What troubles me about the Wright affair

Jerusalem Post ^ | 5-12-08 | AVI SHAFRAN

[SJackson]

Even before Senator Barack Obama unequivocally denounced Reverend Jeremiah Wright as the loon he is, I was willing to take the senator's word for the fact that his erstwhile pastor's rantings about America, the Middle East, the September 11 attacks, Louis Farrakhan, AIDS and white people do not reflect Obama's own feelings.

What pained me then, though, and still does, is the tragic subtext of Pastorgate - that the sort of rank idiocy that was spewed from the pulpit at Chicago's Trinity Church may not be unusual in churches that cater to African Americans. Senator Obama's statement, back when he still sought to preserve some of his pastor's dignity, was telling. "I can no more disown [Wright]," he said, "than I can disown the black community." Did he mean to in some way equate the two?

Well, Wright certainly did. On his talk-show vanity tour, he boasted that "This is not an attack on Jeremiah Wright. It is an attack on the black church." The same sentiment was expressed by Wright's successor at the church, Reverend Otis Moss 3rd, who said: "You cannot caricature Rev. Wright. This is an attack on the collective black church." The first assertion, although in a sense Mr. Moss may not have meant, is undoubtedly true; no caricature could convey Wright's lunacy more vividly than the thing itself. As to the second, we can only hope it is not so.

That the Detroit NAACP - a branch of an organization traditionally empowered by mainstream civil rights advocates, including many religious men and women - saw fit to invite Wright to address its recent forum is not encouraging.

I SPENT my childhood in a racially mixed neighborhood; one of my best friends was a black boy a bit older than I. Junie and I would wrestle, play ball and ride our bikes on the rocky hills near where we lived in Baltimore. We had "kid to kid" conversations, too. He learned a lot about how Orthodox Jews lived, and I learned things from him too. (Quite the critical thinker, he once knit his brow when we passed a local synagogue advertising the availability of High Holiday seats for purchase, and asked me incredulously, "You gotta pay to pray?" It was a good point.)

Another black presence in my formative years was Lucille, our cleaning lady. She would come to my parents' modest home once or twice a week and help my mother with ironing and housekeeping. We children, following our parents' example, always treated Lucille with great respect, and, not to be cliché, she really was in many ways part of the family. My mother, may her memory be a blessing, would serve her lunch each day she came. And when Lucille grew older and unable to do any real work, my mother, mindful of our housekeeper's financial neediness, made a point of continuing her "employment," having her come over and wipe off a counter or two, so that she could be given her wages - and lunch, of course - as compensation, not charity.

Then there was Dhanna, the librarian in Providence, where my wife and I raised our children, who was so kind to them during their frequent visits to the public library, always smiling at them, helping them find what they were looking for and proudly placing the artwork they produced for her on her desk for all to see. And Desi, our own young daughters' friend from those years, who became quite conversant with the laws of kashrut and Shabbat.

To be sure, I have had unpleasant encounters with blacks. Like in my youth, when a group of boys who had asked my classmates and me to join our baseball game, once at bat, decided to turn the Louisville Sluggers on us. Or the "Heil Hitler" that one teenager delighted in shouting at my father and me when we walked to the synagogue. Even today, I come across the occasional anti-Semite of color. But more than the occasional pale-faced one too.

THERE ARE good and bad people in every population. Mindful of the Talmudic imperative to judge "all men favorably" (Avot, 1:6), I have never measured any human being by any yardstick other than his own words or deeds. And my wife and I always sought - and I think successfully - to instill that attitude in our children.

Mere months ago, I would have imagined that preachers in black churches speak to their flocks about serving God and living moral lives, about humility, self-respect and love. And maybe most do. But the current presidential campaign's sideshow of "Wright stuff" has been sadly educational. If even a minority of black church leaders are of the Trinity mold (both the word's senses intended), feeding their congregants the sweet poison of suspicion and hatred, the dream of a truly color-blind society will have been set back a century - even if an African-American is elected to the very highest office in the land.

And, of course, as elsewhere in the world, the general anti-American and anti-white ravings of black religious leaders like Wright and Farrakhan exhibit an undercurrent of anti-Israel sentiment - today's "respectable" proxy for anti-Semitism. The latter famously sneered at Israel's "dirty religion" (he meant Zionism, he later clarified helpfully). And the former saw fit to include in a church newsletter an Arab writer's charge that Israel with South Africa "worked on an ethnic bomb that killed Blacks and Arabs."

I can't imagine Junie or Dhanna or Desi tolerating such tripe. What anguishes me is that, for all I know, their children or grandchildren may be.

[Jeff Head]

The folks in Israel and the Jews in this country would be best served to wake up to the fact that Obama is not their friend and that he supports those who would destroy Israel.

Barack, who is Hussein, Obama, is the absolute apex of the domestic enemy, subversive, anti-American movement in this country.

Polished in a prepared speech, charismatic in his presentation, nonetheless, underneath it all lies a smoldering cauldron of marxism, bigotry, and black liberation theology that is the enemy of America and its traditional values.

THE AUDACITY OF TRUTH - OBAMA'S CIRCLE OF FRIENDS AND SUPPORT

THE AUDACITY OF TRUTH - BLACK LIBERATION THEOLOGY AND OBAMA'S CHURCH

THE AUDACITY OF TRUTH - BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

High Volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel. or WOT [War on Terror]

----------------------------

[VRW Conspirator]

What pained me then...that the sort of rank idiocy that was spewed from the pulpit at Chicago's Trinity Church may not be unusual in churches that cater to African Americans.

Brought to the light of day.

[popdonnelly]

Jews won’t do that. It’s more important to be seen as “progressive”.

[popdonnelly]

Reverend Wright’s rhetoric didn’t surprise me in the least. It’s just a compilation of stuff that’s been going around in the African-American community for decades.

[LongTimeMILurker]

While the traditions and worship services are quite different from Jewish ones, Sunday Schools and Pulpits in the vast majority of Christian Churches have been teaching respect for other races and religions for decades. In more recent years, their is more of a call for tolerance and looking the other way at what might be called the Scripturally based behavioral sins of others. This has probably allowed the hate speech that now flourishes in such places of worship as Reverend Wright’s.

There seemed to be a distinct change from preaching about getting along with others who are different and equal treatment, to hatred and special treatment for minorities sometime between the late 1960s and late 1970s in churches like Reverend Wright’s. Getting along and equal treatment was now for “Uncle Toms”, as we now see in the treatment of Black Conservatives and even Bill Cosby, who is no Conservative.

[smalltownslick]

“Even before Senator Barack Obama unequivocally denounced Reverend Jeremiah Wright as the loon he is”

Wow, that’s quite a stretch from Obama’s too little-too late attempts to “distance” himself from Wright

[Thombo2]

Good article.I submit that the Rev Wright’s anti-American and anti-white sermons are not the exception but rather the rule.Two examples:1)Not less than a week after 911-the rumor amongst blacks where i work was that OBL was NOT responsible for 911 but was simply a scapegoat so the US could invade Afghanistan!?!?Who was responsible?GW,Israel,and a cabel of jews.When i tried to rationally discuss the issue and the absolute idiocy of such a theory,i was either ignored or called a racist.2)How about Katrina?Did anyone know that the levies didn’t simply fail but were blown up by navy seals with the intent to kill African Americans??

[SJackson]

Good article.I submit that the Rev Wright’s anti-American and anti-white sermons are not the exception but rather the rule.

I don't know that it's the rule rather than the exception, I'd like to think it's representative of only a minority of largely black Churches.

What's important is that Obama accepts it as representative of the black religious community, and refuses to either condemn or separate himself from what seems to me to be a largely political theology.

[beachn4fun]

"I can no more disown [Wright]," he said, "than I can disown the black community." Did he mean to in some way equate the two? Well, Wright certainly did. On his talk-show vanity tour, he boasted that "This is not an attack on Jeremiah Wright. It is an attack on the black church." The same sentiment was expressed by Wright's successor at the church, Reverend Otis Moss 3rd, who said: "You cannot caricature Rev. Wright. This is an attack on the collective black church."

You know what bothers me? Forty-five years after MLK's famous "I have a dream" speech, where he spoke these words:

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

AND

..... when all of God's children—black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics—will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

many Blacks are not yet past wanting to be judged by the color of their skin

[Clock King]

What kinda people do you work with?

[Clock King]

I take my snideness back. I have members of my family who are probably just that ignorant. It’s painful to say the least.

[El Cid]

The author of this article highlights the same points that I found most troubling about this Wright incident.
I thought this 'church' was a freak.
After reading their 'about us' page on their website a couple of years ago - I was shocked.
No mention of Christ. Nothing on forgiveness, the need for redemption, and the need for our Saviour. Just bitterness, hatred, glorification of a foreign continent, and racial divisions.
I thought when this was exposed, it would be exposed as the abberation that it was.
Not a church, but a racial club akin to the KKK. I once the tucc.org's 'about us' page on this site, but swapped the words 'white' for 'black', and 'Euro/European' for 'Afro/African'.
It was clearly offensive, and something that you'd expect to find at one of those so-called 'Aryan Identity churches'[ 'Churches' that I suspect consist of no more than 25 members, of which 20 are under-cover FBI infiltrators]. And IF one of the 5 legitimate members of such a 'church' tried to run for office - any office (town councilman, etc) - he'd be rightfully rejected just based on his 'church' membership - as being a nut.

But I was wrong.
Other 'black churches' (Side Note: there are not supposed to be such things as 'black', 'white', or 'brown', or 'yellow', etc., churches. A Church is for any, to come and worship the God of the Bible.), rushed to Mr. Wright's defense.
Mr. Obama gave some shoulder-shrug 'no big deal' response about his 20 year membership in Mr. Wright's synagogue of satan...
This was all about the 'African-American' style of worship vs. the 'Euro-American' style of worship.
Nonsense -- there is one way of worship - from the Bible. We are all sinners, and our only hope is Christ Crucified - our Risen Saviour. Others may have sinned against us, but our sins which our Saviour carried at Calvary - far exceed anything that anyone has done to us. As we have been forgiven, so should we forgive others.

I am gob-smacked...I am saddened that so many have been led astray from worship, and drawn into the abyss of self-pity and with hardened hearts that cannot forgive (qualities that are the antithesis of our Lord and Saviour Jesus).

[SJackson]

You're right, a politicial who subscribed to this value system couldn't get elected dogcatcher.

Can anyone identify the following statement of faith?

We are a congregation which is Unashamedly White and Unapologetically Christian... Our roots in the White religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent. We are an European 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 White worship service and ministries which address the White Community.

The Pastor as well as the membership of Mystery Church is committed to a 10-point Vision:

1. A congregation committed to ADORATION.

2. A congregation preaching SALVATION.

3. A congregation actively seeking RECONCILIATION.

4. A congregation with a non-negotiable COMMITMENT TO EUROPE.

5. A congregation committed to BIBLICAL EDUCATION.

6. A congregation committed to CULTURAL EDUCATION.

7. A congregation committed to the HISTORICAL EDUCATION OF EUROPEAN PEOPLE IN DIASPORA.

8. A congregation committed to LIBERATION.

9. A congregation committed to RESTORATION.

10. A congregation working towards ECONOMIC PARITY.

Click here to read about Dr. ???’s talking points for ??? Christ its Web site and the White Value System.

THE WHITE VALUE SYSTEM

??? Church adopted the White Value System, written by the Manford Byrd Recognition Committee, chaired by the late Vallmer Jordan in 1981.

Dr. Manford Byrd, our brother in Christ, withstood the ravage of being denied his earned ascension to the number one position in the Chicago School System. His dedication to the pursuit of excellence, despite systematic denials, has inspired the congregation of Trinity United Church of Christ. Prayerfully, we have called upon the wisdom of all past generations of suffering Whites for guidance in fashioning an instrument of White self-determination, the White Value System.

Beginning in 1982, an annual White Value System – Educational Scholarship in the name of Dr. Byrd was instituted. The first recipient of the Dr. Manford Byrd Award, which is given annually to the man or woman who best exemplifies the White Value System, was our brother, Dr. Manford Byrd.

These White Ethics must be taught and exemplified in homes, churches, nurseries and schools, wherever Whites are gathered. They consist of the following concepts:

1. Commitment to God. “The God of our weary years” will give us the strength to give up prayerful passivism and become White Christian Activists, soldiers for White freedom and the dignity of all humankind.

2. Commitment to the White Community. The highest level of achievement for any White person must be a contribution of strength and continuity of the White Community.

3. Commitment to the White Family. The White family circle must generate strength, stability and love, despite the uncertainty of externals, because these characteristics are required if the developing person is to withstand warping by our racist competitive society.

Those Whites who are blessed with membership in a strong family unit must reach out and expand that blessing to the less fortunate.

4. Dedication to the Pursuit of Education. We must forswear anti-intellectualism. Continued survival demands that each White person be developed to the utmost of his/her mental potential despite the inadequacies of the formal education process. “Real education” fosters understanding of ourselves as well as every aspect of our environment. Also, it develops within us the ability to fashion concepts and tools for better utilization of our resources, and more effective solutions to our problems. Since the majority of Whites have been denied such learning, White Education must include elements that produce high school graduates with marketable skills, a trade or qualifications for apprenticeships, or proper preparation for college.

Basic education for all Whites should include Mathematics, Science, Logic, General Semantics, Participative Politics, Economics and Finance, and the Care and Nurture of White minds.

5. Dedication to the Pursuit of Excellence. To the extent that we individually reach for, even strain for excellence, we increase, geometrically, the value and resourcefulness of the White Community. We must recognize the relativity of one’s best; this year’s best can be bettered next year. Such is the language of growth and development. We must seek to excel in every endeavor.

6. Adherence to the White Work Ethic. “It is becoming harder to find qualified people to work in Chicago.” Whether this is true or not, it represents one of the many reasons given by businesses and industries for deserting the Chicago area. We must realize that a location with good facilities, adequate transportation and a reputation for producing skilled workers will attract industry. We are in competition with other cities, states and nations for jobs. High productivity must be a goal of the White workforce.

7. Commitment to Self-Discipline and Self-Respect. To accomplish anything worthwhile requires self-discipline. We must be a community of self-disciplined persons if we are to actualize and utilize our own human resources, instead of perpetually submitting to exploitation by others. Self-discipline, coupled with a respect for self, will enable each of us to be an instrument of White Progress and a model for White Youth.

8. 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:

1. Killing them off directly, and/or fostering a social system that encourages them to kill off one another.

2. Placing them in concentration camps, and/or structuring an economic environment that induces captive youth to fill the jails and prisons.

3. 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.”

4. So, while it is permissible to chase “middleclassness” with all our might, we must avoid the third separation method – the psychological entrapment of White “middleclassness.” If we avoid this snare, we will also diminish our “voluntary” contributions to methods A and B. And more importantly, White people no longer will be deprived of their birthright: the leadership, resourcefulness and example of their own talented persons.

9. Pledge to Make the Fruits of All Developing and Acquired Skills Available to the White Community.

10. Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources for Strengthening and Supporting White Institutions.

11. Pledge Allegiance to All White Leadership Who Espouse and Embrace the White Value System.

12. Personal Commitment to Embracement of the White Value System. To measure the worth and validity of all activity in terms of positive contributions to the general welfare of the White Community and the Advancement of White People towards freedom.

For the answer substitute black for white and Africa for Europe, or click the links.

And yes, there are some positive values here.

[El Cid]

Re: 15

Hah!
Yes, I went through that same exercise around a year ago...I chuckle, but it is really heartbreaking. This is appalling on so many levels:

A) This is pure blasphemy to masquerade this 'creed' as a call to Worship God.
B) Why hasn't this place been widely repudiated?
C) How in the world can anyone who has been a member of this place for 20 years be elected to any position (like you said -- even dogcatcher is a reach)? Anything over 2 months would make my 'no go' list... I could see someone being somewhat slow on the uptake for a few weeks... but 20 years???

[cricket]

The mistake of the 'Media' was and continues to be, to portray Wright as an 'isolated crazy' who, Obama is easily able to dodge and deny. Easy, at least by 'gullible lights'. But there are plenty out there, of course. The prism that affords the best light through which to focus on Obama is the so called 'religion' - Black Liberation Theology = which is the MO of the Church he belongs to. . .not just Wright; but the Marxist tradition - that favors as well, 'Nation of Islam' brand of religion; laid out to invite, inform and 'inspire' all who join.

Obama is asked about Wright; he is never asked what Black Liberation 'Theology' means to him; and how it's political dictums(rants) have enlightened him.

Obama has gotten essentially a 'free ride' here; he still is riding on his 'pass' coupon. Hope McCain shreds it; but am not counting on it.

[Snurple]

"The sort of rank idiocy that was spewed from the pulpit at Chicago's Trinity Church may not be unusual in churches that cater to African Americans."

Rank Idiocy, yep that pretty much sums up the mindset of the obamanites in general. Nothing and I mean nothing will shake their support of BO. I keep hearing that there will be some sort of major scandal coming that will rock the obama campaign. BS. 95% of black voters will continue to support him even if it were proven beyond any doubt he created the aids virus and set it loose on them. Race trumps out. Rank Idiocy...you bet, the rankest.

Every rabid liberal, every communist, every race baiter, every home grown terrorist and all the other assorted malcontents who see America as evil will vote for him no matter what.

Young first time voters raised on rap and spoon fed by Hollywood, brainwashed to believe there are no absolutes, no real right or wrong....how could they not vote for this clown?

Rank Idiocy at its best, a whole new depth to the absurd.

[cyberella]

[cyberella]