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elf-appointed Elder, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, spoke out in Chicago this week on the Rev. Wright controversy. Desmond Tutu believes that Wright says the things that all black Americans want to say... Really? The Chicago Tribune and LGF Quick Links reported: "You are a crazy country," Tutu, 76, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, said in an interview with the Tribune. "You're a country that has I think some of the most generous people I've ever come across in the world." But he chided Americans for getting "very, very upset" with the pastor of Sen. Barack Obama,...

Rev. Lainie Dowell -- On Faith -- The Rev. Otis Moss has taken over leadership of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ. For those who think Moss will offer a change in philosophy to the much-maligned Rev. Jeremiah Wright, they are grossly mistaken. Moss preaches ...

The focus of media attention is [on Rev. Wright’s] “God damn America” sermon. But that’s not the main conclusion of his theology. The main conclusion of his theology is his call for gigantic reparations payments to African-Americans by the Federal government. This would be the largest government welfare project since Medicare… Rev. Wright is an advocate of what is known as black theology. Black theology is a variant of the radical movement known as liberation theology, which is an extreme version of the social gospel. Rev. Wright is open about his advocacy of black theology-liberation theology… They all preach the...

Baldilocks is black, female and conservative. Responding to a column by John Derbyshire at NRO, She writes:...columnists Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom at did their homework on Black Liberation Theology and the "black church": Most black churchgoers belong to congregations that are overwhelmingly African-American and are affiliated with one of the historically black religious denominations such as the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) or the National Baptist Convention. Rev. Wright's Trinity Church, on the other hand, is a predominantly black branch of a white denomination that is not part of "the African-American religious tradition." The United Church of Christ (known until...

The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., under fire for statements that have embarrassed Senator Barack Obama’s campaign, has found staunch support in the pulpits of black churches around North Carolina. The people in the pews, however, are far less accepting. In interviews at churches in cities and towns including Charlotte, Greensboro, Lumberton and Goldsboro, ministers expressed the view that Mr. Obama and Mr. Wright had been attacked by a superficial and biased news media. Many said they were teaching Mr. Wright’s sermons in Bible study classes. They are delivering lectures on the roots of Mr. Wright’s style of ministry and...

Well, it is likely that Sen. Barack Obama won't be going back to Trinity United Church of Christ. Not after this. On Tuesday, Obama responded to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's ill-timed defense by condemning his former pastor's fresh comments as "ridiculous," "outrageous" and "appalling." "When he states and then amplifies such ridiculous proposition as the U.S. government somehow being involved in AIDS, when he suggests that Minister Farrakhan somehow represents one of the greatest voices in the 20th and 21st century, when he equates the United States wartime effort with terrorism, then there are no excuses," Obama said during a...

I come from a religious tradition where we shout from the sanctuary and march on the picket line! Where we give God the glory and give the devil the blues! — Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Sunday night in Detroit. The black church in America has long lived between the glory and the blues, between the ecstasy of worship and the exigencies of politics. It is a place concerned with both the sacred and the profane, both a religious and a political institution. It is for that reason that an ambitious young Barack Obama first sought out Reverend Wright twenty years ago....

Anger is a tough emotion to conceal and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's simmered barely beneath the surface during his Monday performance at the National Press Club. Oh, he was funny and entertaining. He's got the gift of gab and knows how to bring an audience to its feet. "Amens" rolled easily off the tongues of his supporters. But make no mistake: Barack Obama's "former pastor," by virtue only of Wright's recent retirement, is a righteously angry man. And he's mad principally at white folks -- descendants of slaveholders, authors of Jim Crow laws and alleged conspirators to genocide. Whites, he...

African American ministers in Los Angeles expressed angst and concern Tuesday that a fresh round of comments by Sen. Barack Obama's former pastor was hurting the Democratic presidential candidate's campaign and skewing public understanding of the black church. In a series of nationally televised appearances over the last few days, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. has defended his controversial remarks as "prophetic theology," and said criticism of him amounted to an attack on the black church. But most black church leaders and members reached Tuesday disagreed. "This didn't have anything to do with the black church -- it was...

Defense of Farrakhan a source of pride for New Black Panther Party April 28, 2008 By Aaron Klein WorldNetDaily JERUSALEM – Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. demonstrated he is a "man of principle" by sticking to his teachings of "black liberation theology" during today's highly publicized session with the news media, Malik Zulu Shabazz, national chairman of the New Black Panther Party, told WND in an interview. Shabazz, who was at the National Press Club event in Washington for Sen. Barack Obama's pastor of 20 years , said he was particularly proud of Wright's defense of Nation of Islam head Louis...

Wright says criticism is attack on black church Apr 28 09:25 AM US/Eastern By NEDRA PICKLER Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The Rev. Jeremiah Wright says criticism surrounding his fiery sermons is an attack on the black church. Barack Obama's longtime pastor says he hopes the controversy will have a positive outcome and spark an honest dialogue about race in America. Wright says black church traditions are still "invisible" to many Americans, as they have been throughout the country's history. Wright spoke at the National Press Club Monday morning before the Washington press corps and a supportive audience of...

Watching Wright at the National Press Club, I thought the headline would be that he said we have witnessed an "attack on the black church, not an attack on Jeremiah Wright." But he's hitting a wide variety of notes... hitting the Bush administration for "cutting billions in food stamps to pay for war in Iraq." Wright mentions his Goddaughter arrived in Iraq last week; he declares that those who questioned his patriotism used their positions to avoid military service. Hits those who "worship Sunday mornings in a black clergy robe, then burn crosses on Sunday evening with a white Klan...

Liveblogging Wright at the National Press Club: The "black church" is under "attack;" "I am open to being vice president;" defends his AIDS conspiracy-theorizing, "God damns," "Louis Farrakhan is not my enemy;" don't be dissin' my mama or my faith

In three major appearances in the last four days, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. offered a full-throated historical defense of black church traditions. But his re-emergence on the national stage has certainly served to provide more sound-bites that already have begun to haunt Senator Barack Obama on the campaign trail. With Senator John McCain’s fresh criticisms of the pastor and Republicans painting him and Mr. Obama as extremist in commercials using snippets of sermons, Mr. Wright, longtime pastor of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, defiantly and passionately argued that such criticisms were attacks on the black church...

WASHINGTON--Sen. Barack Obama’s former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, called the month-long debate over portions of his past sermons an attack on the black church Monday and repeatedly accused the media of taking his words out of context. On whether his public appearances – including one Sunday night at which Wright mocked the voices of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson – were hurting Obama’s presidential candidacy, Wright appeared unconcerned with his political impact. And referring to the U.S. government, he said, blacks are still owed an apology for slavery, and said he’s told Obama, if he’s elected November 5,...

In a defiant appearance before the Washington media, the REv. Jeremiah Wright said Monday that criticism surrounding his fiery sermons is an attack on the black church... Wright spoke at the National Press Club before the Washington media and a supportive audience of black church leaders... He said his Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago has a long history of liberating the oppressed...

How many Americans would vote for a presidential candidate who was the member of a church that professed the following credo? 1.  Commitment to God 2.  Commitment to the White Community 3.  Commitment to the White Family 4.  Dedication to the Pursuit of Education 5.  Dedication to the Pursuit of Excellence 6.  Adherence to the White Work Ethic 7.  Commitment to Self-Discipline and Self-Respect 8.  Disavowal of the Pursuit of “Middleclassness” 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...

Jeremiah Wright, in all his omniscience, appeared on Bill Moyers’ PBS Show Friday evening April 25 and tried to justify his sermon God damning America. No matter how Wright tries to frame the reasoning for the sermon (from 2003) he falls on his face.

More than 3,000 news stories have been penned since early April about Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama. But behind the five second loop is a man who has preached three different sermons nearly every Sunday since 1972. In his interview on BILL MOYERS JOURNAL, Reverend Wright discusses what drew him to the pulpit and the recent controversy surrounding him.

Racism in the pulpit has been an ugly reality in the black community for some 40 years. Yet, it took the mad rantings of Barack Obama's pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. to bring it to our national consciousness. For the sake of the future of our great country, it is time we spoke frankly about this insidious cancer.

The ranks of Sen. Barack Obama's supporters in his bid to become president of the United States have been found to include a white priest of a mostly black church who has links to Nation of Islam chief Louis Farrakhan and an apparently low level of tolerance for the 2nd Amendment.

What is Black Liberation Theology? For the last several weeks the news has been replete with stories about Barack Obama's pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. You would have to see the news clips to grasp the extremity of his views and intensity of his words. While America is not perfect, to see her cursed in a church pulpit has been troubling, disheartening, and even sickening. Barack Obama sat under this for 22 years and he wants to have the most powerful position in the entire world: President of the United States. But he didn't get gospel preaching under Wright -- he...

Barack Obama's god isn't the loving, forgiving, wise, and powerful God most Christians know. Obama's god, the god of Trinity, is not in the business of bringing people together, instead he is a god that is totally exclusive to the black community. White Americans need to realize that Obama's god is not here for understanding, or reconciliation. Obama's god is here to participate in the destruction of the white race by any means possible. Barack Obama's Jesus, a black man, was sent to this world by God to endure the pain and humiliation of black people in order to free...

The church where Sen. Barack Obama has worshipped for two decades publicly declares that its ministry is founded on a 1960s book that espouses "the destruction of the white enemy." Trinity United Church of Christ's Web site says its teachings are based on the black liberation theology of James H. Cone and his 1969 book "Black Theology and Black Power." "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,...

During the black-power heyday of the late 1960s, after the murder of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr, the mentors of Wright decided that blacks were the Chosen People. James Cone, the most prominent theologian in the "black liberation" school, teaches that Jesus Christ himself is black. As he explains: Christ is black therefore not because of some cultural or psychological need of black people, but because and only because Christ really enters into our world where the poor were despised and the black are, disclosing that he is with them enduring humiliation and pain and transforming oppressed slaves into...

Panelists discuss shock over Wright's comments at Black Church Summit In panel discussion, black churches not immune to criticism By LORI STAHL / The Dallas Morning News lstahl@dallasnews.com If television sound bites of Barack Obama's former pastor shocked mainstream audiences, perhaps it means that other black churches have strayed too far from raising similar social justice issues in their sermons, panelists at a church summit said Saturday. "Part of the reason the public is so shocked ... is that they have not heard the public voice of the liberated black church in a very long time," said the Rev. Raphael...

DALLAS -- The Rev. Jeremiah Wright "has dared to unwrap the flag from around the cross" in his sermons -- not because of a lack of patriotism, but out of concern, a Dallas preacher said Saturday at a panel discussion at the State of the Black Church Summit. Wright, former pastor to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, has been criticized by some as racist and others as anti-American because of his statements about U.S. policies. "We don't love America uncritically; you don't just tell the good things," the Rev. Frederick Haynes III told about 100 scholars, clergy and students gathered...

The reaction to Sen. Barack Obama's March 18 speech in Philadelphia on his firebrand pastor and race in America shows a generation gap within the black community... Despite criticism that he didn't fully address the angry comments by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Mr. Obama's youth and powerful skills as an orator continue to offer hope to many that he can bridge what he defined in his speech as a national "stalemate" ... Charles Ellison... describes a tension among blacks and a "growing generation gap between new school versus old school." "The new hip-hop generation, there is a focus on economic,...

On the Sunday in 2003 when Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. shouted "God damn America" from the pulpit of Trinity United Church of Christ, he defined damnation as God's way of holding humanity accountable for its actions. Obama has denounced Wright's most provocative remarks, but in a speech on race last week he defended Wright as a person and refused to disown him as his pastor. Sunday after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Wright preached...the "brutally honest" last verses of Psalm 137, which he said "spotlight the insanity of the cycle of violence." The sound bite taken from the...

Watching the parade of apologists for Rev. Wright’s hatred—“garlic noses”; “KKK of A;” “God Damn America;” “Condamnesia;” the U.S. deserved 9/11; America is no different from al-Qaeda; we caused the AIDs virus; Israel is a “dirty word” and sought an Arab and black ethnic bomb, etc—is, well, depressing. Instead of offering distance from Wright, far too many African-American professors and pastors interviewed on the cable stations the last few nights instead praised his brilliance and inspiration. At best, there was a feeble ‘you just don’t get it’ about the venting and wink-and-nod culture of the black church. But the net...

More than two dozen well-known black preachers and scholars, in Dallas for a long-planned conference, offered unequivocal support Friday for one of their number who was not there. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, now world-famous as the former pastor and spiritual mentor of presidential candidate Barack Obama, was to be the guest of honor at the Black Church Summit held by Brite Divinity School. Amid the recent controversy about some of his sermons, Dr. Wright decided not to attend, but the summit started Friday as scheduled. Most of the event was not open to the media, but several of the scholars...

Mayor Michael Nutter Tells ABC News He Would Have Quit Church if His Pastor Made Such Remarks. Sen. Hillary Clinton's most prominent African-American supporter in Pennsylvania says that had he been a member of Sen. Barack Obama's church, he would have left because of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's fiery and controversial sermons. "I think there's no room for hate, and I could not sit and tolerate that kind of language, and especially over a very long period of time," said Philadelphia's newly elected mayor... "If I were in my own church and heard my pastor saying some of those kinds...

Black Liberation theology actually encourages a victim mentality among blacks. John McWhorters' book Losing the Race, will be helpful here. Victimology, says McWhorter, is the adoption of victimhood as the core of one's identity--for example, like one who suffers through living in "a country and who lived in a culture controlled by rich white people." It is a subconscious, culturally inherited affirmation that life for Blacks in America has been in the past and will be in the future a life of being victimized by the oppression of Whites. In today's terms, it is the conviction that, forty years after...

One of the pillars of Obama's home church, Trinity United Church of Christ, is "economic parity." The code language "economic parity" and references to "mal-distribution" is nothing more than channeling the twisted economic views of Karl Marx. Black liberation theologians have explicitly stated a preference for Marxism as an ethical framework for the black chucches because Marxist thought is predicated on a system of oppressor class (whites) versus victim class (blacks). Black liberation theologians James Cone and Cornel West have worked diligently to embed Marxist thought into the black church since the 1970's. For Cone, Marxism best addressed remedies to...

Until the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Senator Obama's spiritual mentor in Black Liberation Theology, popped out of the woodwork, I didn't even know about BLT -- Black Liberation Theology. But the doctrines of Black Liberation have been preached since 1966 in black churches, with the enthusiastic support of white churches of the Left, notably the United Church of Christ. The Rev. Wright runs an official UCC church. Though I am not a professional theologian, I daresay that Jesus would not, repeat not, approve of BLT. Because Black Liberation Theology seems to go straight against every single word in the Sermon on...

What is Black Liberation Theology? Wright's Black Liberation Theology By Anthony B. Bradley What is Black liberation theology anyway? Barrack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright catapulted black liberation theology onto a national stage, when America discovered Trinity United Church of Christ. Understanding the background of the movement might give better clarity into Wright's recent vitriolic preaching. A clear definition of Black theology was first given formulation in 1969 by the National Committee of Black Church Men in the midst of the civil-rights movement: "Black theology is a theology of black liberation. It seeks to plumb the black condition in the...

Having grown up in both the Pentecostal and Methodist faiths, Sunday worship was a staple of my weekly routine. Thus, when I relocated to Washington during the 80's finding a church home was very important to me. For almost 10 years I canvassed the nation's capitol seeking a church that would nourish my spirit and challenge my aspirations. As I tried out local churches, I began to notice a consistent theme: the sermons were highly political charged. Understandably, this being the nation’s capital, there is perhaps a heightened political awareness among the general populace. However I believed, perhaps naively, that...

Obama's closest religious advisers - Fr. (Michael) Pfleger, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, and Illinois State Sen. James Meeks, who moonlights as the pastor of Chicago's Salem Baptist Church -- may have quotes from scripture always handy, but are theologically closer to Karl marx and black nationalism, than to Christianity...

I've known preachers like the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., former pastor to Sen. Barack Obama. Like many of them, he no doubt sees his congregation as full of victims, and thinks that his words will inspire them to rise out of their victimhood. I understand that. Once upon a time, I saw myself as a victim, too, destined to march in place. In the 1970s and '80s, as a clenched-fist-pumping black nationalist with my head wrapped in an elaborate gele, I reflected that self-concept in my speech. My words were as fiery as the Rev. Wright's. And more than...

His kibitzer warned him 23 years ago about the possible repercussions of joining his church. Senator Obama has often referred to Reverend Wright as his Spiritual mentor and role model. Outside of his mother and wife it's Wright that has been the closest to him. He is his father figure or at least it seems that way. The Island PacketHilton Head IslandJanuary 27, 2007In his 1993 memoir Dreams from My Father Obama recounts in vivid detail his first meeting with Wright in 1985. The pastor warned the community activist that getting involved with Trinity might turn off other black clergy...

Jeremiah Wright’s theological mentor, James Cone, Charles A. Briggs Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary, is perhaps the most important figure in black liberation theology. Here Cone delivers the 2006 Ingersoll lecture at Harvard Divinity School. Dating from 1893, the Ingersoll Lecture is one of the oldest endowed lectures at Harvard. Cone’s Ingersoll lecture is entitled, "Strange Fruit: The Cross and the Lynching Tree." Cone is clearly an intelligent and charismatic speaker. There are a number of "zingers" in here which I think many listeners will object to. But this lecture is also significantly more toned down...

** EXCERPT ** This Easter Sunday, the holiest day of the Christian calendar, many pastors will start their sermons about the Resurrection of Jesus and weave in a pointed message about racism and bigotry, and the need to rise above them. Some pastors began to rethink their sermons on Tuesday, when Senator Barack Obama gave a speech about race, seeking to calm a furor that had erupted over explosive excerpts of sermons by his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. The controversy drove the nation to the unpatrolled intersection of race and religion, and as many pastors prepared for...

HOUSTON — Presidential candidate Barack Obama's former pastor will deliver three sermons on March 30 at the Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church in Houston. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright was the longtime pastor of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago until leaving that pulpit last month. Some of his past sermons have received new scrutiny and criticism in recent weeks in light of Obama's bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. Also seeking the nomination is Hillary Rodham Clinton. Obama has denounced the inflammatory remarks from his pastor, who suggested in one sermon that the United States brought the Sept. 11...

This is Father Michael Pfleger, the pastor of an African American Catholic church on the South Side of Chicago. The guy actually is mad that the media is "tearing down" Farakhan.

Date: 03/17/08 Category: LEADERSHIP What Kind of Pastor Condones Homosexuality, Killing Babies, and Racism (Acts 17:26,27, Rom. 10:11-13) What kind of pastor condones the sin of homosexuality, killing babies, and preaches a gospel of racial division? The pastor for 20 years and spiritual mentor of Democratic Presidential candidate B. Hussein Obama! I found it amusing the past few days that all of the news media is focusing on the racially divisive and anti-American rhetoric of Dr. Jeremiah Wright, who for over 3 decades was the Senior Pastor of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Illinois. For those who...

Beyond Politics: Black Liberation Theology, America and the Question of Race RFFM.org Commentary by Daniel T. Zanoza For a while, I had decided not to write anything on the Jeremiah Wright/Barack Obama controversy. After all, it's all been said, hasn't it? Every newspaper had the story on its front page and the commentary sections overflowed with all too wise speculation on the issue. Why would Barack Obama attend a church where such hate was fomented from the pulpit for 20 years? Did Obama allay concerns many had with him, after the junior senator from Illinois gave his speech on the...

Despite the efforts of most of the main stream media (and Obama himself) trying to spin the incidents regarding Barack Obama's preacher and spiritual advisor into something acceptable to Americans, and his speech regarding race, by doing some individualresearch, it becomes clear that the spin will simply just not wash. The Trinity Church subscribes to Black Liberation Theology. I believe that Obama will not leave that Church for one simple and obvious reason. Despite his new found disgust in "some" terminology that Wright employed, Obama must agree with the theology that the church teaches. He is raising his kids in...

 WASHINGTON — Jesus is black. Merging Marxism with Christian Gospel may show the way to a better tomorrow. The white church in America is the Antichrist because it supported slavery and segregation. Those are some of the more provocative doctrines that animate the theology at the core of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Barack Obama's church.Obama's speech Tuesday on race in America was hailed as a masterful handling of the controversy over divisive sermons by the longtime pastor of Trinity United, the recently retired Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.But in repudiating and putting in context Wright's inflammatory...

BLT is not your grandmother's sandwich anymore. I'm not talking about the famous bacon, lettuce and tomato taste treat here, but Black Liberation Theology. Thanks to pastor emeritus Jeremiah Wright of Barrick Obama's Trinity United Church of Christ, a new light has been focused on BLT, pushing it from the shadows into the forefront of political and religious discussion in America. So what is BLT, and where did it come from? Black Liberation Theology is a fairly recent phenomenum, as far as religions go. It is, in fact, more radical politics than religion. BLT orginated in the 1960s when James...

Chicago's Trinity United tied to founder of black liberation theology WASHINGTON --Jesus is black. Merging Marxism with Christian Gospel may show the way to a better tomorrow. The white church in America is the Antichrist because it supported slavery and segregation. Those are some of the more provocative doctrines that animate the theology at the core of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Barack Obama's church.