Posted on 03/18/2008 1:56:11 PM PDT by jdm
Re-examining Barack Obama's Jeremiah Wright damage control speech today, I am drawn back again and again to this paragraph.
Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.
Any church embodies the community from which it is drawn, but Obama attempts sleight of hand when he asserts that "other predominantly black churches across the country" adopt and share views "that may seem jarring to the untrained ear" as a way of excusing his pastor.
Obama implies that because Trinity United Church of Christ has continually employed a senior pastor unable to control his anger, anti-Americanism, and conspiracy-theorizing during Barack's 20 years at that church, that other predominantly African-American churches are afflicted with the same disease.
I belong to a deliberately diverse church with a substantial African-American congregation and an African-American senior pastor that spends a considerable portion of her time in the pulpit. We are without a doubt a church with a lot of "dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear," and we even occasionally have folks overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit fall out in the pews...
...And yet, somehow, we've kept from attacking other races or our country in the process.
Is it true that other predominately African-American congregations applaud when their pastor exhorts them to sing out "God damn America," or is it more likely that most African-American churches focus on honoring the words of Jesus Christ as written in the Bible, and leave the responsibility of damnation to God?
Do other predominately African America churches profess a values system seemingly based more upon the color of their skin than the content of Jesus' character?
Is it a commonly held belief in predominately African-American congregations nationwide that the CIA created the AIDS virus to target minority communities, and that we deserved the terror attacks of September 11, 2001?
Or is it more likely that such illness is isolated to congregations that are pustules of anger, ignorance and intolerance?
I choose to believe that regardless of race, all Christian congregations focus primarily on the Word of God and helping their communities, not blaming others for their misfortunes, real or imagined. Likewise, I choose to believe that congregations of every color focus on thanking God for the blessings he has bestowed upon us, not damning this imperfect nation for the sin of being less than divine here on earth.
Barack Obama would excuse his pastor and his congregation and his own failure to stand up to their bile and bigotry with a defense of "everybody else does it, too."
But that defense—at least I hope—isn't true.
Barack Obama seems content to tar all African-American churches with a wide brush in order to defend the failings of his own church, his pastor, and his own character.
As an individual Christian and a member of the body of Christ, I can forgive him.
As a voter, I don't see why anyone should.
Well, he got one out of two right.
“Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger.”
Yeah, I love the way we keep kicking the welfare mothers out of Holy Spirit Catholic Church on Sunday so that Dr. Smith and his model student daughter don’t have to sit next to the former gang-banger.
Geeeesh!!!!
Why isn’t it just a church. Why does it have to be a “black church?” I thought it was inclusive. Somebody should make a huge deal about him calling it a black church.
CSPAN - Capital News — Bob Schieffer suggested Barack Hussein Obama asks Sam Nunn to be VP
from 3/15/08
Take heart. . .it's not true.
Here's the deal -- these clowns can be racist (I already knew and expected that); and they can be anti-American commie conspiracy-theorizing fruit-loops (I don't expect that from anybody living in the greatest country in the history of the world, but oh well). But, of the latter, the hatred of America, even though they have the right, the have NO RIGHT TO EXPECT one of their own slobbering number to be accepted with open arms into the highest office of the land they so despise! And it will never happen.
A wolf in sheep’s clothing
Wright: a wolf in shepherd’s clothing.
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