In Obama’s case the church and community were just the opposite of the sound bites and video clips we’ve seen of Rev. Wright. You can’t assume Rev Wright is totally encapsulated in the 30s of video we see played endless on FoxNews.

If church is an expression of faith, then we go to the church where our faith brings us. Better: we do not go to a church, we become church together with the others who shares our own faith. A church is more than just a community. It is a community of faith, and faith has to do with a call. We do not decide to become i.e., Christians, we are called to be Christians and we say ‘yes’ (or ‘not’). This is the reason why a church is far to be just a matter of our choice, a product among the other product on the shelves of a supermarket we can pick up based on our values, tastes, etc. A church is not just a matter of values (ethics, etc.). A chuch is a matter of faith. And we do not choose a faith based on the church we attend, but we attend the church of our faith. And we do not choose the faith, we are chosen. This is how it works, if we are men of faith, and not just opinionated men of good values.

Said so, the human dimension of a church is as bad and good as any other community. It is a reflection of mankind. Of course we can agree or disagree, feel more or less comfortable, even feel at home there or feel estranged. But we do not leave a church as long as we do not leave our faith. No matter what. We can only lose our faith, but this another story.

Same political BS, different individual.

Though this case is so chock full of double-standard it’s pretty entertaining.

Haven’t had this much fun watching liberals dance since they snuck out under cover of night to put their “Kerry” bumper sticker over their “Dean” sticker. Yeeeeeeeeaaaaawwww!

There are other words for that.

Now, though they explain that concept you found strange. Here it is–
Disavowal of the Pursuit of “Middleclassness.” Classic methodology on control of captives teaches that captors must be able to identify the “talented tenth” of those subjugated, especially those who show promise of providing the kind of leadership that might threaten the captor’s control.

Those so identified are separated from the rest of the people by:

Killing them off directly, and/or fostering a social system that encourages them to kill off one another.
Placing them in concentration camps, and/or structuring an economic environment that induces captive youth to fill the jails and prisons.
Seducing them into a socioeconomic class system which, while training them to earn more dollars, hypnotizes them into believing they are better than others and teaches them to think in terms of “we” and “they” instead of “us.”
So, while it is permissible to chase “middleclassness” with all our might, we must avoid the third separation method – the psychological entrapment of Black “middleclassness.” If we avoid this snare, we will also diminish our “voluntary” contributions to methods A and B. And more importantly, Black people no longer will be deprived of their birthright: the leadership, resourcefulness and example of their own talented persons.
http://www.tucc.org/black_value_system.html

1.Tyndall seems to have “missed” where I explictly wrote otherwise. As I wrote before: “I could have been more clear in what I meant by ‘church’. I didn’t mean the UCC. I meant the specific local organization that Obama attended and that Wright preached to.” To which Tyndall replied: “I stand corrected about the contrasting organizational structures of the United Church of Christ and the Presbyterian Church. Your point is correct: the more decentralized a church is, the more one’s adherence belongs to a congregation and its minister, less to the denomination as a whole.”

2.”You argue that Jarvis’ principle is wrong — judge the minister not the church.” Once again, Tyndall is making things up. I didn’t argue ANYTHING about Jarvis’ position, principle, actions or haircut.” When a commenter makes a point in a thread that contradicts a point that was made in an original post, it is quite fair to construe that as an argument against the original post. Such a construction is hardly “making things up.”

3.And Tyndall is still trying to excuse Obama, to make his intentional and long-term association and support of Wright somehow acceptable. You misconstrue my argument. It was not designed to excuse the association but to question the loyalty test that is implied by making such an association a disqualification of Obama’s candidacy. Since religious tests for political office are unConstitutional I find it disquieting that a political candidate is being judged, not by his own words, but by the words that were spoken at the pulpit of the church he attends. Especially after he has categorically condemned those sermons that were inflammatory and stated flat out about Wright in his speech: “Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely.” Surely it is Obama’s political views that are at stake in this election not his religious affiliation.

4. Perhaps Tyndall will tell us what it would take to make Wright’s congregation a “Black Supremacist church” since he finds the teachings of its leading minister inadequate. Assuming Kat’s list of the 12 precepts and covenantal statements written in 1981 are accurate and have not been superseded, that looks like a good place to start. Not being a believer myself, the list estranged me at precept #1 — “Commitment to God” — so I hold no brief for the institution whatsoever. Plowing through the remainder of the list, the ideology seems to represent black self-reliance separatism — a la Clarence Thomas — rather them supremacism. This is no surprise as an historical document, coming from the South Side of Chicago in the early ‘80s, before Harold Washington became mayor, when blacks were still systematically excluded from the Democratic machine and the ideology of self-reliance was appealing as a response. Operation PUSH shared some of those aspects. Obama, in his campaign, never relies on separatism as a political strategy and he implied that it is an anachronism in Tuesday’s speech.

5. I note that none of the Wright/Obama apologists have bothered to address the fact that Obama never uttered a peep of complaint until Wright’s comments started affecting Obama’s poll numbers. Again, my comments here are not to be an “apologist” for Wright — I am not — but to object to Obama’s church membership being a test of his candidacy. Having said that, your comment about no “peep of complaint” is not true. Before Obama announced his candidacy, he told Wright that because “you can get kind of rough in your sermons” that he was withdrawing his invitation to Wright to give the invocation at his announcement. Obama distanced himself from Wright’s rhetoric before he even got into the race.

Freeman, you insist that Obama also distance himself from Wright’s church. I can argue that your demand is inappropriate without being shoehorned into the category of a Wright apologist — which I am not since I disagree with Wright’s religious beliefs, his inflammatory rhetoric and his politics of racial separatism. I see no evidence that Obama shares the latter, Wright’s objectionable rhetoric and his politics, and find it irrelevant whether he shares the first, his religion.

Wright didn’t recently start preaching Black Supremacy – he started long before Obama joined him. Obama had 20 years to figure out that Wright’s positions were wrong.

Yes, it’s possible that Obama recently “got religion”. Heck, it’s even possible that his conversion had nothing to do with his campaigning. (I wonder if someone will argue that Obama was just waiting until he got into a position to make his “condemnation” especially effective.)

However, if that’s true, the 20 years doesn’t speak well of Obama.

As to the “he didn’t know”, that’s not much of an improvement.

Perhaps Tyndall will tell us what it would take to make Wright’s congregation a “Black Supremacist church” since he finds the teachings of its leading minister inadequate.

> But what if Obama was being sincere and it really was the theology of Hope that attracted him to the congregation not that other obnoxious stuff.

Does Tyndall really want to argue that Wright’s was the only church with a “theology of Hope”?

> Would your test still apply?

Yes. We don’t give other racists a pass for good works so why should Wright get one?

Once again, Tyndall is making things up. I didn’t argue ANYTHING about Jarvis’ position, principle, actions or haircut.

Of course, Tyndall doubled down:

> I was pointing out that in Obama’s case you disagreed with Jarvis’ principle.

Not at all. I completely ignored Jarvis. (Jarvis isn’t an authority and his situation isn’t analogous.)

Tyndall seems to have “missed” where I explictly wrote otherwise. As I wrote before:

>> I could have been more clear in what I meant by “church”. I didn’t mean the UCC. I meant the specific local organization that Obama attended and that Wright preached to.

I also pointed out that Obama could have joined another UCC congregation and avoided Wright entirely. He didn’t.

And Tyndall is still trying to excuse Obama, to make his intentional and long-term association and support of Wright somehow acceptable.

(by the way that “disavowal of the pursuit of middleclassness” seems a little peculiar, doesn’t it?). Cheers — Andrew)–I didn’t make it up, check for yourself. I’m not really sure what he means–so yes, I did think it was peculiar.

Here is the policy statement of Obama’s church–I think it has recently been removed.
We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian… Our roots in the Black religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent. We are an African people, and remain “true to our native land,” the mother continent, the cradle of civilization. God has superintended our pilgrimage through the days of slavery, the days of segregation, and the long night of racism. It is God who gives us the strength and courage to continuously address injustice as a people, and as a congregation. We constantly affirm our trust in God through cultural expression of a Black worship service and ministries which address the Black Community.

Trinity United Church of Christ adopted the Black Value System written by the Manford Byrd Recognition Committee chaired by Vallmer Jordan in 1981. We believe in the following 12 precepts and covenantal statements. These Black Ethics must be taught and exemplified in homes, churches, nurseries and schools, wherever Blacks are gathered. They must reflect on the following concepts:

Commitment to God
Commitment to the Black Community
Commitment to the Black Family
Dedication to the Pursuit of Education
Dedication to the Pursuit of Excellence
Adherence to the Black Work Ethic
Commitment to Self-Discipline and Self-Respect
Disavowal of the Pursuit of “Middleclassness”
Pledge to make the fruits of all developing and acquired skills available to the Black Community
Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources for Strengthening and Supporting Black Institutions
Pledge allegiance to all Black leadership who espouse and embrace the Black Value System
Personal commitment to embracement of the Black Value System.

Harl Delos and Keith 1965 make the point clearly earlier in this thread that it is entirely appropriate for Barack Obama to stay loyal to his church, even to a particular congregation of his church, despite the objectionable content of some of the sermons of one of its ministers, even its leading minister. This seems to me to be an especially important observation when considering a church that is as large and as active in the community as Trinity, where so much of its ministry’s social outreach extends beyond its preacher’s words.

So Kat, stipulating that some of Wright’s words were, as Chico Haas called them earlier, “pretty nasty white devil social attitudes” that does not make the United Church of Christ in general or even the Trinity congregation in particular a “Black Supremacist church.”

My reading of Obama’s criticism of Wright’s preaching yesterday was, nevertheless, to decry his anachronistic, embattled, polarizing worldview as negatively stereotyping today’s race relations and being unduly unhopeful about future ones. Obama categorically condemned Wright’s damnation of America.

No one that I know of ever said that someone who does not “buy Obama’s excuse” is a “racist” and no one should. Being failed to be convinced by his speech is not racism, Kat, it is simple disagreement

As for your thought experiment about a Presidential candidate belonging to a “white supremacist church” instead — and Andy’s about a Christian Identity candidate — there were indeed some who called for Mitt Romney’s disqualification because of the Church of Latter Day Saints’ tardy decision to racially integrate. I, personally, rejected such calls as an unConstitutional religious test and I believe almost everybody else did too. No one wanted to “lynch him on the spot.”

Andy, I did not suggest, as you imply, that you supported Jarvis’ actions. I was referring to his principle, namely that one should leave a church whose theology was bigoted even if one liked one’s own pastor. I was pointing out that in Obama’s case you disagreed with Jarvis’ principle. Instead you argued that one should judge a church by its individual minister not by its theology.

I stand corrected about the contrasting organizational structures of the United Church of Christ and the Presbyterian Church. Your point is correct: the more decentralized a church is, the more one’s adherence belongs to a congregation and its minister, less to the denomination as a whole. I still quibble when you say: “He chose Wright’s congregation. He supported Wright.” As I argued above, they are not automatically conflated and, anyway, it is not clear that the few inflammatory soundbites circulated from Wright’s sermons represent the central thrust of his ministry. Obama certainly argues that they are not. He deserved the hearing we all gave him yesterday to make that case. Kat and you and Jarvis appear unconvinced. To me he sounded plausible. Fair enough.

As for the “religious loyalty test,” Chico Haas and I tried to thrash that out earlier, trying to find the line where the theology of Hope crosses over to a social justice gospel and from there to race-based liberation theology. As I said earlier, Obama’s speech attempted to explain why the “essential religious views” of this African-American strand of theology may seem blurred to white Christians.

You say Obama’s support for Wright does not turn on Wright’s theology but on his “conspiracy mongering, hate, and bigotry.” But what if Obama was being sincere and it really was the theology of Hope that attracted him to the congregation not that other obnoxious stuff. Would your test still apply?

Regards to all — Andrew

I could have been more clear in what I meant by “church”. I didn’t mean the UCC. I meant the specific local organization that Obama attended and that Wright preached to.

IIRC, UCC is not a top-down institution in the same sense as the Catholic Church or Presbyterians. Instead, individual ministers preach to their congregation pretty much what they please, subject only to whether the congregation will support them.

Obama could have chosen another UCC congregation. He didn’t. He chose Wright’s congregation. He supported Wright.

> In the end why not apply neither rule and impose no religious loyalty test one way or another on candidates for political office?

It’s not a “religious loyalty test”. It’s whether someone who supports and believes in someone like Wright should be president. That question doesn’t turn on his views about the divinity of Christ, the truth (or lack thereof) of the resurrection, etc. It turns on Wright’s conspiracy mongering, hate, and bigotry.

Of course, if you want to argue that they’re essential religious views and thus beyond question, I’m sure that you extend the same deference to the Christian Identity movement. (The sermons are pretty much the same, the only difference being that the oppressors are blacks and jews, not whites and jews.)