Obama Cuts Ties to Longtime Church ( After 20 years... )

chicagotribune.com ^ | June 1, 2008 | John McCormick and Manya A. Brachear

[Non-Sequitur]

"It's clear that now that I am a candidate for president, every time something is said in the church by anyone associated with Trinity, including guest pastors, the remarks will be imputed to me, even if they totally conflict with my long-held views, statements and principles," he said.

So in other words, it's not because of what Wright and Moss and Pfleger said. It's because he's tired of the political fallout?

[pissant]

Up next, Larry Sinclair!

[ExTexasRedhead]

Osama Obama is the Muslim Manchurian Candidate. His Muslim brothers won’t like him being in a church anyway.

[Rider on the Rain]

Manchurian Candidate

I think you may be on to something. Somebody or something winds him up and he spins the marxist elitist, black racist, islamofascist rhetoric. It's just too weird to imagine he is coming up with all that on his own.

[ExTexasRedhead]

Osama Hussein Obama has been endorsed by Al Qaeda, Hamas, Iran, Osama Bin Laden, Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, Harry Reid, John Kerry, Jack Murtha, and the rest of the treasonous Liberals, what more proof could you want? Who needs foreign enemies when we have home-grown Liberals ready to destroy America from within. Anyone with a brain can listen to Congressional Liberals and know that they want to destroy America and our children and grandchildren’s futures.

[kellynla]

“It’s because he’s tired of the political fallout?”

but of course...and the ‘Rats are stuck with him.

McCain has to be the luckiest presidential candidate on the planet since Reagan ran against Carter.

And at this point, my cat could beat Obama on 11/4! LOL

[PGR88]

Watch out Michelle - you are next on Obama’s list!

[Just Lori]

What happened to: “I could no more disown my pastor than my white Grandmother.” Hmmmmmm?

What a wet noodle.

[Grampa Dave]

Larry Sinclair is no problem for Hussein ObamaMessiaHamas!

[freekitty]

I would say Obama fits the catagory of home grown enemy of the US.

[kellynla]

That’s an insult to “wet noodles” which we all know have more character. LOL

[george76]

Was BO himself ever baptised ?

“...where we were married, where our children were baptized,” Obama said

[Salvation]

Too little, too late. ‘Bama is damaged beyond repair. the GOP will not let us forget this fiasco.

[Beckwith]

No, there is no record of Obama being baptized.

There is much confusion surrounding the date of Obama's conversion. Some newspaper reports place this event in 1988. On Fox News, March 14th, 2007, Obama himself places this even in 1992.

Nobody, except Obama knows if his conversion to Christianity is real or not. Although some reports and even Obama have referred to a "baptism", there doesn't appear to be any record of a baptism.

Chicago-based journalist, broadcaster and critic Andy Martin, when asked about Obama's baptism, wrote, "I have never been able to obtain any evidence that he was baptized, although I asked for those records."

It seems that Obama's conversion occurred when he answered one of Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright's altar calls by walking down the aisle of Trinity Church to make a formal commitment of his faith.

Cathleen Falsani, religion columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, writes, "He (Obama) described his conversion experience in his mid-20s, how he walked the aisle at Trinity United Church of Christ one Sunday in a public affirmation of his private change of heart."

"I came to Christianity through the black church tradition where the line between evangelical and non-evangelical is completely blurred. Nobody knows exactly what it means."

"Does it mean that you feel you've got a personal relationship with Christ the savior? Then that's directly part of the black church experience. Does it mean you're born-again in a classic sense, with all the accoutrements that go along with that, as it's understood by some other tradition? I'm not sure."

"There are aspects of Christian tradition that I'm comfortable with and aspects that I'm not. There are passages of the Bible that make perfect sense to me and others that I go, 'Ya know, I'm not sure about that.'"

"It wasn't an epiphany," he says of that public profession of faith. "It was much more of a gradual process for me. I know there are some people who fall out. Which is wonderful. God bless them.... I think it was just a moment to certify or publicly affirm a growing faith in me."

The specifically political character of his new church is what drew Obama out of his skeptical isolation and into religion. Obama wrote::

"But as the months passed in Chicago, I found myself drawn to the church."

"For one thing, I believed and still believe in the power of African-American religious tradition to spur social change . . . the black church understands in an intimate way the biblical call to feed the hungry and cloth the naked and challenge the powers and principalities . . . I was able to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death; it is an active, palpable agent in the world. It is a source of hope."

"It was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ one day and affirm my Christian faith."

In other words, Obama’s membership at Trinity UCC resulted from his familiarity with Wright’s political views. Even Obama’s phrase “challenge the powers and principalities” is a particular favorite of black-liberation theologists.

Falsani warns us that Obama’s walking the aisle at Trinity is poles apart from what Christians commonly refer to as being "saved, transformed or washed in the blood." In other words, it’s not to be confused with what Jesus called being "born again." As Mr. Obama himself explains, "It wasn’t an epiphany … but just a moment to certify or publicly affirm a growing faith in me."

In another account of this event, Manya Brachear, writing in the Chicago Tribune, describes the event thusly: "When Obama sought his own church community, he felt increasingly at home at Trinity. Before leaving for Harvard Law School in 1988, he responded to one of Wright's altar calls and declared a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Falsani wonders, "What kind of faith is it that is growing in Barack Obama? Is it the historic Christian faith? Not according to the good senator, who describes his faith as: (1) Suspicious of dogma (2) Without any monopoly on the truth (3) Nontransferable to others (4) Infused with a big healthy dose of doubt, and (5) Indulgent of and compatible with all other religions."

Unlike traditional Christianity, which Mr. Obama bemoans for its "call to evangelize and proselytize," the good senator’s faith is strictly a personal and private affair. Although he has no qualms about parading it in public in hopes of bolstering his political career, he would never dream of preaching it to others in hopes of converting them to Christ.

At the core of Obama's faith -- whether lapsed Muslim, new Christian or some mixture of the two -- is African nativism. Obama's having pledged allegiance to the Black Value System raises political issues of its own.

The Obama File

[PhilDragoo]

This is my church, the one I never quit.

[Grampa Dave]

“No, there is no record of Obama being baptized.”

That seems very unusual, odd and yet fits into the unknown of Hussein ObamaMessiaHamas.

When our Episcopal Priests and Bishops go off into the Gay Agenda, I have asked the same question, “Where were these guys/gals ever baptized? Did they ever believe in God, Mary, the Birth of Christ, his crucifixtion, and his resurrection?”

There is scant evidence that Hussein ObamaMessiaHamas’s pastor and other so called religious advisors were ever Christians and have lived a Christian life?

[Grampa Dave]

This is my church, the one I never quit.

[Jeff Head]

Barack Hussein Obama is the apex of the domestic enemy in this country. His election would be the greatest coup any enemy of this nation ever achieved and could well turn into the greatest disaster in this nation's history.

THE AUDACITY OF TRUTH ABOUT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA

[Grampa Dave]

“Barack Hussein Obama is the apex of the domestic enemy in this country. His election would be the greatest coup any enemy of this nation ever achieved and could well turn into the greatest disaster in this nation’s history.”

Jeff, I will be seventy this fall, and Hussein ObamaMessiaHamas is by far the most dangerous candidate for president re the survival of our country in my history.

Each day, it becomes more obvious that he is the Islamofascist Manchurian Candidate/Trojan horse, carefully groomed for this election for 20+ years by his America Hating Mentors.

Yet we have so called conservatives wanting him to win to punish us.

[potlatch]