Otis the drunk cracker is a pastor ?
Posted on 04/30/2008 2:46:09 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
New pastor to head Obama's 8,000-member Chicago church Apr 30 04:14 AM US/Eastern By SOPHIA TAREEN Associated Press Writer
CHICAGO (AP) - When the Rev. Otis Moss III takes to the pulpit before a congregation that includes Barack Obama, he's as likely to preach about Tupac Shakur or one of his favorite authors as he is the Apostle Paul.
The 37-year-old "hip-hop pastor," as he's called by congregants, will become the head of Trinity United Church of Christ in June, taking over at a time of turmoil for the 8,000-member church, the nation's largest United Church of Christ congregation,
Moss' ascent follows the retirement of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whom Obama angrily denounced Tuesday for his "divisive and destructive" remarks.
It's a shift from more than three decades under Wright, a preacher born of the civil-rights era whose fiery comments about Sept. 11, HIV/AIDS and other issues have placed the church under a media microscope.
"Pastor Moss has inherited the repercussions of an attack he had nothing to do with," said Brenda Salter McNeil, president of an Oak Park, Ill.-based company that works on diversity issues in Christian organizations. "He has to pastor a people through it."
Moss, an assistant pastor at Trinity for two years, is a Yale Divinity School graduate whose father also is a prominent preacher and former adviser to Martin Luther King Jr. His sermons often feature quotes and stories of the late civil rights leader, who officiated at his parents' wedding.
At the same time, the married father of two is a popular leader known for his contemporary style and ability to draw youth to church events.
"He understands that he is ministering to what he calls a `post-soul generation,'
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Sundays filled with scat and “Give Whitey Hell”.
a hip hop pastor ....kind of like what Jesus preached on the Mount!!!
LLS
Yo! dats phat yall!
Word!
Otis Moss?-I prefer Otis Day (and the Knights)
You are correct in your assessment; the new pastor is the SAME as the so-called "reverend" Wright. He is also a strict adherent to BLACK LIBERATION THEOLOGY. I heard it from his own mouth, he also fully believes and supports the doctrine and mission of BLACK LIBERATION THEOLOGY in which "Hate whitey" is the typical bill of fare.
All Trinity "church" has done is trade in the old model BLACK LIBERATION THEOLOGY racist for a new and younger model BLACK LIBERATION THEOLOGY racist who supports and backs up Wright and ALL of his racist views to the hilt. Why? Because the new "pastor" also wants his 10,000 square foot mansion in a gated community once his run is over and the only why he is going to get there at Trinity "church" is to CONTINUE WRIGHTS BLACK r a c i s t LIBERATION THEOLOGY ranting against whitey.
Why not just get the Reverend Leroy and rename it the “Church of What’s Happenin’ Now”?
Yeah, as in animal excrement.
lol!
Throw in a loveable but incompetent super for comic relief. Where’s Norman Lear when we need him?
In all seriousness, if you wrote a script like the politics from 1998 to 2008, you’d be laughed out of Hollywood.
Even better, why don’t the congregants just stay home and watch DVDs of “The Flip Wilson Show” and Tupac videos? Who needs Moss as the entertainment middleman?
Hey, it’s not everyday you get to trade Screaming Jay Hawkins for Snoop Dog.
Otis Moss IIIAll my life I have been inspired by the work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and my father, a King adviser, Dr. Otis Moss Jr. The prophetic brilliance of Dr. King to speak about democracy and the divine in the same breath to this day sends a chill up my spine.
I have asked my parents often: “How did you handle the pressure?” “Did you realize you were in the middle of the delivery room as America, with deep labor pains, gave birth to democracy?”
My parents usually replied with smiles and southern humility before adding, “We were on the right side of history.”
As the new pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, I sense the labor pains of democracy are once again forcing America to give birth to a new sacred dialogue about race and class, because a doctor/preacher has pushed us as a country into a painful but long overdue labor and delivery.
I am convinced that much of the recent controversy stems from the deep racial and social divisions and misunderstanding of African-American sacred rhetoric.
The words of Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright have provided the American people an opportunity to give birth to a new conversation about race or abort the dialogue and substitute it with truncated rhetoric about what should and should not be said from behind the sacred desk. If we examine briefly the tradition Dr. Wright follows, we get a closer glimpse of the dialogue I believe our country is trying to birth.
Dr. Wright stands in the prophetic tradition of Biblical truth-tellers, such as Amos and Micah. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King preached from Amos 5:24 (KJV), “But let judgment run down as waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.” Dr. King was assassinated 40 years ago because he preached the tenets of Christian love against the social injustices of the 20th century. Dr. King’s prophetic, cutting, abrasive and loving words forced America to confront her birth defect and original sin—racism.
Drs. Wright, Joseph Lowery, Fred Shuttlesworth, Jim Wallis, Carolyn Knight, Gardner C. Taylor, James Forbes, my father and other preachers have been carrying the legacy of the Christian prophetic social justice tradition rooted in love and criticism made popular by Dr. King, the greatest prophetic voice of the 20th century.
I am convinced that much of the recent controversy stems from the deep racial and social divisions and misunderstanding of African-American sacred rhetoric. African-American ministers are masters at hyperbole, metaphor and the use of subtext to speak to a community familiar with their rhetorical vocabulary.
African-American preaching uses what some call “the blue note” to place before the people tragedy and sorrow during the preaching event. It should be noted that this “blue note” is always paired with “good news;” the sound of sorrow must be played before the chord of the Gospel can be introduced into the composition.
The “blue note” of preaching raises questions about the report by the Centers for Disease Control regarding how “The Tuskegee Experiment” used more than 300 illiterate African-American farmers in Macon County, Ala., as guinea pigs from 1932 to 1972 to test the affects of the syphilis virus.
This is a tragic chord of American history. The “blue note” of preaching lifts up information in the March 23 issue of the New York Times, disclosing that America spends $5,000 per second for the war in Iraq while Americans are losing health care. The “blue note” of preaching puts before the people of God human acts that cause God to weep and humanity to hang her head. If the only portion of a sermon heard in the African-American context is the “blue note,” it leads the listener to wonder, “Where is God?” and “What kind of Word is this?” There is more to African-American preaching than the tragic moment, but it’s through confrontation with tragedy that we come to grips with the fullness of God’s love. The bloody, tragic, horrific moment of the crucifixion of Christ’s humanity puts us face to face with the deep abiding grace of God wrapped up in the “blue note” of Christ’s humiliation.
The critical issue we are being challenged to come to grips with at this moment is our ability as Americans to be bi-cultural.
Are we willing to look through the lens of shrouded liberty lifted up by Dr. Wright? Or, will we choose to assume that our faith tradition, political perspective and cultural vantage point is the only perspective worth engaging? What an incredible gift to give our children, if we choose to be bi-cultural Americans instead of ethno-centrists locked in our own limited worldview of humanity. The pain of this “manufactured” controversy is that our democracy is birthing a new conversation into the civic arena on race, or the grief of our democracy is crying because our cynicism aborted her child. When the history of this moment is written, I pray we will all be standing on the right side of history.
The Rev. Otis Moss III graduated from Morehouse College with honors and earned a Master of Divinity degree from Yale University. He is pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, of which Sen. Barack Obama is a member.
Is this supposed to be a church or a weekly political/social issues rally? Obama may be book smart, but anyone who sits through this kind of windbaggery and stupidity for 20 years and calls it going to church is an idiot (lacking in true wisdom and common sense). The same would be true of white people attending a weekly Klan/white supremacist meeting and calling it going to church.
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