Posted on 01/25/2007 9:55:36 AM PST by Sam Hill
There has been some recent controversy about Barack Obama's religious background. Mr. Obama has recently issued statements through his spokesmen in the media (i.e., reporters) which express his shock at being questioned about such things.
Most of his media spokesmen (i.e., reporters) have then gone on to cite his membership in Chicago's Trinity United Church Of Christ parish as proof that he is just a regular run of the mill American Christian.
But a visit to the Trinity Church's website proves that it is not your everyday Christian parish:
Trinity United Church of Christ
About Us
We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian... Our roots in the Black religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent. We are an African people, and remain "true to our native land," the mother continent, the cradle of civilization. God has superintended our pilgrimage through the days of slavery, the days of segregation, and the long night of racism. It is God who gives us the strength and courage to continuously address injustice as a people, and as a congregation. We constantly affirm our trust in God through cultural expression of a Black worship service and ministries which address the Black Community.
Trinity United Church of Christ adopted the Black Value System written by the Manford Byrd Recognition Committee chaired by Vallmer Jordan in 1981. We believe in the following 12 precepts and covenantal statements. These Black Ethics must be taught and exemplified in homes, churches, nurseries and schools, wherever Blacks are gathered. They must reflect on the following concepts:
1. Commitment to God
2. Commitment to the Black Community
3. Commitment to the Black Family
4. Dedication to the Pursuit of Education
5. Dedication to the Pursuit of Excellence
6. Adherence to the Black Work Ethic
7. Commitment to Self-Discipline and Self-Respect
8. Disavowal of the Pursuit of "Middleclassness"
9. Pledge to make the fruits of all developing and acquired skills available to the Black Community
10. Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources for Strengthening and Supporting Black Institutions
11. Pledge allegiance to all Black leadership who espouse and embrace the Black Value System
12. Personal commitment to embracement of the Black Value System.
The Pastor as well as the membership of Trinity United Church of Christ is committed to a 10-point Vision:
1. A congregation committed to ADORATION.
2. A congregation preaching SALVATION.
3. A congregation actively seeking RECONCILIATION.
4. A congregation with a non-negotiable COMMITMENT TO AFRICA.
5. A congregation committed to BIBLICAL EDUCATION.
6. A congregation committed to CULTURAL EDUCATION.
7. A congregation committed to the HISTORICAL EDUCATION OF AFRICAN PEOPLE IN DIASPORA.
8. A congregation committed to LIBERATION.
9. A congregation committed to RESTORATION.
10. A congregation working towards ECONOMIC PARITY.
A visit to the church's bookstore shows they have been true to their word. It is full of (bogus) Afrocentric books, many of which make the usual preposterous Afrocentric claims, such as that Cleopatra was black:
The book store also shamelessly hawks Mr. Osama's books as well:
But Trinity Church's proselytizing doesn't stop with re-writing history and promoting its parishioners.
Here is here is the latest sermon from its pastor, Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. (pdf file):
WHATS GOIN ON?
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Marvin Gayes powerful message song is a song that made him famous because it went against the Motown entertainment rule. It raised serious questions about the culture, the country and governmental policy.
His song raised questions about Black-on-Black violence, about drugs, about war and about the way in which we were living (or not living) in a very difficult period of history.
I use his words today on the third Sunday of a New Year to keep before you the painful truth of who we are and where it is we are in this racist United States of America! Whats goin on?
We have lost over 3,000 boys and girls in an illegal and unjust war, and the media is on a feeding frenzy about Barack Obamas church. Where is the outrage about the 3,000 dead American military personnel and the 600,000 dead Iraqi civilians who are dead for no reason other than greed and ego? Whats goin on?
This past Wednesday, January 17th, the House of Representatives deliberated on a bill to cut interest rates on federally subsidized student loans. On Thursday, January 18th, the House of Representatives considered legislation that would repeal some royalties and tax incentives from the oil and gas industries and redistribute that money to alternative and renewable energy such as bio-fuels.
The media, however, is not covering that news. The media wants to know about Barack Obamas pastor. Whats goin on?
On the weekend leading up to Dr. Martin Luther Kings birthday, the House of Representatives passed a bill requiring the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate drug prices for the Medicare program. The President who is staying the course and sending 1,500 more troops to their death has issued a veto threat against the measure and there is no public outcry and no media outrage. Whats goin on?
The President, who is staying the course and sending 21,500 more troops to their death has issued a veto threat against the measure and there is no public outcry and no media outrage.
The Presidents New Plan (more troops, more death and more war) promises an insane escalation in Iraq, Iran and beyond! With the torture of Abu Ghraib, the complete destructions of cities like Fallujah and over 600,000 deaths due to collateral damage, the President complained in his speech that there had been too many restrictions on the actions of the United States Forces in the Iraq war.
The Presidents New Plan (more troops, more death and more war) promises an insane escalation in Iraq, Iran and beyond!
Am I the only one who heard that? Whats goin on?
I celebrate forty years of ordained ministry this weekend. I bask in the 40-year glow of Gods Grace, Gods forgiveness and Gods lessons about humility.
The e-mails that I have been getting this week, the news clippings that I am being sent and the racist blogs that are flooding the Internet make me know, however, that even as I bask, the work ahead for the church of Jesus Christ is just as serious and difficult today (if not more so) as it was forty years ago when I was ordained during the Vietnamese War!
The President tries to frame the justification for his insanity by using language describing the debate in this country over the war as a great struggle between those who believe in freedom in moderation and extremists who kill the innocent.
The reality, however, is that the entire war in Iraq and the larger war on terror have been based on lies, half-truths and distortions to serve the agenda of the United States imperialism. Where is the public outcry? Where is the outrage? Whats goin on?
There is more focus on what the Bears may or may not do as they play a football game against New Orleans than there is on the 3,000 homeless who are still living or displaced in the real life game called New Orleans.
Those poor Black and white displaced citizens of New Orleans (not imported team members playing for New Orleans), who have no place to go and no place to live because of this administrations illegal war and its billions of dollars wasted on prosecuting that war, join with me in asking, Whats goin on?
Excuse me! The victims of Hurricane Katrina are no longer on the radar screen of the media. Only Barack, his church, his pastor and white arrogance!
I invite your sincere prayers this weekend. The generation of ministers behind me has its work cut out for them in some incredible and overwhelming ways!
Sincerely yours,
Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.
So much for the separation of church and state.
Speaking of which, here is what is being promoted at the top of the church's home page as we speak:
MEET SENATOR BARACK OBAMA!!!
On Sunday, January 28th, immediately following the 11:00 a.m. worship service, meet Senator Barack Obama, author of the best-selling book, Audacity of Hope. Purchase your copy of Audacity of Hope in the Akiba Bookstore and have it personally signed by Senator Obama. You do not want to miss this monumental experience!
Where is the ACLU?
Sorta odd for an alleged "Christian church" to profess a total of 22 committments, and not a single mention of Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior.
"They follow the Seven Principles of Kwaannza"
And they aren't all bad in my opinion although extremely unrealistic in light of the current black mindset of today.
The clincher for me in their list of principles was"the disavowal of middle classness"
And you know doggone well that EVERYONE in this church are black middle and upper middle class professionals living VERY bourgois lifestyles.
So like the rappers say,"Ain't no future in yo'fronting"
Anyone who endorses the kind of "reasoning" implicated in this quiz could not be trusted with the security of the United States.
BTTT
Obama considers himself an African American even though he is half white. This fraud if elected will not be the presdient of all Americans. He will do what he thinks is the best for "his people" (blacks). Most whites that will vote for him will do so out of guilt in order to prove that they themselves are not racist.
Thanks so much. I found it and something else I think you'll be interested in hearing.
Meet Obama's Pastor And Spiritual Mentor - YouTube
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1773713/posts
Thanks!
Looking for salvation?
White people need not apply.
"Sorry, that thread was pulled. Can't have any news, you know."
If you post full text from the Chicago Tribune (etc) to FR, it's a violation of our settlement agreement and we'll have to pull it.
If you post full text of the Chicago Tribune (etc) on your own site and then post a link to it on FR, it's a violation of our settlement agreement and we'll have to pull it.
If you continue violating our settlement agreement we'll have no choice but to pull your entire account.
If you continue being a PITA, we'll pull your account and you can go back to being an antifreeper.
Translation: the guy's a fake, a Jim Jones-style atheist who uses the Fundamentalist revivalist style to deliver his atheist sermons ("Rev." Jones even used to perform "healings" while simultaneously claiming G-d doesn't exist).
Funny how similar the "Afro-American sermonic tradition" is to the sermonic tradition of "ignorant, bigoted, redneck, snake-handling holy rollers," but no one except Thomas Sowell has pointed this out.
I guess white people are too highly "evolved" to go in for that stuff, while it's perfectly understandable for those quaint, primitive "people of color."
In neither case did I ever hear politics disguised as religion, but, to the contrary, real Bible-based Christianity by people who really knew where their Savation lay.
My Liberian pastor prayed every week for our President Bush and for the troops.
Sorry, these political Churches cannot hold a candle to the real authentic worship of Jesus by Africans on this continent or in Africa.
That's interesting. While radical Blacks go on and on about "mother Africa" and how they detest "European civilization" they're actually promoting the most European ideology that ever existed: eighteenth century enlightenment rationalism.
I'm imagining Harry Belafonte in a Voltaire wig . . .
I didn't post the full text of the Tribune article. I posted about three sentences.
I didn't not know that linking to a site that offers the full text was a violation. I've never read that before, or seen it enforced.
If I have ever violated your settlement agreement before, it is news to me. AFAIK, I have always carefully excerpted articles from sites here, except one time -- a NYT piece, when I didn't realize they were included. (Since at the time they didn't show up on the list.)
Sorry for being such a pest and supplying news and such.
Not hard to do.
Harry Belefonte has become a caricature of a caricature.
Which is too bad.
He recorded the most spiritual Christmas Album I've ever listened to, some 40 years ago.
He should have stuck to Day-O and his other Jamaican roots.
*
It's racist whether the word white or black is used.
I love this contradiction:
"8. Disavowal of the Pursuit of "Middleclassness""
"10. A congregation working towards ECONOMIC PARITY."
The only way to achieve economic parity without seeking middleclassness is for the middle class to become impoverished.
I think this is the church I watched late one night right before the last election. The so called minister was telling everyone how to vote. I sent him an email questioning that and never heard from him. If it had been another conservative church doing this, everyone would have been in an uproar about it.
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