In Easter Sermon, New Obama Pastor Charges Rev. Wright Victim of ‘Lynching’
In sermon at Trinity United Church of Christ on Easter Sunday, Rev. Jeremiah Wright was compared to Jesus Christ for facing aggressive media in wake of anti-American remarks. Wright was not present at the sermon. (AP Photo)
CHICAGO — The new pastor of Barack Obama’s church delivered a defiant defense of its retiring reverend Sunday, comparing media coverage of Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. to a modern-day lynching that resembles Jesus’ death at the hands of the Romans.
In a sunrise Easter sermon, Rev. Otis Moss III never mentioned Wright by name, but implied that his mentor, who has delivered sermons in which he likened the U.S. to the Ku Klux Klan and declared it damned for its “state-sponsored terrorism,” is facing the same challenges Jesus did.
“No one should start a ministry with lynching, no one should end their ministry with lynching,” Moss said.
“The lynching was national news. The RNN, the Roman News Network, was reporting it and NPR, National Publican Radio had it on the radio. The Jerusalem Post and the Palestine Times all wanted exclusives, they searched out the young ministers, showed up unannounced at their houses, tried to talk with their families, called up their friends, wanted to get a quote on how do you feel about the lynching?” he continued.
The criticism surrounding Wright has not softened the services at Trinity United Church of Christ, where Obama has been a congregant for 20 years. Instead, Moss defiantly defended their method of worship, referencing rap lyrics to make his point.
“If I was Ice Cube I’d say it a little differently — ‘You picked the wrong folk to mess with,’” Moss said to an enthusiastic congregation, standing up during much of the sermon, titled “How to Handle a Public Lynching.”
Wright’s sermons were criticized for casting the country as institutionally racist and Obama sharply condemned Wright’s remarks as racially divisive in a high-profile speech Tuesday, though the candidate would not renounce the pastor himself. Church officials said Wright, who is now on sabbatical and entering retirement after nearly 40 years of service with the church, was not attending any service Sunday.
Obama and his family were spending Easter on vacation and also were not attending services.
Though the church recently moved a once-prominent section on its Web site about the “Black Value System,” the congregation still describes itself as “unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian.” A plaque states this prominently behind the front desk.
The sermons Sunday, which kept references to Wright as a common thread, implied that the firestorm over Wright’s remarks has taken the church’s teachings out of context.
Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie, the first female bishop in the AME Church, also delivered a sermon, in which she talked about visionaries like King and Gandhi and “Jeremiah” (it was unclear whether she meant Wright), and argued that their words weren’t about “anger,” but about “a passion that demands confrontation.”
“The purveyors of information are trying to be judge and jury over prophetic utterances,” she said.
The church program handed out Sunday also included an essay called “Not on My Watch” from the Rev. Samuel B. McKinney of Mount Zion Baptist Church in Seattle. McKinney said he was “greatly disturbed” by the “media feeding frenzy that has tarnished everyone in the process.”
“Dr. Wright represents the best among us … An attack on this man of God is an attack on all those of the cloth who believe in the social Gospel of liberation. And I will not stand for it,” he wrote.
Moss issued several pleas to congregants to donate to what he called the “Resurrection Fund,” stressing that during this time of battle, money is needed to defend the church. He offered no additional specifics about the fund, telling churchgoers he didn’t want to get into it because Trinity is streaming the service live on the Web and the services are available for purchase on DVD.
He concluded with another analogy, saying, “In order to crucify him you’ve got to lift him up … he had more visibility on the cross than he did during his entire ministry.”
FOX News’ Jeff Goldblatt contributed to this report.
Yes life has it challenges, but in America only YOU keep yourself down. The whiners need to start listening to will encourage them, not tell them how bad they have it.
Well said, J Mitchell.
The left is outraged that people dare use Mr. Wright’s own words - his sermons of hate, as a reflection of B Obama. Yes, people are simply crazy to feel Obama should be associated with the company he keeps, loves and admires. Obama is so close to this filthy racist that he actually expressed Mr. Wright is considered like a member of his own family. Obama has chalked up 20 years of racist, hate sermons by Mr. Wright and by his association agrees and supports Mr. Wright. Obama can lie all he wants but his actions speak louder than his words.
It is quite telling that Obama thinks that the rest of us have ever heard such hatred in our churches. He obviously thinks that is the norm….which is quite frightening.
hmmm…….appears Mr. Wright’s own words and Obama’s admiration are coming home to roost.
I built a home for my family in a rural white neighborhood three years ago. Since then, my shed and my fence have been repeatedly vandalized, sugar poored into the gas tank of my automobile, dogs set upon my children by white people whom my wife gave water to while they were moving into their new home before their well was activated, one of my dogs shot while seemingly safe in my yard, a ton of top soil brazenly stolen from my field by a white neighbor on a tractor, white police and County magistrates refusing to press charges, my disabled son being harassed by cruel white children who are encouraged and taught by their parents to hate. The friendly white people who will speak to us rather than make threats as they drive by, defend the other white people saying, “well, they’re really nice people, its just that you’re different”. They tell us that we shouldn’t be so racist as to actually point out the crimes of our white neighbors. Maybe they are right. Perhaps we should just be quiet and take it all without saying anything. That would make it a lot easier for white people to abuse us, wouldn’t it? In fact, we as Americans should just shut up and do and believe whatever crap is thrown at us, eh?
In 20 years, Sen. Obama has not seen it fit to challenge the ethnocentric basis of the church he worships in. If he was not a pious man, one might forgive him this sin of ommission but given that he has professed that faith is a very important part of his life, one is left wondering how he could possibly have come to the conclusion that Afrocentric Theology is not fundamentally at odds with the idea of an America that is blind to the color of your skin.
The Senator is a fine orator and undoubtedly a man of great passion. He should bring some of this to bear upon his church, that they might adopt the lofty ideals he holds so dear.
Healing, change, renewal and salvation all begin at home.
Obama needed a mentor. Obama needs a mentor. Obama needs a shrink. The U.S. doesn’t need Obama. Not in the Senate nor in the White House.
20 years of listening to this hatemongering, and we are expected to believe that Obama didn’t buy into it? Well, I am not buying into that! Of course Obama believes it and lives it, and the only reason he isn’t saying the same thing as his preacher is because he couldn’t get elected dogcatcher with that ideology. But I guarantee you, he believes it all. And his wife is less adept at hiding it, by some of the comments she has made too.
Bye bye Barak….your campaign is over. Even if it’s too late to give Hillary the nomination.
Why is the media not taking Obama to task for this anti-white and anti-american’s teaching? why does the media continue to give him yet another free pass at how eloquent he was? it does not matter how elequoent he was but if he does not answer the real questions then he is just not electable.
We dont need Obama.
If the hysterical rantings that we have seen aired on TV by this “Rev” have been taken out of context, what do they mean when they are taken in context?
Martin Luther Kings dream was that all races become equal. Not one above another. What this pastor wants to do is seperate the races. His church is not multi race no other race seems to be welcome. Thats not the ways of the Jesus I know and serve.