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Trinity United Church of Christ Chicago
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The Truth About Trinity United Church of
Christ
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Setting
the Record Straight with the New York Times
Letter from Reverend Jeremiah
Wright
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March 11, 2007
Jodi Kantor
The New York Times
9 West 43rd Street
New York,
New York 10036-3959
Dear Jodi:
Thank you for engaging in one of the biggest
misrepresentations of the truth I have ever seen in
sixty-five years. You sat and shared with me for two
hours. You told me you were doing a “Spiritual
Biography” of Senator Barack Obama. For two hours, I
shared with you how I thought he was the most principled
individual in public service that I have ever met.
For two hours, I talked with you about how idealistic he
was. For two hours I shared with you what a genuine
human being he was. I told you how incredible he was as
a man who was an African American in public service, and
as a man who refused to announce his candidacy for
President until Carol Moseley Braun indicated one way or
the other whether or not she was going to run.
I told you what a dreamer he was. I told you how
idealistic he was. We talked about how refreshing it
would be for someone who knew about Islam to be in the
Oval Office. Your own question to me was, Didn’t I think
it would be incredible to have somebody in the Oval
Office who not only knew about Muslims, but had living
and breathing Muslims in his own family? I told you how
important it would be to have a man who not only knew
the difference between Shiites and Sunnis prior to
9/11/01 in the Oval Office, but also how important it
would be to have a man who knew what Sufism was; a man
who understood that there were different branches of
Judaism; a man who knew the difference between Hasidic
Jews, Orthodox Jews, Conservative Jews and Reformed
Jews; and a man who was a devout Christian, but who did
not prejudge others because they believed something
other than what he believed.
I talked about how rare it was to meet a man whose
Christianity was not just “in word only.” I talked
about Barack being a person who lived his faith and did
not argue his faith. I talked about Barack as a person
who did not draw doctrinal lines in the sand nor consign
other people to hell if they did not believe what he
believed.
Out of a two-hour conversation with you about Barack’s
spiritual journey and my protesting to you that I had
not shaped him nor formed him, that I had not mentored
him or made him the man he was, even though I would love
to take that credit, you did not print any of that. When
I told you, using one of your own Jewish stories from
the Hebrew Bible as to how God asked Moses, “What is
that in your hand?” that Barack was like that when I met
him. Barack had it “in his hand.” Barack had in his
grasp a uniqueness in terms of his spiritual development
that one is hard put to find in the 21st century, and
you did not print that.
As I was just starting to say a moment ago, Jodi, out of
two hours of conversation I spent approximately five to
seven minutes on Barack’s taking advice from one of his
trusted campaign people and deeming it unwise to make me
the media spotlight on the day of his announcing his
candidacy for the Presidency and what do you print? You
and your editor proceeded to present to the general
public a snippet, a printed “sound byte” and a
titillating and tantalizing article about his
disinviting me to the Invocation on the day of his
announcing his candidacy.
I have never been exposed to that kind of duplicitous
behavior before, and I want to write you publicly to let
you know that I do not approve of it and will not be
party to any further smearing of the name, the
reputation, the integrity or the character of perhaps
this nation’s first (and maybe even only) honest
candidate offering himself for public service as the
person to occupy the Oval Office.
Your editor is a sensationalist. For you to even mention
that makes me doubt your credibility, and I am looking
forward to see how you are going to butcher what else I
had to say concerning Senator Obama’s “Spiritual
Biography.” Our Conference Minister, the Reverend Jane
Fisler Hoffman, a white woman who belongs to a Black
church that Hannity of “Hannity and Colmes” is trying to
trash, set the record straight for you in terms of who I
am and in terms of who we are as the church to which
Barack has belonged for over twenty years.
The president of our denomination, the Reverend John
Thomas, has offered to try to help you clarify in your
confused head what Trinity Church is even though you
spent the entire weekend with us setting me up to
interview me for what turned out to be a smear of the
Senator; and yet The New York Times continues to
roll on making the truth what it wants to be the truth.
I do not remember reading in your article that Barack
had apologized for listening to that bad information and
bad advice. Did I miss it? Or did your editor cut it
out? Either way, you do not have to worry about hearing
anything else from me for you to edit or “spin” because
you are more interested in journalism than in truth.
Forgive me for having a momentary lapse. I forgot that
The New York Times was leading the bandwagon in
trumpeting why it is we should have gone into an illegal
war. The New York Times became George Bush and
the Republican Party’s national “blog.” The New York
Times played a role in the outing of Valerie Plame.
I do not know why I thought The New York Times
had actually repented and was going to exhibit a
different kind of behavior.
Maybe it was my faith in the Jewish Holy Day of
Roshashana. Maybe it was my being caught up in the
euphoria of the Season of Lent; but whatever it is or
was, I was sadly mistaken. There is no repentance on the
part of The New York Times. There is no integrity
when it comes to The Times. You should do well
with that paper, Jodi. You looked me straight in my face
and told me a lie!
Sincerely and respectfully yours,
Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.
Senior Pastor
Trinity United Church of Christ
* * * * *
I was among the
speakers at the two-day funeral service for Dr. Asa G.
Hilliard III, enormous scholar of the psychology and the
education of people of African descent,
As we assembled
last August at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Chapel of
Morehouse College, in my opinion the most powerful, most
eloquent, most stirring speaker by far was the Reverend
Jeremiah A. Wright, who was with Dr. Hilliard in Egypt
during his terminal illness.
Reverend Wright's
eulogy stirred the soul of all assembled. Just prior to
the start of the service I asked Reverend Wright if he
had been instrumental in getting Senator Barack Obama to
intervene in bringing Dr. Hilliard's body back from
Cairo. The answer was yes, Senator Obama had used his
influence to get the State Department to convince the
Egyptian government to release Dr. Hilliard to his
beloved Atlanta.
Frequently,
Americans who die overseas are never returned home.
Reverend Jeremiah Wright is an electrifying preacher
whose African-centered liberation theology challenges
racism and Euro-centrism, challenges his congregation to
self and group empowerment.
I have heard a
number of his sermons on the Internet. I admire him, and
I support both Jeremiah Wright and his congregant,
Senator Barack Obama. Donald H. Smith, Ph.D.
* * * * *
About the Rev
Jeremiah Wright—The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, 66,
retired last month as pastor of Chicago's Trinity United
Church of Christ, whose motto is "unashamedly black and
unapologetically Christian." He is a beloved figure in
African-American Christian circles and a frequent guest
in pulpits around the country. After arriving at Trinity
in 1972, he built a 6,000-member congregation. His
preaching melds detailed scriptural analysis, black
power, Afrocentrism and an emphasis on social justice.
Wright's most powerful influence, said several ministers
and scholars who have followed his career, is black
liberation theology, which interprets the Bible as a
guide to combating oppression of African Americans. He
attracts audiences because of, not in spite of, his
outspoken critiques of racism and inequality, Dwight
Hopkins, a professor at University of Chicago Divinity
School, said last year. Wright's defenders said the
statements that have been playing this week are taken
out of context, and he is not anti-white. The United
Church of Christ, the denomination of the Chicago
church, is overwhelmingly white. And Wright is an
equal-opportunity critic, often delivering scorching
lectures about black society, telling audiences to
improve their educations and work ethic.
Seattle Times
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Thanks so much for Rev. Wright's
letter. Why would the minister think that he would get
an honest portrayal following his interview with an
NYT's reporter? Why do we trust these people? . . . .
We need to replace hope and idealism with realism and
clear vision!—Floyd
* * * * *
And then the good
reverend goes on a right wing talk program—Fox
News with host
Sean Hannity—expecting
to be coddled, rather than to be used and abused. But
besides these exposures for right wing exploitation,
Jeremiah Wright committed an over the top flourish in
his sermon and for people to excuse it as 100% truth is
rather extreme and that kind of public politic is
unproductive. We need to be clear and realistic and an
uncritical defense of Wright is a matter of spinning
wheels. Let the man sit on his own bottom and defend
himself as much as he will—Rudy
* * * * *
Of National Lies
and Racial Amnesia—Whites are easily shocked by what
we see and hear from Pastor Wright and Trinity Church,
because what we see and hear so thoroughly challenges
our understanding of who we are as a nation. But black
people have never, for the most part, believed in the
imagery of the "shining city on a hill," for they have
never had the option of looking at their nation and
ignoring the mountain-sized warts still dotting its face
when it comes to race. Black people do not, in the main,
get misty eyed at the sight of the flag the way white
people do--and this is true even for millions of black
veterans--for they understand that the nation for whom
that flag waves is still not fully committed to their
own equality. They have a harder time singing those
tunes that white people seem so eager to belt out, like
"God Bless America," for they know that whites sang
those words loudly and proudly even as they were
enforcing Jim Crow segregation, rioting against blacks
who dared move into previously white neighborhoods,
throwing rocks at Dr. King and then cheering, as so many
did, when they heard the news that he had been
assassinated. . . . So white folks are mad at Jeremiah
Wright because he challenges their views about their
country. Meanwhile, those same white folks, and their
ministers and priests, every week put forth a false
image of the God Jeremiah Wright serves, and yet it is
whites who feel we have the right to be offended. Pardon
me, but something is wrong here, and whatever it is, is
not to be found at Trinity United Church of Christ.
Lip Magazine
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Baraka Message: Taking
Up Obama's Mantle—My
line at Black Left meeting & Black Radical Congress is
solidify a political line, with that admitted united
front as broad leadership and then mobilize masses of
Black and Progressive people to descend on Denver for
Dem convention with demonstrations, signs, petitions,
literature and strategy and tactics for influencing what
is sure to be the attempt at the crookedest of all
conventions. The people are already excited by the
primaries and the crude tricks of the bourgeoisie. We
shd take up Obama's mantle, both serving as his defense
(the defense of democracy) and using this presence to
make impact on the campaign. The Rev Wright "flap" was
actually positive, now the race question is squarely in
the campaigns and the bourgeoisie will push and push it,
but it should serve to further inflame the masses,
who have real ties with the Black church and know what
Wright said is historically true. . . . I will raise
this at a meeting in Harlem next week—Amiri
Baraka
This kind of action
could be the start of the movement that is needed to
push the humanitarian agenda Obama gives voice.—Damu
* * * * *
INTERVIEW with Rev Jeremiah Wright—Yeah,
I am not popular. I'm really not known. People have
perspectives about me. In fact, one article recently
said that I was a maverick. I am not your typical
garden-variety African-American clergy person, and
because I'm not—he was talking about organizing the
churches in those early days. I said, man, you don't
know who you're talking to. They don't like me. I'm not
well liked in the city of Chicago, so you tell them
you're a member of Trinity, you're going to turn off
preachers before they ever get to know you, 'cause
they're going to associate you with me, and just that
association could be a negative in terms of how you are
perceived in their eyes before you open your mouth—"Oh,
you go to Jeremiah's church." That kind of negative
imaging I said might be harmful to him in terms of what
he was trying to do in building coalitions and getting
other churches to do things, again, for the benefit of
the people. That would never happen just because they're
going to associate your name with mine. That could be
detrimental, I told him back then. It holds just as
true, even more so, now. In fact, I just shared with, I
was trying to remember who it is, somebody in public
life was asking me about Barack, and I said listen,
Barack might be forced by the media and/or by supporters
to be very absent from this church and to put distance
between our church and himself.
As a politician, he might be forced into that. I have
not talked to him about that at all. It's just that my
read just of the blogs and what the right-Christian-wing
leaders have said about him being a part of our church
over past three months says this is—you think it's ugly
now, it's going to get worse, it's going to get much
worse. For survival's sake, as a politician he just
might have to not—not that I love you less, I love me
more. I'll never get elected as long as they keep
harping on this. And that's—again, I haven't talked to
him about that at all—PBS
Interview
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Obama found a
home in his church—Members are expected to volunteer
for one or more of these ministries. They usually
announce their choice on the same day they're baptized,
said Jane Fisler Hoffman, a United Church of Christ
minister who joined Trinity. "There's this kind of
constant encouragement to live your faith, learn your
faith," she said. The church proclaims itself
"unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian." It
supports charity work in Africa, gives some of its
ministries Swahili names, uses Africa-themed
decorations. People familiar with Trinity compare its
emphasis on African culture to the way some Catholic
churches play up Irish or Italian roots. And they
emphatically reject the accusations in widely circulated
e-mails that the church is separatist or turns away
white members. "That's such a bunch of hooey," said
Hoffman, who is white. She tells the story of a group of
young Germans visiting the church. Wright met with them
before the service and prayed with them in German, she
said. Later, he delivered part of his sermon in German
and the choir sang in German. "To me, it's a testimony
that this is not a church that rejects people of other
cultures and races," she said. She and others say Wright
is far from the hothead he may appear to be in video
excerpts. They describe him as a serious biblical
scholar who thinks carefully about issues. "Wright is
one of the most respected pastors in the
African-American church in the United States," said
Kellman, who nevertheless says Wright "blew it" in a few
sermons. Pfleger, one of Chicago's most outspoken
members of the clergy, said Wright and Obama are similar
in their intellectual approach. "They examine things,
they study things. They are not quick to make
judgments," he said. Wright's sermons, even when they
included strong critiques of racism and inequality in
America, were always grounded in the Bible, church
members said. Wright sometimes used harsh, painful
language, his supporters acknowledge, but mostly he was
well within a black tradition of emotional, social
commentary. "It's just speaking a different language to
a slightly different culture," said Dwight Hopkins, a
Trinity member and a theology professor at the
University of Chicago, "and I can see how someone in the
suburbs in the high Episcopal church would see those
snippets as angry."
Yahoo
* * * * *
Who is the real patriot?
In 1961, a young
African-American man, after hearing President John F.
Kennedy's challenge to, "Ask not what your country can
do for you, but what you can do for your country," gave
up his student deferment, left college in Virginia and
voluntarily joined the Marines. In 1963, this man,
having completed his two years of service in the
Marines, volunteered again to become a Navy corpsman.
(They provide medical assistance to the Marines as well
as to Navy personnel.)
The man did so well
in corpsman school that he was the valedictorian and
became a cardiopulmonary technician. Not surprisingly,
he was assigned to the Navy's premier medical facility,
Bethesda Naval Hospital, as a member of the commander in
chief's medical team, and helped care for President
Lyndon B. Johnson after his 1966 surgery. For his
service on the team, which he left in 1967, the White
House awarded him three letters of commendation.
What is even more
remarkable is that this man entered the Marines and Navy
not many years after the two branches began to become
integrated. While this young man was serving six years
on active duty, Vice President Dick Cheney, who was born
the same year as the Marine/sailor, received five
deferments, four for being an undergraduate and graduate
student and one for being a prospective father.
Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, both five
years younger than the African-American youth, used
their student deferments to stay in college until 1968.
Both then avoided going on active duty through family
connections.
The young man who
interrupted his studies to serve his country for six
years or our three political leaders who beat the
system?
Are the patriots
the people who actually sacrifice something or those who
merely talk about their love of the country? After
leaving the service of his country, the young
African-American finished his final year of college,
entered the seminary, was ordained as a minister, and
eventually became pastor of a large church in one of
America's biggest cities. This man is Rev. Jeremiah
Wright, the retiring pastor of Trinity United Church of
Christ, who has been in the news for comments he made
over the last three decades. Since these comments became
public we have heard criticisms, condemnations,
denouncements and rejections of his comments and him.
We've seen on television, in a seemingly endless loop,
sound bites of a select few of Rev. Wright's many
sermons.
Some of the
Wright's comments are inexcusable and inappropriate and
should be condemned, but in calling him "unpatriotic,"
let us not forget that this is a man who gave up six of
the most productive years of his life to serve his
country. How many of Wright's detractors—Rush Limbaugh
and Bill O'Reilly to name but a few—volunteered for
service, and did so under the often tumultuous
circumstances of a newly integrated armed forces and a
society in the midst of a civil rights struggle? Not
many. While words do count, so do actions. Let us not
forget that, for whatever Rev. Wright may have said over
the last 30 years, he has demonstrated his patriotism.
ChicagoTribune
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Rudy,
A NOTE: In 1967, I
was preparing to start graduate school when the dreaded
letter came with that "Greetings"... from an Uncle who
never wanted me in the family (until the family needed
cannon fodder and then all of us went from niggers to
nephews). I, thinking that an old knee injury would get
me out, reported. I flunked the injured knee test when
asked to walk across a small room. That was completed
in two steps and they determined my knee was okay.
I reported and rode
a bus to New Orleans (from Los Angeles) hoping that the
knee would do it's thing and puff up. Of course, it
only stiffened a little and there wasn't another test
when I arrived. Being your "college graduate smartass"
I had to raise a question when asked to step forward and
take the oath. "What happens if I don't step forward
and take this oath?"
I was informed by a
gentleman wearing a metal bird on his shoulder that my
options were simple. If I did NOT step forward and take
the oath, I would be taken directly to Angola where I
would serve five years. If I DID take the oath, I would
be given thirty days off annually and occasional three
day passes. I took the oath. I think that some of the
folk that I managed to drive crazy during those two
years would have preferred that I had gone to Angola. I
learned from my time in jail back in 1961 that I didn't
have the temperament for such. I went, served and - to
this day - don't qualify as a patriot. The military, as
was its surrounding society - was run by racists - and I
might have been able to do some good for a few folk
because I knew the 22-5 and how to use it. Being a
writer, I also had the opportunity to pass on my
feelings and information to some of my friends in the
civilian press that helped shake the foundation of lies
that the war was built on.
I will never respect the Bushitters
and those who were able to get away based on money and
color. CES
* * * * *
Some Blind to
Self Evident Truths—Racism in America and Other
Uncomfortable Facts—Remarks regarding racism in
America by Rev. Jeremiah Wright—the retiring pastor of
the Chicago church Obama attends—have become fodder in
this year's contentious presidential campaign. Yet, is
Wright wrong about racism--as Obama stated in that
speech--or is he right? Are Wright's remarks treasonous
as some critics proclaim or do his remarks reveal truths
that for many are not self-evident?
Many slam Wright
for raising a historically correct albeit uncomfortable
fact: the role of racism in America's founding. The US
Constitution that Obama quoted at the outset of his
speech enshrined slavery—a point the Senator discussed
in the first dozen sentences of that speech. America's
first president, George Washington, kept slaves in the
Executive Mansion he occupied in Philadelphia during
part of his presidency.
The location of the
stable where Washington's slaves lived in Philadelphia
is literally at the entrance of the current pavilion
housing the iconic Liberty Bell. That stable housing
Washington's slaves was steps from Independence Hall,
the building where America's Founders approved the
Constitution. Rev. Wright is not the first black to
provoke criticism for criticizing constitutional
shortcomings.
Legendary US
Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall sparked a
firestorm in 1987 when he criticized imperfections in
the Constitution—like slavery and barring women from
voting—during a speech in Philadelphia celebrating the
bicentennial of that document. Critics call Rev. Wright
un-American for assailing America's skewed priorities
like spending for prisons while short-changing public
education and job creation. During the 1990s
Pennsylvania authorities built eleven new prisons yet
only one new public high school in Philadelphia, Rev.
Wright's hometown. According to Pa government
statistics, most of the people sent to that state's
prisons are unemployed and undereducated.
Counterpunch
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posted 18 March 2008
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