Obama's Former Pastor, Jeremiah Wright, and Trinity Church in Context

The kinds of angry, alienated, conspiratorial, paranoid and racist statements that Rev. Jeremiah Wright, recently retired pastor of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, made in the Youtube.com compilation about life in America are commonplace among the long-term unemployed, minority men who feel little stake in this society. 

To the middle-class American mind, such statements are completely unacceptable. Wright is on the record as stating that America is too racist to elect Barack Obama, though he has expressed the hope that he might be wrong. Indeed, Obama's whole campaign is designed to prove Wright's jaded older generation wrong -- it is based on the premise that white America will judge him on his merits.

Andrew Sullivan posts full video and text of Wright's sermon after 9/11, its full context, and offers his own analysis, disagreeing with Wright but characterizing the sermon as "Biblical pacifist (who is) self-critical." To anyone who wishes to understand the context, it's well worth a read. 

One of America's leading theologians, Martin Marty, says that Dr. Wright is misunderstood. He tells Nicholas Kristoff of The New York Times that despite Wright's sometimes reckless speaking style and outrageous statements, he is not hostile toward white people.

"The big thing for Wright is hope,” said Marty, one of America’s foremost theologians, who has known the Rev. Wright for 35 years and attended many of his services. “You hear ‘hope, hope, hope.’ Lots of ordinary people are there, and they’re there not to blast the whites. They’re there to get hope.”

Professor Marty said that as a white person, he sticks out in the largely black congregation but is always greeted with warmth and hospitality. “It’s not anti-white,” he said. “I don’t know anybody who’s white who walks out of there not feeling affirmed.”

For his part, Obama has disassociated himself strongly from Wright's inflammatory remarks. He says that cherry-picking a few inflammatory remarks over the course of a 40-year career does not provide much insight into the life or philosophy of Dr. Wright. Wright “has preached for 30 years,” Barack Obama says. “I don’t think this (the inflammatory video clips) is a well-rounded portrait of him.” Even so, Obama was concerned enough about Wright's "rough" rhetoric that he disinvited him from giving the invocation at his presidential announcement speech in February, 2007.

See these profiles of Wright in the Baltimore Sun, Chicago Tribune, and The New York Times:

In “Dreams From My Father,” Mr. Obama described his teary-eyed reaction to the minister’s words. “Inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones,” Mr. Obama wrote. “Those stories — of survival, and freedom, and hope — became our story, my story.”

Here's the full text of Wright's sermon, "The Audacity to Hope," which so inspired Obama.

Obama's Minister Committed "Treason" but When my Father Said the Same Thing He Was a Republican Hero by  Frank Schaeffer

Why Do White People Think Wright Is Scarier Than Hagee?

Wright's character and Trinity UCC unfairly attacked, his church says in statement. Excerpt:

Trinity United Church of Christ’s ministry is inclusive and global. The following ministries have been developed under Dr. Wright’s ministerial tutelage for social justice: assisted living facilities for senior citizens, day care for children, pastoral care and counseling, health care, ministries for persons living with HIV/AIDS, hospice training, prison ministry, scholarships for thousands of students to attend historically black colleges, youth ministries, tutorial and computer programs, a church library, domestic violence programs and scholarships and fellowships for women and men attending seminary.

Associated Press: Wright's defenders said the statements that have been playing this week are taken out of context, and he is not anti-white.

The United Church of Christ, the denomination of the Chicago church, is overwhelmingly white. And Wright is an equal-opportunity critic, often delivering scorching lectures about black society, telling audiences to improve their educations and work ethic.

"I can remember Jeremiah saying in probably half his sermons: Everyone who's your color ain't your kind," Richard Sewell, a church member, said last year.

Regarding the phrase "God damn America" in one of Wright's sermons, from a comment on the blog Suburban Guerrilla: "Anyone who has even a passing knowledge of the Old Testament prophets should find the phrase “God damn, America” in a critique from the pulpit of American racism, no more unsettling than the phrase “woe unto you O Israel” in a passage of Jeremiah."

Obama explained his philosophical differences with Dr. Wright this way:

“Reverend Wright is a child of the 60s, and he often expresses himself in that language of concern with institutional racism and the struggles the African-American community has gone through,” Mr. Obama said. “He analyzes public events in the context of race. I tend to look at them through the context of social justice and inequality.”

To truly examine Wright's philosophy, peruse one of the books he authored:

• What Makes You So Strong? Sermons of Joy and Strength (1993),
• Africans Who Shaped Our Faith (1995),
• Good News!: Sermons of Hope for Today's Families (1995), and
• What Can Happen When We Pray: A Dilly Devotional (2002).

Jane Fisler Hoffman explains her relationship with Obama's church:

Rev. Otis Moss, currently the senior pastor (succeeding Rev. Wright, who has retired):

Check out Faith.BarackObama.com for more on Senator Obama's faith and the different faith communities supporting him.

Andrew Sullivan: "Everything we know about Obama's racial politics and rhetorical style - and we know a lot about both - reveals the enormous gulf between him and Wright. This notion that somehow Obama harbors some ambivalence about his own country is not borne out by any facts or any record. The total record of Obama shows a very shrewd but compassionate and engaged rejection of identity politics, not a celebration of its most paranoid and bigoted emanations."

Previous:

Smear Campaign Against Obama and His Church

Related:

• Have you ever had a bigoted friend, relative or mentor? What Obama should say about his pastor (Rabbi Marc Gellman in Newsweek.)
• Trying Times for Trinity: What's It Really Like on the Inside? Lisa Miller in Newsweek
• Bill Kristol, Newsmax bungle key facts about Obama's attendance at Wright's sermon
• Criticism of Obama's Pastor Seen As Attempt to Silence Voice of Black Church (Washington Post)
• Photo of Rev. Wright with President Clinton at the White House, 1998.

Comments

[Ron M.]

Mr. Obama disagrees with re: Rev. Wright. He said Wright made "some inflammatory and appalling remarks he made about our country, our politics and my political opponents."

Obama went on to say "I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy,"

http://www.latimes.com/
news/politics/
la-na-obama15mar15
,0,2299538.story

In another interview, Obama said he is not a consistent church-goer (few of us are) and had not personally heared the "sermons". I have no reason to doubt his word especially since not all of Wright's diatribes were delivered at Trinity CC.

[poetryman69]

Getting yourself pastored by a radical hater shows bad judgment. Lying about it when asked by the media shows dishonesty. Request for presidency denied.

--klqtzz

[Jim Buie]

Wow. Ron Moore gives a Democrat the benefit of the doubt. Amazing. Could it be that Obama's call to put aside vicious partisanship has rubbed off on Ron?

[Ron M.]

I give any man I think is honest the benefit of the doubt....even Republicans. More than I see most Democrats do.

[Jim Buie]

I think McCain is honest and smart, a straight shooter, a war hero and basically a man of integrity. I respect his Churchillian position on Iraq far more than I did the misleading positions of Bush, who has never acknowledged his own serious misjudgments. So maybe we are in store for an uncommonly honest, civil and respectful fall campaign -- at least among those who do not wish to engage in smears or guilt-by-association.

[Johnboy]

Well said.

See this blogpost:

Chickens & Whores, Homosexuals & Hurricanes

at url =
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/johngramercy/gGBK2B

[Hisham]

having lived in USA for 30 yrs, and having no axes to grind with either whites or blacks, I honestly don't see anything untrue about the man's remarks. If any, I am amazed at how fragmented and subdued black americans, and lower class whites have become. If only the underprivileged majority unites!

[Joy Howard]

Jim, what a treat to discover your blog during these tumultous times. Thanks for gathering all those links. I don't know if you remember me from the First Church days in Washington, DC. It's good to find you again via the miracle of the internet.

[B. James Stinson]

Comparing Obama to JFK

JFK was a notorious adulterer who profaned the presidency with multiple trysts, and used the White House staff to prevent his wife from discovering women with him there. By contrast, Obama appears to be a faithful husband. Yet, as Thomas Sowell writes elsewhere, Obama "has been leading as much of a double life as Eliot Spitzer."

What Obama found irresistible, however, was not a mini-skirt or a bursting bodice, but the cult of Black racism and treason in Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ. Now he is telling his spiritual mistress of 20 years not to call him at work, and not to embarrass him in front of his new friends. But it's hard not to notice the lipstick on his collar.

http://comparingobama2jfk.blogspot.com (Comments enabled)

[truth machine]

"the cult of Black racism and treason"

What an extraordinary lie, in a comment to a blog that refutes it.

[Elise]

As usual. People cannot listen without their prejudices shaping what they hear. Obama said that he was NOT present for the particular excerpts of Wright's speeches being played on the news and internet. In his speech he said he had been in the pew when Wright said "some" inflammatory things and "some" things he vehemently disagreed with. Never did he change his account and "admit" as some want to say that he heard the specific or paricular speeches that are the source of the great controversy. Yet some have quickly claimed that he is now admitting something he first denied. "He lied." People listen, but really hear what they already want to hear. Truth has no chance again prejudice.

[Brian]

How is it that American could subject a people, any people to centuries of slavery and discrimination in the form of Jim Crow--a situation that has only been outlawed less than 50 years ago, and they expect that they should harbor no anger? Why does black anger shock the good white people of today so much. Incredible! And this anger is called treasonous, while the Confederate Flag, the flag that represents a grand act of treason leading to a war that cost more American lives than any other thusfar, is called a symbol of "heritage" and still allowed to fly in public places in some states. The Confederate Flag represents treason. Black anger represents reason.

[Howard]

The fact the balck americans feel they can say this kind of stuff and get away with it, is part of what angers white americans. white americans have been told not to think, let alone speak like that for over 40 years...and in fact get punished for it. yet, a black preacher can stand up and say it in front of an entire congregation. it should anger every american white or black that someone is still thinking like this let alone spreading it as gospel.

I think a lot of the problem with racism in the US has to do with the fact that instead of addressing the problems, african americans would rather point blame - usually using race as the cause. for example, rev. wrights arguement for AIDS in US. Instead of developing a program to help african americans avoid or become educated around AIDS, he says the US invented it to kill off blacks. If I was a young black man (teenager) and I heard my preacher saying that...I would assume it to be true and be very angry with the government. How is that a positive thing or a thing of HOPE?

The confederate flag does not represent treason. The conferedate flag does not, nor has it ever represented support for slavery. It is a religious cross (St. Andrew's cross) with 13 stars (representing the 11 southern states and the 2 other states that were a part of the confederacy). It stands for the South NOT for slavery. The German flag did not change after WWII...the use of the Swastika however did change. The Swastika was used as a symbol of white power...it has been removed from use - not the German flag. If southerns can not proudly display their heritage in the flag then blacks should not be able to wear tribal colors or african wear. It is the same thing. If in your eyes the confederate flag equals treason, then african tribal wear equals treason.

We are all americans, we just come from different places. we have to respect that. but until blacks can start pointing the finger at each other, instead of always making it about whitey, we will continue to be stuck in this racist place.

The reason why black anger shocks white people like myself is I have neither seen nor inflicted any harm to african americans. I have been told everyday to respect and aid them in every way I can...but blacks my age have been preached too by the likes of rev. wright and raised to resent white men like myself. It won't work if only one of us is willing to try.

[Ron M.]

I've read that as much as a third of the black population in this country firmly believes the US
Government invented AIDS as a means of killing off not only black Americans, but black Africans also.

When I was teaching in a predominantly black school, a common "conspiracy" belief was that whites were shipping guns into black neighborhoods so that blacks would murder each other. The rationale for this belief is that it must be a white conspiracy since blacks didn't manufacture guns. All I could do is point out that blacks like to eat meat, but on one was raising cattle in black neighborhoods and ask if that meant there was a conspiracy by whites to get blacks to eat meat?

[Patty]

I find it disgusting that a man {Obama } who had "prior information" all the years that Mr Ayers "donated" and associated with Obama for all, or any of his political assparations that a home grown terrorist, likr Mr. Ayers is still in Obamas life!!!

[NEIGHBORS & FRIENDS?] excuses this "bomber-pig" and calles him a "University professor?" JUST BECAUSE MR. AYERS IS NOT IN PRISON FOR HIS 'TERROR-TACTICS'? DOES NOT MEAN IT IS OK TO EXCUSE AYERS TERROR ACTIVITIES THAT "HE STILL ADMITS TOO!" -- OMG!!

Hey OBAMA!!! YOUR FRIENDS THAT YOU "STILL HOLD DEAR"? and I'm counting at least three so far...[the pastor - the Slum-loard of Chicago - and Mr. Ayers?]are all people who seem TO "HATE AMERICA" AND WHO YOU HAVE TAKEN MONEY FROM, AND CONTINUE YOUR [DOUBLE TALKING BS. REASONING FOR YOUR TIES TO THEM!] = THESE PEOPLE ARE EXTEME IN THEIR BELIEFS AND YOU ARE "EXPOLITING" VOTERS WITH THE BEAUTIFUL ART OF "UPLIFTING SPEECHES"...anyone can be a good actor...and I believe that is what Obama is. = an actor, and a man who continues standing by people with "VIOLENT" and possibly DEADLY TIES by actions in their lives. I DON'T WANT A PRESIDENT WITH FRIENDS LIKE THAT...

I ALSO BELIEVE OBAMA ALWAYS KNEW ABOUT HIS HATEFUL PASTOR...the daughters write the same kinds of hate filled garb that is mailed/sent to all of their members....yet Obama was the only member = not to receive these memo's?

[Jude]

This was a helpful blogpost, Jim. Thanks for taking the time to write it. I agree that Obama's whole campaign is designed to prove Reverend Wright's jaded older generation wrong. It is the job of each generation to move away from the last in a hopeful and positive progression...with many hard lessons having been learned from those who came before us. It's my opinion, as far as the November election is concerned, that many non-black American voters will simply not understand and certainly won't embrace black liberation theology after hearing, through their own personal filters of life experience, the decidedly race-conscious fire that Rev. Wright has preached to his congregation. I believe that voters who aren't educated in theology and who hear the Wright soundbites will continue to be taken aback by what will sound to them like anti-American statements. (And we just know that voters are going to hear Rev. Wright's comments again and again in 527 ads and from mainstream media if Senator Obama becomes the Democratic nominee.) I don't think it's at all reasonable to think, especially after his speech on race, that Obama feels as Reverend Wright feels about the government. Yet, someone on the other side of politics will continue to try to connect him with that sentiment. This is something I will admit that I hate about politics....yet I don't anticipate that politics will change anytime soon.