March 14, 2008 — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Friday denounced inflammatory remarks from his pastor, who has railed against the United States and accused its leaders of bringing on the Sept. 11 attacks by spreading terrorism.
As video of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has widely aired on television and the Internet, Obama responded by posting a blog about his relationship with Wright and his church, Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, on the Huffington Post.
Obama wrote that he’s looked to Wright for spiritual advice, not political guidance, and he’s been pained and angered to learn of some of his pastor’s comments for which he had not been present. A campaign spokesman said later that Wright was no longer on Obama’s African American Religious Leadership Committee, without elaborating.
“I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies,” Obama said. “I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it’s on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Reverend Wright that are at issue.”
In a sermon on the Sunday after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Wright suggested the United States brought on the attacks.
“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,” Wright said. “We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.” placeAd2(commercialNode,’bigbox’,false,”)
In a 2003 sermon, he said blacks should condemn the United States.
“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, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.”
He also gave a sermon in December comparing Obama to Jesus, promoting his candidacy and playing down Clinton.
Questions about Obama’s religious beliefs have dogged him throughout his candidacy. He’s had to fight against false Internet rumors suggesting he’s really a Muslim intent on destroying the United States, and now his pastor’s words uttered nearly seven years ago have become an issue.
Obama wrote on the Huffington Post that he never heard Wright say any of the statements that are “so contrary to my own life and beliefs,” but they have raised legitimate questions about the nature of his relationship with the pastor and the church.
He explained that he joined Wright’s church nearly 20 years ago. He said he knew Wright as a former Marine and respected biblical scholar who lectured at seminaries across the country.
“Reverend Wright preached the gospel of Jesus, a gospel on which I base my life,” he wrote. “… And the sermons I heard him preach always related to our obligation to love God and one another, to work on behalf of the poor, and to seek justice at every turn.”
He said Wright’s controversial statements first came to his attention at the beginning of his presidential campaign last year, and he condemned them. Because of his ties to the 6,000-member congregation church — he and his wife were married there and their daughters baptized — Obama decided not to leave the church.
Obama also has credited Wright with delivering a sermon that he adopted as the title of his book, “The Audacity of Hope.”
“With Reverend Wright’s retirement and the ascension of my new pastor, Rev. Otis Moss, III, Michelle and I look forward to continuing a relationship with a church that has done so much good,” he wrote.
Also Friday, the United Church of Christ issued a 1,400-word statement defending Wright and his “flagship” congregation. John H. Thomas, United Church of Christ’s president, lauded Wright’s church for its community service and work to nurture youth. Other church leaders praised Wright for speaking out against homophobia and sexism in the black community.
“It’s time for all of us to say no to these attacks and to declare that we will not allow anyone to undermine or destroy the ministries of any of our congregations in order to serve their own narrow political or ideological ends,” Thomas said in the statement.
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AP Religion Writer Eric Gorski in Denver contributed to this report.
(Article courtesy of The Root: http://www.theroot.com )
Ann
stop sticking up for that raciest minister, If he is like an uncle surely you must have known he was a nut. God bless america, we have helped the whole world and look what we get for it.
“stop sticking up for that raciest minister, If he is like an uncle surely you must have known he was a nut. God bless america, we have helped the whole world and look what we get for it.”
So, you are saying that what the author (Nedra Pickler) of this article stated is not the truth about America?
What about the white ministers who refuse to preach about the white supremacist institutionalized structural racism? Are not they cowards for not speaking out about this country’s continued WS practices?
And just what are these, “we have helped the whole world and look what we get for it.”, proofs that you have?
Where has the racist, imperialistic, jingoistic, colonialistic nation of the United States of America “helped” the rest of the world? I have seen where America has helped herself to much that does not rightfully belong to her. I have seen where America has helped the rest of the world into continued destitution via the Manifest Destiny mentality that is still present in the minds of many whites. America throughout her vicious history, has committed much oppression, both in America, and out of America. If it is something in it for America, she will greedily grasp what she can from every nation she has come into contact with—at least in the case of non-white nations she certainly has.
Her record still stands as more of an enemy of the world, and as a greedy selfish entity which thinks only of herself.
Show me the proof where America has helped the world. Show me where America has not annihilated people all around the globe.