Obama’s Religious Credentials Threatened by Rev. Wright Flap
Religion is supposed to be Barack Obama’s strength.
Unlike many Democratic candidates before him, Obama speaks with ease about his faith. He attends Sunday worship and knows his Bible. His supporters believe he can pry some committed churchgoers away from the GOP.
But the furor over comments by his Chicago pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, broadcast again and again on TV and viewed by millions on YouTube, is tempering those hopes.
“It certainly gives people pause,” even in the Democratic Party, said Corwin Smidt, a Calvin College professor who studies religion and politics.
All the top Democratic presidential contenders spoke of their faith this election year. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a Methodist and Obama’s remaining Democratic rival, has spent years reaching out to traditional Christians. But more than any other candidate, Obama has made religion a core part of his message and outreach.
The Illinois senator has held faith forums, created a grass-roots support network of “congregation contacts” and has spoken at evangelical churches that Democrats had rarely visited.
His strategy is rooted in the Christian faith he found as an adult through Wright at Trinity United Church of Christ, a predominantly African-American megachurch. Obama’s book, “The Audacity of Hope” was inspired by a Wright sermon.
But last week, Obama distanced himself from his pastor, after video circulated of Wright’s most inflammatory rhetoric from the pulpit. Among the most remarked upon sound bites was Wright proclaiming “God damn America” for its racism. He also accused the government of flooding black neighborhoods with drugs. In a March 18 speech on race that was partly aimed at damage control, Obama described the history of injustice that fueled Wright’s comments, while also condemning his pastor’s statements and acknowledging the resentment of whites.
Shaun A. Casey, an Obama adviser and a Christian ethics professor at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, said the campaign will change nothing about its faith outreach because of the controversy.
“We’re months and months away from the general election. I think that gives Sen. Obama time to lay out his own views,” Casey said. “Over time, people will spend a lot more time listening to what Sen. Obama says than to a few well-chosen, cherry-picked video clips from his pastor.”
But at least for now, the campaign is on the defensive.
No one expects Obama or Clinton to draw voters from the Christian right, especially considering the candidates’ support for abortion rights.
Still, polls have found that younger evangelicals are less tied to the Republican Party than their parents have been. As a generation of old-guard Christian conservative leaders, such as the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, fade from the scene, some evangelicals are pushing for a broader agenda that includes environmental protection and fighting poverty. And Christian right activists remain wary of the presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain.
Democrats view this as a rare opening that could win them the White House. In a close general election, if the Democratic nominee can peel away even a small percentage of the traditional Christian vote, he or she could win the presidency.
Obama’s focus on racial reconciliation has a special appeal to traditional Bible-believers. Their concern about diversity has intensified recently, in part because of the growth in immigrant churches in the U.S., and by a new awareness that conservative Christianity is spreading dramatically in developing countries. Multiethnic churches are a rarity in America.
The turmoil over Wright could cost Obama these votes.
Barry Hankins, a Baylor University historian who studies religion and politics, predicted that Christian right activists would bombard less-politically engaged evangelicals with the message that they should be leery of Obama because of his pastor.
“That’s where it’s going to hurt him,” Hankins said.
James Guth, an expert on religion and politics at Furman University in South Carolina, said Wright’s comments haven’t killed Obama’s chances. The candidate has built up some goodwill and “curiosity” through his outreach to evangelicals, including appearing at a Christian AIDS summit hosted by megachurch pastor Rick Warren and his wife, Kay.
But Guth said he had always been skeptical that Obama’s strategy would succeed with traditional Christians. Wright’s views inevitably would receive extensive publicity, as would Obama’s denomination, the United Church of Christ, one of the most liberal of the mainline Protestant groups that theological conservatives deeply distrust, Guth said.
“I just thought the ‘beginning of the end’ would come during the general election, not the Democratic primaries,” Guth said. “I don’t think Obama has lost all the benefits of his earlier ‘quiet’ campaign among evangelicals, but this episode is certainly sets back those efforts.”
Fox won’t be satisfied until Obama’s and wright’s lives are at risk or taken out.
If anybody seriously thinks evangelicals will vote for Obama after the Rev Wright fiasco is sadly mistaken or on drugs!
The Rev Wright saga may die down for a while but if Obama is the nominee expect the flames toi be fanned! It will be very very hot come November!
Anybody that would have a mentor and pastor (for 20 years) and then try to hide that pastors hatred for white America is not worthy of the office of President!
He tired to play us for a bunch of fools! And he got busted! Then he gave us a fine speech on “race” where he tried to justify and rationalize Rev Wright’s inflammatory remarks and hatred for America. In the end he “finally” admitted to knowing about Rev Wright and also admitted to hearing him spew his vile while in the church pews which he originally denied.
Bottom line is I think he lied to us all! Once he found out he couldn’t keep the lid on he got caught and now there’s no way out! This will not go away!
We still haven’t heard from Ann Coulter on this issue!
Fox News sucks -
Are you still printing this old Rev Wright news story? Obama gave a great speach on the economy and this is your story?? Note to Fox News You will not change the mind of an Obama supporter. We are not that guillable. The people who care about this story were never Obama supporters. They are just as ignorant as you!
I have news for all of you lousy republicans. If my candidate (Obama) does not get the nod. I will hold my breath and vote for Hillary because the only thing worse then Hillary as President is John McCain. NO THANK YOU! If Obama gets the not GREAT! But Hillary will NOT get my vote when she goes for senate re-election. She messed up with all of her lies and garbage talk.
I was watching fox news at 4:30 pm and I think your reporting on the Rev Wright issue is hateful in itself… You need to separate Rev Wright from Obama… as Rev Wright is not running for President. Next, please stop playing and reading small pieces of Rev Wright’s sermons as you are definitely reporting only pieces of the information presented and therefore everything you report is out of context!!!
IF YOUR REPORT ON A SERMON, YOU NEED THE BEGINNING, THE MIDDLE AND THE END…!!! I AM SICK OF FOX NEWS AND i HOPE YOUR PROGRAM DISAPPEARS LIKE PRESIDENT BUSH WILL IN THE NEAR FUTURE. YOUR REPORTING ONLY FEEDS THE EVIL ONE AND FURTHER DIVIDES YOUR VIEWERS IN AMERICA.
god is watching you… blessed are the peacemakers…
The Reverend seems more like a black “White Supremacist” or neo nazi. Would such a situation be tolerated in the reverse? For how long really?
None of this has changed my faith in Obama to lead this country. This country is so messed up. It’s a country of uncaring people. A country led by straight hypocrisy and unforgiveness. These are a few of the things that has DAMNED this country. It has nothing to do with comments from Rev. Jeremiah Wright. With all of this you’re doing to one man, have any of you ever stopped to think of his emotional and mental state at this time. What if Rev. Wright today decided to take his own life because of the pressure. I would personally thank FOX NEWS. You have been on a witch hunt for over three weeks now and don’t know when to stop.
Those of us that were going to vote for Obama anyway hasn’t changed in any way. You’re only touching the lives of the weak and wavering. My faith in Obama has nothing to do with Rev. Wright. Most of the pastors I know think and preach the same way Rev. Wright does. This country is ran by a bunch of hypocrites and it’s sad that in the end we all lose.
Comments that include unlawful, threatening, libelous, or obscene content are regularly reported in articles such as these and on your network, and website: Why are they not also moderated?
I’m sorry Obama can’t get enough religion between now and November (EVEN if he is the nominee) for me to vote for him. Anything he does now is just to try and get the votes he needs to be president. It won’t work, not on this OKIE>
Headline after inflmmatory headline has failed to do what Fox News Network has desperately attempted: Derail Barack Obama’s campaign for President of the United States. The true integrity and character and shining spirit of Senator Obama has emerged untarnished after weeks of unfair and unbalanced coverage of his assocation with his former Pastor. With gratitude, I thank Fox news for pointing me to such an outstanding candidate to support. Once an avid fan of this network, the blinders are off and I see this network as everything that stands in the way of a Unified United States of America. Journalism is deteriorating before our eyes to be replaced with opinion, speculation, and desperate innuendo. Fox is dead, long live MSNBC and CNN. Negative coverage of Obama has derailed Hillary’s campaign instead! Bravo!
Marie McDermott
Lakeside, AZ
I have to tell you, it is becoming very difficult for me to even have a concept of Barack Obama’s nature as he professes it to be. He came off as a person who was not generated in the “racist” sections of the American life. He promotes hope and change but leaves a severed flaw in that he has continued to, what I see it as, support for Rev. Wright and his views, not as a pastor, but as an enstigator of hatred towards whites, jews, italians and who knows who will be next.
I can not believe that Obama sat through 20 YEARS of this hatred filled concept his pastor promoted and still claims that this is not what he saw in person. Was Obama asleep through the preaching of this inconsiderate and rheotorical man? And why would he allow his wife and children to be subjected to this ministry unless he felt that this is what they needed to know and follow themselves? The more I see the less I have for any regard towards Obama.
I am a Democrat and I want to see a democratic president. I am, at this point, going to vote for Hillary Clinton for she reveils her dreams for Americans which include all Americans. I believe her health care program entitles all people to insurance coverage where Obama’s may leave out millions of people. He claims that Hillary Clinton will mandate that all people have insurance. Well, Obama’s plan leaves out millions of people but his plan also mandates that parents provide for their children. Everyone should know that if the parents arn’t healthy, it would be extremely hard for the parents to provide coverage for the children. That is where Clinton steps up to the plate and will help subsidise the cost. Sure, we as taxpayers will help with the tab. If we can spend ONE TRILLION dollars on a country that we have not helped to provide adequate SECURITY TO, HEALTH INSURANCE NEEDS TO, FOOD TO, SCHOOLING TO, or INFRASTRUCTURE TO and say….OH its worth it, why not our own?
A vote for Obama may become very disaterous to our country.