More Hate at Trinity from another friend of Obama

[4Reaganomics]

Obama's new pastor, Otis Moss, seems to thank and welcome the message of Michael Pfleger

Even more disturbing is the crowd support, these are Obama's fellow congregation members


For those of you who will say "sound clips" "not the whole message", here is a lengthy video that was not dug up and pieced together over 20 years

it happened on Sunday


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[NortheastCynic]

Cue Obama supporters claiming this is irrelevant.

Listen, if there were only isolated incidences of Obama's friends of questionable character, that would be one thing, but dear God he's got a lot of associates who are: tactless, stupid, say racist things or a hellish combination of the three. That's a fact.

-NC

[preservanation]

NC is right...same with his contradictions and misstatements.

This guy is dying from "a thousand cuts".

[micfranklin]

Wouldn't say it's irrelevant but am I the only one who thinks its pretty conveinent that only the controversial sermons at this church get taped?

[jafar00]

A lot of posing going on there so I didn't understand what exactly went on. What was that about white supremacy? The guy in the background losing it hysterically was entertaining though :)

Wouldn't say it's irrelevant but am I the only one who thinks its pretty conveinent that only the controversial sermons at this church get taped?

That was a church?

[AlanC]

Obama must not have been there Sunday, since they don't say those things when he is.


And Mic, have you ever thought that maybe any that are taped sound like that because they all sound like that? Just a thought.

[Wndrtch]

A lot of posing going on there so I didn't understand what exactly went on. What was that about white supremacy? The guy in the background losing it hysterically was entertaining though :)



That was a church?

See!

We Christians have or lunatics too!

...but the only thing they pass around is the basket, not C-4.

[micfranklin]

And Mic, have you ever thought that maybe any that are taped sound like that because they all sound like that? Just a thought.

No. Otherwise there'd be one every week, which means we'd have like 20 sermons already.

[AlanC]

No. Otherwise there'd be one every week, which means we'd have like 20 sermons already.


Only if someone went to the church and taped them ... or spent the money to buy a cd every week. Not something I would do with a Church that I completely disagree with.

But based on the introduction, I would say its a fairly common practice of this particular church. They all sure seemed comfortable enough with it.

[Saigio]

Ok. I watched it. He seems to dislike white supremacy and the idea of white entitlement. I don't like white supremacists or supremacists of any group either. I don't like it when people act as if they should get something based on the color of their skin, either. What are we supposed to get worked up over from that video? Sure, the guy visiting was boisterous and loud and exaggerates. That's what preachers do, though. And why are people assuming that a person has to agree with everything a persons preacher thinks, or like everyone their preacher does?

[micfranklin]

Only if someone went to the church and taped them ... or spent the money to buy a cd every week. Not something I would do with a Church that I completely disagree with.

You don't agree with the fact that white supremacy is bad and that governments can and do fail?

But based on the introduction, I would say its a fairly common practice of this particular church. They all sure seemed comfortable enough with it.

Like I said there'd be one controversial sermon a week if it was that common.

[AlanC]

You don't agree with the fact that white supremacy is bad and that governments can and do fail?



Like I said there'd be one controversial sermon a week if it was that common.


I don't agree that every white person is a white supremicist. I don't agree that any white person needs to give up their savings and investments for any reason relating to the past or on race. I don't believe Hillary was crying because it was a black man taking her rightful place.

If anyone began discussing politics, especially politics in that fashion, I would never be in that church again. And I mean any politics, including white supremicist preachers.

This audience appears to have no problem with it. I did not see any reactions of shock or dismay. That alone indicates they are used to hearing it.

How do you know there aren't? Just because they don't end up on Youtube? That is not a validation of existence you know.

[micfranklin]

No one except church members can really say that church talks about that every Sunday.

[apdst]

You think it happens alot now? Wait until Obama gets elected. We're going to see alotta notions of entitlement.

[Alonzo]

Whatever happened to priests talking about God, the bible and biblical stories in Church? That's what the Church's around here do, no politics or preaching about pop culture.

I don't agree that every white person is a white supremicist. I don't agree that any white person needs to give up their savings and investments for any reason relating to the past or on race.

The families that I've inherited things from are Irish on one side and Polish on the other. Not sure when the Irish part got here, though I'd guess late 19th early 20th century. I don't really know the origins of my fathers parents, but I think they were u.s. born and I sort of remember him once telling me either his grandparents were born in Ireland or he didn't know when his family came over, I think it was one or the other. The Polish part got here somewhere between 1900-1920 (my great grandmother was from Poland, and her children were all born in the 1920's). Others married into our family (such as my Grandfather who was German), generally by moving away from theirs. So on the one hand I had Irish, who had to deal with all the "Irish need not apply" signs in the Boston area, and Polish, who were just poor immigrants in a Italian-Polish area filled with Mafia members (one of whom even walked my mother to her elementary school). Ya, they really stole from black people. :rolleyes:

[AlanC]

Whatever happened to priests talking about God, the bible and biblical stories in Church? That's what the Church's around here do, no politics or preaching about pop culture.

You mean in the other 99% of America? It hasn't changed.

[4Reaganomics]

My dad was an immigrant from Easter Europe during WWII when he was 3 years old. He had four brothers and their family had nothing when they got here.

Does this mean that they are responsible for slavery? Am I responsible for slavery because I am now a beneficiary? This guys logic makes no sense

He acts as if everyone white is a blue blood descendent who has had family in country clubs for generations

Some of us are born with very little and are in no way beneficiaries of slavery. Too paste this hate smear against white people and associate them as profiteers off of slavery is wrong


and Obama's church is wrong for hooting and screaming in support of such an absurd voice of opinion


this man really goes to church there, unbelievable

[NortheastCynic]

Ok. I watched it. He seems to dislike white supremacy and the idea of white entitlement. I don't like white supremacists or supremacists of any group either. I don't like it when people act as if they should get something based on the color of their skin, either. What are we supposed to get worked up over from that video? Sure, the guy visiting was boisterous and loud and exaggerates. That's what preachers do, though. And why are people assuming that a person has to agree with everything a persons preacher thinks, or like everyone their preacher does?
No, Saigio. He claims that Hillary Clinton believes she is entitled to the nomination because she's white. He's calling Hillary Clinton racist [boarding on supremacist]. It's absurd. The reason why this is concerning is because it's a part of a pattern of behavior. Obama has a history of surrounding himself with extremists, terrorists and radicals. That's just a sad fact.

-NC

[4Reaganomics]

He basically also said everyone white in 2008 is responsible for slavery.

[Trish]

A further article regarding the good Father and his connection with Senator Obama.


Priest who mocked Clinton again draws spotlight

May 30, 7:44 PM (ET)

By DON BABWIN


CHICAGO (AP) - He's a white priest at a largely black church. He's held hands with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. He's been arrested dozens of times and battled anyone he thinks has wronged his parish - from gun dealers to a local Catholic sports league. Now the Rev. Michael Pfleger is something else: the latest thorn in the side of presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Racially charged comments Pfleger made last week mocking Obama rival Hillary Rodham Clinton - as a guest at Obama's church, no less - triggered a quick response from Obama, who wants nothing to do with a racial firestorm like the one generated by his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
While Pfleger is not nearly as close to Obama as Wright had been, he has donated to the candidate's state Senate and presidential campaigns and sat on a Catholics for Obama committee until a few weeks ago. When Obama was in the Illinois Legislature, he helped land more than $200,000 in state grants for outreach programs run by Pfleger's church.
Obama made it clear he wasn't happy with the comments - in which Pfleger pretended he was Clinton crying over "a black man stealing my show" - and said he was "deeply disappointed in Father Pfleger's divisive, backward-looking rhetoric, which doesn't reflect the country I see or the desire of people across America to come together in common cause."
Pfleger, too, issued an apology, saying he was sorry if his comments offended Clinton or anyone else. He did not return several calls for comment on Friday.
Meanwhile, Cardinal Francis George of the Archdiocese of Chicago issued a press release Friday in which he criticized both Pfleger's involvement in a political campaign and a "personal attack" on Clinton. George said Pfleger has promised not to campaign or even mention any candidate by name.
Wright's comments reverberated in the Democratic primary for weeks and remain a part of the race. Obama broke with Wright, who had been his longtime pastor, after video of his sermons blaming U.S. policies for the Sept. 11 attacks and his calls of "God damn America" became fixtures on the Internet and cable news networks.
The relationship between Obama, a one-time community activist on Chicago's South Side, and the outspoken priest at the activist St. Sabina Church has been a long one.
As a state senator, Obama secured two grants related to Pfleger's church - one for $100,000 to repair The Ark community center at the church in 2000 and the other for $125,000 for computers at the church's employment resource center.
For his part, Pfleger, 59, has donated $1,500 to Obama's campaigns for state office and another $1,500 to his presidential campaign.
Aides say Obama has rarely visited St. Sabina, although he cited Pfleger, along with Wright, as one of his spiritual advisers in a 2004 Chicago Sun-Times story. Pfleger helped Obama's Iowa campaign by taking part in a faith forum.
Pfleger has invited criticism with his words and actions in the past, even before Sunday's fiery sermon at Trinity United Church of Christ.
He has hit the streets, sometimes with busloads of parishioners in tow, to protest Jerry Springer's television show, stores that sell drug paraphernalia and gun violence. He's been arrested for acts of civil disobedience, such as smearing red paint on alcohol and tobacco billboards. Last year, he and the Rev. Jesse Jackson were arrested during a protest of a suburban gun shop; charges were later dropped.
Pfleger's fight to make the community safe is an intensely personal one. He's adopted three children, one of whom was gunned down near the church in 1998.
Pfleger has urged parishioners to pay prostitutes and drug users so they could share their faith with them. He has offered his church as a place where controversial figures can express their views. Farrakhan spoke there, as did the Rev. Al Sharpton.
At times, there has been talk of diocesan officials reassigning Pfleger, but he is immensely popular in his parish and has helped it thrive over the past quarter-century as many other congregations have struggled.
In March, as Wright's inflammatory comments were making national headlines, St. Sabina gave Wright a hero's welcome after Pfleger invited him to give the benediction.
And in early May, Pfleger posted a letter on the parish Web site calling Obama and Wright "two friends who I respect, admire and have a deep love for." He wrote that neither man should be held accountable for the other's words.
"The truth is we need Senator Barack Obama and we need Reverend Jeremiah Wright and, if we are serious about wanting a new America, we cannot afford to throw either one of them under the bus!"
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080530/D910947G1.html

[suedanim]

Obama quits church after long controversy (http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5isOFwdbq0tsqatW6vJpkDRTI1gMgD910T2UO1)

48 minutes ago
ABARDEEN, S.D. (AP) — Barack Obama is resigning a 20 year membership in the Trinity United Church of Christ in the aftermath of inflammatory remarks by former pastor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Obama campaign communications director Robert Gibbs said Obama had submitted a letter of resignation to the church and would discuss his decision in a session with reporters later Saturday.
Comments by Wright have posed an unwanted problem for Obama, front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.

:evil:

[Buck Laser]

Obama quits church after long controversy (http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5isOFwdbq0tsqatW6vJpkDRTI1gMgD910T2UO1)

48 minutes ago
ABARDEEN, S.D. (AP) — Barack Obama is resigning a 20 year membership in the Trinity United Church of Christ in the aftermath of inflammatory remarks by former pastor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Obama campaign communications director Robert Gibbs said Obama had submitted a letter of resignation to the church and would discuss his decision in a session with reporters later Saturday.
Comments by Wright have posed an unwanted problem for Obama, front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.

:evil:

I'm really sorry he found it necessary to do that. It awakens the memories of when I resigned my ministry because I wasn't supposed to spend time as a campus minister with students who opposed the war in Vietnam. I fear that Obama is doing something that he will regret later.

Personally, I find it sad and offensive that right wingers and others who don't understand the Gospel take such pleasure in attacking the people who preach in Trinity United Church of Christ. The preachers who've drawn such hate and disapproval are doing nothing more than calling the church to be faithful.

Sadly, it appears that these critics of Trinity care more about their own political views and their fear of being targeted by people they consider racists than they care about facing head on the issues that we MUST address as a nation. :shame:

[preservanation]

Oh well, then I guess he'll disown his black community and his white Grandmother as well like he said about disowning Wright:

“I can no more disown him [Wright] than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe. These people are a part of me.”

This guy is going to have a tough row to hoe in the coming months.

[dgun]

People should be accountable for their own words and actions. Holding them accountable for what people around them are saying is too much of a burden on anyone.

[preservanation]

ONGOING: Obama expected to speak soon on leaving Trinity Church...

Tune in your rabbit-ears.
This should be good.

[suedanim]

I'm really sorry he found it necessary to do that. It awakens the memories of when I resigned my ministry because I wasn't supposed to spend time as a campus minister with students who opposed the war in Vietnam. I fear that Obama is doing something that he will regret later.

Personally, I find it sad and offensive that right wingers and others who don't understand the Gospel take such pleasure in attacking the people who preach in Trinity United Church of Christ. The preachers who've drawn such hate and disapproval are doing nothing more than calling the church to be faithful.

Sadly, it appears that these critics of Trinity care more about their own political views and their fear of being targeted by people they consider racists than they care about facing head on the issues that we MUST address as a nation. :shame:

Agreed.

Issues like white privilege aka entitlement need to be discussed. Most whites have no clue what is referenced there. It has NOTHING to do with blacks being racist against whites. Just the opposite. I doubt some on this board could handle such a discussion.

The vicious rightwing swarms like killer bees poised to attack any hint of association with anything at all they think they can exploit. It will continue, regardless of the Democratic nominee. Its all they have left to work with now. McCain is a weak, pathetic excuse for a candidate and they know it. This means the only way they can hope to win is to destroy the Democratic nominee personally.

Odd, how the media assists by playing these videos for them isn't it? I don't recall endless looping of Hagee, Parsley, Falwell and others vicious hate spewing sermons. :unreal:

[Buck Laser]

Oh well, then I guess he'll disown his black community and his white Grandmother as well like he said about disowning Wright:

“I can no more disown him [Wright] than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe. These people are a part of me.”

This guy is going to have a tough row to hoe in the coming months.
You know your cynicism is gonna bite you in the ass big time one day real soon now, don't you, preserv?

[AlanC]

The preachers who've drawn such hate and disapproval are doing nothing more than calling the church to be faithful.


Please explain to me how mocking Hillary Clinton for her actions in a political campaign and implying with an unsupported comment that other whites were crying too can even remotely be described as calling the church to be faithful.

[Alonzo]

He should have done this years ago.

Actually, he should have done this 20 years ago.

[Trish]

He should have done this years ago.

Actually, he should have done this 20 years ago.

*gasp* Don't tell me you think Senator Obama's decision was one of political expediency and not an act of conscience!

[AlanC]

Well if the church members scream foul, it is probably a genuine thing. But if they remain silent, it will be because they don't believe he means it either.

[Alonzo]

*gasp* Don't tell me you think Senator Obama's decision was one of political expediency and not an act of conscience!

His break with Wright was political expediency and genuine anger at the way Wright was treating him.

This is just political expediency.

[Trish]

The Senator's reasons for resigning from Trinity:


Obama quits Trinity
By MIKE ALLEN (http://www.politico.com/reporters/MikeAllen.html) & BEN SMITH (http://www.politico.com/reporters/BenSmith.html) | 5/31/08 10:02 PM EST

On the brink of the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama (http://inform.politico.com/results.cfm?subject=Barack+Obama) (Ill.) announced Saturday evening that he had resigned from his controversial Chicago congregation, Trinity United Church of Christ, “with some sadness.”

Obama told reporters he didn't want his "church experience to be a political circus — I think most American people will understand that, and wouldn't want to subject their church to that, either." He said it has been "months" since he has attended Trinity.

At a news conference in Aberdeen, S.D., after the news emerged on the blog of a black journalist in Chicago, Obama said he and his wife, Michelle, had notified the church in a letter Friday that they “were withdrawing as members of Trinity,” in part because of “a cultural and a stylistic gap.”

Obama said he also regrets “all the attention that my campaign has visited on” the church.

“We had reporters grabbing church bulletins and calling up the sick and the shut-in,” he said. “That’s just not how people should have to operate in their church.

Obama said he began contemplating such a move after the "National Press Club episode" in which his former pastor and longtime spiritual mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., made comments that the senator later denounced as offensive.

“We had prayed on it. We had consulted with a number of friends and family members,” Obama said. “Frankly, it’s one that I made with some sadness. Trinity was where I found Jesus Christ, where we were married, where our children were baptized.”

This week, Obama had to distance himself from a guest preacher at Trinity, the Rev. Michael Pfleger, who last Sunday made comments that seemed to accuse Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) of acting “entitled” because she is white.

Obama said he has “tremendous regard” for the church community, but said he could not live with a situation where everything said in the church, including comments by a guest pastor, “will be imputed to me, even if they conflict with my long-held, views, statements and principles.”

The decision, which will momentarily provoke heavy coverage of an issue the campaign would love to forget, represents an effort by Obama to put a nagging impediment behind him as he heads into head-to-head combat with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

Comments by Wright, repeatedly replayed on television, were criticized as anti-American by conservatives and hurt Obama with some of the disaffected Republicans who had been attracted by his historic candidacy.

Obama, who could clinch the nomination as soon as Tuesday, said he hopes to join a new church soon.

“I’m confident we’ll be able to find a church that we’re comfortable with,” he said. “We probably won’t make any firm decision on this until January, when we know what our lives are going to be like.”

“My faith is not contingent on the particular church that I belong to,” he added. “I don’t think I’m going through a religious test.”

The move completes Obama’s slow walk away from a church that began receiving huge scrutiny late in the campaign’s primary season.

Obama has said he was not present for the most controversial sermons, and said he did not know about them until he began running for president.

“Our faith remains strong and I expect that we will find another church home for our family,” Obama said. “We understand that our faith is something that we apply each and every day. We wish only the best for our friends and the wonderful people at Trinity. They’ll be in our thoughts and our prayers.”
Trinity said in a statement: "Though we are saddened by the news, we understand that this is a personal decision. We will continue to lift them in prayer and wish them the best as former members of our Trinity community. As in the prayer for the Ephesians, our entire Trinity family asks that the nation entrust Barack, Michelle, Malia and Natasha to God's care and guidance so that Christ may continue to dwell in their lives, in their hearts and their work. We ask now for God's peace to be with them."
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10724.html

[preservanation]

So, in short he resigned for the good of the church,
and to save money on all the bulletins the press was stealing?....got it.
John McCain is the luckiest Presidential candidate ever.
Obama is a GOP wet-dream.

My guess is that the DNC will be begging to have Hillary back before it's all over.

[Buck Laser]

He should have done this years ago.
Actually, he should have done this 20 years ago.
Actually, Zo, he shouldn't have. Trinity UCC is a church faithful to the Gospel, which includes some pretty harsh judgments on society. Up until the Pfleger affair, the media have cherry picked moments when the pastor's message was one that might stick in the craws of a number of people.

Wright's behavior in his public appearances this spring certainly exacerbated the situation.

I didn't see excerpts of Pfleger's remarks until this morning, and I have to say that I think he went way beyond the bounds of acceptable behavior, acting like a caricature of a black televangelist to the point that his behavior masked whatever truth there might be in his point.

With that in mind, I think Obama's resignation from the Trinity may have been appropriate. On the other hand, I am very glad that at least some of the public are beginning to see that churches are not all the rigid ultraconservative anti-everything dens of self-satisfaction that too many of the conventional TV preachers have made them out to be.

[Alonzo]

Actually, Zo, he shouldn't have. Trinity UCC is a church faithful to the Gospel, which includes some pretty harsh judgments on society. Up until the Pfleger affair, the media have cherry picked moments when the pastor's message was one that might stick in the craws of a number of people.

Buck, I'm not sure what place his rants have in religion. Stirring up crazy conspiracies and prejudice doesn't further a connection between congregations and God.

[suedanim]

Buck, I'm not sure what place his rants have in religion. Stirring up crazy conspiracies and prejudice doesn't further a connection between congregations and God.

Thats your opinion. What works for you and your relationship with God, may not work for others. If one approach worked there wouldn't be so many denominations.

[4Reaganomics]

Actually, Zo, he shouldn't have. Trinity UCC is a church faithful to the Gospel, which includes some pretty harsh judgments on society. Up until the Pfleger affair, the media have cherry picked moments when the pastor's message was one that might stick in the craws of a number of people.

Wright's behavior in his public appearances this spring certainly exacerbated the situation.

I didn't see excerpts of Pfleger's remarks until this morning, and I have to say that I think he went way beyond the bounds of acceptable behavior, acting like a caricature of a black televangelist to the point that his behavior masked whatever truth there might be in his point.

With that in mind, I think Obama's resignation from the Trinity may have been appropriate. On the other hand, I am very glad that at least some of the public are beginning to see that churches are not all the rigid ultraconservative anti-everything dens of self-satisfaction that too many of the conventional TV preachers have made them out to be.


I have heard this assertion that the media had cherry picked Wright's comments many times before. It is my understanding that many of these comments were on a DVD that was produced as symbolic of the church.

With that said, didn't the church choose these comments of Wright to represent them. There were other messages, but if these comments didn't symbolize the church, why put them on a church DVD?

[lily]

I'm really sorry he found it necessary to do that. It awakens the memories of when I resigned my ministry because I wasn't supposed to spend time as a campus minister with students who opposed the war in Vietnam. I fear that Obama is doing something that he will regret later.



I touched on this a bit in the other thread that is here. Buck, in your case, it was a calling.......in Obamas case it was a church, which frankly there are millions out there. How often do you think since he was elected senator that he actually went to Chicago on Sunday to worship? He lives in Washington and well......hasn't even spent that much time there. I'm not a practicing Catholic anymore.....but no matter where we are, my sister does go to church.........and it's any Catholic Church that's close by.

For people to thik that he's still a part of this particualr church is well.....

[Alonzo]

Thats your opinion. What works for you and your relationship with God, may not work for others. If one approach worked there wouldn't be so many denominations.

Some white people find god by being told other races are out to get them, doesn't mean I can't condemn that.