Obama’s pastor matters *UPDATED*
Bookworm on Mar 15 2008 at 9:41 am | Filed under: Barack Obama, Religion
I love the Anchoress’ blog, which I think is amazingly well-written, intelligent, humorous, humane and full of insight. I therefore find myself in the peculiar position of disagreeing with her twice in as many days.
The post at issue is one the Anchoress wrote in the wake of the “aha!” journalism that suddenly sprang up when Obama went public and disassociated himself from Jeremiah Wright’s more inflammatory views. Many, myself included (and I’ll explain why below), found Obama’s sudden repudiation of Wright, a repudiation made only when negative information about Wright jumped from the blogs to the MSM, disingenuous at best and suspect at most.
The Anchoress, however, is willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt, believing that it is irresponsible for conservatives to tie him too closely to his pastor. The trigger for her position in this matter was a Sean Hannity radio blast expressing, strongly, doubt in Obama’s sudden insight into the quality of the man he called his spiritual mentor:
I was in the car today and flipped on Sean Hannity and heard him really carrying on, saying that because Obama “sat in those pews for 20 years,” even if he repudiated Wright it would not be “credible.”
That’s baloney, and as a Catholic, Hannity should know better. We Catholics have more than spent our fair share of time listening to priests with whom we disagree. I don’t know how it is with Protestants - maybe their relationships with their pastors are different from ours (I do have a few Protestant friends whose families seem to shift churches whenever a pastor doesn’t 100% reflect their feelings and opinions) - but as someone who has been sitting in a particular pew for over 20 years, I know that a church is more than a pastor; it’s a community. We can say, “well, this priest or preacher doesn’t agree with me all the way - or even “I am ashamed of this priest” - but the community is my home, I love the people and programs and the worship here, so I stay.”
Is Hannity suggesting that a politician must review a pastor’s sermons each week and run around denouncing and deserting those preachers who might cause him a little bit of political heat? Wouldn’t that be both extreme behavior and a bit dis-crediting?
I think all the “denouncing” and “demanding that denouncements be made” and “denouncing whoever doesn’t denounce” and “disbelieving the denouncing” is beyond absurdist theater - it is an intellectual wasteland of expedient “gotcha-ism” that is utterly shredding our political process.
As it happens, I agree very strongly with a lot of the ultimate issues the Anchoress makes on her way to explaining why she is willing to give the benefit of the doubt to Obama’s statements about Wright: I agree that religious leaders say foolish things (don’t we all?) and that you can’t blame every parishioner for the silly utterances of his pastor. I agree that the different denominations aren’t always too fond of each other and that they say recklessly inflammatory things. I agree that some religious leaders, searching for meaning amidst the ruins of 9/11, made hurtful “Act of God” statements that most (all?) instantly recanted. I believe absolutely that a person’s doctrinal beliefs should never be considered a part of an American election. I’ve therefore reacted strongly to those trying to make something bad of Obama’s Muslim upbringing (and he was only 9, for goodness sake!). I also agree with her that dragging religion through the political process is a terrible precedent in American politics. To my mind, it risks creating a religious test for political candidacy, something to which the Founder’s were adamantly opposed.
However, despite strongly agreeing with each of the Anchoress’ broad, general principles, when it comes down to the specifics — Obama’s attempt to run away from Jeremiah Wright — I absolutely do not accept his disingenuous repudiation of the man who is both his pastor and his campaign adviser. As the MSM finally figured out, Wright has been blathering on in this horrible way for years, if not decades. Although he invokes Jesus’ name with mindless frequency, his are not doctrinal pronouncements — instead, they are left wing rants about America the evil and the evil white people who inhabit her. His remark after 9/11 was not a fire and brimstone religious statement about God’s wrath for immoral living, a la Sodom and Gomorrah (which is the way in which Jerry Falwell meant it), it was a pure left wing statement about an imperialist white America getting righteously hurt by those whom she oppressed. In this way, it was in keeping with Ward Churchill’s virtually similar statement, and Michael Moore’s similarly meant statements.
And about the fact that Wright has been preaching this stuff for years: You’ll notice that Obama never says he didn’t know about it. He just says he didn’t hear it personally. That’s lawyer talk. It means that he knew exactly what was going on but that, either because it suited him for pragmatic or ideological purposes, he did and said nothing. (American Thinker deconstructs Obama’s evasive language in this regard.)
Obama’s careful language notwithstanding, the undisputed facts are pretty telling: Obama got married in that church, he raised his children in that church and, for more than 20 years, he kept a tight relationship with this minister. Those who know him know that Jeremiah Wright shaped his beliefs, apparently from top to bottom. In other words, perhaps to his credit, Obama was not simply a Sunday morning Christian but, instead, developed a tight, intellectual relationship with this pastor, as well as with his church.
As a letter to the editor at American Thinker points out, when people have such a close relationship with the church, a relationship spanning decades, it’s simply not believable that they don’t believe and accept most of what the church offers. Here, Obama has been at great pains throughout his campaign (perhaps to escape the slur of being a Muslim) to inform people that the church is an important part of his and his family’s lives. He’s said that he’s not just there to decorate the pews, and this statement gains credibility precisely because he is so close to Wright.
Given these facts, the letter to the editor I mentioned above draws the correct conclusion:
Barack Obama either agreed with what was preached from the Trinity pulpit, or he tuned it out and stayed around pretending to for political reasons. To say he stayed for 20 years but doesn’t agree with Wright’s preaching is incredible denial. It’d be like a man buying White Sox season tickets for 20 years, attending the games, and saying he’s not a fan.
I freely admit to the fact that I’ve disliked Obama from the get-go. Indeed, to my knowledge, mine is the first place ever to liken him to Chance the Gardener in Being There, a comparison I made more than a year ago, but that is being used more and more now. I think he’s an empty suit in terms of experience and ability, and I loath his political positions. That he’s chosen to be disingenuous to the point of dishonesty when it comes to his manifest knowledge about his pastor’s positions, and his silent complicity in those inflammatory positions, is just one more reason for me not to like the man.
So, while I think the Anchoress is completely correct that it is dangerous to drag religious doctrine into the political realm, I don’t think that argument applies to what’s going on here. Obama’s pastor has been caught time and time and time again making political, not doctrinal statements, in which he’s shrieked and shouted about evil white men and the evil American government, and in which he’s praised America’s enemies for making acts of war against this country. When the evidence of Wright’s statements became to visible to ignore, Obama engaged in lawyerly deceptions about his relationship to the man and suddenly disavowed the man’s sentiments — even though he must have known about them before and never either spoke up against them or disassociated himself from them. This isn’t about religion, it’s about politics, and I’d like to end on a dignified note by saying to Obama “Liar, liar, pants on fire!”
UPDATE: Peggy Shapiro offers an interesting and disturbing insight on Obama’s silence regarding Wright’s political statements.
UPDATE II: For the political drive behind Obama’s/Wright’s brand of Christianity, check out this Power Line post.
UPDATE III: And, as always, Mark Steyn sounds the right note.
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12 Responses to “Obama’s pastor matters *UPDATED*”
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The important issue to me is not so much ‘What Obama knew; and when he knew it’. He belonged to that church for his own reasons. As a suspicious and cynical observer I might think the reasons were political; e.g., he needed the association to establish himself in Southside Chicago. I know that view does not fully explain why he donated over $20,000 to the church within the past couple of years. So, I acknowledge that there must have been a more profound reason for his continued association.
To me the important question was one of how he would handle this problem once it became inescapable. So, has he come out and looked the American people in the eye (so to speak) and made a statement along the lines of:
” Of course, I knew that Pastor Wright was indulging in hate speech. I knew that many of his sermons contained racist language of the most despicable nature. I knew that the effect of his preaching was to foster racial division among his listeners. I knew that he reflexively, and falsely, blames (white) America for every problem–even in those instances where American actions were demonstrably the solution, rather than the cause of the problem. I cringed at the sort of statement that has been publicized. Nevertheless, I continued my close affiliation with Pastor Wright for the following reasons. . .
I leave it to the voter to determine whether my reasons were justified.”
Well, the Senator has not done that. Many rational people will see his response as that of the typical, rather slippery, politician.
Of course his disciples will rationalize and defend. They will rally around him and blame those who dare to question this association.
As a Catholic, I will point out that no one generally knows what the priest taking the service thinks in the Catholic Church - based on the service. He has very little opportunity to expound. He isn’t invited to have an opinion. He is doing the job, saying the mass and reading the gospel prescribed for that particular Sunday, and there isn’t much space for individual input. You’ll find out what he thinks when you’re outside those pews and talking with him privately - not, for the most part, while he’s at the pulpit.
The Catholic Mass is a religious observance, and that’s where it mostly stays. The Catholic Church is not a democracy, and when it’s the second Sunday after Pentecost, the gospel verse prescribed for that occasion will be read, and it will form the basis of the sermon, and no one cares if the priest might feel like talking about something else: he isn’t going to. I already know, in fact, what gospel will be read, and what the subject of the sermon will be for every Sunday for the rest of my life. So does the Anchoress.
That is one gigantic difference between Hannity’s (and really any other Catholic’s) concept of “church,” and most other religions - and I’m very surprised the she doesn’t know it. We devote the year to tracing Christ’s life, and as the details of that haven’t changed in 2,000 years, there’s very little deviation.
There is also a hierarchy in the Catholic Church, far more so than there seems to be in many other churches. A Catholic priest would engage in sedition, treason and race-baiting about twice; and then he’d be called in for a fairly unpleasant interview with the bishop. There is a lot of accountability for what comes out your mouth within Catholicism. The Catholic priest, unlike what seems to be the case with many others, is accountable. To whom (and in what church, by the way) is “Reverend” Al Sharpton - just to take the obvious example - accountable? Damned if I know.
It’s a lot harder to say, to take the Anchoress’ example, that you disagree with a certain priest in the Catholic Church, because unless you go out of your way to find it out, you generally won’t really know what any particular priest thinks. You certainly won’t find out during a Mass. He says the Mass by rote, not a word changes; and the only personal input will be in the sermon. The subject of the sermon will be, as noted, known to everyone beforehand, and the only thing that may mark a particular priest out as one with whom you might find something in common - or not - will be his choice of metaphors, similes, and his imagery. One might be a much better speaker than another. One might introduce anecdotes from his old mother’s life back in Ireland to illustrate a point. But very few of them tell you, at any time, what to think of your country, just to take the apposite example. It doesn’t come up much.
I agree with Hannity. If Obama sat there with his thumb up his fundament for twenty years and listened to the same guy, week after week after week (also a rarity within Catholicism, you’re often hearing someone different) and it never occurred to him that a fair piece of this stuff was pretty foul, then he has some explaining to do, and what he’s had to say so far won’t do it. If this country made Mitt Romney explain the Mormon church and his relationship thereto, then that’s the absolute LEAST that should be expected - in fact, demanded - from Obama; who has a hell of a lot more to explain than Romney did.
Martin Luther’s reformation of the Church, splitting off into Lutheranism, was always more populist based than the Catholic Church. The Protestant faith, thus, evolved accordingly.
I can’t accept that Obama could have a close both pastoral and inspirational relationship with this church and this pastor for 20 years and not be apprised of his pastor’s vociferous sermons such as have been widely seen on the internet. His continued relationship with Rev Wright, making him part of his Presidential campaign, must be interpreted as as least tacit endorsement of the gospel of God Damn America the Rev promulgated. Like BW, I put no credence in Obama’s Teflon-coated, lawyerly statement repudiating those inflammatory, demagogic pronouncements and professing that he never heard such talk from Wright. Doesn’t cut it. I suppose too Obama was never fully informed re Tony Rezko’s legal problems and dubious reputation, nor was he apprised of Bill Ayres and Bernadette Dohrn’s violent radical past when he was building bridges to the south Chicago intelligentsia that bolstered his political career (”Well, they like never actually talked about blowing up the Pentagon in my presence.”) Either Obama is being disingenuous or weaselly, like any politician, which rubs the luster from his star-kissed agent of change patina, or he is too naive and uninformed to qualify for higher office.
Victor Davis Hanson says it better than I could ever endeavor:
Given Obama’s past sanctimonious dismissal of the Christian right (“The so-called leaders of the Christian right, who’ve been all too eager to exploit what divides us.”), he now is in danger of not just playing the hypocrite, but the fool as well. Referring to Wright as a “respectable biblical scholar” et al, is laughable—given that almost everything Wright seems to assert, whether about the Roman Empire or the origins of AIDs, is buffoonery.
The notion that Obama never heard any such nonsense is, well, nonsense—given that he frequented the church for 20 years, laughed off some of the Wright hyperbole in his own memoirs, and has a wife whose invective about America as not worthy of her pride, mean, etc dovetails with his pastor’s sermons. Moreover, his own past interviews belie his most recent assertion that Wright was merely his pastor, rather than a political advisor. And we learn that during those tough years in which Michelle Obama was whining about having to budget money to pay back those government-guaranteed student loans to Harvard Law School, the Obamas were giving thousands of dollars each year to subsidize the Wright hatred. Messiahs are supposed to tell the whole truth, and nothing but the truth—and all the time.
This is hope and change and the new transparency?
Read the whole thing: http://pajamasmedia.com/xpress/victordavishanson/2008/03/15/obamagate.php
I cannot speak for Obama and his congregation, but the congregation of my grandmother’s small Protestant fundamentalist church definitely did not ignore or pass over any disagreements it had with what the pastor said. One pastor found himself looking for a new flock because in giving out news about a church member who was expecting to give birth, the pastor said “she hasn’t dominoed yet.” While this was an acceptable term used when discussing calving in this rural community, the congregation did not consider the term appropriate for people. However, this was not the only time the minister had misspoke.
Granted, I am not a churchgoer, but if I heard a minister say what the Reverend Wright said after 9/11, I would have walked out on the spot, and thrown a tomato had I one in my pocket. That Obama stayed with the crazy uncle discredits him to me.
It is one thing to have a crazy uncle, and it is another thing to give that crazy uncle in excess of $20,000. Not to mention other involvement.
I doubt that all this will change anyone’s minds. True believers in Obama- ironically many of whom do not attend church and are dead set against “right wing” Christian churches- will pass this off. On the other side, most of the people opining here had already decided against Obama, for various reasons.
Via Instapundit, here is another take on Obama. Obama as the Man Without a Country, without a real home, the perpetual outsider, who in order to fit in, takes on the beliefs of the group he happens to be with. Its take on the church is that Barak was simply going along with his wife, who more than her husband, has shown the same angry streak that the Reverend Wright has shown. At the same time, that does not reflect any better on the good Senator’s ability to stand up for himself and make decisions.
http://www.instapunk.com/archives/InstaPunkArchiveV2.php3?a=1298
A pastor worthy of the name needs to follow the same path that Jesus did when he was tempted in the wilderness to find a short cut to the cross. He rejected Satan’s bid for him to be a social messiah, a magical messiah, and a political messiah. It is obvious that Jerimiah Wright has chosen the last option in his own religious calling and rightly named it liberation theology, a blend of politics and secular power and not the way of the cross.
As Oldflyer said above, Obama’s typical and slippery statements concerning his pastor will do him a huge amount of harm.
How much easier for Obama had he said at any point a few years ago: “I admire and respect my pastor. For me, his greatest strengths lie in … [a list of reasons]. Now, that doesn’t mean I believe him to be perfect. I have heard that he’s given sermons that contain language that I completely disagree with and that many people would find completely racist. I admire the man for other reasons.”
He’d still have some explaining to do, but he is behind the eight ball right now instead. He’s got five weeks to repair his situation before Pennsylvania, or perhaps five weeks to see his campaign collapse. It will be interesting to follow.
Correction - I meant to say that liberation theology is a blend of religion and secular power.
I agree with you on Steyn …. but the one thing that bothers me about his work is the “acb”, instead of “acb,” when he is working without an American editor.
Just a farthing……about the only bad thing about his writing.
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/racist-jeremiah-wright-on-white-supremacy
has up the full quotes of the Reverse Racism Reverend.
I found it useful since it gives you an insight on how such a person thinks. Not just in the broad particulars but in the specifics as well. The various propaganda lines he uses to inform people of why his position is right. Often this only reinforces people’s preconceptions of belonging to an underclass. However, what people perceive and what is reality are two different things. People can perceive that they had it worse than the whites and Native Americans, but such things are vulnerable to propaganda and manipulation as well as simple ignorance.
A rich person can perceive that he needs more wealth because everyone else around is just so much richer. Thus relative perceptions create an illusionary reality that has no basis in objective reality. It has no basis in whether he really needs as much money as he wants just because he sees other people having more than he does. This applies the same to Palestinians and the black community in America, though not in Africa since they are not nearly as spoiled as those in America. Such folks see the system as being against them because they have experienced personal problems and hurdles. Their perception of how bad their situation is, however, is often a simple manufacture of lies and illusion. Created by others to gain political power by manipulating the grievances, real or fake, of a segment of the minority population of America.
Often humans are only happy because they are ignorant of anyone else having more or being happier. A barbarian that knows nothing better than starvation and rule by might, will never feel dissatisfied with his way of life because he has known nothing better. For the Amerindians, that natural inclination got a boost due to the fact that those that tried to do things the white man’s way, suffered the inevitable disadvantage of unethical traders, language barriers, job skill deficiencies, and various many other things that occur when primitive cultures meet more advanced ones.
Even though the lot of blacks in America is better than it ever has been, it doesn’t seem that way to blacks. And pastors and reverends are the folks they turn to explain this and who caused it.
When Democrats were criticizing religion as being the cause of totalitarian/theocratic policies, they should have cleaned up their own house first before hunting and burning their first witch.
One of the reasons nations or people develop inferiority complexes is because they are inferior. Some people go into productive lines of work, like the military or higher education, as a way to escape the inferior environment they had been born in for something better and superior. Others, however, sink lower on the totem pole of life, weighed down not just by the environmental chains they were born in but by the mental chains they had adopted.
Black Africans do not control the economic systems, the military or have control over the resources (the diamonds, the oil and the natural resources that were stolen by the whites who took over South Africa), and until that changes, white supremacy will still be in charge!
White supremacy is not a legal problem. It is a spiritual problem, a psychological problem and a moral problem.
White supremacy controls the economic system in America, the healthcare system in America and the educational system in America. Hurricane Katrina has pulled the blinders off of all Americans and shown us what white supremacy means at its ugly core and what it has done to the fabric of these “still-yet-to-be-United States”
A couple of issues that arose in the Amerindian interaction with white settlers was the concern over just whose culture and way of life was superior. The Amerindians obviously thought their way of life was superior, because they had never known anything else and thus wouldn’t have been good at farming even if they did try it. Which they did, of course, but by then it was far too late to come to a peaceful settlement with the white man. The Amerindians had somewhat near to 3 wars to come to peace with the white man. The Civil War, War of 1812, French and Indian War, and the Revolutionary War. If not more. What were the superior Amerindian way of life doing at that time? Killing each other in tribal disputes about honor and courage.
You see, that’s why their culture was de facto inferior. It was still tribal, meaning individuals were worried far more about themselves and their immediate goals in life than about uniting under a common political banner for the common good. Tribal folks are notoriously attached to their blood and their land. Whereas advanced cultures hold more stake in economic status and acquiring skills as the definition of who you are in society. The wealth of advanced cultures were in the people, their knowledge, and skills. The wealth of tribal cultures are in the land and the people on that people, forever bound to that land. An American is not bound to his ancestral lands or whichever state he was born in. He takes his skills with him, as he moves or buys into new homes. In that sense, Americans are amazingly like Nomads with their superior farming and technological abilities, whereas the Amerindians, stuck to the nomadic life of hunting and gathering, had more of the restrictions of classic farmers. Think about it, nomads don’t need to be on a specific piece of land at a time, they just follow their source of living. Americans do this by following the source of jobs and don’t need to be particularly in a certain state, or even country now a days, to do business and work. Back in the day, it was Gold Rushes. That was a nomadic horde if ever there was one. The Amerindian, with their need for buffalo herds and what not, had to go where the buffalo went. That meant they were attached to a specific piece of land, far more than Americans depending upon irrigation, technology, and trade ever were.
The analogy is not perfect, but it does the job. It explains how come the bringing in of white settler life to the Amerindians destroyed their way of life. Without the buffalo herds, they had to adopt the white man’s ways. They saw the white man’s ways as inferior, and thus starved. It was never as simple as that, of course, but in the end it might as well have been given the historic reality.
To apply this to African or black notions of equality, a couple of steps should be taken. First, if white supremacy was false, and they do believe it is false, then the only reason for how whites could control so many industries and technology is if the whites were cheating and oppressing the blacks so that the blacks could never become equal to whites. Their sign of “equality” is in terms of the basic Marxian thought patterns of equality of property and equal distribution of everything. The opposite of liberty and prospeirty.
It never actually enters their head that whites control so much stuff cause they got the superior culture and skills required for those industries and businesses. That black culture is tribal in nature, just like Amerindian culture was and is, and when blacks promote black tribal culture, blacks regress further in terms of economic progress just like what happened to the Amerindians. The idea that your oppressors could be superior in any way or shape of form that might justify their oppression of you, is not exactly a popular thought amongst the disenfranchised or the poor. It undercuts their ability to justify stealing and mayhem in order to rectify the inequal situation, in a way.
This is one of those nasty cultural artifacts always found in human history. When an economically poor culture based upon a tribal system of government acquires a superiority complex because of their inferiority complex, what you get is the minority focusing in on promoting their ancestral “black history” as a way to correct problems in the now. You tend to notice this in Islam, with their attempt to resurrect the Caliphate and “the good old days” of their ancestors. You would also notice this if you studied the Ghost Dance of the Sioux or even the original circle dance developed by a Paiute.
In almost all instances, such actions are self-destructive. They make people think about the past and long for the past, instead of working in the present for a better future. I’m not even sure the question of “how would studying black history and Islamic conquests of Africa help blacks today” ever really came up in their minds.
The term “white supremacy,” however, is much more accurate. White supremacy undergirds the thought, the order that they might become more rounded and fully productive citizens in this culture and in this country. What we need to do, however, is go beyond training and educate our children!
White supremacy would be the better term for what these folks are talking, instead of racism. They, the black and white supports of such reverse racism advocates, are not really against racism. They do not really believe that one should be judged upon their character and individual actions instead of their skin color. They think racism, if it serves their goals, is a suitable means to their end. And a justified means at that. It is not only an ethical difference they have with us, but a metaphysical one as well. Not only do I think it is unethical to use racism to further their cause, but I don’t think it would even work if they could do what they wanted to do.
Even if they took all the land and wealth from the whites, would this necessarily make blacks any more wealthy, successful, and superior to whites and their culture? If you look at Palestine, the answer is no. If you look at Russia’s Revolution of 1917, the answer is also no. And if you look at Amerindian attempts to raid and attrit white settlers on the frontiers, the answer is also “no, it did not make an iota of difference in the power balance between the white man and the red man”. It just got a lot of men and women killed, and children sold into slavery in Amerindian markets.
See, that’s another thing. When a people are taught that they are inferior because of the oppression of some other “white supremacist” organization, they start to think of themselves as special. In that their inferiority is actually a mark of their superiority. After all, would whites go to the bother of all this work to oppress blacks if whites didn’t secretly fear the potential power of blacks unleashed? Doesn’t the economic lockdown of blacks by whites, automatically mean that blacks are superior to whites and whites know it?
That’s how superiority complexes can develop from inferiority complexes. And it is also why they are totally surprised to know that their ancestors were often owned by Red Men, not just White Men. The cognitive dissonance just blows their mind. All their life they were taught that being oppressed confered a certain nobility upon you. A certain superiority of ethics and righteousness, if not might. So they empathize with how whites treated Amerindians, saying “they had it as bad we did”. And yes, that’s a direct quote in a conversation I was part of. They empathize, yes, which is why they get surprised to know that such people owned slaves like the white man. And when the white men fought the Civil War to free slaves, the red man still kept them. That’s the difference between an advanced culture and a primitive culture. The advanced culture, for all its problems, can change things for the better while the primitive culture just stays stuck in hell forever.
So the cultural template they learned young that being oppressed confers an automatic nobility smacks up against the hard wall of reality that Amerindians, regardless of how they were oppressed, oppressed the black peeps too. Most people don’t know that whilte many Cherokees died on the Trail of Tears, innumerable slaves died as well, cause the Cherokees owned slaves. But their names, the names of those slaves, aren’t on the record, you see, because that would be politically inconvenient.
In the end, it’s about who understands human nature better.
If you know that being a slave confers no automatic virtue or vice upon you, then you are one step closer to not being fooled by Jesse Jackson.