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A Pastor's Influence (Obama's too vague about what attracted him to Wright in the first place.)
Washington Post ^ | May 1, 2008 | David S. Broder

Posted on 05/01/2008 6:29:38 PM PDT by neverdem

In his achingly slow steps toward repudiating the repugnant words of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama has run the risk of serious political damage by leaving vague what it was that attracted him to this outspoken critic of American society.

In the rational part of Wright's appearance Monday at the National Press Club, before he got to the self-justification and the denunciations of our government and the nation's values, Wright offered clues to the answer to that question. They came in the form of his succinct interpretation of the historic goals of the black church.

These can be boiled down, he said, to three words: liberation, transformation and reconciliation.

To Wright, liberation means more than opposing oppression in all its forms. It also encompasses freeing oneself from any feelings of inferiority or superiority and recognizing that "being different does not mean one is deficient."

Transformation, in his terms, is all-encompassing: "Changed lives, changed minds, changed laws, changed social orders and changed hearts in a changed world."

Reconciliation, he concluded, "means we embrace our individual rich histories, all of them. We retain who we are as persons of different cultures, while acknowledging that those of other cultures are not superior or inferior to us. They are just different from us."

Anyone who has heard Obama's speeches in this campaign will recognize these three concepts as the roots of the senator's thinking and the guiding principles of his life.

Liberation explains the young Obama's decision to take his first job as a community organizer, helping poverty-stricken people on the South Side of Chicago, and similar efforts that have marked his work in the Illinois Legislature and the U.S. Senate.

Transformation is a fancy way of describing the need for radical change, not just in policies but in the...

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2008; broder; obama; wright; wrightwingconspiracy
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1 posted on 05/01/2008 6:29:39 PM PDT by neverdem
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To: neverdem

Could it be that the Reverend has such a way with words that it sends a shiver up Obama’s leg?


2 posted on 05/01/2008 6:36:01 PM PDT by USFRIENDINVICTORIA
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To: neverdem

why is MO’s role not mentioned? She was the one originally from Chicago and she’s probably the one who decided where to go to chuch is my guess.


3 posted on 05/01/2008 6:38:30 PM PDT by gusopol3
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To: neverdem
Transformation is a fancy way of describing the need for radical change, not just in policies but in the fundamental premises of politics, as Obama has been advocating since the start of his campaign. As he says, until Washington is thoroughly changed, the challenges of the economy, health care and even foreign policy will not be met.

Good Lord. How do you even communicate with someone that a) believes that what this country needs is radical change; and b) thinks that Washington is the heart and soul of the country.

4 posted on 05/01/2008 6:39:15 PM PDT by vbmoneyspender
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To: USFRIENDINVICTORIA

This guy is a dirty man. Repulsive.


5 posted on 05/01/2008 6:39:24 PM PDT by unkus
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To: neverdem

6 posted on 05/01/2008 6:39:34 PM PDT by Roscoe Karns
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To: vbmoneyspender

Without the church Obama isn’t black enough.


7 posted on 05/01/2008 6:41:46 PM PDT by steve8714 (If we want peace, why don't we pray for freedom?)
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To: neverdem
"These can be boiled down, he said, to three words: liberation, transformation and reconciliation."

These can be boiled down, he said, to three two words: liberation, transformation and reconciliation racism and bigotry.

There; fixed the liberal BS.

8 posted on 05/01/2008 6:42:12 PM PDT by do not press 2 for spanish
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To: neverdem

Wright had this to say about Obama:

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.


9 posted on 05/01/2008 6:42:52 PM PDT by george76 (Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)
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To: steve8714

Obama is a racist pig ,just like his wife and his minister. Anyone who can’t see that is blind and a moron. This country has gone so far down it’s a joke. People refuse to see reality and will elect someone for president who hates them because of the color of their skin. Clinical insanity.


10 posted on 05/01/2008 6:44:54 PM PDT by sonic109
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To: USFRIENDINVICTORIA

A black conservative women called into Rush today. She used to live in Chicago and she said that is THE church that the upper middle class upper class blacks attended..... it sounds like if you wanted to be seen that was the place to be.....


11 posted on 05/01/2008 7:00:54 PM PDT by Kimmers
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To: neverdem

“Barack will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.”

—Michelle Obama, Diversity Queen ($400k / year) and future Reeducation Czarina.


12 posted on 05/01/2008 7:05:20 PM PDT by Travis McGee (--- www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com ---)
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To: sonic109
Obama is a racist pig ,just like his wife and his minister. Anyone who can’t see that is blind and a moron. This country has gone so far down it’s a joke. People refuse to see reality and will elect someone for president who hates them because of the color of their skin. Clinical insanity.

Sonic, you have it mostly right BUT consider that Obama's rat opponent is a pig with racist tendencies too. She is a pig since she stands by her man who was accused of raping a woman and she is a racist since she stood by her man who was the first black president (not half-black like Brack Obama) of the US.

Isn't it uncanny how few black churches have been burned since Slick Clinton has left the political scene?

13 posted on 05/01/2008 7:11:11 PM PDT by ErieGeno
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To: Kimmers

That’s my opinion as well. I think he joined Trinity, was because that’s where the people he wanted and needed to “network” withh were....I also remember some news report that when the children came along, the Obamas’ attendance on sundays became seriowsly “spotty”...I’ve found myself, more than once,m wondering about how serious his connection to the church was, versus what the church could do for him.


14 posted on 05/01/2008 7:12:30 PM PDT by DGHoodini ("I never did believe you much, anyway...")
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To: DGHoodini

What’s the term?: “Sunday Christians”?


15 posted on 05/01/2008 7:14:31 PM PDT by DGHoodini ("I never did believe you much, anyway...")
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To: neverdem

Broder needs to do more research:

James Cone:

-Founder of black liberation theology
-Professor of Systematic Theology at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City
-Views America as an irredeemably racist nation

“What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of Black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.” — James Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation

“This country was founded for whites and everything that has happened in it has emerged from the white perspective. What we need is the destruction of whiteness, which is the source of human misery in the world.” — James Cone

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2006950/posts


16 posted on 05/01/2008 7:17:54 PM PDT by donna ("I am confident that we can create a Kingdom right here on Earth." - Barack Hussein Obama)
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To: neverdem

I thought it was political. Obama was looking for a church to give him a political base, and Wright’s church gave him the biggest bang for the buck.


17 posted on 05/01/2008 7:18:52 PM PDT by popdonnelly (Ain't got no money, but I got guns, religion, and xenophobia)
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To: neverdem

Obama’s handlers are surely doing a terrible job of helping their candidate out of this imbroglio. The solution is easier than one would suppose if they knew someone of faith and how they arrived at and so forth.


18 posted on 05/01/2008 7:19:42 PM PDT by shrinkermd
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To: devolve; ntnychik; PhilDragoo; dixiechick2000; MeekOneGOP; neverdem
Maybe he likes being a punching bag!!


19 posted on 05/01/2008 7:22:53 PM PDT by potlatch
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To: Travis McGee

He might even have you go to a commie reducation camp.


20 posted on 05/01/2008 7:23:54 PM PDT by Lumper20
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