Jim,

First, Obama didn’t attend Colgate, did he? Your story doesn’t really speak to this issue at all, you are, imho, stretching your point till it breaks.

Your statement “When I look at pictures of him where he refuses to cross his heart during the National Anthem while the flag is being raised...” is based on a bit of a hoax that needs clarifying.

Check out this link.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/anthem.asp

I tire of unfair criticisms that have been leveled against Obama, some merely because of his name. I myself believed for some time when I first heard about him that he was muslim, which wasn’t true. We need to stick with the facts.

Gary writes “I am not saying that I agree or disagree with any of Reverend Wright’s statements, but what I am saying is that all that one has to do is open an American History textbook to gain some insight as to where these comments may be derived from.”

Though I am white, I totally respect what you are saying here. Some Christians want to naively believe that once the 60s happened, racism and prejudice went away. Nothing could be further from the truth.

This “pastor,” is obviously a rascist. And most of the black people in America don’t know what it means to be African. I’m pretty sure we have it good here in the USA, with all of our problems. When our country has a higher HIV/Aids rate, than any other country, and famine and civil war have broken out, and the death rate is higher than the birth rate; then someone can play the race card. No intelligent person, white or black, can actually say that Wright is not a rascist. Jesus wasn’t black, he was dark skinned, and he wasn’t killed by white people, he was crucified by people of his own race.

Cognitive dissonance in full effect here.

The hypocrisy is astounding.

Pastor Wright calls out racism and the rich just as the Sermon on the Mount, Obama distances himself from remarks yet Republicans cozy up to religious leaders that lobby for violence....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/obamas-minister-committe_b_91774.html

----

When Senator Obama’s preacher thundered about racism and injustice Obama suffered smear-by-association. But when my late father—Religious Right leader Francis Schaeffer—denounced America and even called for the violent overthrow of the US government, he was invited to lunch with presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush, Sr.

Every Sunday thousands of right wing white preachers (following in my father’s footsteps) rail against America’s sins from tens of thousands of pulpits. They tell us that America is complicit in the “murder of the unborn,” has become “Sodom” by coddling gays, and that our public schools are sinful places full of evolutionists and sex educators hell-bent on corrupting children. They say, as my dad often did, that we are, “under the judgment of God.” They call America evil and warn of immanent destruction. By comparison Obama’s minister’s shouted “controversial” comments were mild. All he said was that God should damn America for our racism and violence and that no one had ever used the N-word about Hillary Clinton.

Gary, check your facts.  The fairnes doctrine that Obama and Clinton support in policy is aimed to create equal time for teaching that disagrees with Christian teaching in the public arena.  Read it for yourself.  Christian radio, television, and conservative media will have to give free air time to an opposing view that would follow a program to be “fair”, and at the station’s expense.  This will shut down Christian stations all over the country.  If this isn’t against the Bill of Rights and the Free Speech, then what in the world is?  Also, in Europe, they are already experiencing this extreme censorship of what can be taught in one’s home, if one home school’s.  It is now a crime to teach that homosexuality is a sin.  In fact, Britian has issued cirriculum that is required teaching on the subject, if you home school.  Do you really think that Clinton and Obama are supporting gay marriage and they are not going to suppress any opposition to it?  Do you not keep abreast of those who have been arrested in Philadelphia for trying to witness at a gay rights festival in downtown Phily?  What about teachers who have been made to attend cultural training seminars to help them become more tolerant for the homosexual lifestyle in their class rooms?  My wife’s a teacher, and she and some other teachers were going to sue the city for trying to force them into one of these seminars, but the state backed down. 

These are not made up ramblings, look at the news, read for yourself the direction that this is going in.  The Church is becoming so tolerant that anything is now considered valuable and is worth listening to, and that is absolutely frightening.  Hatred is hatred under any color.  And to justify hatred by saying well someone has had it bad is only perpetuating the problem.  For that matter, who hasn’t had bad things happen to them?  Just because one has had it bad doesn’t mean that it justifies one’s own responsibility to follow Christ’s teachings.  For example, taking the black experience, no one is arguing that there haven’t been atrocities.  Yet, there have been atrocities on both sides.  Both my wife and my family lost family members fighting in the Civil War to end slavery, but that often gets forgotten today.  Of course, I also had one great...grandfather who was a Confederate, as well, but that doesn’t negate the fact that while horrendous acts were committed, there were also those who worked, bled, and died to correct the abuses. 

If you’ve not read Martin Luther’s writting on “On Secular Authority”, it would do you good to pick it up and look at it.  He argues that tyranny is the act of anyone suppressing the right to read, study, and teach openly Scripture, and to live by the Right of Conscience.  Luther’s definition of a tyrannt is one who usurps the right of Conscience.  Therefore, when any politician begins supporting ways to make things fair and balanced, which ultimately leads to suppressing another’s opinion, which is the conservative, Bible believing Christian, then we had better be very afraid of any effort to deny anyone the right to speak, even hate- mongers like Wright.  These are core Constituional issues,and anyone who runs for office always swears to protect these rights for all.  Yet, the record and words of both Obama and Clinton, for those who are paying attention, have clearly stated they will make policy that is directly against what is moral in regards to several laws.  In fact, Luther, Calvin, and Pfenderfur and other theologians and philosophers who the Founding Father’s based their ideas of government on were well knows for this statement: what is not moral, is not law.  There was a distinct separation from the civil and the religious, but it was to protect the religious, not the civil.

Gary, pick up Peter Marshall’s book, Sound Forth the Trumpet, or look up David Barton’s books and website, it will tell you a lot about your Christian heritage that has not been told within many schools for many years.  In fact, Peter Marshall, who’s father was Chaplain of the United States Senate in 1944-48, told me in a conversation that a friend of his, and colleagues, recently went through an American History book unsed in the L.A. public high school, and they only found 38 thousand errors in it. 

Our Christian Heritage isn’t perfect, but it does exist if one is willing to look for it.

@Jim

I find most all of the “Christian radio, television, and conservative media” on the air to be anything but Christian… …hate mongers like Hagee or Robertson who preach anything BUT the model that Jesus displayed (i.e., urging for dropping bombs on innocent women and children, pleading for assassination of foreign leaders they’ve already convicted in their mental star chamber, disregarding the poor and demonizing the “least of these”, etc.…).

Not sure that I totally subscribe to reinstatement of Fairness Doctrine but at least, the public interest should be served, as the FCC was chartered to ensure.

The current radio/TV landscape (especially radio) does not serve the “public interest”, and even the Christian broadcasting is entirely owned by far right who do not represent even a majority of Christians.

Jhenrywaugh – you are Frank Schaeffer?  Thank you for jumping in.  I just downloaded the podcast of your interview with Steve Brown.  Can’t wait to listen.

You make great points about how many public pastors from evangelical right have blasted America for her sins (the ones they think God is REALLY upset about).  Why is their blasting acceptable, and pastor Wright’s not?

And Jim, there are some Christians who take issue with pledging allegiance to anyone or any country, because they believe we should only pledge allegiance to Jesus.  I respect this, and don’t believe it in anyway diminishes their ability to love their country.

I think Peter made it clear with the Snoops link he gave us, that your comments about Barak not putting his hand on his heart was nothing more than rumor mongering.  But there are so many other things to concern ourselves with when trying to determine who to vote for. 

Wendi

Check out the church’s response to all this

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/17/AR2008031702796.html?nav=rss_email/components

The response is even worse, imho, than the original comments. If Obama doesn’t distance himself from the whole church now, he’s toast. I predict he will do this in less than 48 hours, as he can NOT win PA in this primary coming up if he doesn’t.

The radical left bothers me as much as the reactionary right sometimes.

Agreed, the Washington Post article doesn’t really help.  I hope that Obama can calm the storm in his speech today.  I hope that not necessarily because I support him (but I might), but because the virulence of the discussion makes the very issue Americans are all discussing get worse, not better.

One comment in the Post article was:

“The Christian faith has been interpreted largely by those who enslaved black people, and by the people who segregated them,” said Cone, a professor at the Union Theological Seminary in New York.”

I don’t buy liberation theology, but the truth of this statement cannot be denied.  Bruce said:

[Wright and others are doing is forcing Scripture to say what they want it to say to support their agenda.  Scripture means what it means and our task as proclaimers of the word is to proclaim the timeless truth revealed in Scripture to a society that rejects absolute truth.]

Is this not exactly what our Christian founding fathers did in order to justify the completely unbiblical practice of slavery?  Scripture does mean what it means, but we human beings have shown ourselves to be very fallible at consistently discerning exactly what that meaning is. 

Bruce also says, in response to Gary’s comment about Jesus’ command to care for the poor, widows, . . .

[but I believe that Jesus was addressing his disciples and not the government.]

Could not the same thing been said about scripture’s admonishment regarding the issues being pressed by the right evangelical lobbyist pastors?  It is the job of the church to communicate to Christ followers about biblical principles in sexuality, marriage, sanctity of life, etc.?

Wendi

Pastor Byars,

There is a LOT of truth in what you say. As a white American, I haven’t a clue of the eyes you look at the American church with every day. I want to know more, though. I want to understand. I want to dialog. And some of Wright’s inflammatory remarks make it very hard for me to do that.

Pastor Byers.

Thank you SO much for chiming in. I’ll never forget when a good friend who worked for me years ago (who was black) bought his first “real” car, a really nice black SUV. He started getting pulled over on a regular basis, and asked if it was “his daddy’s car”.

We who are white can not even IMAGINE what it feels like to be regularly degraded that way. I’m sorry it happens, and it angers me, too.

It helps me understand some of the comments that are made by people like Wright, even if I disagree.

You too, Pastor Byars.

I speak as one who cares DEEPLY about this, as my wife and I are probably about to adopt an African American child.

So keep whining my friend, and as my wife and I are in this process, we are whining right alongside you!

Perhaps it’s time for me to chime in again.  I’ve read all the comments following my previous one (# 8) and come away with this observation:  Polarization and demonization of those who disagree with our personal perspective is alive and well in the U.S.  I do appreciate the conversation between Pastor Byars and Peter Hamm. 

For the record, I am a 40-something white guy that happens to like the message of hope that Obama represents better than the message of anger that Rev Wright expressed.  However, I do understand the comments and choose to hear them with an ear of empathy rather than one of judgment.  I’ve not walked in his shoes.  The best I can do is listen to him tell me what it’s like to walk in his. 

Nothing in the piling on that I’ve read through this thread really surprised me very much.  It’s very much the same talking points and rhetoric that I heard through the years in the conservative circles that I walked in.  It wasn’t until I started listening to perspectives other than my own that I began to see some of the weaknesses in my own tightly held opinions that were ingrafted and ingrained over decades of sub-cultural influence.

I’m glad this issue has come to the surface.  I’m glad that hearts of those who call themselves followers of Christ are being exposed.  I’m glad that the Church is being called to account.  I’m glad that there is a candidate willing to speak candidly about these issues and the polarizations that have become deeply destructive.  I’m glad that there are some reasonable and gracious people still involved in the conversation.  I am hopeful.

Dean,

Thank you for your last comment. It very eloquently emphasizes the point that I have been trying to make - more eloquently than I have been able to do thus far!