Obama’s Former Pastor Getting $1.6M Home in Retirement
The four- bedroom, 10,000-plus square foot home that Trinity United Church of Christ is building for Reverend Jeremiah Wright. (FNC Photo)
By Jeff Goldblatt
This was supposed to be the week that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. returned to the pulpit to preach for the first time since his anti-American sermons generated nationwide outrage and drew condemnation from his longtime parishioner, Barack Obama.
But, citing security concerns, Wright canceled his speaking engagements in Florida and Texas. A spokeswoman at his former church in Chicago said his schedule is pending.
A two-week FOX News investigation, however, has uncovered where Wright will be spending a good deal of his time in retirement, and it is a far cry from the impoverished Chicago streets where the preacher led his ministry for 36 years.
FOX News has uncovered documents that indicate Wright is about to move to a 10,340-square-foot, four-bedroom home in suburban Chicago, currently under construction in a gated community.
While it is not uncommon for an accomplished clergyman to live in luxury, Wright’s retirement residence is raising some questions.
“Some people think deals like this are hypocritical. Jeremiah Wright himself criticizes people from the pulpit for middle classism, for too much materialism,” said Andrew Walsh, Associate Director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life with Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.
“So he’s entitled to be tweaked here. So the question really is, how unusual is this? Somewhat unusual,” he said.
According to documents obtained from the Cook County Register of Deeds, Wright purchased two empty lots in Tinley Park, Ill., from Chicago restaurant chain owner Kenny Lewis for $345,000 in 2004.
Documents show Wright sold the property to his church, Trinity United, in December 2006, with the proceeds going to a living trust shared with his wife, Ramah.
The sale price for the land was just under $308,000, about $40,000 less than Wright’s original purchase two years earlier.
Public records of the sale show Trinity initially obtained a $10 million bank loan to purchase the property and build a new house on the land.
But further investigation with tax and real estate attorneys showed that the church had actually secured a $1.6 million mortgage for the home purchase, and attached a $10 million line of credit, for reasons unspecified in the paperwork.
There is apparently nothing wrong with that, according to non-profit tax expert Jack Siegel of Charity Governance Consulting, who examined public documents FOX News obtained from the Cook County Register of Deeds and the Village of Tinley Park.
“At least looking at it from a public document standpoint, there’s clearly not a problem that jumps out or some sort of wrongdoing,” Siegel said.
Siegel characterizes the transaction as unusual, however, because of the way Wright sold the property to Trinity and the way the deal was financed, with the attached $10 million line of credit.
Because churches are classified as private businesses, Trinity isn’t required to reveal its intended use for the line of credit. Nor, because it’s a non-profit entity, is it required to provide that information to the IRS.
A spokesman for ShoreBank, the Chicago-based financial institution that secured mortgages for the loans, said the deals were aboveboard.
Wright did not respond to repeated calls for comment, and Trinity United refused to discuss the specifics of the home it is building for him and the way the deal was financed.
The church referred FOX News to its denominational headquarters in Cleveland, which provided a statement of support:
“It is customary and appropriate in many Christian denominations, including the United Church of Christ, for local churches to offer housing provisions for retiring clergy, especially in cases where pastors have served long-term pastorates. We support efforts by our 5,700 local churches to ensure that retiring pastors and spouses have continuing housing, adequate pension and health care, as an expression of our continuing appreciation for their years of service. Each local UCC congregation is free to honor a retiring pastor in ways it feels most appropriate to address the needs of that clergyperson’s circumstances,” wrote the Rev. J. Bennett Guess, spokesman for UCC’s national office.
“This is about how these kinds of churches work,” notes Walsh. “These pastors who made big successful churches are real valuable commodities. Is it morally wrong? Well, Protestants don’t have the idea that their religious leaders should live modestly or aesthetically. We’re not talking Buddhist monks or Catholic priests here. There’s no tradition that says they have to live poor.”
Tradition at Trinity United centers on a congregation that’s unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian, according to the church’s website. There are also no apologies from the church for the home it’s building for its former senior pastor, who nurtured a religious empire that grew to have more than 8,000 congregants.
Men” pimping the baby Jesus” and those who folow those pimps are a dime a dozen, but if contemporary America elects one as President, then our Republic is surely experiencing it’s final days. Obama is a Black Joel Olsteen. They both need and enjoy power, they are both powerful and gifted orators who are able to attract and hold large followings of “hungry people hoping that “They” have thae power and ability to change their lives. The difference is that Mr. Olsteen isn’t running for President, Mr’ Olsteen will only effect the lives of his followers who purchase a ticket, while Mr. Obama will effect my life, my childrens lives and the lives of my grandchildren without their permission. Mr. Olsteen would save a child by putting himself between an unborn and a partial birth abortion, while Mr. Obama is on legislative record as permitting the partial birth abortion and has publically stated recently that if one of his two daughters “…made a mistake and was pregnant..Idon’t want them to be punished with a baby”.
And Mr. Obama is the candidate of “justice, and compassion”? Where is the compassion, where is Christian justice, Mr. Obama where is the “Imitation of Christ?, What would Jesus Do?
Please tell me what does he need a big house for.so he can give privte service to Obama and family and the crowd and how much money do you think Obama gave him for that…after all he gave alot to the church to Rev Wright and no other place they said he was stingy and all…but gave Wright over 200,000 in one year WOW alot of money,dont you say…We The American People Dont Need Someone Like Him and The so called First Lady in our White Hous…so lets go Hillary Clinton….
This whole Barak Obama / Jeremiah Wright “thang” stinks to high heaven and what is wrong with the American people that they cannot smell it? What do they have to get hit over the head with? I truely am not a racist, but after the comments of Jeremiah Wright, why are white democrats still upholding him?
I feel that many of his comments conflict with his stated princuipals. Vicki
This man makes deals and statements that most of us from his generation realize are not what we would consider Christian nor American, at our worst.
My barber says this buy back deal may be legal, but it still smells, and everyone knows that.
Where do you think Joel Olsteen, Billy Graham, Robert Schueller, or Kenneth Copeland live? In rodent-rampant shacks?
Financial arrangements in conjunction with the church for pastoral residences are commonplace.
If you consider the gulf between home prices in the South and in the North, a $1.6 million-dollar home is low brow by Chicago standards.
NEXT!
If this article were to be posted in every major US newspaper and show on the evening news-it would do nothing to dissuade Black voters from clamoring to vote for Obama. Silence is assent, and Obama’s silence about the good Rev Wright speaks volumes. If this man and his rhetoric can purchase him a 1.6 million dollar retirement home; then will the Trinity United Church build similar homes for the other 8000 members of its flock that faithfully supported Rev Wrights “vision” ? People need to see past the color of someones skin and hear the truth of the words that Rev Wright promotes; and by association Mr Obama also. Silence is indeed assent; and if the Rev Wright has promoted hatred and his vision of power for Blacks, then is it safe to assume that his ideology has indeed rubbed off on Mr and Mrs Obama ? I’m not against any Pastor teaching about change and empowerment-but from what little I know-the Rev Wright wouldn’t be my preacher if he indeed teaches what the media says he has. And yes-other “preachers” has lovely mansions and homes and compounds also-but the difference is what they teach. And I’ve never seen the phrase G** D*** America in my Bible.
Rich fellow now
This is another example how civil rights industry hate speech pays very well.
IT SEEMS THE GOD BUSINESS PAYS VERY WELL, IM SURE HIS REWARD WILL BE IN HEAVEN WHEN GOD GETS A HOLD OF HIM,WHATS HE DONE FOR THE POOR BUT TAKE THERE MONEY!