounds like Wright, Farrakan and Obama are all involved in the Islamic hate movement. If I had known this I would HAVE NOT voted for Obama in the Primary. I did realize that Obama refuses to wear a American Flag on his lapel like all the other Senators do and I was aware that he refuses to put his right hand over his heart during the pledge of allegiance. I did see the picture of the two men standing next to Obama saying the pledge and Obama with his arms to his side.
I also wonder why Obama would attend this church that his own mother and family would not be welcome to attend. Go to the Trinity Church home page and you will see that only blacks are welcome to attend this church. If my church ever put that we cater to white people only can you imagine what would happen to it. This is not Christian thinking to exclude a race from a church it is radical Islamic thinking.
FOX NEWS SEEMS INTENT UPON MAKING NEWS INSTEAD OF REPORTING NEWS. OBAMA’S CHURCH DOES NOT REPRESENT MY STYLE OF PREACHING, BUT THE CHURCH AND MINISTER DIDN’T JUST APPEAR IT IS ONLY NEW TO US. BOTH HAVE A HIGH STANDING IN THE CHURCH COMMUNITY. GIVE THEM A BREAK! IT IS IMPORTANT TO BE FAIR. BECAUSE OF THAT YOU SHOULD SHOW SOME OF THE PREACHER’S LESS VIOLENT AND MORE GODLY SERMONS. I SAW YOUR INTERVIEW WITH THIS MINISTER WHERE YOU DID NOT GIVE HIM A CHANCE TO TALK. (MOST OF YOU AT FOX HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THIS, EVEN WITH ONE ANOTHER. ) I WAS DISAPPOINTED BECAUSE I WAS WAITING TO HEAR WHAT THE MAN HAD TO SAY.
IT IS VERY EASY TO TEAR A MAN DOWN, AND RUIN HIS LIFE WITH THIS CONSTANT NEGATIVE HAMMERING. IN MY VIEW YOU ARE MUCH LIKE THE MINISTER OF OBAMA’S CHURCH TRYING TO GET YOUR POINT OF VIEW ACROSS WHEN SOME OF IT MAY NOT BE COMPLETELY ACCURATE. IT IS NOT TO YOUR CREDIT.
HAVING SAID THIS I DO REMAIN A FAN OF FOX NEWS.
FRANCES
Obama’s minister with whom he is “CLOSE” for 20 years:
1) Takes trips to terroristic countries such as LIbya, and Syria with Louis Farrakhan
2) Preaches anti-white, anti-America messages
3) Louis Farrakhan donates heavily to Obama’s campaign.
do we see a pattern here yet folks?……but Obama didn’t know that? Does Obama not watch the news? Wright’s trips with Farrakhan were on NATIONAL/WORLD news. …..and Obama sat in that church for 20 years, and yet “just happened to” miss any message which was anti-white, or anti-American? I am to believe according to their church members, that Wright only preached those types of messages when Obama “happened not to be” present??? Was Obama NOT “close enough” with any member of the church, (which he said he was so close to), that he never even HEARD of those messages that Wright was preaching, or else as he says NOW, “he would quit”??? Why did Obama refuse to have Wright to say the prayer when he was being admitted to the Senate if he was SO “close” to Wright? Wright was PRESENT at that time, but Obama only met with him PRIOR to being admitted to the Senate, when they “prayed” together, before. Obama et al never asked who Louis Farrakhan was after he donated $22,000 to his campaign? Usually any Presidential candidate KNOWS EXACTLY WHO “heavy” donors are, and WHAT “heavy” donors stand FOR. But then every one in America knows WHO Louis Farrakhan IS, and WHAT he stands FOR….so he didn’t have to “ask”.
His church members say that the same message, that they now claim was a “SOCIAL GOSPEL”, that Wright preached, is being preached all over AMERICA, in ALL of America’s BLACK CHURCH’S. Doesn’t make it right. I had been wondering if the other black church’s were preaching a similar message, and now I have my answer. They say his messages should be taken in a “spiritual sense” and not a “political sense”. Well…..I listened to Wright preach a sermon, and if he didn’t want it taken in a “political sense”, then he should not have been preaching in a “POLITICAL SENSE.” And if politics are not involved in his “work” then why is he going to Libya and Syria with Louis Farrakhan, who is leader of Nation of Islam? It is a well known thing that Louis Farrakhan is an American hate monger. He has guards because he fears for his life because of the hate messages he preaches.
You cannot blaspheme God in church, and be spiritual, and you cannot condemn the US, and not be political. Sounds to me like this fits completely in the Obama mindset — recall Michelle Obama’s remark about being proud of the US for the “first time”, and her Master’s Thesis about black disenfranchisement? He knew. He chose that church, and that pastor, because of what he knew — he wanted to organize the BLACK community through the church contacts, and did. He knew.
My answer to this latest “support” for Wright/Obama is, BS. Cover up. Call it a “Social Gospel”, or call it an HATE FILLED ANTI AMERICA message, NEITHER has a place in America, NOR does its “SEEDS” have a place in the White House.
Not only has Obama lost my vote but the nomination as far as I am concerned. I hope Hillary has the good judgment not to put him in as her VP.
You are judged by association. Obama and his pastor are anti-American. Everyone is looking at this as racial, but it’s against America. Twenty years of listening to hate America sermons, you got to be kidding. How did this man get so far in our government? We want a true American as our president, not a well trained, brain washed radical. I love my country and will stand behind it 100%. If Reverend Wright hates our U.S.A. so much, let him go back to the middle east, and take Obama with him. No true American will stand for hearing hate America once, let alone 20 years of it. Whats been said and done, can not be undone.