Obama's church?

Obama Distances Himself

Obama released a statement today distancing himself from his long time "spiritual advisor". Here's the FoxNews story:

Obama’s Statement Condemning His Pastor’s Controversial Sermons

This helps clarify Obama's present position. I glad to see him do this!

However, now that the damage is done, I still have trouble understanding how he could be a member of a church where such "preaching" went on for so long and not have been aware of the message to a large degree.

Regardless, I have to be fair and note that Obama is saying he does not share the anti-American racial hate message of his pastor. That much is good.

No, I'm not voting for him. I never planned to do so. I'm can't support the Democratic platform of either of their candidates.

 

Hey, it says on the abcnews.com website that obama condemns some of the things that Wright preaches, but that Wright is on Obamas campaign commitee and will remain to be.

Why did Ferraro have to quit for racial comments but Wright gets to stay?

I think Obama supports his pastor and believes in his anti-american and racial message...else he wouldnt stay in his church for 20 years, or keep him on his campaign commitee

AJ

 

That's interesting! I hadn't read that yet! This story isn't over yet, is it?

 

The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation. When these statements first came to my attention, it was at the beginning of my presidential campaign. I made it clear at the time that I strongly condemned his comments. But because Rev. Wright was on the verge of retirement, and because of my strong links to the Trinity faith community, where I married my wife and where my daughters were baptized, I did not think it appropriate to leave the church.

I don't believe this statement. he went for too long and was too close to him to never hear this.

 

It is hard for us to "get it". We whites do not get it about how deeply the psychic damage inflicted by racism goes. What we interpret as patriotic is seen by many African-Americans as part of the same old domination language and action they have been subject to for generations. We can disagree with the ideas being taught and we can counter the history being recounted, but what we cannot deal with easily is the depth of feeling and of suspicion that lies deep in the "souls of black folk" (to quote an author who exposed that soul to the world).

So let us consider that what Jeremiah Wright has been preaching has built his church because it is perceived as truth and is seen as well-founded defiance against racism and its outcomes. Like it or not, it just is seen that way.

Now the other aspect of this video is that Wright employs the preaching voice of scores of black preachers. The rasp, the rhythm, the alliteration, the puns that border on naughtiness -- you will find that in a host of black preachers. And it does evoke a very powerful response, I think largely because it is bringing forth familiar themes and feelings. As a white pastor of a black congregation, I always knew that I could say things strongly and loudly and get virtually no response, but that my assistant could make announcements and evoke a noisy response ... but they did hear me and they did learn from my preaching. It just hit them in a different way.

What is Obama's stance in all this? We do not really know. But we do know that he has been loyal to a pastor and a church that brought him to Christ -- that's his assessment and I have no reason to question it. How many of us do agree with all that our pastors say? Hey, on any given Monday I disagree with something I said the day before!

 

Wow! How surprising that you don't believe him. :laugh:

That's alright, I seldom believe you. :tongue3:

 

But here it is not just a "given Sunday". the statements of the mission of the church are plainly spelled out on their website. Rev Wrights sermons are available for all to purchase. If he made a couple of random miscues and said only a couple of controversial things, then why do they put them up for sale to anyone to hear? Well, because it is the foundation of their church and their mission (which they plainly state) .

http://www.tucc.org/about.htm

I find it very hard to believe that Obama didnt know of his pastors racial and anti-american preaching.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4452990&page=1

I am sure more is to come of this.

AJ

 

Here is a story that just came up on yahoo.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080314/ap_on_el_pr/obama_pastor

How could this anti-american racial garbage been preached for years, according to the story, and Obama expects us to believe that he wasnt aware of it until recently?

And why, when he did learn of it, did he not remove Wright from his commitee?

And surely, if a man is your "spiritual advisor" and you are running for a public office, the advisor has advised you on the social issues that he rants about. No, Obama is just not credible in this instance. His excuses do not make sense.

AJ

 

I don't buy the line of thinking! The past is long past. People need to move on and let go of the chains - now their own - they bind them to the past. A lot of what we see is nothing more than new hatred directed by people who've suffered nothing against other people who've done nothing. We keep making excuses for it and that's all most of it is.

 

I think these are very good points! Wright didn't become what he is in the last month of his tenure. It is very difficult to believe Obama had never witnessed any of that character. My trustful nature wants to believe Obama's explanation but my distrustful nature is leanring towards it perhaps having a strong element of political damage control that's so very typical among all politicians these days.

 

Pastor Wright is no longer on Senator Obama's advisory committee. I saw it on the news about an hour ago.

 

Senator Obama didn't say he had never heard of them, simply that he was not present personally when he made the statements.

 

I'll keep looking but so far this is all I found http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/0...ors-fiery-remarks-inflammatory-and-appalling/

It's Obama denouncing his pastors statements and saying he has never heard them directly. I wonder how much a US Senator attends service at his home Church? I imagine even a state representitive would be invited to visit a lot.

“Most importantly, Rev. Wright preached the gospel of Jesus, a gospel on which I base my life. In other words, he has never been my political adviser; he’s been my pastor. And the sermons I heard him preach always related to our obligation to love God and one another, to work on behalf of the poor, and to seek justice at every turn.”

The pastor delivered his final sermon last month and retired as leader of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

 

Ok, I found the clips and will have to say they are fairly disturbing. I don't know if there is enough damage control to come back from this one.

I think what bothers me more is this stuff was coming from a pulpit. The preacher said Jesus was a black man (we know he was Jewish) in a white society. Had Jesus of made issue of this then I would see his point but since those things didn't appear to make the pages of scripture I believe they were a non-issue. This guy repeatedly attacked Hillary (I am proud of her) because of her upbringing then said Obama was better because of his (single parent home). Since when did the pulpit start endourcing single parent homes as a good thing?

This guy is a Nut and I sure wouldn't sit under his teachings...

Now the flip side is there are white people in this congragation. Could it be he hasn't preached this way until lately? I mean, not only do I question why Obama stayed but how could a white person keep their membership there if this has been going on all the time?

 

Hopefully, Obama is done.

There are plenty of white people who hate America.

 

Obama would love for this to go away since this Wright fellow has retired. He is trying to put the entire problem on the shoulders of Wright.

But here is the HUGE problem. As Wright spews out his hatred for whitie the congregation cheers him on!

This is a congregational problem. They have been indoctrinated into these made up fantasies of conspiracies and have been taught to blame the rich white folk leading this country.

Obama loves this fellowship, but just watch the videos of them whooping and cheering the hate that Wright is putting out.

Obama's only hope is to come out rejecting this entire fellowship, condemning their behavior and asking the American people to fogive him for being appathetic to this congregations sin.

God Bless! :thumbs:

 

It will be very interesting to see if Obama can survive this.

 

I wonder how much of the black vote would he loose if he does this? Because of the nature of this thing it is almost a no win situation. By denouncing it he will loose the black's who already question his "blackness" but if he supports it he looses the rest of the country.

 

The Oreilly Factor reported tonight that ABC was the only main stream news media to even report this story and then they only gave it a short mention. CNN reported it apologetically saying they were dumbfounded as to why they should be giving it any air time.

Not everyone gets foxnews. Probably most of the country doesn't even know anything about this story and if its up to the main stream media it will stay that way.

God Bless!

 

Fox News is heavily biased toward the Republican Party just as MSNBC is heavily biased toward the Democratic Party.