Nathan Moore's Thoughts
The Crazy Uncle III: The Government was Selling Crack, Distributing the AIDS Virus, those 9/11 Chickens Came Home to Roost, and You Didn’t Know?
I don’t like Jews, don’t care much for white people, and I definitely will not sing “God Bless America”
If you are an Obama supporter, “apologism” is your word of the day. I do feel for anyone attempting to explain away Obama’s erstwhile pastor’s (and I suppose, still mentor - he never said otherwise) insane, hate-filled, and un-Christian, remarks. The good news is that you will have plenty of time between now and November to refine the technique.
And you’re going to have to do just that. I offer up my own apologies for dashing the hopes of his supporters, but Barack Obama’s appearances on CNN and MSNBC last night did not change a thing (see, I can use “hope” and “change” too, and it actually has substantive meaning!). One cannot erase a twenty year relationship with someone you proudly previously called your mentor and spiritual adviser with two mediocre, rambling cable television news interview, pinned on the ridiculous assertion that you never knew about any of the abominable beliefs of Jeremiah Wright until the start of your presidential campaign. What Obama actually meant to say was that at the beginning of his presidential campaign a perceptive aide realized what Wright had said would be problematic, and then advised Obama to distance himself, which he nominally did.
The previous nineteen years or so before that, Obama apparently either agreed with Wright’s beliefs, going to church with people who, from the video evidence, with great gusto also agreed with his beliefs, or this is the most superficial mentor / mentee relationship in the history of mankind and Barack Obama never actually went to church. The third alternative is that he is a clueless idiot, which I personally do not believe to be the case. It is implausible he did not know about the core beliefs of his mentor and spiritual adviser before he ran for president. The closeness of the relationship he himself described confirms it. He must think us all dupes.
This last part is for any of you who watched the CNN interview last night in its entirety. I wouldn’t otherwise think much of it, but in light of the beliefs of his mentor, and that sermon about “God d*** America”, I must think more than none about it. At the end of the CNN interview, Anderson Cooper asked Barack Obama “Would you have a problem singing ‘God Bless America?’”, which is a legitimate question in light of his mentor’s beliefs, the video clip just shown, and some of the recent comments of his wife. In political terms, this is a softball on a tee. The appropriate answer would be “Of course not”, “No”, or as I’m afraid would happen with many politicians, breaking into song right then and there.
And the answer was (and I am paraphrasing) “I won’t do it here” and some un-witticism about having a bad singing voice.
And then there was an awkward pause, as Anderson waited for him to finish his answer.
It is troubling, in the context that this was asked, that this was all he had to say.
UPDATED SLIGHTLY at 12:57 p.m.
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March 15th, 2008 at 11:29 am
You forgot to mention that the 6 year veteran of the armed services claimed the US infected black people with Syphilis, when in fact they merely lied to them and watched them die when they had a cure.
I realize you want to boil down the entire church’s philosophy into 3 sermons…that is your right as a Republican, and many other Americans may do so as well, but your views of this man and his beliefs are myopic and simplistic.
Was he angry? Sure, I’d be too if I were an elderly black man, but Obama is not, and he has shown that he can feed of the cynicism of others and turn it into optimism.
March 15th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Simplistic is your analysis of what I’m concerned about.
It’s not the sermons themselves that stand alone as problematic. The sermons merely reflect Wright’s deeply held beliefs. The concern is that a man with beliefs of this sordid type is the chief mentor and spiritual leader of a candidate for POTUS (Obama was careful not to address his present personal association in those interviews), that Obama willfully seeks his counsel, and that he also willingly congregates with a group of parishioners who swoon at such nonsense.
Rightly so, you are judged by the company you keep. This is especially the case where you have spent an adult lifetime embracing that company with open arms.
March 15th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Listened to the interview on Fox last night of the preacher from about a year age. I noticed that the preacher never made a reference to any Christian thought, Christ, Jesus. God, or any Bible reference in this interview.
I have never heard any man of God have a national platform and never mention any of the above, even some I don’t necessarily agree with. Also, unless Obama’s preacher changes clothes several times during a diatrade, we are whitnessing more than 2-3 sermons. Unless you live in a bubble, you know what is said in the church you go to, simplistic is not agreeing with this. Weekly services are recorded, transcribed, and otherwise made available to all members who may not be in attendance. Even the title of next weeks semon is usually announced. I wonder what the title for the ones we heard excerpts from could have been?
Anyone who may believe Obama was blindly ignorant of these actions, and would consider accepting this level of attentivness,for a period of 20+years,( remember Obama only mentioned 2 times where his attendance waned during rhe 20 yrs. of church membership during the interview on Fox last night), in a position of authority in our government, certainly deserves what they get.
Ignorant or dishonest, which ever the case, neither are acceptable, no matter what party you claim.
March 15th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Well, he’s served the country more than the 101st Fighting Keyboardists over here…but hey, if you want to boil his life down to three sermons, that is your prerogative. His views are shared by many in the Black community who are pessimistic about the people who control the country, and that pessimism, while perhaps hyperbolic at times, isn’t entirely unfounded. Obama has been clear throughout his career and this campaign that he doesn’t share this sort of cynical view, and he hopes he can change their opinion.
The truth is, if this does bring down Obama, the lesson for the next black Democratic candidate will be to go to the whitest church he can find so as not to offend your sensibilities.
March 15th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Military service does not offer one critical immunity for espousing hate for the country you once served. The relevance to all of this is that Barack Obama admires, consults, and listens to someone who has expressed extraordinarily irrational disdain for this country.
And if Wright is going to be “pessimistic” (an understatement, in my opinion), I’d like him to go to the trouble to at least latch onto a tad of fact in his pronouncements.
At the end of the day, it was Obama’s choice to spiritually understudy with Jeremiah Wright. There are certainly plenty of other black churches out there that do not espouse anti-Semitism, blame America first, and promote cockamamie conspiracy theories from the pulpit.
March 15th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Nathan,
I don’t expect you to want to or even care to maybe wonder what was said before and after these disturbing remarks…but I’d just recommend that you read the sermon that Obama says brought him to Christ and that Jeremiah Wright gave. The Audacity of Hope.
It talks about drugs, bombings, war, apartheid, etc…but goes on to say this:
Then, Dr. Sampson began to understand why the artist titled the painting “Hope.” In spite of being in a world torn by war, in spite of being on a world destroyed by hate and decimated by distrust, in spite of being on a world where famine and greed are uneasy bed partners, in spite of being on a world where apartheid and apathy feed the fires of racism and hatred, in spite of being on a world where nuclear nightmare draws closer with each second, in spite of being on a ticking time bomb, with her clothes in rags, her body scarred and bruised and bleeding, her harp all but destroyed and with only one string left, she had the audacity to make music and praise God. The vertical dimension balanced out what was going on in the horizontal dimension.
And that is what the audacity to hope will do for you. The apostle Paul said the same thing. “You have troubles? Glory in your trouble. We glory in tribulation.” That’s the horizontal dimension. We glory in tribulation because, he says, “Tribulation works patience. And patience works experience. And experience works hope. (That’s the vertical dimension.) And hope makes us not ashamed.” The vertical dimension balances out what is going on in the horizontal dimension. That is the real story here in the first chapter of 1 Samuel. Not the condition of Hannah’s body, but the condition of Hannah’s soul—her vertical dimension. She had the audacity to keep on hoping and praying when there was no visible sign on the horizontal level that what she was praying for, hoping for, and waiting for would ever be answered in the affirmative.
Now, there may be times when Rev. Wright back slid in to the cynisim (expressed through hyperbolic and offensive rhetoric) but part of his shtick was to find ways that a people (poor blacks in Chicago and people all around the world) to look at this world and still find hope.
I’d be very interested to hear the entirety of the post-9/11 sermon and the one which says “God Damn America” because I have an incline that it probably ended on a much more positive message than is indicated by the passages played repeatedly on Fox and other networks.
March 15th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Sean… watch out, your next step may be off the cliff. You assume that Wright said something too justify what you have heard. You can’t justify Obama’s reaction, and rightly so, so now you assume that Wright had something positive to demonstrate in this diatrade of hate. At this point you have absolutly no foundation for you assumptions, just “hopes.”
All this is happening during the Dem. primary, and Obama’s world is cracking. What’s next?
March 15th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Rick,
Ummm…no. I can absolutely justify his decision to go to Trinity United Church of Christ. It is one of the largest in Chicago, his pastor is renowned Nationwide in the black community, and has been a force for good in the Chicago area and in Africa as well.
I don’t know if Obama was sitting in the pews when these two or three sermons were preached, he says he wasn’t, and so I think its up to someone else to prove him wrong.
What I am saying is that I’ve read a few other Rev. Wright sermons which aren’t going to make it on the slash and burn political shows, which shows an abiding belief that through Jesus people can find hope for the future.
I’m guessing that Wright’s sermon wasn’t an hour-long negative tirade, and that there was much more to it…I don’t know, I’m not going to buy the DVDs, and I sure as hell know that Fox news isn’t going to put the whole video out to give more context to the statements.
March 16th, 2008 at 12:17 am
You need some source for that “quote” you have or you need to take it down.
March 16th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Funny, I didn’t see any quotation marks anywhere.
Consider it a bandwidth saver - quoting his entire offensiveness would just take up way too much space.
March 17th, 2008 at 2:57 am
Funny, I did. And you’re still making it look as if he said “I Don’t like Jews” which you know full well he didn’t. So consider yourself dishonest.
March 17th, 2008 at 7:24 am
Hardly. However, since you are the only one who has made this complaint, it is clear that you need more to do.
It is striking you didn’t take offense to his dislike of white people and lack of patriotism.
March 17th, 2008 at 9:09 am
Nathan,
I wasn’t aware that to be a Christian one must also be a [white?] nationalist too. Also, he doesn’t “dislike” white people, he dislikes the “white power establishment”…to be sure, the term is a leftist construct, as there are 2 or 3 black people in that power establishment as well.
I though the quasi-quote was in poor taste too, but its your blog, if you wanna make stuff up, that’s your business.
March 17th, 2008 at 9:13 am
I certainly am not surprised that an Obama supporter would find the paraphrase “in bad taste”.
March 17th, 2008 at 10:17 am
It’s cool, this has given the Conservatives an opportunity to unload their feelings about the black community and the black church, enjoy the moment.
March 17th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Sean.. you twist words and thoughts very well.
The topic has been one preacher’s un-American, un-Christian, and unfounded comments based on nothing more than an attitude of hate, nothing more, and how could Obama be so distant for his total attendance to this man’s church. No one can justify these comments. Which of the accusations do you believe from this preacher? Coulda woulda wont’t work here as to what he meant. Without further examples, we have ehat we have.
There was nothing scriptural in these comments, Jesus never preached hate, even for the romans, who probably deserved it from historical examples. Christian teaching doesn’t teach separation, even if some have taken it that way. Your comments are divisive and not factual. I have not been in an “all” white church in many years. Watch Charles Stanley on Sunday morning, and look at an example of the racial mix of many churches today. There is no hate or devisise talk here, just the love of Jesus for all, and the desire He has for us to believe in Him and His teaching. Discussing politics is fine, but Wright’s comments are not political, just hateful.
Yes, there will always be racial separations, as there will always be economic, religious, political,and various other types of separations. Thinking otherwise is childlike. Sure, things get better at times, but Wright’s comments aren’t helpful, they are hateful separation. His attitude is no better than the Klan attitude.
The only question here is how can anyone go to a church regularly for 20+ yrs. and play ignorant to this type of thing. Obama was a celebrity at this church, no doubt, how oblivious to things could he possibly be? Did everyone keep him out of the loop? If you disagree at work, in politics, or at church, you either speak up or leave. He did neither.
March 17th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Rick,
I’ve given further examples, you choose to go with 3 minutes over 7 years. For an example, The Audacity of Hope.
Jesus didn’t preach hate, and I don’t recall Wright saying he hated anyone either. He was critical of rich white people (though racial distinctions at the time weren’t really made):
Luke 6:24“But woe to you who are rich, for you are receiving your comfort in full. 25 “Woe to you who are well-fed now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.
If you disagree at work, in politics, or at church, you either speak up or leave.
That is the biggest bunch of bullsh!t I’ve ever heard. So Catholics who disagree with their priests on matters of abortion or gay rights have to either object or leave? If my boss says something I don’t like I have to argue with him about it or quit my job? Give me a break.
March 17th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
I always like it when people who reject all of the tenets of Christian doctrine are so eager to lecture the orthodox. People who believe sodomy, abortion, racism, and class warfare are virtues lack the credibility to explain Christian theology.
Christ clearly rejected Braisted’s relativistic syncretism, only then they were called Pharisees and today we know them as Democrats.
March 17th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Thanks for the Bible School session “Mark Brown”.