The Truth About Trinity United Church of Christ

The Rev. Otis Moss III: The talk show host?!?!?!?

2008-05-24T09:05:00.000-07:00

I didn't know our new senior pastor used to host a program Day 1 Diner.

According to their website http://www.day1.net :

Day1 is the voice of the mainline Protestant church, presenting outstanding preachers from the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church, and other denominations. Our website features an extensive library of lectionary-based sermons in text and audio, and other helpful information for lay persons and pastors.

I knew Pastor Moss was talented, but didn't know he could work the camera so well outside of the pulpit!

The Right Wing Media is not through attacking us

2008-05-11T13:32:00.000-07:00

It seems that once again the far right wing media outlets have sought to assault black religious leaders and their preaching styles. This time the target is Rev. Otis Moss III.

Sean Hannity of Fox News’ Hannity's America, a weekly American talk show on the Fox News Channel, will air snippets of some of Rev. Moss' sermons on th is Sunday evening, May 11 and attempt to classify them as controversial and offensive because Moss dares to use biblical parables to explain and shed light on modern day circumstances, using the vernacular of today's youth.

The disingenuous assaults, aimed at attacking the voice and religious styles of traditional preaching, have attempted to distort the ministry and witness of Rev. Otis Moss III.

I wonder is this all they can dig up on a presidential candidate??

In any case, you can view Pastor Mosses sermons in context for yourself Here

Pastor Otis Moss III : Divine Love: You Don't Have to Choose

2008-05-11T12:03:00.000-07:00

Rev. Moss gives some spiritual insight on how to deal with the current media scrutiny surrounding Obama and Rev. Wright

The Reverand Otis Moss III: A Preacher for a new generation

2008-05-10T13:21:00.000-07:00

Taking the helm of Trinity United Church of Christ, Shaker native Otis Moss III reaches youth with an energized message and hip-hop-infused sermons

Brought up in a family of faith

Moss' path to this high-profile Chicago pulpit completes a circle, of sorts.

Moss grew up in Shaker Heights, the youngest son of three children in Cleveland's "First Family of Faith," known for mixing God and politics in a way that made many white people uneasy. His parents, Edwina and Otis Moss Jr., pastor of Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in Cleveland, met when she worked for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Moss Jr. was a board member of an organization headed by the civil rights leader. The younger Moss recalls having breakfast with King's father when he was 8.

Growing up, he also recalls conversations around the dinner table that centered on connecting faith to political issues.

"My dad always asked, 'How is your faith connected to transforming your community?' and 'How do you deal with issues of poverty, race and class?' " Moss said. Olivet was known as much for feeding the poor as it was for registering blacks to vote and holding rallies to protest racial inequality by City Hall or the police.

Like his father, Moss is a proponent of "black liberation theology," which interprets the Bible as a story about the struggles of black people, who, because of their oppression, are better able to understand Scripture than those who have suffered less.

"The pre-eminent ethic of Jesus Christ, his inaugural sermon is 'the Spirit of the Lord is upon you to preach the good news to the poor, to set up liberty, to set the captives free, to allow the mind to see,' " the younger Moss said. "I believe that is the mission of the church."

"You are not just preaching the Gospel," the elder Moss said. "You are dealing with social conflict. That's what Jesus was doing every day.

"The church has to be the conscience, the voice for the hopeless, the marginalized, the disinherited," the elder Moss continued. "Dr. King used to say that the church has to be the headlight, not the taillight."

The conservative movement that is moving through the church community - both black and white - is silencing that role, he said.

"The flag has become a substitute for the cross, and patriotism is defined as the refusal to criticize the government, which is a dangerous attitude for a democratic society."

While father and son's theological, social and political views mirror each other, the men's mannerisms and preaching styles do not. The elder Moss speaks methodically, his diction formal, the use of contractions unusual. The younger Moss is stretched tight, like a membrane of a drum, exuding a tense energy. Listening to him preach is like hearing a recording of his father, the tape stuck on fast-forward.

Moss said growing up in Cleveland was "a blessing" but not perfect. When he and his friends rode their bikes on Shaker Boulevard, they would make bets about how many whites would lock their car doors as they zipped by.

"We would hear click, click, click of people's door locks all the way down the street," Moss said.

As a 12-year-old, Moss said, he was called the N-word by opponents and sometimes their parents when playing hockey in North Olmsted, Oberlin and "anytime we were in a place without people of color."

Despite his occupation today, Moss said people still look at him as a threat or a problem just because he is a black male. "That is something African-American young men experience whether they come from a middle-class home or the inner city," he said.

'God had other plans'

After watching his son preach at Olivet when he was 15, the elder Moss said, he hoped that one day his son would take over Olivet's pulpit. "I knew then he had the touch, I would say, theologically, the anointing of a minister," said Otis Moss Jr., 72.

But at the time, the younger Moss had no interest in full-time ministry.

He lettered in football, basketball and track at Shaker Heights High School. After he graduated in 1988, he competed in track (100-meter dash, 200, 4x100, 4x400, and high and long jumps) and studied mass communications at Morehouse College in Atlanta, his heart set on becoming a filmmaker like his idol, Spike Lee.

His college track coach encouraged him to try out for the Olympics and he began training in the long jump.

"But God had other plans," Moss said. He became ill with the chicken pox. He lost 15 pounds and was out for two weeks. Afterward, as he struggled to regain his former strength and speed, he said he heard God's voice telling him, "Stop running in circles."

Moss changed his major to religion and philosophy. He knew he was being called to full-time ministry, but he hoped God didn't want him to work in a church.

"It's a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week job, and I didn't think I would be cut out for it," he said.

His first job after graduating from Morehouse and receiving a divinity degree from Yale University was working with a group of former gang members and drug dealers in Connecticut. When Moss talked about "Amazing Grace," one man asked, "Who is she?" Moss realized that trying to use "Christian-speak" to reach the disconnected and disenfranchised who didn't grow up going to church was a waste of time.

"I believe it is the mission of the church to reach out to groups like that," he said.

Moss found using hip-hop lyrics was the perfect middle ground, and a ministry was born.

From New Haven, he became the pastor of a Baptist church in Augusta, Ga., which grew from 125 to 2,100 members during his nine years there. He had no intention of leaving. Georgia was home. He and his Morehouse sweetheart, Monica, married, had two children and set down roots.

If he left, it would be to step into his dad's pulpit in Cleveland, he said.

In 2005, Wright of Trinity invited Moss to come to Chicago to guest preach. While Moss was there, Wright asked him to consider taking over. Moss thought he was kidding. After a year of prayer in Georgia, Moss and his wife packed their bags for Chicago. The predominantly black Trinity boasts more than 10,000 members and is the largest church within the traditionally white United Church of Christ denomination.

"The more I began to reflect on it, the more I realized that I would be going to Cleveland to support my father because I am his son not because God was saying, 'Go to Cleveland,' " Moss said.

He has never looked back.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu:Black Theology Seeks the Liberation of All

2008-05-06T09:54:00.000-07:00

Nobel Peace Prize winner and human rights advocate Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Mpilo Tutu was awarded the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution to the cause of racial justice in South Africa. He served as the first black African archbishop of Cape Town from 1986 to 1996. Prior to this role as spiritual leader of the Anglican Church in South Africa, Tutu served as General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches from 1978 to 1985.

Black Theology Seeks the Liberation of All

When we were struggling in South Africa against the vicious racist policies of apartheid, it was exhilarating to proclaim to our people that our God was encountered first not in the peaceful quiet of a sanctuary. No, our God was out there in the rough and tumble of the politics of the day. Our God revealed Himself in the utterly vulgar world of setting a fractious rabble of slaves free. Our God was/is the great liberator God of the Exodus – the paradigmatic event that helped to define God as the God who is never unbiased, but is always biased in favor of the oppressed, the marginalized, the down and outs.

This God in Jesus Christ continued to demonstrate this bias – Jesus companied not with the high and mighty, Archbishops, Presidents, and such like, but with the scum of society, prostitutes, sinners, the despised. This was the God who had an extraordinary identification with the little people – inasmuch as you have done this(clothed the naked,fed the hungry,etc.) staggeringly you have done it as to God.Wow. Our God did not give good advice from a safe distance. No, our God entered the fiery furnace to be there as Immanuel, God with us in our anguish and agony. Our God was not deaf, but heard our cries, was not blind but saw our suffering and would as of old come down to deliver us from our bondage too, so that we would enjoy the glorious liberty of the children of God.

Jeremiah Wright has said really no more than this which falls squarely in the ambit of black theology, black religion to answer the anguished questions of black people suffering under the brutality of white racism. It ultimately seeks reconciliation, but you cannot be reconciled with one who has his boot on your neck to keep you in the gutter. To be reconciled you must stand up right to look the other in the eye.

Black theology and religion seek the liberation of all, oppressor and oppressed, black and white together – as we accomplished it in South Africa for freedom is indivisible. Whites won't be truly free until blacks are free. Listen to Condeleeza Rice in the Washington Times. Obama is a person of courageous integrity. He could have ingratiated himself to white Americans by repudiating his pastor completely. He did nothing of the sort. That speaks volumes for the man. America will not find peace with itself until you really deal with your history.You need something like a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to help you come to terms with your past.

Another Jeremiah,the prophet of old shocked his compatriots when Jerusalem was being besieged by the Chaldeans. He urged his compatriots to desert and join the enemy. What price patriotism.

Bill Moyers : 'Beware the Terrible Simplifiers'

2008-05-05T09:05:00.000-07:00

Wow I guess Bill Moyers and I were totally on the same page

By Bill Moyers
May 3, 2008

Editor’s Note: The furor over Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s outbursts has altered Campaign 2008, inflicting grave damage on Barack Obama’s candidacy. But is this media obsession fair when compared with far less attention given to other political pastors, like John Hagee, a John McCain backer, who called Hurricane Katrina God’s punishment of New Orleans?

In this guest essay, Bill Moyers – who interviewed Wright on PBS – tries to answer that question:

I once asked a reporter back from Vietnam: “Who’s telling the truth over there?”

“Everyone,” he said. “Everyone sees what’s happening through the lens of their own experience.”

That’s how people see Jeremiah Wright.

In my conversation with him and in his dramatic public appearances since, he revealed himself to be far more complex than the sound bites that propelled him onto the public stage.

More than 2,000 people have written me about him, and their opinions vary widely. Some sting: “Jeremiah Wright is nothing more than a race-hustling, American-hating radical,” one of my viewers wrote. Another called him a “nut case.”

Many more were sympathetic to him. Many asked for some rational explanation for Wright’s transition from reasonable conversation to the shocking anger they saw at the National Press Club.

A psychologist might pull back some of the layers and see this complicated man more clearly, but I’m not a psychologist.

Many black preachers I’ve known—scholarly, smart, and gentle in person—uncorked fire and brimstone in the pulpit. Of course, I’ve known many white preachers like that, too.

But where I grew up in the South, before the civil rights movement, the pulpit was a safe place for black men to express anger for which they would have been punished anywhere else. A safe place for the fierce thunder of dignity denied, justice delayed.

I think I would have been angry if my ancestors had been transported thousands of miles in the hellish hole of a slave ship, then sold at auction, humiliated, whipped, and lynched.

Or if my great-great-great grandfather had been but three-fifths of a person in a Constitution that proclaimed: “We, the people.”

Or if my own parents had been subjected to the racial vitriol of Jim Crow, Strom Thurmond, Bull Conner, and Jesse Helms.

Even so, the anger of black preachers I’ve known and heard and reported on was, for them, very personal and cathartic. That’s not how Jeremiah Wright came across in those sound bites or in his defiant performances since my interview.

What white America is hearing in his most inflammatory words is an attack on the America they cherish and that many of their sons have died for in battle – forgetting that black Americans have fought and bled beside them, and that Wright himself has a record of honored service in the Navy.

Hardly anyone took the “chickens come home to roost” remark to convey the message that intervention in the political battles of other nations is sure to bring retaliation in some form, which is not to justify the particular savagery of 9/11 but to understand that actions have consequences.

My friend Bernard Weisberger, the historian, says, yes, people are understandably seething with indignation over Wright’s absurd charge that the United States deliberately brought an HIV epidemic into being.

But it is a fact, he says, that within living memory the U.S. public health service conducted a study that deliberately deceived black men with syphilis into believing that they were being treated while actually letting them die for the sake of a scientific test.

Does this excuse Wright’s anger? His exaggerations or distortions? You’ll have to decide for yourself, but at least it helps me to understand the why of them.

In this multimedia age the pulpit isn’t only available on Sunday mornings. There’s round the clock media – the beast whose hunger is never satisfied, especially for the fast food with emotional content.

So the preacher starts with rational discussion and after much prodding throws more and more gasoline on the fire that will eventually consume everything it touches. He had help – people who, for their own reasons, set out to conflate the man in the pulpit who wasn’t running for president with the man in the pew who was.

Behold the double standard: John McCain sought out the endorsement of John Hagee, the war-mongering, Catholic-bashing Texas preacher, who said the people of New Orleans got what they deserved for their sins.

But no one suggests McCain shares Hagee’s delusions or thinks AIDS is God’s punishment for homosexuality. Pat Robertson called for the assassination of a foreign head of state and asked God to remove Supreme Court justices, yet he remains a force in the Republican religious right.

After 9/11, Jerry Falwell said the attack was God’s judgment on America for having been driven out of our schools and the public square, but when McCain goes after the endorsement of the preacher he once condemned as an agent of intolerance, the press gives him a pass.

Jon Stewart recently played tape from the Nixon White House in which Billy Graham talks in the Oval Office about how he has friends who are Jewish, but he knows in his heart that they are undermining America.

This is crazy and wrong -- white preachers are given leeway in politics that others aren’t.
Which means it is all about race, isn’t it? Wright’s offensive opinions and inflammatory appearances are judged differently. He doesn’t fire a shot in anger, put a noose around anyone’s neck, call for insurrection, or plant a bomb in a church with children in Sunday school.

What he does is to speak his mind in a language and style that unsettles some people, and says some things so outlandish and ill-advised that he finally leaves Obama no choice but to end their friendship.

We’re often exposed to the corroding acid of the politics of personal destruction, but I’ve never seen anything like this – this wrenching break between pastor and parishioner played out right in front of our eyes.

Both men no doubt will carry the grief to their graves. All the rest of us should hang our heads in shame for letting it come to this in America, where the gluttony of the non-stop media grinder consumes us all and prevents an honest conversation on race.
It is the price we are paying for failing to heed the great historian Jacob Burckhardt, who said, “beware the terrible simplifiers.”

The Political Psychology of Race and Gender - Obama's Real Problem!

2008-05-04T07:27:00.000-07:00

I found this article and for me it answers a lot of the questions I've had personally as to why Pastor Wright is in the news and why he's getting the reaction he is......

Click to read the article in it's entirety

Expertinent: The Political Psychology of Race and Gender

Wednesday, March 12, 2008 5:30 PM **the day before the "Wright Controversy"**

By Andrew Romano

Expertinent is a regular Stumper column featuring interviews with experts on the news of the day.

Talk about good timing. A week ago, Cornell law student Gregory S. Parks emailed me a law review article that he had just coauthored with university professor Jeffrey Rachlinski. The subject? "Unconscious race and gender bias in the 2008 election." In addition to their legal studies, both Parks and Rachlinski (whose academic efforts have focused on the influence of human psychology on decision-making by courts, administrative agencies and regulated communities) boast Ph.Ds in psychology. On Monday, I decided to call them up for a chat. The next day, of course, race and gender consumed the national conversation (yet again) when Clinton supporter and former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro told a California newspaper that "if Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position." Revisiting my conversation with Parks and Rachlinski this morning, I realized that many of the questions we covered--who's battling the more difficult biases? is the 'victim pose' politically helpful? what should we expect in the general election?--are precisely the questions that everyone is asking in the wake of the Ferraro flap. Thus, I defer to the experts:

How about Obama?
R: Obama has a tougher job. The biases against African Americans are just a raw animus in a lot of ways. What you see in the studies is that people associate black with negative imagery, just wholesale, without regard to specific content. Blacks are bad, whites are good. You see it over and over in the unconscious bias literature. So what does he have to fight? He has to fight against being black in a way. He has to have people look at him and associate him with the positive imagery that Americans tend to associate with whites. It's not surprising, then, that his campaign is about very amorphous goals like hope and aspiration. That's the message that can work, because he can't embrace black issues without activating unconscious biases in white voters. That's very difficult to begin with.

On the other hand, Obama risks raising specific concerns among his core supporters--notably, African-Americans--if he fights too hard against being black. There's a specific in-group favoritism among African-Americans--a favorable, explicit self-image that's stronger than what you see among whites. When a black leader seems to be running away from his image as a black person, that's viewed negatively. In order to keep his base, then, he can't deny that he's black. It's a thin line that he has to toe.

You said before that "credentials help white applicants a lot more than they help black applicants." Does that mean that Obama shouldn't recite specific accomplishments and resume points?
R: The data suggests that it doesn't help black job applicants, and that it wouldn't help him. According to the research, adding resume credentials helps white applicants much more than black applicants. So if his campaign starts to be about what he's done, it won't help.

What about Obama (in the general election)?
R: He faces fewer white voters who like or care about the idea of a post-racial future. Liberal Democrats like the idea that someday race won't matter; Independents and Republicans, not as much. There's good data showing that Republicans harbor stronger negative implicit biases towards African-Americans than Democrats. So he's got to fight those biases a good deal more than he does among Democratic voters, and liberals are no longer enough. The other problem for Obama in the general election is that strong link between "black" and "foreign."

P: There was a study that came out a couple of years ago titled "American Equals White." And what it showed was that at the implicit level people tend to correlate whiteness with Americanness as opposed to blackness with Americanness. What's more, studies of the 2008 election have shown that when you prime individuals with images of the American flag--at a subliminal level, so you just flash is for a millisecond--it has a tendency to make white individuals show less liking toward Barack Obama. This harkens back to question of Obama not wearing the American flag pin and the accusations that he failed to put his hand over his heart during the singing of the national anthem. This stuff is tricky for him, especially considering that some opponents are questioning his patriotism. If images of Americanness make white Americans see Obama as less American at the implicit level--while at the explicit level rivals are questioning his patriotism--then he's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.

Is there anything to be gained by either campaign accusing their opponents of being sexist or racist? It seems to happen every day now. Does the 'victimhood pose' help in any way?
P: Obama, for one, cannot afford to address these things head on. If he gets up and says XYZ is racist and calls people on the carpet about race issues, it will only hurt him. The data supports this view. Studies suggest that when you press people on their gender-stereotypical biases, they kind of laugh it off. Because it's not such a hot issue. They're like, "Whatever. I'm not sexist." But if you press them on their racial biases, particularly in regards to blacks, one of two things happens. If they're low on explicit racial prejudice, they become contrite, apologetic, they want to know what they can do to overcome it. But if they are high on explicit racial bias, they become angry and antagonistic. When you accuse whites who harbor certain levels of racism of racist behavior, it actually makes them angry towards you. And that's why Obama can't afford to push back. He has to acknowledge and affirm that he's black so as not to alienate black voters, but he can't do it in such a way as to raise anxieties among white voters.

Is the calculus different with Clinton? Her campaign has been pretty explicit about pushing back in a way that's centered on her gender, as in the incident with David Shuster at MSNBC.
R: Of course, there are more women then there are black voters, right? It doesn't make blacks angry to point out that blacks are disadvantaged by bias. It makes whites angry. The same is true of gender. In the Democratic primaries she's dealing with a more sympathetic audience among women and to some degree among men. I don't think you'll see that in the general election at all, because she'll be fighting the implicit associations between women and nurturing domestic roles rather than leadership roles. At that point, any effort to play the gender card, if you will, is going to alienate some of the voters she needs--the voters who think it's a good idea for women to stay home.

There's a real split here about implicit associations and explicit ones. The efforts to articulate concerns about racism in the way you described are explicit efforts. Look at yourself, think about it, examine the data--that's a deliberative process meant to get people to reason through the problem and confront themselves in a different way. But you can't fight implicit biases with reasoned argument. It's not how they work. They work on an intuitive, affective, emotional level. Pushing back just makes people angry. You don't see that working very well in the research. And it wouldn't work in this campaign either. Instead, the candidates should combat implicit bias implicitly--Hillary has to look like a leader all the time; Obama looks inspirational. You fight fire with fire.

Do you expect the race- and gender-baiting to get worse in the general election?
P: Even though the RNC has indicated that they are kind of scared about how to attack Hillary Clinton without charges of sexism being leveled against them, and Barack Obama without allegations of racism, you'll still have ancillary individuals and groups who will make these attacks--that, for example, Obama used drugs at one time. There's ample evidence that, at least with regards to juries, they tend to view defendants more harshly when they've committed a crime that seems racially congruent, like a black person committing a more blue-collar crime--robbery, drug dealing and so forth. If they play that up, it could be problematic for him. If they question his patriotism, again, that could be problematic for him, because it raises these implicit biases about whether he's American enough. Republicans will probably play on these things, and perhaps his relationship with his pastor Jeremiah Wright, who openly espouses a black value system, to raise implicit biases in the electorate. And I think that poses some significant challenges for Obama.
What about the "Hussein" issue? McCain himself has already said that his allies should not use Obama's middle name as a political jab.
R: But it doesn't cost McCain anything to disassociate himself from it. The unconscious bias works automatically, quickly and deductively. So you hear the name three times and the context afterwards where McCain carefully explains that this is not something he endorsed is sort of irrelevant. To the extent that saying Hussein over and over again is at all effective on voters, McCain disassociating himself doesn't undo that effect. Because it's that first system, that affective, intuitive one, that's at play.

P: It's the benefit without the burden. He can distance himself after the fact. The RNC has said that they're not going to officially make attacks on race and gender, but you can have other groups raise these concerns and it works to McCain's advantage. The other question here is how Obama and Clinton may tear themselves apart heading into the convention and the general election by raising all these questions about each other. They're provoking these implicit biases among the general electorate as we speak--and the Republican Party may not have to do much next fall.

Let's Discuss.........

Race and Politics at Trinity United Church of Christ

2008-05-04T06:40:00.000-07:00

I keep hearing people insist that Rev. Wright is a darker skinned version of the infamous former KKK Grand Dragon David Duke. I must admit, I don't understand the rational for that comparison at all given the fact that Rev. Wright has NEVER 1. been a member of any violent anti-white organizations, 2. not supported or promoted discrimination based on race,sex,gender, or religion 3. Actively engages WITH WHITE PEOPLE and all people! Agree with him or disagree with him he is no racist.

Furthermore, like far right Christian conservative church's, many politicians have blessed Trinity UCC with their presence. Unlike far right Christian conservative church's those politicians haven't always been ideologically in sync with the majority of community that Trinity Serves. I wonder if David Duke would give a Black Democrat running for ANY office a platform to speak to his constituents?!?!?!?

Rev. Wrights has always stressed political literacy to his congregates. And has given politicians OF ALL RACES AND PARTY AFFILIATIONS, opportunities to share their messages with his congregates.

Whether it be Republican Tony Peraica or Democrat Larry Suffredin
Trinity has taken EVERY opportunity to demonstrate not only racial diversity but also political diversity.

Click here to see news coverage of a candidates forum held at Trinity UCC

I Stand with My Pastor! Here is why....

2008-04-30T16:27:00.000-07:00

I like many have watched nervously while Rev. Wright made his appearances with the media this weekend. Feeling both joy and just a bit of pain. I'm not one to make snap judgments and try my best to think rational about all issues, especially ones that tend to drive us to highly emotional responses. Having said that, allow me to review the facts.....

Rev. Wright did not ask to be in this position

Never before in history has the mainstream media given so much scrutiny to ANY presidential candidates Pastor OR Church OR secret society memberships. I mean Hillary's association with 'The Family' was mentioned on blogs but never covered in depth by the mainstream media! And what religion is John McCain anyways? He didn't even seem know

If Rev. Wright had not attempted to defend himself, HE WOULD STILL BE AN ISSUE IN THIS POLITICAL SEASON

The North Carolina republicans were set to air 'Willie Horton' style attack ads featuring Rev. Wright against the wishes of the presumed Republican Nominee

Rev. Wright is NOT a politician. and saying that I feel that it shouldn't be surprising that he wouldn't use political posturing during a press conference........

It could be argued that no ones pastor really needs to be in front of the National Press Club. One should really be asking why he was invited

I won't stand by and allow my pastor to be scapegoated as a political liability without asking some critical questions of his attackers? And as I mention my points, I invite you to examine with me why we are/ are not witnessing BLATANT RACIAL DOUBLE STANDARDS..... shall we :) okay

Why is it so much of a political deal breaker for Obama that one of his supporters, and former pastor Rev. Wright to say that Minister Farrakhan is someone respected by Black America and that he's not such a Bad Guy at all??? I mean event Clinton Supporter PA Governor Ed Rendell while he was MAYOR said the same thing. That didn't seem to be such a political liability for him.

I guess the good Governor gave up trying to end racism given that he stated a week before the "Wright Controversy" started, that WORKING CLASS WHITE VOTERS WILL NEVER VOTE FOR A BLACK MAN! But that day he was really kissing Farrakhans ass wouldn't you agree???
I'll reserve another bullet point for now far right democrat Joe Lieberman who also took a turn at getting to know Farrakhan the man and kissing his ass...............

OBVIOUS QUESTION FROM ME IS .. HOW WAS HE ABLE TO HOLD HIS SENATE SEAT.. HE OBVIOUSLY HATES WHITE PEOPLE RIGHT????
Okay ... Maybe throwing up an Omega signal was over the top for Rev. to do. I'll give you that.. But again he's not running for office. Whats more outrageous, Rev. Wright throwing up an Omega sign at a press conference orJohn McCain trying to WHIP SOMEBODY'S ASS on the Senate floor.. WHICH IS WORSE? Do we not swift boat McCain when he's accused of calling his wife a trollip and a c*nt??? Or how about dropping the F bomb on the senate floor? Is that not a sign of arrogance?
Our favorite President George Bush has even told all of us the MIDDLE FINGER.... and acted an ass on many business occasions

Did he just disrespect a world leader by giving her a massage???? He got away with that huh......
The perceived causes for 9/11... John McCain doesn't get any flack for courting right wing preachers nominations who have blamed 9/11 on gays but the 'other' candidate doesn't

So is the message here that the American people feel that it is more legitimate to blame 9/11 on gays, feminist, and abortionist.. and that blaming it on American foreign policy is totally illegitimate?? Is that what I should take away from this. Please engage me on this because I'm trying to be Post Racial and understand really!

The fact that we have to deal with these obvious double standards proves that the notion of POST RACIALISM is impossible in the U.S. Rev. Wright is being held to a standard WE NEVER EVEN HOLD OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS TOO... this is real.......

You what I'd like to see discussed in the media right now......

What do these candidates feel about the Patriot Act, Real Id, and the continuing decline of the dollar. You know the dollar is not that much in value compared to the damn Peso anymore.. Why isn't McCain Hillary and Obama addressing that. Why is the media focusing on my PASTOR and not the POLITICIANS AND THEIR POLITICAL VIEWS AND SOLUTIONS.....
Out of these three candidates WHO IS BENEFITING FINANCIALLY FROM INVESTMENTS RELATED TO THE IRAQ WAR AND THE DECREASING DOLLAR??? Does McCain have stock in Black Water??? Does Hillary or her husband or ,since we're there, HER PASTOR have stock in the Defense industry?????? (Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), who voted for Bush’s war, had stock in defense companies, such as Honeywell, Boeing and Raytheon, but sold the stock in May 2007. How fake is that!)
When will the candidates address the Global Food Shortage issue and why is Costco rationing rice for God's sake....

Will the media ever address these issues??? No they won't because they know that elections aren't based on reason.. they're based on fears and irrational emotions.

Pastor Wright You taught me to be unapologetic... I am. You did the best you could in a no win situation and I am PRAYING FOR YOU AND YOUR FAMILY and our church.

Please stay encouraged.

NOW BLOGOSPHERE BRING IT ON............................................

Missed Rev. Wrights Interview with Moyers? Watch it Here!

2008-04-26T06:08:00.000-07:00

Holland/AP

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright

And still...... the media chooses to focus on the sound bites. If you want to watch the entire vid HERE

Here is the Transcript

April 25, 2008

BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the JOURNAL.

Barack Obama's pastor was in the news again this week. North Carolina Republicans are preparing to run an ad tying Obama to some controversial sound bites lifted from Reverend Jeremiah Wright's sermons. And CBS and MSNBC led their broadcasts with reports about the ad.

DEAN REYNOLDS: In North Carolina the Republicans put their ad on the internet and say they're going to broadcast it as well.

KEITH OLBERMANN: Republican hit job the North Carolina GOP plans a Willie Horton style TV ad against Obama.

BILL MOYERS: Jeremiah Wright will be in Washington Monday for a news conference at the National Press Club -- his first since the controversy erupted over those incendiary sound bites. You've heard them; who hasn't heard them: Wright suggesting the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were payback for American policy; Wright repeating the canard heard often in black communities that the u.s. government spread HIV in those communities; Wright seemingly calling on God to damn America.

But just who is this man? That's the question I asked when those sound bites began popping up. I'd heard the name Jeremiah Wright -- his church in Chicago belongs to the fellowship of the United Church of Christ. I joined a UCC church on Long Island 40 years ago and attend Riverside Church in New York City, which is affiliated with American Baptists and the UCC. But I couldn't remember ever having met Reverend Wright. So I wanted to know more about the man, the ministry, and the church.

BILL MOYERS: In 1972, Jeremiah Wright became pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. He inherited a struggling congregation of just 9887 members.

REVEREND WRIGHT: I have a friend who every time you greet him, every time you ask him how you doing, he answers, just trying to make it man, just trying to make it.

BILL MOYERS: But by the mid 1980s, when PBS' Frontline shot this film about Wright, he'd grown the congregation to several thousand.

REVEREND WRIGHT: In our homes! Help us to be your church! In our private lives, help us to be your church! In our dealings one with another, help us to be your church Though our minds wander, our souls love only you. Let the church say Amen. Say Amen again.

BILL MOYERS: Trinity Church is located in a largely black neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago - a mixture of working class people and the poor.

REVEREND WRIGHT: Unfortunately, most churches now are "status quo." And so that, to the extent that they're not trying to feed the poor, they're not trying to hook up jobs and people, they're not concerned about the lowest, the least, the left out. They're not concerned about the youth, they're concerned about "Let me come here on a Sunday, hear something that tells me I'm ok, and I'm going to back to where I've been going. Don't rock the boat…"

REVEREND WRIGHT: How about the fact that we have pledged to take what we've got as black people and put it back into the black community? That's what I want to ask you…

BILL MOYERS: He challenged his growing congregation not to lose sight of the needs of their neighbors.

YOUNG MAN: I want to be a vehicle designer.

BILL MOYERS: That meant soup kitchens, day care, drug and legal counseling, and mentoring for young people.

YOUNG MAN:I've watched TV and looked at lawyers in past years and I've basically like the feel of being a lawyer. It's like really exciting.

MENTOR: As a matter of fact, there are a couple lawyers here in the church that maybe we can just hook you up with

YOUNG MAN: I'd like to be a doctor.

REVEREND WRIGHT: You can't be whatcha ain't seen. And so many of our young boys haven't seen nothing but the gangs and the pimps and the brothers on the corner. They've never sat and talked to lawyers, they've never sat and talked to a man, a black man, with 2, 3 degrees! They've never had a chance, they've never had an option in terms of thinking I could do this? I can be this? They see a doctor when they're sick. They don't get to sit and talk-me go to med school? They don't talk to somebody who writes programs and analyzes systems and computers. A black guy? I can do this? I can-never have their horizons lifted.

BOYS: The commitment to the black community The commitment to the black family

BILL MOYERS: He spoke out about racism from segregation in America's cities to the racist apartheid regime of South Africa.

REVEREND WRIGHT: What the word says about racism comes through loud and clear! Botha is wrong! South Africa is wrong! Apartheid is wrong! Oppression is wrong! Anybody who feels white skin is superior to black skin is wrong!

BILL MOYERS: Around that time a young Barack Obama came to Chicago and went to work as a community organizer on the South Side. As he describes in his book, Obama was a religious skeptic at first, and sought out Pastor Wright for his knowledge of the neighborhood. But soon Obama began attending Sunday Services, and in 1988 was baptized there as a Christian.

Twenty years later, Trinity has built a new building for its burgeoning congregation: now over six thousand members. Its ministry has grown as well: including tutoring for kids, women's health programs, and a HIV/AIDS ministry.

Trinity has long had strong ties with the African roots of its faith. Parishoners are asked to respect what they call "the black value system:" to rededicate themselves to God, the black family and the black community. Reinforcing the motto that they are quote "Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian."

You see the connection to Africa in the stained glass windows Wright installed in the new church. They depict many of the biblical stories that took place there.

REVEREND JEREMIAH WRIGHT: We wanted our stained-glass windows to tell the story of the centrality of Africans in the role of Christianity from its inception up until the present day. We play some interesting games educationally with the kids to help kids understand -- can you name the seven continents? As a kid, you learn that in school. All right, on what continent did everything in the Bible from Genesis to Malachi take place? And they'll give you an eighth continent: the Middle East. No, no, no, you just named seven continents. So, what continent do these things take place on in your Bible? It's that kind of biblical truth put in stain glass so kids can understand this is not something somebody made up. This is not something from black power "Oooh." This is actual biblical, historical fact that you have a central role in the Christian faith that is yours.

BILL MOYERS: Several years ago Jeremiah Wright and the church began the search for his successor, and after 36 years as pastor, he will be retiring at the end of next month.

REVEREND WRIGHT: In Genesis:2 it says God breathes into the nostrils of what God had formed from the dust. God donated some divinity to some dirt and we became living souls. That's God breath you have in you, that's God's breath that you just breathed. God is the giver of life. Let me tell you what that means. That means we have no right to take a life whether as a gang banger living the thug life, or as a President lying about leading a nation into war. We have no right to take a life! Whether through the immorality of a slave trade, or the immorality of refusing HIV/AIDS money to countries or agencies who do not tow your political line! We have no right to take a life! Turn to your neighbors and say we have no right to take a life!

BILL MOYERS: That was Jeremiah Wright three years ago, and he's with me here today.

Welcome to the JOURNAL.

REVEREND WRIGHT: Thank you for having me.

BILL MOYERS: Let's start with first things. When did you hear the call to ministry? How did it come?

REVEREND WRIGHT: I was a teenager when I heard the call to ministry. I grew up in a parsonage. I grew up a son of and grandson of a minister, which also gave me the advantage of knowing that there were more things to ministry than pastoring. I had no idea that I'd be preaching or pasturing a church at that teenage year. As a matter of fact I left Philadelphia going to Virginia Union University. And unfortunately, I was starting during the civil rights movement. And the civil rights movement showed me a side of Christianity that I had not seen in Philadelphia. I had not seen Christians who, as I saw in Richmond, Virginia, who loved the lord, who professed faith in Jesus Christ and who believed in segregation, saw nothing wrong with lynching, saw nothing wrong with Negroes staying in their places. I knew about hatred. I knew about prejudice. But I didn't know Christians participated in that, in that kind of thinking.

BILL MOYERS: So what did that do to you?

REVEREND WRIGHT: It made me question my call. It made me question whether or not I was doing the right thing. It made me pause in my educational pursuit. I stopped school in my last year, senior year, and went into the service.

BILL MOYERS: He served six years in the military: two as a marine, and four in the Navy as a cardiopulmonary technician. That's where our paths crossed for the only time.

That's Jeremiah Wright, behind the I.V. pole, monitoring President Lyndon Johnson's heart as he was recovering from gall bladder surgery at Bethesda Naval Hospital. And right behind him is a very young me. I was the President's Press Secretary.

REVEREND WRIGHT: As you know, the President had to be operated on and out of surgery by 9:00 when the stock market opened. And talking and wide awake. So, we scrubbed in, like, 3:00 in the morning.

When he awakened, unlike other patients, you did not move him to recovery. You didn't move him to ICU. They kept him right there for security reasons. Secret Service all around, there was secret service in the whole operating suite and nobody else allowed in the operating suite except Secret Service.

So, after about an hour and a half, I went to get some coffee. And as I was coming back from the lounge where the coffee was, going back to monitor, I saw the guys talkin' into their wristwatches and I was nodding, speaking to them. So, I turn to go into the room to check the pace. And secret service guys standing there grabbed me, knocked the coffee outta my hand, burned me with the hot coffee, twisted my arm up behind my neck and screams into his phone, "I got him." And I was, "Got him?" And I'm screamin' in pain. And my assistant comes running out of the booth. He sees me jacked up and he starts laughing. I said, "Joe, don't laugh. Tell him who I am." And he said, "He's been here all morning."

BILL MOYERS: Standing above the President.

REVEREND WRIGHT: Guy looked at me, pulled my mask up over face, "Oh, yeah." And that was it.

BILL MOYERS: After the military, Wright graduated from Howard University, then went to the University of Chicago Divinity School for a Masters in Religious History.

But his path took a turn back to his first calling - when he was asked by that struggling little church on the South Side of Chicago to become its pastor.

BILL MOYERS: So, when you looked out on that handful of worshippers that first Sunday morning, 87 members, I'm sure all of them weren't there--

REVEREND WRIGHT: Oh, yeah. They all knew they heard this new kid was there with a big natural. So, they came to see--

BILL MOYERS: They were there.

REVEREND WRIGHT: Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: So, what did you see and what did you think you had to do?

REVEREND WRIGHT: Well, actually a good friend of yours, I believe, and one of my professors, got me in the predicament I'm in today, Dr. Martin Marty, one of my professors at the University of Chicago--

BILL MOYERS: One of the great distinguished historians of religion in America.

REVEREND WRIGHT: He put a challenge to us in 1970, late '69, early '70, I'll never forget. He said, "You know, you come into the average church on a Sunday morning and you think you've stepped from the real world into a fantasy world. And what do I mean by that?" He said pick up the church bulletin. You leave a world, Vietnam, or today you leave a world, Iraq, over 4,000 dead, American boys and girls, 100,000, 200,000 depending on which count, Iraqi dead. Afghanistan, Darfur, rapes in the Congo, Katrina, Lower Ninth Ward, that's the world you leave. And you come in; you pick up your church bulletin. It says, there is a ladies tea on second Sunday. The children's choir will be doing. He said, "How come our bulletins, how come the faith preached in our churches does not relate to the world in which our church members leave at the benediction?" Well, it hit me. And it hit me several different ways. Number one, I know there's a church publication, the bulletin, the weekly bulletin. But what about the ministry? And what about the prophetic voice of the church that's not heard? We're talking about things that our members are wrestling with a whole bunch of other things. And the sermons and the ministries of the church don't touch those things.

So, when, I looked and said this church had said to me, in fact not just to me, the church, the congregation has said, "OK, we were started by a white denomination. We were started in this community to be an integrated church. Ten years, that hasn't happened. Are we gonna be a black church in this community? What are we doing for this community?" They put together a statement that shows all the candidates for the pulpit. I was one of the candidates. They said, "Can you lead us in this new direction? How do we minister to this community in which we sit?" Not just on Sunday, first you have to attract people to come-- or even be interested in our worship experiences on Sunday. But what do we do in ministry that speaks to the community and the world in which we sit? That's Martin Marty. That's Martin Marty.

BILL MOYERS: Marty told me that you launched a strenuous effort to help the members of that church overcome the shame, and I'm quoting him, "they had so long been conditioned to experience." What was the source of that shame?

REVEREND WRIGHT: What Carter G. Woodson calls the miseducation of the Negro. That Africa is ignorant, Africans are ignorant; there is no African history, there is no African music, there is no African culture, anything related to Africa is negative, therefore you are not African. Chinese come to the country, they're still Chinese-American. We have Chinatown. Koreans come, they're still Korean. They have Koreatown. Africans come, they're colored. They're Negro. They're anything but Africa. In fact, we don't even call them Ebbu, Ebibu, Fulani, Fanti, Ga, no, no, no -- they're all "Negro." Portuguese, "Negro" Spanish. They're all gettin' lumped into black, but we're not black, we are Negro with a capital N.

The shame of being a descendant of Africa, was a shame that had been pumped into the minds and hearts of Africans from the 1600s on, even aided and abetted by the benefit of those schools started by the missionaries, who simply carried their culture with them into the South and taught their cultures being synonymous with Christianity. So that to become a Christian, you had to let go of all vestiges of Africa and become European, become New Englanders and worship like New England, worship God properly and right. Well, that shame was a part of the shame that many Africans in the '60s and the '70s were feeling.

Dr Reuben Sheares is my predecessor -- he was the interim pastor at Trinity -- coined the phrase "unashamedly black," where blacks coming outta the '60s were no longer ashamed of being black people, nor did they have to apologize for being Christians. Because many persons in the African-American community were teasing us, Christians, of being a white man's religion. And no, we're not ashamed of Christianity. And we don't have to apologize for who we are as African-Americans. So that, I think, is what Marty was talking about.

BILL MOYERS: So, when Trinity Church says it is unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian, is it embracing a race-based theology?

REVEREND WRIGHT: No, it is not. It is embracing Christianity without giving up Africanity. A lotta the missionaries were going to other countries assuming that our culture is superior, that you have no culture. And to be a Christian, you must be like us. Right now, you can go to Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, and see Christians in 140-degree weather. They have to have on a tie. Because that's what it means to be a Christian. Well, it's that kind of assuming that our culture, "We have the only sacred music. You must sing our music. You must use a pipe organ. You cannot use your instrument." It's that kind of assumption that in the field of missions, people say, "You know what? We're doing this wrong. We need to take Christ and leave culture at home. We need to learn the culture of people into which we're moving, and preach the methods of Jesus Christ using the culture that we are a part of." Well, the same thing happened with Christians in this country when they said, "You know what? Because those same missionaries who went south, they didn't let us sing gospel music." That was not sacred--

BILL MOYERS: They were singin' the great Anglican hymns.

REVEREND WRIGHT: Correct, correct. And make sure you use correct diction. Well, the-- Africans in the late-- African-Americans in the late '60s started saying, "You know, no, no, no, no, no, no, no." Even-- I was in Virginia Union, I was soloist at Virginia Union in the college, in the concert choir. We were not allowed to sing anything but anthems and spirituals. The same thing with the Howard University concert choir. The same thing with all the historical black choirs until '68. When King got killed, black kids started saying wait a minute. We're not givin' up who we are as black people to become-- to show somebody else that we -- in fact, the music majors at Howard when I was-- teaching assistant at La Vern they said to the choir director there, "We're tired of singin' German Lieder and Italian aria to prove to you that we-- you know, we can sing foreign songs. But we have our own music tradition." Prior to '68, there was no gospel music at Howard University. Prior to '68, there was no jazz major. The white universities are giving Count Basie and Duke Ellington degrees. We don't even the jazz course. We don't have blues. We don't have any of our music on this black college campus. Because the missionaries had not allowed us to teach our own music.

And at that point in history, all across the country and all across denominational lines, the-- the college-age kids started saying, no more. No mas. Nada mas. We're gonna do our people. We're gonna do our culture. We're gonna do our history. And we're gonna embrace it and not put-- to say one is superior to the other. Because we are different. And different does not mean deficient, that we just different like snowflakes. We're different. We talk about God of diversity? God has diverse culture, God has -and we're proud of who we are because that's the statement the congregation was making, not a race-based theology.

BILL MOYERS: So, God is not, contrary to some of the rumors that have been circulated about Trinity, God is not exclusively or totally identified with just the black community?

REVEREND WRIGHT: Of course not. God-- I think Jesus said to Nicodemus, "God should love the world," not just the black community-- that we have our church is what some would call multicultural. We not only have Hispanic members, we not only have members--

BILL MOYERS: When you said, "No mas," I was gonna say that's not a spiritual. That's not out of the spirituals or the blues.

REVEREND WRIGHT: We have members from Cuba. We have members from Puerto Rico. We have members from Belize. We have members from all of the Caribbean islands. We have members from South Africa, from West Africa, and we have white members.

BILL MOYERS: What does the church service on Sunday morning mean in general to the black community?

REVEREND WRIGHT: It means many things. I think one of the things the church service means is hope. That tell me that there is hope in this life, almost like Psalm 27 when David said, "I would have fainted unless I lived to see the goodness of the right in this life." Don't tell me about heaven. What about in this life-- that there is a better way, that this is not in vain, that it is not Edward Albee or Camus' absurd, the theater of the absurd. It is not Shakespeare full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. That life has meaning and that God is still in control, and that God can, and God will, some people of goodwill working hard do something about the situation. We can change. We can do better. We can change policy. We can look back and say, "Well, 40 years ago when King was alive, we did not have right before his death, a civil rights act. We did not have a voting rights act." So, change is possible. But I'm getting my head whipped. The average member in the black church five days a week, "tell me that this is not all there is to this." So, they come looking for hope. And as we've tried to do, move a hurt. People who are marginalized, marginalized in the educational system, marginalized in the socioeconomic system -- to move them from hurt to healing, that there is really is a balm in Gilead.

BILL MOYERS: Are you saying that the members of Trinity leave the world of unemployment, leave the world of discrimination, leave the world of that daily struggle and come to church for-

REVEREND WRIGHT: For encouragement, to go back out and make a difference in their world. To go back out and change that world, to not just talk about heaven by and by, but to get equipped and to get to know that we are not alone in this struggle, and that the struggle can make a difference. Not to leave that world and pretend that we are now in some sort of fantasy land, as Martin Marty called it, but that we serve a God who comes into history on the side of the oppressed. That we serve a God who cares about the poor. That we serve a God who says that as much as you've done unto the least of these, my little ones, you've done unto me, so that we are not alone. Because that same God says I'm with you, and I'm with you in the struggle. Our United Church of Christ says courage and the struggle for justice and peace that is an ongoing struggle.

BILL MOYERS: Lots of controversy about black liberation theology. As I understand it, black liberation theology reads the bible through the experience of people who have suffered, and who then are able to say to themselves that we read the bible differently, because we have struggled, than those do who have not struggled. Is that a fair bumper sticker of liberation theology?

REVEREND WRIGHT: I think that's a fair bumper sticker. I think that the terms "liberation theology" or "black liberation theology" cause more problems and red flags for people who don't understand it.

BILL MOYERS: When I hear the word "black liberation theology" being the interpretation of scripture from the oppressed, I think well, that's the Jewish story--

REVEREND WRIGHT: Exactly, exactly. From Genesis to Revelation. These are people who wrote the word of God that we honor and love under Egyptian oppression, Syrian oppression, Babylonian oppression, Persian oppression, Greek oppression, Roman oppression. So that their understanding of what God is saying is very different from the Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians. And that's what prophetic theology of the African-American church is.

BILL MOYERS: Yeah. But talk a little bit about that. The prophets loved Israel. But they hated the waywardness of Israel. And they were calling Israel out of love back to justice, not damning--

REVEREND WRIGHT: Exactly.

BILL MOYERS: Not damning Israel. Right?

REVEREND WRIGHT: Right. They were saying that God was-- in fact, if you look at the damning, condemning, if you look at Deuteronomy, it talks about blessings and curses, how God doesn't bless everything. God does not bless gang-bangers. God does not bless dope dealers. God does not bless young thugs that hit old women upside the head and snatch their purse. God does not bless that. God does not bless the killing of babies. God does not bless the killing of enemies. And when you look at blessings and curses out of that Hebrew tradition from the book of Deuteronomy, that's what the prophets were saying, that God is not blessing this. God does not bless it- bless us. And when we're calling them, the prophets call them to repentance and to come back to God. If my people who are called by my name, God says to Solomon, will humble themselves and pray, seek my faith and turn from their wicked ways. God says that wicked ways, not Jeremiah Wright, then will I hear from heaven.

BILL MOYERS: One of the most controversial sermons that you preach is the sermon you preach that ended up being that sound bite about Goddamn America.

REVEREND JEREMIAH WRIGHT: Where governments lie, God does not lie. Where governments change, God does not change. And I'm through now. But let me leave you with one more thing. Governments fail. The government in this text comprised of Caesar, Cornelius, Pontius Pilate - the Roman government failed. The British government used to rule from East to West. The British government had a Union Jack. She colonized Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Hong Kong. Her navies ruled the seven seas all the way down to the tip of Argentina in the Falklands, but the British government failed. The Russian government failed. The Japanese government failed. The German government failed. And the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains. The government put them on slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton fields, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education and locked them into position of hopelessness and helplessness. The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law, and then wants us to sing God bless America? No, no, no. Not God bless America; God damn America! That's in the Bible, for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating her citizen as less than human. God damn America as long as she keeps trying to act like she is God and she is supreme!

BILL MOYERS: What did you mean when you said that?

REVEREND WRIGHT: When you start confusing God and government, your allegiances to government -a particular government and not to God, that you're in serious trouble because governments fail people. And governments change. And governments lie. And those three points of the sermon. And that is the context in which I was illustrating how the governments biblically and the governments since biblical times, up to our time, changed, how they failed, and how they lie. And when we start talking about my government right or wrong, I don't think that goes. That is consistent with what the will of God says or the word of God says that governments don't say right or wrong. That governments that wanna kill innocents are not consistent with the will of God. And that you are made in the image of God, you're not made in the image of any particular government. We have the freedom here in this country to talk about that publicly, whereas some other places, you're dead if say the wrong thing about your government.

BILL MOYERS: Well, you can be almost crucified for saying what you've said here in this country.

REVEREND WRIGHT: That's true. That's true. But you can be crucified, you can be crucified publicly, you can be crucified by corporate-owned media. But I mean, what I just meant was, you can be killed in other countries by the government for saying that. Dr. King, of course, was vilified. And most of us forget that after he was assassinated, but the year before he was assassinated, April 4th, 1967 at the Riverside Church, he talked about racism, militarism and capitalism. He became vilified. He got ostracized not only by the majority of Americans in the press; he got vilified by his own community. They thought he had overstepped his bounds. He was no longer talking about civil rights and being able to sit down at lunch counters that he should not talk about things like the war in Vietnam. He preached--

BILL MOYERS: Lyndon Johnson was furious at that. As you know-

REVEREND WRIGHT: I'm sure he was.

BILL MOYERS: That's where they broke.

REVEREND WRIGHT: And that's where a lot of the African-American community broke with him, too. He was vilified by Roger Wilkins' daddy, Roy Wilkins. Jackie Robinson. He was vilified by all of the Negro leaders who felt he'd overstepped his bounds talking about an unjust war. And that part of King is not lifted up every year on January 15th. 1963, "I have a dream," was lifted up, and passages from that - sound bites if you will - from that march on Washington speech. But the King who preached the end of- "I've been to the mountaintop, I've looked over and I've seen the Promised Land, I might not get there with you,"- that part of the speech is talked about, not the fact that he was in Memphis siding with garbage collectors. Nothing about Resurrection City, nothing about the poor--

BILL MOYERS: Resurrection City was the march in Washington for the poor.

REVEREND WRIGHT: For the poor. That part of King is not talked about because we want to keep that away from the public eye, and the public memory, and it's been 40 years now.

BILL MOYERS: What is your notion of why so many Americans seem not to want to hear the full Monty - they don't want to seem to acknowledge that a nation capable of greatness is also capable of cruelty?

REVEREND WRIGHT: I think I come at that as a historian of religion. That we are miseducated as a people. Or because we're miseducated, you end up with the majority of the people not wanting to hear the truth. Because they would rather cling to what they are taught. James Washington, now a deceased church historian, says that after every revolution, the winners of that revolution write down what the revolution was about so that their children can learn it, whether it's true or not. They don't learn anything at all about the Arawak, they don't learn anything at all about the Seminole, the Cheek-Trail of Tears, the Cherokee. They don't learn anything. No, they don't learn that. What they learn is 1776, Crispus Attucks was the one black guy in there. Fight against the British, the- terrible. "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal while we're holding slaves." No, keep that part out. They learn that. And they cling to that. And when you start trying to show them you only got a piece of the story, and lemme show you the rest of the story, you run into vitriolic hatred because you're desecrating our myth. You're desecrating what we hold sacred. And when you're holding sacred is a miseducational system that has not taught you the truth. I also think people don't understand condemn, D-E-M-N, D-A-M-N. They don't understand the root, the etymology of the word in terms of God condemning the practices that are against God's people. But again, what is happening is I talk a truth. Reading the scripture or the hermeneutic of a people who have-

BILL MOYERS: Hermeneutic?

REVEREND WRIGHT: Hermeneutic is an interpretation, it's the window from which you're looking is your hermeneutic. And when you don't realize that I've been framed- this whole thing has been framed through this window, there's another world out here that I'm not looking at or taking into account, it gives you a perspective that-- that is-- that is informed by and limited by your hermeneutic. Dr. James Cone put it this way. The God of the people who riding on the decks of the slave ship is not the God of the people who are riding underneath the decks as slaves in chains. If the God you're praying to, "Bless our slavery" is not the God to whom these people are praying, saying, "God, get us out of slavery." And it's not like Notre Dame playing Michigan. You're saying flip a coin; hope God blesses the winning team, no. That the perception of God who allows slavery, who allows rape, who allows misogyny, who allows sodomy, who allows murder of a people, lynching, that's not the God of the people being lynched and sodomized and raped, and carried away into a foreign country. Same thing you find in Psalm 137. That those people who are carried away into slavery have a very different concept of what it means to be the people of God than the ones who carried them away.

BILL MOYERS: And they say, "How can we sing the song of the Lord of a foreign land?"

REVEREND WRIGHT: Correct.

BILL MOYERS: That chapter ends up with some very brutal words.

REVEREND WRIGHT: It does. And--

BILL MOYERS: You used them in one of your sermons--

REVEREND WRIGHT: Yes, I did. I was trying to show how people- how the anger- and we felt anger. I felt anger. I felt hurt. I felt pain. In fact, September 11th, I was in Newark. September 11th, I was trapped in Newark 'cause when they shut down the air system I couldn't get back to Chicago. September 11th, I looked out the window and saw the second plane hit from my hotel window. Alright, I had members who lost loved ones both at the Pentagon and at the World Trade Center. So, I know the pain. And I had to preach to them Sunday. I had to preach. They came to church wanting to know where is God in this. And so, I had to show them using that Psalm 137, how the people who were carried away into slavery were very angry, very bitter, moved and in their anger from wanting revenge against the armies that had carried them away to slavery, to the babies. That Psalm ends up sayin' "Let's kill the baby-let's bash their heads against the stone." So, now you move from revolt and revulsion as to what has happened to you, to you want revenge. You move from anger with the military to taking it out on the innocents. You wanna kill babies. That's what's going on in Psalm 137. And that's exactly where we are. We want revenge. They wanted revenge. God doesn't wanna leave you there, however. God wants redemption. God wants wholeness. And that's the context, the biblical context I used to try to get people sitting again, in that sanctuary on that Sunday following 9/11, who wanted to know where is God in this? What is God saying? What is God saying? Because I want revenge.

REVEREND WRIGHT: The people of faith have moved from the hatred of armed enemies, these soldiers who captured the king, those soldiers who slaughtered his son and put his eyes out, the soldiers who sacked the city, burned the towns, burned the temples, burned the towers, and moved from the hatred for armed enemies to the hatred of unarmed innocents, the babies, the babies . "Blessed are they who dash your baby's brains against a rock." And that my beloved is a dangerous place to be. Yet, that is where the people of faith are in 551 BC and that is where far too many people of faith are in 2001 AD. We have moved from the hatred of armed enemies to the hatred of unarmed innocents. We want revenge. We want paybacks and we don't care who gets hurt in the process.

I heard Ambassador Peck on an interview yesterday. Did anybody else see him or hear him? He was on Fox news. This is a white man and he was upsetting the Fox news commentators to no end. He pointed out. You see him John? A white man he pointed out -an Ambassador! He pointed out that what Malcolm X said when he got silenced by Elijah Mohammad was in fact true. America's chickens are coming home to roost! We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, the Arawak, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism! We took Africans from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism! We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel. We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenagers and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard-working fathers. We bombed Gadafi's home and killed his child. "Blessed are they who bash your children's head against a rock!" We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to payback for the attack on our embassy. Killed hundreds of hard-working people; mothers and fathers who left home to go that day, not knowing that they would never get back home. We bombed Hiroshima! We bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye! Kids playing in the playground, mothers picking up children after school, civilians - not soldiers - people just trying to make it day by day. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and Black South Africans, and now we are indignant? Because the stuff we have done overseas has now been brought back into our own front yards! America's chickens are coming home to roost! Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred and terrorism begets terrorism. A White Ambassador said that y'all not a Black Militant. Not a Reverend who preaches about racism. An Ambassador whose eyes are wide open, and who's trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised--

BILL MOYERS: You preached that sermon on the Sunday after 9-11 -- almost 7 years ago. When people saw the sound bites from it this year, they were upset because you seemed to be blaming America. Did you somehow fail to communicate?

REVEREND WRIGHT: The persons who have heard the entire sermon understand the communication perfectly. What is not the failure to communicate is when something is taken like a sound bite for a political purpose and put constantly over and over again, looped in the face of the public. That's not a failure to communicate. Those who are doing that are communicating exactly what they wanna do, which is to paint me as some sort of fanatic or as the learned journalist from the New York Times called me, a "wack-a-doodle." It's to paint me as something. Something's wrong with me. There's nothing wrong with this country. There's -its policies. We're perfect. We-our hands are free. Our hands have no blood on them. That's not a failure to communicate. The message that is being communicated by the sound bites is exactly what those pushing those sound bites want to communicate.

BILL MOYERS: What do you think they wanted to communicate?

REVEREND WRIGHT: I think they wanted to communicate that I am- unpatriotic, that I am un-American, that I am filled with hate speech, that I have a cult at Trinity United Church of Christ. And, by the way, guess who goes to his church, hint, hint, hint? That's what they wanted to communicate. They know nothing about the church. They know nothing about our prison ministry. They know nothing about our food share ministry. They know nothing about our senior citizens home. They know nothing about all we try to do as a church and have tried to do, and still continue to do as a church that believes what Martin Marty said, that the two worlds have to be together-the world before church and the world after postlude. And that the gospel of Jesus Christ has to speak to those worlds, not only in terms of the preached message on a Sunday morning but in terms of the lived-out ministry throughout the week.

BILL MOYERS: What did you think when you began to see those very brief sound bites circulating as they did?

REVEREND WRIGHT: I felt it was unfair. I felt it was unjust. I felt it was untrue. I felt for those who were doing that, were doing it for some very devious reasons.

BILL MOYERS: Such as?

REVEREND WRIGHT: To put an element of fear and hatred and to stir up the anxiety of American who still don't know the African-American church, know nothing about the prophetic theology of the African-American experience, who know nothing about the black church, who don't even know how we got a black church.

BILL MOYERS: What can you tell me about what's happened at the church since this controversy broke?

REVEREND WRIGHT: Well, the church members are very upset. Because they know it's a lie, the things that are being broadcast. Church members have been very supportive. The church members have been upset by behavior of some of the media; picking up church bulletins to get the names and addresses and phone numbers of the sick and shut-in, calling them to try to get stories. One lady they called in hospice. My members are very upset about that, our members are very upset about that. Our members are very upset about that. Our members know that this is what the media is doing. And our members know they're only doing it because of the political campaign. What have we gotten into here? People threatening, you know, Christians, some of 'em, threatening us, quoting scripture and telling us how they're going to wipe us off the face of the earth in the name of Jesus

BILL MOYERS: There had been death threats?

REVEREND WRIGHT: Yes, there have. At, both on myself and on Pastor Moss, and bomb threats at the church.

BILL MOYERS: Did you ever imagine that you would come to personify the black anger that so many whites fear?

REVEREND WRIGHT: No. I did not. I have been preaching as I've been preaching since I was ordained 41 years ago. I pointed out to some of the persons in Chicago who find all of this, new to them that the stance I took in standing against apartheid along with our denomination back in the '70s and putting a "Free South Africa" sign in front of the church put me at odds with the government. Our denomination's defense of the Wilmington Ten and Ben Chavis put me at odds with the establishment. So, being at odds with policies is nothing new to me. The blow up and the blowing up of sermons preached ten, fifteen, seven, six years ago and now becoming a media event, not the full sermon, but the snippets from the sermon and sound bite having made me the target of hatred. Yes, that is something very new and something very, very unsettling.

BILL MOYERS: I think of how important music is to your church at times like this, that's intentional isn't it?

REVEREND WRIGHT: It is. It's been a part of our tradition. And what I tried to do again in bringing together, how do you take a people who are hurting and bring healing? How do you take a people who are suffocating with hate and give them hope? Well, a part is through the musical tradition. One of the things in our tradition that I mentioned a moment ago that's so key is blues. The Blues. We learned how to sing the blues. That's why suicide rate wasn't much higher. 'Cause we started singing the blues. Well people sittin' there every Sunday they know that tradition. Many of them, as they turn their keys off coming into church we're not listening to gospel music. They were listening to our music out of our tradition. Blues, Doo-wops, rock and roll. Anita Baker. Luther Vandross. That's our music tradition. That's a part of what helps us hold it together. So it's the same thing that helps them to hold it together out there. Helps them to hold it together in here

BILL MOYERS: What is it you said about suicide?

REVEREND WRIGHT: Blacks learn how to sing the blues rather than just giving up on life. A guy's wife walks out on him with his best friend. And he's crushed. So what does he say? Instead of going out and taking a gun and killing he sings a song. "I'm going down to the railroad to lay my poor head on the track. I'm going down to the railroad to lay my poor head on the track. "And when the locomotive comes I'm gonna pull my fool head back." I'm not giving up life over this. That life goes on beyond this. Pain is just for a moment. This whole notion about what we're going through is only a season. And this came to pass, didn't come to stay. That's what the blues do. And that's what the music tradition does. That's what the spirituals have done and that's what the gospel music has done, historically, in our church. So, yeah, trying to keep that as an integral part of worship is crucial for us.

BILL MOYERS: So what blues are you singing right now?

REVEREND WRIGHT: Don't know why they treat me so bad. I'm singing the sacred blues. The songs of our gospel tradition. That I'm so glad trouble don't last always. That, what man meant for evil, God meant for good. That what--

BILL MOYERS: What man meant for evil God meant for good.

REVEREND WRIGHT: That's a quote from Joseph, in the bible, the Book of Genesis.

BILL MOYERS: And what do you take that to mean?

REVEREND WRIGHT: That Human beings, many times, do things for nefarious purposes. And God can take that and turn something- make something good out of it. That, for instance, using that Joseph passage, when his brother sold him into slavery, and they thought, after daddy's gone, he's gonna get us. And Joseph reassured them by saying, "No, no, what you meant for evil, God has turned into something good. I'm not trying to do revenge or payback. In fact, restoration is what God is. And I restore you. As brothers, we're all brothers." That those sound bytes, those snippets were taken for nefarious purposes. That God can take that and do something very positive for it- with it. That, in Philadelphia, in response to the sound bytes, in response to the snippets, in Philadelphia Senator Obama made a very powerful speech in terms of our need as a nation to address the whole issue of race. That's something good that's already starting. That because of you guys playing these sound bytes now what's getting ready to happen as something very positive, and something very powerful that God can take what you meant to try to hurt somebody to help the nation come to grips with truth. To help a nation come to grips with miseducation. To help a nation come to grips with things we don't like to talk about. To help a nation--

BILL MOYERS: You know, you mentioned Senator Obama. In the 20 years that you've been your pastor, have you ever heard him repeat any of your controversial statements as his opinion?

REVEREND WRIGHT: No. No. No. Absolutely not. I don't talk to him about politics. And so here at a political event, he goes out as a politician and says what he has to say as a politician. I continue to be a pastor who speaks to the people of god about the things of God.

BILL MOYERS: Here is a man who came to see you 20 years ago wanting to know about the neighborhood. Barack Obama was a skeptic when it came to religion. He sought you out because he knew you knew about the community. You led him to the faith. You performed his wedding ceremony. You baptized his two children. You were, for 20 years, his spiritual counselor. He has said that. And, yet, he, in that speech at Philadelphia, had to say some hard things about you. How, how did it go down with you when you heard Barack Obama say those things?

REVEREND WRIGHT: It went down very simply. He's a politician, I'm a pastor. We speak to two different audiences. And he says what he has to say as a politician. I say what I have to say as a pastor. Those are two different worlds. I do what I do. He does what politicians do. So that what happened in Philadelphia where he had to respond to the sound bytes, he responded as a politician. But he did not disown me because I'm a pastor.

BILL MOYERS: But even some of your admirers say it would be wrong to gloss over what Martin Marty himself called- who loves you- called your "abrasive edges." For example, you know, Louis Farrakhan lives in the south part of Chicago, doesn't he? You've had a long complicated relationship with him, right?

REVEREND WRIGHT: Yes.

BILL MOYERS: And he, you know, he's expressed racist and anti-Semitic remarks. And, yet, last year-

REVEREND WRIGHT: Twenty years ago.

BILL MOYERS: Twenty years ago, but that's indefensible.

REVEREND WRIGHT: The Nation of Islam and Mr. Farrakhan have more African-American men off of drugs. More African-American men respecting themselves. More African-American men working for a living. Not gang banging. Not trying to get by. That's not indefensible in terms of how you make a difference in the prisons? Turning people's lives around. Giving people hope. Getting people off drugs. That we don't believe the same things in terms of our specific faiths. He's Muslim, I'm Christian. We don't believe the same things he said years ago. But that has nothing to do with what he has done in terms of helping people change their lives for the better. I said direct quote was what? "Louis Farrakhan is like E.F. Hutton. When Lewis Farrakhan speaks, black America listens. They may not agree with him, but they're listening.

BILL MOYERS: What does it say to you that millions Americans, according to polls, still think Barack Obama is a Muslim?

REVEREND WRIGHT: It says to me that corporate media and miseducation or misinformation or disinformation, I think we started calling it during the Nixon years, still reigns supreme. Thirty some percent of Americans still think there are weapons of mass destruction. That you tell a lie long enough that people start believing it. What does the media do? "Barack Hussein Obama! Barack Hussein Obama! Barack Hussein. It sounds like Osama, Obama. That Arabic is a language. So that's why many people still think he's a Muslim. He went to a madrasah. What's a madrasah? I don't know, but I know it was one of those Muslim schools that teaches terrorism. The kind of I don't want to think, just tell me what to think mentality is why so many Americans still think that.

BILL MOYERS: Our denomination, the United Church of Christ has called for a sacred conversation on race in America. What are the steps that you think from all of your experience can be taken to move race relations forward?

REVEREND WRIGHT: I think there are many - to start using Bill Jones' paradigm, about how one sees God. Your theology determines one's anthropology. And how you see humans determines your sociology. To look at how we've come to see race, and in others of other races, based on our understanding of God who sees others as less than important. Less than my people. And where in our religious traditions are there passages in our sacred scriptures that are racist? They're in the Vedas, the Babylonian Talmud, they're in the Koran, they're in the Bible. How do we grapple with these passages in our sacred texts? The same way you grapple with Judges:19, where it's alright for a preacher to have a concubine and cut her up into 12 pieces. We gotta argue with our texts that are, as we've been struggling with, battling with, wrestling with, anti-Semitic. The Christian, "The Jews killed Jesus." No, we gotta come to grips with, you know, these texts were written by certain people at certain times with certain racist understandings of others who are different. That different meant deficient. That doing that with adults and starting with kids. that begins the conversation that Senator Obama talked about that we need to have. And re-writing the curriculum in our schools to tell the truth in our schools.

BILL MOYERS: Jeremiah Wright, thank you very much for this opportunity.

REVEREND WRIGHT: Well, thank you for having me Bill. Thank you sir.

BILL MOYERS: That's it for the JOURNAL. We'll see you next week and on line.

I'm Bill Moyers.

Rev. Wright to be interviewed by Bill Moyers

2008-04-21T13:30:00.000-07:00

Written by J. Bennett Guess
April 19, 2008

In what will be his first interview since snippets of his preaching became a central issue in the U.S. presidential campaign, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. will speak publicly to veteran journalist and fellow UCC member Bill Moyers.

The interview will be broadcast on Friday evening, April 25, on Bill Moyers Journal, a PBS news series that airs nationally. Check local listings at www.pbs.org/moyers.

Wright retired in March after 36 years as senior pastor of the 8,000-member Trinity UCC in Chicago, where U.S. Sen. Barack Obama has been a member for more than 20 years. Trinity UCC is the largest congregation among the UCC's 5,700 churches.

Moyers, a member of Riverside Church (UCC/American Baptist) in New York City, is a critically-acclaimed public affairs journalist who is known for his thoughtful attention to the intersection of politics, religion and the media. Last June, Moyers and Obama were among the presenters at the UCC's 50th anniversary General Synod in Hartford, Conn.

Following his appearance on Bill Moyers Journal, Wright is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the NAACP Detroit Branch on Sunday, April 27. He is also slated to speak on Monday, April 28, to a breakfast gathering at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., followed by a teach-in at Howard University School of Divinity and Shiloh Baptist Church, which also will host an ecumenical prayer service.

"They Bring in the Drugs and Build Bigger Prisons" : Why did Dr. Jeremiah Wright Say this? Part 1

2008-04-10T10:09:00.000-07:00

Because he watches the news maybe!!!

I've already shed some light on why Black America is suspicious of the Medical Industry (related to the AIDS statements). My next few posts will focus on mainstream investigative reports regarding government complicity in drug trafficking and the prison industrial complex so that the statements "they bring in the drugs and build bigger prisons" can be seen from the perspective of African Americans

Trinity United Church of Christ : The importance of Culture with Dr. Asa Hilliard

2008-04-10T08:50:00.000-07:00

Many people ask, why does Trinity United Church of Christ insist on expressing African culture? Because of the norm in western society, when African Americans in particular, express pride in their African culture, they are seen to be anti-American radical black supremest (which is totally ridiculous)! Now I'm not sure if the same rule is applied to Irish Americans, who although they may be many generations removed from Ireland, practice and celebrate their culture. Or Greek Americans who do the same. I think that as stated in the documentary below many Americans believe that all of the 'African' in American Blacks has been stripped away during slavery. But studies reveal otherwise. Take some time and watch a few segments of the documentary African - American Culture: A Second Look. Produced by Dr. Asa Hilliard with appearances by Dr. Ivan Van Sertima, John Henrick Clark, and Dr Randall Skelton and many others!

Trinity United Church of Christ Press Conference

2008-04-05T09:10:00.000-07:00

Let's Discuss

Rev. Dr. John Thomas, General Minister and President of the United Church of Christ

Rev. Otis Moss III Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ

Rev. Michael Kinnaman, General Secretary, National Council of Churches

Media Q&A

The Psychology of Racism - I'm not a racist. I think???

2008-04-03T22:08:00.000-07:00

I think it's very important that we strive to understand why we do what we do as a society. While promoting this blog, I've seen many crazy comments regarding people's perception of Rev. Wright, Trinity UCC, and people's ideas about racism in general. Do we all have the same understanding of the concept of racism, and if not, where do we draw our understanding of the issue? Based on my very limited study of psychology and sociology, it would seem that many feel that the masses don't even have the time to think that deeply about these types of things which would explain, for me, the very emotional and irrational reactions I've seen from folks over the last few weeks. I'm praying that since the nation has been given this "directive" to attempt to understand the issue of race and racism, that I might offer something beneficial.

Harvard psychologist, Dr. Mahzarin R. Banaji, delivered a lecture titled "Paradoxes of Mind & Society" at the Yale University Department of Psychology. Dr. Banaji describes her research into the unconscious prejudices that human beings may carry below the threshold of consciousness. She is also a key contributor for the development of the "Implicit Association Test" (IAT), which is used in a range of experiments to measure the magnitude of prejudices that may lie in the subconscious of the test taker.
I think her lecture could even give some insight about the responses I've seen to Jeremiah Wrights 30 seconds of controversial sermon...

This video may be viewed in it's entirety along with a description and transcript at the following link. I've also provided other resources so that those who care to understand can begin to see the issue of race through an academic lens.

Democratic Vistas
http://www.yale.edu/terc/democracy/media/jan23.htm

Lecture Date: January 23, 2001
Additional Research Information:

Harvard University: Research Matters
http://www.researchmatters.harvard.edu/story.php?article_id=419
WashingtonPost.com: See No Bias
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27067-2005Jan21?language=printer

Scientific American: The Implicit Prejudice
http://sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=0004B0F0-7813-146C-ADB783414B7F0000

Project Implicit®
http://www.projectimplicit.net/

University of Washington: The Unconscious Roots of Racism
http://web.psych.washington.edu/news/story.php?news_id=44

University of Michigan Health System: Your Child & Television
http://www.med.umich.edu/1libr/yourchild/tv.htm

The Media Awareness Network: Kids & Racial Stereotypes
http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/resources/tip_sheets/racial_tip.cfm

Gladwell.com: The Second Mind (Blink)
http://www.gladwell.com/blink/blink_excerpt1.html

Rev. Dr. Brenda Eatman Aghahowa: Barbara Jordan on the Wright-Obama Controversy

2008-04-02T12:41:00.000-07:00

As a Barbara Jordan scholar, I have written extensively about the late Texas Congresswoman’s style of political communication, one characterized by Celeste Michelle Condit and John Louis Lucaites in their book, Crafting Equality, as that of an “egalitarian consensus builder.” While never skirting issues of race, the Congresswoman addressed these in such a way as to attempt to lower, rather than raise barriers, in a way that would bring people together, rather than divide them.

In recent weeks, the media have sought to vilify and crucify the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., Presidential Candidate Barack Obama’s now-retired pastor of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, by endlessly airing out of context a few controversial remarks he has made over the years while sermonizing. By now, we all are well aware of the caricature the print and broadcast media have proffered of Dr. Wright as a race-baiting madman. (Of note, the current pastor of Trinity, the Rev. Otis Moss III, told members during a recent worship service that persons who had gone to the Trinity website and listened to controversial sermons in their entirety have since written to apologize to Dr. Wright, now clear of media distortion of his words and ideas.)
I have sat ruminating, wondering what my “sheroe” Barbara Jordan would think of all this, if she were alive. Even as her voice of reason was so critical during the Nixon-Watergate Impeachment Hearings, such a voice is desperately needed at this juncture in our national life, even if it must be heard from the grave.

If I may speak for Congresswoman Jordan after nearly a decade of wrestling with her life, work and legacy, after studying her papers in the Barbara Jordan Archives at Texas Southern University in Houston, and after interviewing at length family members and colleagues who knew her, I humbly offer some conclusions here.
First, as a serious Constitutionalist, Barbara Jordan would defend Pastor Wright’s First Amendment right of free speech and his right to be controversial. She would point out, as others have in various columns and forums over the past few weeks, the double standard that has been applied to Rev. Wright. Specifically, she might comment that white right-wing ministers in this country have said the same and worse kinds of things since the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01, and few if any media persons have castigated them in similar fashion.
Even though Congresswoman Jordan would not use the same style of expression if she were alive, she likely would defend to the death Dr. Wright’s right to express himself as God has fashioned him to express himself.
Secondly, Jordan was a consummate, balanced researcher. Her famous Statement on Impeachment, delivered before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on July 25, 1974, carefully juxtaposed President Richard Milhous Nixon’s actions with the criteria for impeachment. Given this, Jordan likely might be scratching her head as to why many Americans have not had the intellectual or emotional (indeed, as a preacher’s kid, the spiritual) maturity to do their own research with regard to Dr. Wright and the Trinity congregation – a church that some have disparagingly mislabeled as “crackpot” in the media in recent weeks. She would wonder about the knee-jerk reactions to brief sound bites that have reduced and mischaracterized 36 years of incredible ministry leadership to headship of a heretical cult. She would muse, “Aren’t Americans smart enough to investigate for themselves?” For, if those Americans who knee-jerked had gone to the Internet (even if they had to go to their local library or other location to access it) and visited the church’s website, rather than simply buying wholesale what the media have offered, they would know, “The Truth About Trinity".

As a member of Trinity for the past 12 years and as an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ for 20 years, I am well acquainted with the teachings and writings of Dr. Wright, a well-respected theologian, scholar and seminary professor who has written several books, all theologically and biblically sound. A man of letters, he has two master’s degrees, an earned doctorate, and several honorary doctorates. I also am well acquainted with the 70-plus ministries of outreach at the church that help folk spiritually and practically, offering assistance especially to those marginalized and disenfranchised ones whom Jesus called, “the least of these.” Research would reveal that Dr. Wright has grown the church from 87 members to more than 8,000 over the past 36 years. In addition, Rev. Wright has mentored and ordained hundreds of men and women to preach the Christian gospel. Of note, Trinity’s membership has included, and currently includes some white members. One of those white members was the former UCC Illinois Conference Minister, Jane Fisler Hoffman, who has taken another denominational post in California. A white male member of more than 20 years, William A.Von Hoene Jr., wrote compellingly in a March 26, 2008 editorial for the Chicago Tribune of how Dr. Wright counseled his African-American wife (then his fiancée) for four hours, trying to get her to
stick to her original decision to marry Von Hoene after Dr. Wright learned she planned to back out of the marriage because he is white.

Trinity is not monolithic in terms of race or culture. It has members that are Latina/Latino, that are Spanish-speaking, French-speaking, and that are from many countries, including Columbia, France, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Sudan and England. It is perhaps one of the most diverse congregations in the country.
The usual Bible studies, choral groups, and benevolence efforts that one would find at any Christian church are supplemented at Trinity by ministries of employment, housing, food sharing, legal counseling, domestic violence, HIV/AIDS support, drug and alcohol abuse recovery, food sharing, television and radio, etc. The church’s outreach is local, national and global. As a result of Rev. Wright encouraging members to exercise faithful stewardship with respect to tithes and offerings (financial giving), the church burned the mortgage on its $12 million worship center some years back.

The Christian cross has two axes or dimensions, the vertical and the horizontal. Some Christian church leaders of conservative bent act as if issues like abortion and gay marriage, which are related to personal choice and personal spirituality (the vertical dimension of faith), are the only issues on which the church should act politically. Dr. Wright, however, is spiritually clear that Christians ought to pay attention as well to the horizontal dimension of faith, that is to issues of sociopolitical significance that affect more than one individual at a time – matters such as institutional racism and global warming that, when acted and legislated upon, positively impact millions and billions of persons at once.
His is a holistic approach to the gospel. He is clear that the church must be concerned and vocal on any issues that affect persons’ spiritual, physical and emotional wellbeing and not just those that conservative churches have chosen to focus on.

As a minister and parishioner, when I hear Dr. Wright speak out forcefully on issues of social justice, I always hear echoing in my spiritual ear the words and stridency of biblical prophets Micah, Amos and Jesus, who also bucked the status quo while speaking truth to power. When he speaks out from a biblical perspective on issues like employment discrimination, war mongering for oil profit (be aware that Pope Benedict XVI also opposes the War in Iraq), environmental racism, racial profiling and the like, I clearly hear the paraphrased words of these biblical prophets, who have intoned:
“But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness as an ever-flowing stream.”
Amos 5:24
“What does God require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:8
“Inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these, you have done it to me.”
Matthew 25:40.
Dr. Wright’s is an intelligent and spirited gospel that requires Christians (who are commanded to love God with all their hearts and minds) to think deeply about issues with impact far beyond “us four and no more.” Worshiping and “critical thinking,” as we call it in academia, are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, they must go together.
In short, and this is the third and final point, Barbara Jordan, who, while at Boston University Law School, sat under the erudite teaching and preaching of Rev. Howard Thurman (an African-American minister who was one of the nation’s greatest preachers of the 20th century), would be clear that Rev. Wright is in good spiritual company. For he follows in the footsteps of fiery prophets before him in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Not all prophets have a call to diplomatic consensus-building as did/do Barbara Jordan, Barack Obama, Andrew Young and other politicians of that ilk. Witness Jesus throwing the money changers out of the temple because they had, in His words, made the house of prayer a den of thieves – a marketplace and a currency exchange, in effect! (See Matthew 19:45-46.) Anyone who has read the gospels knows that Jesus was not politically correct, and neither were the biblical prophets and apostles who preceded or followed him.
I ask along with Jordan, who queried an audience at a race relations conference in Dayton, Ohio in 1990, “White America, what’s bugging you?” In other words, why are some so uncomfortable with the truth that Rev. Wright speaks on issues of race and politics? Has he said anything that is not true? Of course, truth often hurts, and if we are not mature enough to handle it, we lash out at the person purveying it.
As Barack Obama noted in his profound speech addressing the controversy involving Rev. Wright, race still is a huge issue that cannot be ignored in this country. Anyone who believes the playing field has been leveled in education, housing, criminal justice and other arenas is deluding himself or herself. Ask almost anyone who lives in Black skin.

Barbara Jordan, one of the most spellbinding orators in our nation’s history and one whose biography is lined with firsts, would be the first to affirm the truth of what Dr. Wright has said, although she would have packaged the material differently. Jordan’s bottom line here for Americans? “Shape up! Stop being intellectually lazy and relying on 30-second sound bites from media that thrive on sensationalism! On any given issue, do your own research and think for yourself!” It might take a little extra effort on the part of any elderly and others who are not computer savvy or who are not mobile or healthy enough to get to a library. These persons will have to rely on friends, family members and perhaps even nursing home staff to help them secure as many perspectives as possible on any given controversial issue. Since these persons constitute a major voting bloc, however, it is imperative that they make this extra effort to try to be fully rather than partially informed.
Jordan would concur with Trinity’s Pastor Moss, who told the media and Americans recently to get not just a “bite” of Trinity, but “the whole meal.” Amen,

Amen and Amen!

Brenda Eatman Aghahowa, Ph.D., D.Min., is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and Chairperson of the Department of English, Communications, Media Arts and Theatre at Chicago State University. Her book, Grace Under Fire: Barbara Jordan’s Rhetoric of Watergate, Patriotism, and Equality, is due out from Third World Press, Chicago, in May.

April 4th 1968 Martin Luther King is Assassinated

2008-03-31T17:47:00.000-07:00

40 years after King's assassination, his struggle, his words, his dream still shape the minds of lovers of peace all over the world. I agree with Tavis Smiley, the mainstream would like to cast Dr. King as a dreamer but those who understand the history know that even though Dr. King followed an ideology of non-violent resistance he was still seen as a serious threat and hated by many in the government and society in general in his day. Growing up in Chicago, for most of my young life learning about Dr. King I thought segregation and racism was a Mississippi thing, that is until I learned about his march through Cicero where the local residents attempted to stone him. Listen to him in this clip as he speaks out against the Vietnam war.

Trinity United Church of Christ celebrates diversity. One man shares his experiences with Rev. Wright

2008-03-30T23:10:00.000-07:00

Rev. Wright in a different light
By William A. Von Hoene Jr. **click to read the entire article**
March 26, 2008

I have been a member of Trinity, a church with an almost entirely African-American congregation, for more than 25 years. I am, however, a white male. From a decidedly different perspective than most Trinitarians, I have heard Wright preach about racial inequality many times, in unvarnished and passionate terms.

In Obama's recent speech in Philadelphia on racial issues confronting our nation, the senator eloquently observed that Rev. Wright's sermons reflect the difficult experiences and frustrations of a generation.

It is important that we understand the dynamic Obama spoke about.

It also is important that we not let media coverage and political gamesmanship isolate selected remarks by Wright to the exclusion of anything else that might define him more accurately and completely.

I find it very troubling that we have distilled Wright's 35-year ministry to a few phrases; no context whatsoever has been offered or explored.

I do have a bit of personal context. About 26 years ago, I became engaged to my wife, an African-American. She was at that time and remains a member of Trinity. Somewhere between the ring and the altar, my wife had second thoughts and broke off the engagement. Her decision was grounded in race: So committed to black causes, the daughter of parents subjected to unthinkable prejudice over the years, an "up-and-coming" leader in the young black community, how could she marry a white man?

Rev. Wright, whom I had met only in passing at the time and who was equally if not more outspoken about "black" issues than he is today, somehow found out about my wife's decision. He called and asked her to "drop everything" and meet with him at Trinity. He spent four hours explaining his reaction to her decision. Racial divisions were unacceptable, he said, no matter how great or prolonged the pain that caused them. God would not want us to assess or make decisions about people based on race. The world could make progress on issues of race only if people were prepared to break down barriers that were much easier to let stand.

Rev. Wright was pretty persuasive; he presided over our wedding a few months later. In the years since, I have watched in utter awe as Wright has overseen and constructed a support system for thousands in need on the South Side that is far more impressive and effective than any governmental program possibly could approach. And never in my life have I been welcomed more warmly and sincerely than at Trinity. Never.

I hope that as a nation, we take advantage of the opportunity the recent focus on Rev. Wright presents—to advance our dialogue on race in a meaningful and unprecedented way. To do so, however, we need to appreciate that passion born of difficulty does not always manifest itself in the kind of words with which we are most comfortable. We also need to recognize that the basic goodness of people like Jeremiah Wright is not always packaged conventionally.

Eugenics and Social Darwinism - Understanding African American Suspicion of the Medical System

2008-03-30T07:55:00.000-07:00

I've come to understand that many people were surprised and even appalled that Rev. Wright would accuse the government of creating a disease to kill black people. I've seen some write that the Tuskegee experiments didn't really happen or were no big deal. Although I constantly see white Americans taking the Big Pharma and Medical industry to task because of their suspicion of the safety of vaccinations, I think because of the painful history of race in this country some refuse to accept the fact that African Americans have always been the target of unethical medical experimentation.

Please watch the entire interview with Harriet Washington M.D. author of Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present.The book reveals the hidden underbelly of scientific research and the roots of the African American health deficit. It also examines less well-known abuses and looks at unethical practices and mistreatment of blacks that are still taking place in the medical establishment today.

Part 1 : Slavery to Tuskegee

Part 2: Tuskegee and Medical Experimentation on Prisoners

Part 3: Current Times Behavioral experimentation, Forced sterilizations,Experimentation on children, and Africa as the lab for the west...

Tavis Smiley says "Wright Is Standing In a King Tradition"

2008-03-29T19:02:00.000-07:00

On Real Time with Bill Maher...

David Sirota : Is Wright Right About Racism?

2008-03-29T08:40:00.000-07:00

David Sirota was recently interviewed by a Colorado radio station regarding this topic. Listen to what he has to say about this and more HERE!

Since the 1960s, bigotry has undergone an aesthetic makeover. Today, the most pernicious racists do not wear pointy hoods, scream epithets and anonymously burn crosses from behind masks. They don starched suits, recite sententious bromides and stage political lynchings before television cameras. For proof, behold the mob stalking Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright.

Wright has long delivered fiery (and occasionally outrageous) sermons, to little fanfare. Now, though, a gang of thugs is inflicting a guilt-by-association blow to Obama by excoriating his spiritual adviser for three specific declarations.

Sean Hannity, Fox News' own George Wallace, turned a fire hose on Wright for his church's focus. "[The church] is all about the black community," Hannity thundered, claiming that means Wright supports "a black-separatist agenda."

Pat Buchanan billy-clubbed Wright for saying, "God damn America." The MSNBC commentator, who avoided the draft, implied that Wright, a former Marine, lacks sufficient loyalty to country. Out of context, Wright's exclamation was admittedly offensive. But remember: It punctuated a speech about segregation. Buchanan, nonetheless, unleashed, deriding "black hustlers" and insisting descendants of those "brought from Africa in slave ships" owe whites a thank you. "Where is the gratitude?" he asked.

Fox's Charles Krauthammer berated Wright for saying the 9/11 attacks were "chickens coming home to roost." Krauthammer labeled the pronouncement "vitriolic divisiveness" despite our government acknowledging the concept of "blowback" — or retaliation — Wright was referencing. The CIA knows that when it supports foreign dictatorships, there can be blowback from radicals. While blowback is often immoral and undeserved, its existence is undisputed. Yet, Krauthammer alleged that Wright takes "satisfaction in the deaths of 3,000 innocents."

In promoting the Wright "controversy," most media outlets joined this mob and embraced "colorblind racism," says Duke University's Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, author of "Racism Without Racists."

It is polite pinstriped prejudice shrouding bigotry in feigned outrage against extremism — the operative word being "feigned." After all, John McCain solicited the endorsement of John Hagee — the pastor who called the Catholic Church "a great whore." Similarly, according to Mother Jones magazine, Hillary Clinton belongs to the "Fellowship" — a secretive group "dedicated to 'spiritual war' on behalf of Christ." She is also friendly with Billy Graham, the reverend caught on tape spewing anti-Semitism. But while Wright's supposed "extremism" blankets the news, McCain and Clinton's relationships with real extremists receive scant attention.

Why is it "controversial" for one pastor to address the black community, racism and blowback, but OK for another pastor to slander an entire religion? Why is it news that one candidate knows a sometimes-impolitic clergyman, but not news that his opponent associates with an anti-Semite? Does the double standard prove the dominant culture despises a black man confronting taboos, but accepts whites spewing hate? Does the very reaction to Wright show he's right about racism?

Clinton seems to think so. Her aides have been calling the states they believe Obama will lose their political "firewall." That's campaign-speak for "race wall" — one built with bricks like Pennsylvania and Indiana. These aren't the near-purely white states where racial politics is often muted (and Obama won). They are the slightly diverse states where racial politics simmers and where the black vote is too small to offset a motivated racist vote. This race wall is now being fortified.

ABC News reports that Clinton's campaign is "pushing the Wright story" ahead of the Pennsylvania and Indiana primaries. The crass tactic is designed to motivate the racist vote by reminding whites of Obama's connection to the African-American community. Put another way, Clinton's message has become simply: Obama Is Black.

Wright probably expected this brouhaha. He says our government is "controlled by rich white people" and our culture afflicted by racism. Though these statements are also deemed distasteful by the Establishment, they are truisms. You can see their veracity in the collected portraits of white millionaires commonly called the congressional photo directory. Or, just turn on your television and watch the mob continue stoking the Wright "controversy."

David Sirota is a bestselling author whose newest book, "The Uprising," will be released in June of 2008. He is a fellow at the Campaign for America's Future and a board member of the Progressive States Network — both nonpartisan organizations. His blog is at www.credoaction.com/sirota.

The Truth Regarding the Hamas Distortion : Article was a RE - Print from the L.A. Times!

2008-03-28T13:35:00.000-07:00

So now the media would like for you to believe that we are Hamas supporters again providing the masses with distortions of the truth...

On July 22, 2007 an article from the L.A. Times was re - printed in our church's bulletin on the Pastor's Page. This wasn't an article written by Rev. Wright. When you do READ the article it indicates that the author of that piece "rejects" the organizing premise of HAMAS, but does make "comparisons" to HAMAS' organizing document, to the writings and Basic Laws of Israel and to that of the United States, with respect to the oppression and dehumanizing of other persons, particularly black people, as a basic premise of the foundation of each of those states.

See the article originally published in the L.A. Times HERE

From my perspective, it is another "educational" piece, with the last paragraph thereof envisioning a peace between Palestine and Israel. The Pastor's Page, in my opinion has always been used to educate the members of the congregation on issues (across the spectrum) that they might not knowledge about -- and to broaden the congregation's critical thinking, and to provide a more informed lens through which to read and listen to traditional media reports of current events.

So no the assertion that Jeremiah Wright has ever authored any "Pro Hamas Terrorist Manifestos" is 100% FALSE. The assertion that Jeremiah Wright supports Hamas is 100% FALSE. If there are any complaints related to the printing of this article I would think that should be directed to the newspaper that published it not to our congregation for sharing it! Like I said before when will these journalist do their RESEARCH!

Dianna Bass : Putting Rev. Wrights Preaching Into Perspective

2008-03-28T08:23:00.000-07:00

http://blog.beliefnet.com/godspolitics/2008/03/obamas-pastor-by-diana-butler.html

The current media flap over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's former pastor, strikes me as nothing short of strange. Anyone who attends church on a regular basis knows how frequently congregants disagree with their ministers. To sit in a pew is not necessarily assent to a message preached on a particular day. Being a church member is not some sort of mindless cult, where individuals believe every word preached. Rather, being a church member means being part of a community of faith—a gathered people, always diverse and sometimes at odds, who constitute Christ's body in the world.

But the attack on Rev. Wright reveals something beyond ignorance of basic dynamics of Christian community. It demonstrates the level of misunderstanding that still divides white and black Christians in the United States. Many white people find the traditions of African-American preaching offensive, especially when it comes to politics.

I know because I am one of those white people. My first sustained encounter with African-American preaching came in graduate school about twenty years ago. I had been assigned as a teaching assistant to a course in Black Church Studies. The placement surprised me, since I had no background in the subject. But the professor assured me that "anyone with experience teaching American religion" would be able to handle the load.

The subject matter was not, as the professor indicated, difficult. The emotional content, however, was. To prepare, I had to read literally thousands of pages of black preaching and theology covering the entire scope of American history. While the particulars of preaching changed through time, one thing did not. Throughout the entire corpus, black Christian leaders leveled a devastating critique against their white brothers and sisters—accusing white Christians of maintaining "ease in Zion" while allowing black people to suffer injustice and oppression.

Typical of the form used by black preachers is Frederick Douglass' address, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" first delivered on July 5, 1852. The address, a political sermon, forcefully attacks white culture. "Fellow-citizens," Douglass proclaims, "above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wails of millions! Whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, today, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them." He goes on to calls American conduct "hideous and revolting" and accuses white Christians of trampling upon and disregarding both the constitution and the Bible. He concluded his sermon with the words, "For revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival."

This was very hard to take. I confess: nearly everything I read that semester pained and angered me. But four months of listening to voices that I wanted to reject made me different. I began to hear the power of the critique. I came to appreciate the prophetic nature of black preaching. I recognized that these voices emerged from a very distinct historical experience. And I admired the narrative interplay between the Bible and social justice. Over time, they taught me to hear the Gospel from an angular perspective—the angle of slaves, freed blacks, of those who feared lynching, of those who longed for Africa, those who could not attend good schools. From them, I learned that liberation through Jesus was a powerful thing. And that white Americans really did need to repent when it came to race.

Learning to listen was not easy. It took patience, historical imagination, and lots of complaining to my friends—even my African-American ones. Eventually, I figured out that even if your ancestors had been the oppressors, you can enter into the world of those who had been oppressed with generosity and a heart open to transformation.

As MSNBC, CNN, and FOX endlessly play the tape of Rev. Wright's "radical" sermons today, I do not hear the words of a "dangerous" preacher (at least any more dangerous than any preacher who takes the Gospel seriously!) No, I hear the long tradition that Jeremiah Wright has inherited from his ancestors. I hear prophetic critique. I hear Frederick Douglass. And, mostly, I hear the Gospel slant—I hear it from an angle that is not natural to me. It is good to hear that slant.

That is not, of course, comfortable for white people. Nor is it easily understood in sound bites. It does not easily fit in a contemporary political campaign. But it is a deep spiritual river in American faith and culture, a river that—as I had to learn—flows from the throne of God.

Diana Butler Bass holds a doctorate in American religion from Duke University. She is the author of six books including Christianity for the Rest of Us (HarperOne, 2006).

Wisdom Regarding Rev. Wrights Continued Attacks from the "Corporate Media"

2008-03-27T14:59:00.000-07:00

By Des52

Years ago,in 1969 Dr. Martin Marty issued a challenge to his students at the University of Chicago Divinity school saying:

"Most church bulletins, church news letters and publications are in no way related to reality. When is the last time you picked up a church bulletin, church newsletter or a church publication and saw something remotely related to the real world in which the worshipers lived? You do not pick up those kinds of publications in a church. Church bulletins talk about their pastors anniversary, the choir concerts, car washes hosted by the youth and the bake sale hosted by the ladies. Church newsletters talk about church conferences, church business, fundraising and capital stewardship campaigns. People come into those sanctuaries, week after week from a world where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has been assassinated, where Malcolm X was murdered, a world full of racism, discrimination . . .war and insanity. The church publications however, say absolutely nothing about those realties that the members have to face and the realities with which the worshipers have to live immediately following the benediction."

As you can see from today's news Trinity strove to be relevant and followed that challange. But in myopic media fashion what Trinity talks about in the bulletin is predictably distorted. The media did not report Trinity's concern about Darfur, or Keke Palmer, or HIV Aids, no, they wanted to again paint Trinity as some left wing crazed church, not like "us."

Well, if blowing the trumpet about black women dying of AIDs means we are not like one of you, OK. If making a noise about corportions pressuring young black artists to do negative lyrics rather than positive age appropriate lyrics means we are not like you, OK. If pointing out the genocide in Darfur makes us not like one of you, so be it.

Thousands of years later the biblical lament is still true, "My people die for lack of knowledge" But not Trinity.

The media is upset again because Obama weathered the storm of the so called "Wright scandal." They are scratching their heads. Their arms are too short to box with God. So now here comes another trickle of charges, "look what he said in the bulletin."

As Dr. Marty notes, we do not have to agree with all of Rev. Wrights decisions, his choice of words, but thank God Dr. Wright challenged us to see, to look, to consider. We are all better for it.

When folks are mistreated, that is an ugly set of facts. Dr. Wright was not a bystander. The psychology of bystanders is focused on one of the following:

1. If I speak up they may come after me.

2. Nobody else is speaking up

3. Maybe the victim brought it on themself

4.It is not so bad

This happened in NY when neighbors watched a young women get raped. It happened in Germany when folks did not get involved while Jews were tortured. It happened on the Middle passage, through the years of slavery and through Jim Crow. Dr. Wright however, decided to look at the ugly set of facts that faces our world and do something. He is as imperfect as Oscar Schindler was. But like Schindler, he chose to see things he did not want to see, hear things he did not want to hear and spent his life and money to set folks free.

God bless him. And to those who are throwing him under the bus, I only have imprecatory thoughts about your actions.

Rev. Wrights Teacher and Friend Martin E. Marty : Prophet and Pastor

2008-03-26T21:10:00.000-07:00

Through the decades, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. has called me teacher, reminding me of the years when he earned a master's degree in theology and ministry at the University of Chicago — and friend. My wife and I and our guests have worshiped at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, where he recently completed a 36-year ministry.

Images of Wright's strident sermons, and his anger at the treatment of black people in the United States, appear constantly on the Internet and cable television, part of the latest controversy in our political-campaign season. His critics call Wright anti-American. Critics of his critics charge that the clips we hear and see have been taken out of context. But it is not the context of particular sermons that the public needs, as that of Trinity church, and, above all, its pastor.

In the early 1960s, at a time when many young people were being radicalized by the Vietnam War, Wright left college and volunteered to join the United States Marine Corps. After three years as a marine, he chose to serve three more as a naval medical technician, during which time he received several White House commendations. He came to Chicago to study not long after Martin Luther King Jr.'s murder in 1968, the U.S. bombing campaign in Cambodia in 1969, and the shooting of students at Kent State University in 1970.

Wright, like the gifted cohort of his fellow black students, was not content to blend into the academic woodwork. Then the associate dean of the Divinity School, I was informally delegated to talk to the black caucus. We learned that what Wright and his peers wanted was the intense academic and practical preparation for vocations that would make a difference, whether they chose to pursue a Ph.D. or the pastorate. Chicago's Divinity School focuses on what it calls "public ministry," which includes both conventional pastoral roles and carrying the message and work of the church to the public arena. Wright has since picked up numerous honorary doctorates, and served as an adjunct faculty member at several seminaries. But after divinity school, he accepted a call to serve then-struggling Trinity.

Trinity focuses on biblical teaching and preaching. It is a church where music stuns and uplifts, a church given to hospitality and promoting physical and spiritual healing, devoted to education, active in Chicago life, and one that keeps the world church in mind, with a special accent on African Christianity. The four S's charged against Wright — segregation, separatism, sectarianism, and superiority — don't stand up, as countless visitors can attest. I wish those whose vision has been distorted by sermon clips could have experienced what we and our white guests did when we worshiped there: feeling instantly at home.

Yes, while Trinity is "unapologetically Christian," as the second clause in its motto affirms, it is also, as the other clause announces, "unashamedly black." From its beginning, the church has made strenuous efforts to help black Christians overcome the shame they had so long been conditioned to experience. That its members and pastor are, in their own term, "Africentric" should not be more offensive than that synagogues should be "Judeocentric" or that Chicago's Irish parishes be "Celtic-centric." Wright and colleagues insist that no hierarchy of races is involved. People do not leave Trinity ready to beat up on white people; they are charged to make peace.

To the 10,000 members of Trinity, Jeremiah Wright was, until just a few months ago, "Pastor Wright." Metaphorically, pastor means shepherd. Like members of all congregations, the Trinity flock welcomes strong leadership for organization, prayer, and preaching. One-on-one ministry is not easy with thousands in the flock and when the pastor has national responsibilities, but the forms of worship make each participant feel recognized. Responding to the pastoral call to stand and be honored on Mother's Day, for instance, grandmothers, single mothers, stepmothers, foster mothers, gay-and-lesbian couples, all mothers stood when we visited. Wright asked how many believed that they were alive because of the church's health fairs. The members of the large pastoral staff know many hundreds of names, while hundreds of lay people share the ministry.

Now, for the hard business: the sermons, which have been mercilessly chipped into for wearying television clips. While Wright's sermons were pastoral — my wife and I have always been awed to hear the Christian Gospel parsed for our personal lives — they were also prophetic. At the university, we used to remark, half lightheartedly, that this Jeremiah was trying to live up to his namesake, the seventh-century B.C. prophet. Though Jeremiah of old did not "curse" his people of Israel, Wright, as a biblical scholar, could point out that the prophets Hosea and Micah did. But the Book of Jeremiah, written by numbers of authors, is so full of blasts and quasi curses — what biblical scholars call "imprecatory topoi" — that New England preachers invented a sermonic form called "the jeremiad," a style revived in some Wrightian shouts.

In the end, however, Jeremiah was the prophet of hope, and that note of hope is what attracts the multiclass membership at Trinity and significant television audiences. Both Jeremiahs gave the people work to do: to advance the missions of social justice and mercy that improve the lot of the suffering. For a sample, read Jeremiah 29, where the prophet's letter to the exiles in Babylon exhorts them to settle down and "seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile." Or listen to many a Jeremiah Wright sermon.

One may properly ask whether or how Jeremiah Wright — or anyone else — experiences a prophetic call. Back when American radicals wanted to be called prophets, I heard Saul Bellow say (and, I think, later saw it in writing): "Being a prophet is nice work if you can get it, but sooner or later you have to mention God." Wright mentioned God sooner. My wife and I recall but a single overtly political pitch. Wright wanted 2,000 letters of protest sent to the Chicago mayor's office about a public-library policy. Of course, if we had gone more often, in times of profound tumult, we would have heard much more. The United Church of Christ is a denomination that has taken raps for being liberal — for example for its 50th anniversary "God is still speaking" campaign and its pledge to be open and affirming to all, including gay people. In its lineage are Jonathan Edwards and Reinhold and Richard Niebuhr, America's three most-noted theologians; the Rev. King was much at home there.

Friendship develops through many gestures and shared delights (in the Marty case, stops for sinfully rich barbecue after evening services), and people across the economic spectrum can attest to the generosity of the Wright family.

It would be unfair to Wright to gloss over his abrasive — to say the least — edges, so, in the "Nobody's Perfect" column, I'll register some criticisms. To me, Trinity's honoring of Minister Louis Farrakhan was abhorrent and indefensible, and Wright's fantasies about the U.S. government's role in spreading AIDS distracting and harmful. He, himself, is also aware of the now-standard charge by some African-American clergy who say he is a victim of cultural lag, overinfluenced by the terrible racial situation when he was formed.

Having said that, and reserving the right to offer more criticisms, I've been too impressed by the way Wright preaches the Christian Gospel to break with him. Those who were part of his ministry for years — school superintendents, nurses, legislators, teachers, laborers, the unemployed, the previously shunned and shamed, the anxious — are not going to turn their backs on their pastor and prophet.

Martin E. Marty is a professor emeritus at the University of Chicago Divinity School and a panelist for On Faith, of Washingtonpost.com. His most recent book is The Christian World: A Global History (Modern Library, 2008).

Find out more about Martin E. Marty HERE