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On My Faith and My Church
HuffPo | March 14, 2008 | Barack Obama

Posted on 03/14/2008 2:03:09 PM PDT by bahblahbah

The pastor of my church, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who recently preached his last sermon and is in the process of retiring, has touched off a firestorm over the last few days. He's drawn attention as the result of some inflammatory and appalling remarks he made about our country, our politics, and my political opponents.

Let me say at the outset that I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy. I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies. I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it's on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue.

Because these particular statements by Rev. Wright are so contrary to my own life and beliefs, a number of people have legitimately raised questions about the nature of my relationship with Rev. Wright and my membership in the church. Let me therefore provide some context.

As I have written about in my books, I first joined Trinity United Church of Christ nearly twenty years ago. I knew Rev. Wright as someone who served this nation with honor as a United States Marine, as a respected biblical scholar, and as someone who taught or lectured at seminaries across the country, from Union Theological Seminary to the University of Chicago. He also led a diverse congregation that was and still is a pillar of the South Side and the entire city of Chicago. It's a congregation that does not merely preach social justice but acts it out each day, through ministries ranging from housing the homeless to reaching out to those with HIV/AIDS.

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 advisor; 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 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.

Let me repeat what I've said earlier. All of the statements that have been the subject of controversy are ones that I vehemently condemn. They in no way reflect my attitudes and directly contradict my profound love for this country.

With Rev. Wright's retirement and the ascension of my new pastor, Rev. Otis Moss, III, Michelle and I look forward to continuing a relationship with a church that has done so much good. And while Rev. Wright's statements have pained and angered me, I believe that Americans will judge me not on the basis of what someone else said, but on the basis of who I am and what I believe in; on my values, judgment and experience to be President of the United States.


TOPICS: Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: jeremiahwright; nobama; obama; onabinge; onacrimespree; onadesertisland; onadoghouse; onamagiccarpetride; onastormysea; onatear; onavolcano; onmyhonor; onoffbutton; onorabout; ontheedge; onthefritz; ontheoldmillstream; onthetake; ontheupandup; onwisconsin; onyourmark
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To: bahblahbah

Yeah, Moss is much better. Here he is throwing his arms out like a thug, “What’s up Hannity!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHATK4OjnyI


41 posted on 03/14/2008 2:29:48 PM PDT by streetpreacher (Arminian by birth, Calvinist by the grace of God)
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To: LS
"” I believe that Americans will judge me not on the basis of what someone else said, but on the basis of who I am and what I believe in; on my values, judgment and experience to be President of the United States.”"

B. Hussein Osama's judgement and experience includes spending 20+ years in association with Farakan, Ayers, Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his church, Rezco, admitted lies in autobionovels, drugs, abortion clinics, disrespect for most things symbolic of America.

yitbos

42 posted on 03/14/2008 2:35:56 PM PDT by bruinbirdman ("Those who control language control minds." - Ayn Rand)
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To: bahblahbah
If I wanted to demonstrate to the nation I wasn't a racist sympathizer, I'd pass on the mainstream media and hit the internet, preferably a site with a high level of tolerance for Bushhaters, Americahaters and Jewhaters.

His base I presume.

43 posted on 03/14/2008 2:41:12 PM PDT by SJackson ( G-d da*n America, J Wright; Don't tell me words don't matter!, BH Obama)
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To: bahblahbah
Most importantly, Rev. Wright preached the gospel of Jesus, a gospel on which I base my life.

People who pay lip service to Jesus, and then promote racial bigotry, do not preach His Gospel. Rather they slander His Gospel.

44 posted on 03/14/2008 2:57:36 PM PDT by AndyTheBear (Disastrous social experimentation is the opiate of elitist snobs.)
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To: bahblahbah
All of the statements that have been the subject of controversy are ones that I vehemently condemn.

Ah yes, all his bad statements were bad ones.

45 posted on 03/14/2008 3:01:56 PM PDT by AndyTheBear (Disastrous social experimentation is the opiate of elitist snobs.)
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To: roses of sharon

those qoutes legit!?


46 posted on 03/14/2008 3:15:33 PM PDT by Para-Ord.45
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To: bahblahbah

Let’s just say if a Republican had attended a church where the ‘pastor’ said something similiar there would be HELL in the MSM. You can bet on that!

The candidate certainly couldn’t just post a message on a kook message board and be done with it.


47 posted on 03/14/2008 3:19:21 PM PDT by kcvl
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To: Para-Ord.45

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1955193/posts

From Freeper cyberella who read them, post #33.


48 posted on 03/14/2008 3:25:11 PM PDT by roses of sharon (Who will be McCain's maverick?)
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To: bahblahbah

This “Rev” sounds exactly like that other “Rev,” the infamous Rev Jim Jones, preaching a mix of “social justice” and anti-American invective.

That’s why he moved his flock to South America; they all hated the U.S. and were communists.


49 posted on 03/14/2008 3:27:23 PM PDT by olivia3boys
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To: bahblahbah
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 advisor; he's been my pastor.

In truth, we have been assured that Mr. Wright was the most important influence in Mr. Obama’s life. That he was Obama’s “spiritual mentor,” and the reason he joined the church and got into politics.

From a more than year old edition of the Chicago Tribune:

Pastor inspires Obama’s ‘audacity’Though Wright and Obama do not often talk one-on-one often, the senator does check with his pastor before making any bold political moves. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/custom/religion/chi-070121-relig_wright,1,271630.story?page=1&coll=chi-religion-topheadlines&ctrack=1&cset=true

50 posted on 03/14/2008 3:29:34 PM PDT by anglian
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To: anglian
“What I value most about Pastor Wright is not his day-to-day political advice,” Obama said. “He’s much more of a sounding board for me to make sure that I am speaking as truthfully about what I believe as possible and that I’m not losing myself in some of the hype and hoopla and stress that’s involved in national politics.” http://hotair.com/archives/2008/03/14/2007-profile-wright-provides-spiritual-guidance-for-obama-oprah/
51 posted on 03/14/2008 3:30:25 PM PDT by anglian
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To: bahblahbah

I don’t need to read anything from this empty suit...
anyone who attends the diatribes every Sunday of a ANTI-AMERICAN RACIST BIGOT FOR TWENTY FRIGGIN’ YEARS obviously has no problem with the speaker and/or his beliefs...It’s not like there aren’t other churches in Illinois that the Obama’s could attend Sunday religious services!
I won’t even smear the title of “reverend” by addressing Wright as one...

Wright is Wrong!

And now we know why Obama doesn’t wear an American flag on his lapel.


52 posted on 03/14/2008 3:37:02 PM PDT by kellynla (Freedom of speech makes it easier to spot the idiots! Semper Fi!)
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To: bahblahbah
I've left churches for far less. OsamaObama is so done. What a piece of work.
53 posted on 03/14/2008 3:37:13 PM PDT by LiberConservative
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To: bahblahbah

The WSJ has one of Wright’s hate America, racist sermons listed on line.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1985856/posts

Wright and Obama: It Only Gets Worse
Confederate Yankee ^ | March 14, 2008 | Staff
Posted on 03/14/2008 3:15:38 PM PDT by jdm

The Wall Street Journal has published yet another damning sermon from Barack Obama’s retiring minister of two decades, Jeremiah Wright.

The displaced anger, bigotry, and hatred displayed is chilling:
“We’ve got more black men in prison than there are in college,” he began. “Racism is alive and well. Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run. No black man will ever be considered for president, no matter how hard you run Jesse [Jackson] and no black woman can ever be considered for anything outside what she can give with her body.”

Mr. Wright thundered on: “America is still the No. 1 killer in the world. . . . We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns, and the training of professional killers . . . We bombed Cambodia, Iraq and Nicaragua, killing women and children while trying to get public opinion turned against Castro and Ghadhafi . . . We put [Nelson] Mandela in prison and supported apartheid the whole 27 years he was there. We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God.”

His voice rising, Mr. Wright said, “We supported Zionism shamelessly while ignoring the Palestinians and branding anybody who spoke out against it as being anti-Semitic. . . . We care nothing about human life if the end justifies the means. . . .”
Concluding, Mr. Wright said: “We started the AIDS virus . . . We are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty. . . .”

As the story of Wright’s forceful bigotry finally forced it’s way into the mainstream media yesterday at ABC News with the story Obama’s Pastor: God Damn America, U.S. to Blame for 9/11, the people Barack Obama has chosen to surround himself with has come under sharp focus.

From a self-isolated, self-pitying wife, to a bombastic, bigoted minister, to an unreformed terrorist, Barack Obama has surrounded himself with very questionable ideological company, associations from which he has no defense. He wasn’t forced to chose to spend time with this cadre of believers on the radical fringe, he embraced them willingly.
Predictably, as the media has come to focus on Obama’s two-decade relationship with Wright, Obama supporters have been quick to attempt to minimize the damage. Unable to do it with a forceful denunciation of Wright’s bigotry by Obama (Obama has only uttered the lamest of excuses), they have instead attempted to tar Republican candidate John McCain as being equally bad, for the support he has garnered from controversial evangelists Rod Parsley and John Hagee.

For those of you unfamiliar with these men, Parsley’s most famous controversial statements include calling Islam a “false religion” that must be destroyed, opposition same-sex marriage, partial-birth abortion, hate-crimes legislation, and the separation of church and state. Hagee has been ripped an an anti-Catholic bigot, stated that Hurricane Katrina was an act of God against New Orleans for the city’s “level of sin,” and for claiming that the Qur’an has “a scriptural mandate to kill Christians and Jews.”
There, of course, is a difference between John McCain’s political endorsements by Parsley and Hagee, and Barack Obama’s 20 years of willfully absorbing Wright’s hatred, a toxicity to which he has willfully exposed family.

I addressed this attempt to equivilate Obama and McCain in a comment to the ABC News blog story Obama camp: ‘Deplores divisive statements’, which featured yet another inflammatory speech by Wright.

My comment read:
I see that some are already attempting to trot out a comparative argument, that Wright’s offensive, bigoted, and paranoid rants are somehow lessened by invoking John McCain’s support from John Hagee and Rod Parsley, two prominent evangelists who have also made provocative statements.

But here is the huge gaping difference between these attempts: Barack Obama has spent the better part of the past 20 years of his life listening to, absorbing, and yes, agreeing with Wright’s sermons. If he did not agree with the bulk of those sermons, he would have of course left Trinity for another church—finding a church in Chicago that closely fits your own personal beliefs is not at all difficult, and Obama obviously agrees with Wright far more than he disagrees.

That Obama has spent 20 years listening to Wright, thought enough of him to use one of those sermons as the title of his book, “The Audacity of Hope,” that he was married by Wright, had both of his children baptized by Wright and brought up in this church, listening to these paranoid and racist rants that differ little in substance from the words of a much more famous racist, Louis Farakkan, means that Obama AGREES with Wright far more often than he disagrees with him.

From that, what are we to make of Obama? Actions, indeed, do speak louder than flaccid conciliatory words that have only just now been uttered.

I say again the obvious: no American would spend 20 years listening to a minister with which he vehemently disagreed.

McCain, by comparison, is guilty of pandering to Haggee and Parsley because of the (unfortunate) influence they have over a powerful voting demographic.

I can find scant evidence that McCain has sat though one sermon from Hagee or Parsley, much less 20 years of them.

Which is worse?

The politician that panders for votes, or the man who has listened to and internalized anti-American, anti-Jewish, and anti-white messages for 20 years before ever once publicly disagreeing with them, and who is raising his children in this same toxic environment?
Not only am I certain Barack Obama is unfit to run this nation, I now question his ability to raise his own children, for the hatred he has willingly exposed them to since their births.

Yes, I went there. Read again Wright’s rant in the WSJ article featured above, or some of his other hate speech (for that is what it is), and try to explain to me that a good parent exposes his children to an environment that exudes such naked anger, resentment, defeatism, and conspiratorial paranoia.

Perhaps some of you are comfortable having your children raised in such an environment, but I am not, and I do not think that someone who willingly exposes himself and his family to internalizing such vitriol for 20 years is the kind of person we need or want to lead this nation.


54 posted on 03/14/2008 3:56:20 PM PDT by Grampa Dave (Obama's Pastor, Jeremiah Wright: "God Damn America, U.S. to Blame for 9/11")
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To: Owl558
Senator Obama, did you bring your children to this church and expose them to this preacher’s racist and hate-filled preaching? Isn’t that child abuse?

BRAVO!

First time I've heard this thought, and it's a good question for us to ask. Most parents bring their children to church hoping that the kids will build a stronger faith than their own. Did Obama hope that listening to Wright's ranting about oppression by whites and the evils committed by America would strengthen them?

55 posted on 03/14/2008 6:13:16 PM PDT by Max in Utah (A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within.)
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