Free Republic

This past weekend, Barack Obama passed up two key opportunities to stand up and be counted when it comes to making good on his campaign themes of bringing people together, healing, and fighting cynicism. But instead of action to realize his proclaimed goals, all we got was slippery evasion and bland talk. If you think Obama can be a leader, examine his brhavior this past weekend and draw your own conclusions. Background While many Christians, notably the evangelical community, are deeply supportive of Israel, the leaders of a few Christian church groups in America have issued anti-Israel resolutions over the last...

"No issue has bothered me more than the UCC's [United Church of Christ] relationship with convicted Puerto Rican terrorists that are responsible for over 150 bombings in the U.S. during the 70's and 80's. There is no moral or theological reason for defending members of this group who have killed and injured dozens of people. What is further shocking and completely contradictory to any of our beliefs is that there is no record (in the nearly 30 years that the UCC has been advocating for these terrorists) that our denomination ever reached out to the victims of FALN violence." Source:...

He ran. After twenty years of sitting with apparent acquiescence in the pews of Trinity United Church of Christ, after doing a slow-motion backslide from the Reverend Jeremiah Wright when the campaign spotlight flickered on, a backslide that eventually ended in an open break, Senator Barack Obama has now officially cut his ties with Trinity UCC altogether. Faced with a choice between bringing change to his own congregation, or simply turning his back, Obama chose the latter. As he would do in Iraq, so he has now done with Trinity. The question now is, will he leave the United Church...

CNN story. Apparently Obama sent a letter to his pastor but that has yet to be released.

Obama Effectively F-Bombed His Own Church with Improper Campaign Speech The Internal Revenue Service has cleared the United Church of Christ of accusations that it violated its tax exempt status by hosting Barack Obama’s “A Politics of Conscience.” The IRS’s letter to the United Church of Christ cites the same points that we did: even though Barack Obama’s “A Politics of Conscience” contained campaign-related content, the UCC did everything possible to prevent the Obama campaign from misusing its resources for electioneering. It would therefore be hardly fair to hold the United Church of Christ accountable for Barack Obama’s decision to...

[Placed in the public domain, copying and widespread circulation are encouraged] Obama’s Sword of Damocles: October Surprise Won’t Surprise UsLooming Scandal Will “Toricelli” Barack Obama After Democratic National ConventionThe Democratic Party’s superdelegates, even those who have endorsed Barack Obama, need to do some serious reconsideration between now and the convention. Should Obama become the nominee, the Democrats are likely to find themselves in the same situation as they did with Robert Toricelli (D-NJ) in 2002. As described by Wikipedia (more information at the Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A20602-2001May12), In the middle of an increasingly competitive race against Republican Doug Forrester, Torricelli decided...

Ministers said they heard in Mr. Wright’s language “the same kind of passion and hyperbole as the Hebrew prophets,” said the Rev. Richard Wagoner of Union Congregational Church, a United Church of Christ church in St. Louis Park, Minn. Clergy members have cited the prophet Amos, who cursed all the nations, saving his harshest words for his own. But many congregants heard something different, Mr. Wagoner said, and were angry about Mr. Wright’s sermons. After his speech at the National Press Club, more frustration surfaced. “Many in our congregation are resonating with Obama’s talk of raising the discourse and that...

N.B. bold red-letter emphasis is mine. The original article's emphasis is making the case that Barack Obama is a Muslim. My emphasis is that Rev. Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ claims to have "many Muslim members." --Dajjal http://www.sonsofapesandpigs.org/2008/02/press-release-america-is-being.html Press Release: America is being fooled by Barak Hussein Obama!! [posted by] ibn Misr on February 15, 2008 We ask for your immediate attention, and viral dissemination of this news. America is being fooled by Barak Hussein Obama!! "YES, MUSLIMS ARE MEMBERS IN OUR CHURCH." "WE HAVE MANY MEMBERS IN OUR CHURCH WHO ARE MUSLIMS." I am Usama K. Dakdok,...

We remind our readers that Jeremiah Wright’s accusation that Israel created an “ethnic bomb” to kill Black people and Arabs was first exposed at IsraPundit [http://www.israpundit.com/2008/?p=551]. Now we bring you more fresh revelations of anti-Israel hate speech from Barack Obama’s pastor of 20-plus years. With regard to the following, the United Church of Christ has ties to the Sabeel Ecuminical Liberation Theology Center, which refers to the creation of Israel (NOT the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the creation of Israel) as the Nakba or “catastrophe.” Trumpet Magazine The Israelis have illegally occupied Palestinian territories for almost 40...

Dear Senator Obama: Our common denomination, the United Church of Christ, has a suddenly serious legal and financial problem with the Internal Revenue Service. You, personally, are the cause of this problem. Candidly? I think you owe it to those of us who are your fellow congregants to help repair the damage that you have done. ...UNSURPRISINGLY, ALL OF THIS resulted in a complaint being filed with the IRS following your presentation. In addition to your speech and the stories featured by the UCC's own website, the complaint cites numerous media accounts describing your appearance as a campaign event. This...

In addition to widening revelations about racist and/or anti-Semitic hate speech not only from his pastor, his associates like Al Sharpton, and even bloggers at his official campaign Web site, there are very credible allegations that he misused the tax exempt resources of the United Church of Christ to promote his candidacy: a malicious and self-serving action that may put his own church’s tax-exempt status in jeopardy. The story centers on "Obama’s General Synod speech prompts IRS to investigate UCC’s tax-exempt status," which is posted at the UCC’s own Web site. [http://www.ucc.org/news/obama-speech-in-2007-prompts-1.html] The Internal Revenue Service has notified the United...

Sen. Barack Obama’s candidacy for the presidency has produced negative and often inaccurate publicity about the United Church of Christ, the president of the 1.2-million member denomination said in Lincoln on Saturday. The Rev. John H. Thomas acknowledged that controversy over allegedly anti-American comments by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has placed UCC leaders in the center of a media firestorm. Wright retired in February as pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, where Obama is a member. In addition, many of Obama’s opponents have criticized the UCC for its support of gay marriage and falsely characterized the denomination...

Several U.S. mainline Protestant denominations are about to face their latest showdowns on one of the most vexing issues since slavery: whether to break from biblical morality as traditionally understood to allow clergy with homosexual partners and to sanction blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples. "Mainline" groups (predominantly white, with early American roots, and affiliated with the National Council of Churches) contain vocal, well-organized liberal and evangelical combatants. The resulting dispute "certainly has taken a big toll," says Jack Haberer of Presbyterian Outlook, an independent magazine that airs varied views. "For some, it's the total compromise of all things moral. For...

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...

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...

IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING OBAMA'S appearance, Lynn was quick to issue a pass for his own church, saying neither Obama nor the UCC had "run afoul of federal tax law."

The Christian Century Magazine News March 25, 2008 IRS probes appearance by Obama at UCC convention The Internal Revenue Service has notified the United Church of Christ that it has opened an investigation into possible "political activities" connected with Senator Barack Obama's speech at the denomination's national convention last year. UCC president John H. Thomas termed the investigation "disturbing," but said that church officials took great care to see that Obama's appearance at the UCC General Synod meeting last June in Hartford, Connecticut, "met appropriate legal and moral standards." Engaging in partisan political acts can endanger a church body's tax-exempt...

Editor’s note: CNN Contributor Roland Martin has listened to several of the sermons of Rev. Jeremiah Wright from Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Portions of the sermons have been excerpted in recent stories. Martin says listening to the full sermons help put the excerpts in context. I just finished listening to the nearly 40-minute sermon Rev. Jeremiah Wright gave on April 13, 2003, titled, “Confusing God and Government.”

. (AP) Senator Barack Obama has told members of his denomination that some conservative Christian leaders have exploited and politicized religion to sow division. In a 30-minute speech before the national meeting of the United Church of Christ, which supports gay marriage, the Democratic presidential candidate said, "Faith got hijacked, partly because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, all too eager to exploit what divides us." Obama said, "They've told Evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion...

Barack Obama belongs to an unabashedly Black African-centered church. Its teachings focus on a "black value" system. It has knowledgeable Americans questioning how Obama's church (Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ) and its pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Jr. influence the man who wants to be President of the United States. Why couldn't Obama have chosen to be a Methodist, a Pentecostal or a Lutheran? What drew him to a church that many find questionable? Many Americans attend churches their parents attended. Others choose denominations where they are comfortable with the teachings. As a whole, the United Church of Christ...