No more God Bless America?

[Bravus]

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All of this and the good news in the war .... are helping the image of GW Bush. The latest poll showed that 56% approved of him.

OK, Redwood - I like and respect you, but I fear you are no longer living in the reality-based community. There is no good news in the war, except a slight decrease in the massive monthly carnage in Iraq. Cheney might be spinning that as good news but General Petraeus is saying there's no real progress. And as to the latest opinion poll, here is a large number of recent polls showing his approval rating in the low 30s, so I'm not sure where your 56% figure comes from.

[Woody]

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I'm not sure where your 56% figure comes from

OK. I confess ... you won't accept this news source as reliable ... but it was Fox News tonight that reported it. I can't remember the name of the poll. But it wasn't Fox.

Anyway ... I suspect that your polls are outdated. This one is the most current after the Obama fiasco.

Oh. And it also reported that 49% of those in Iraq support the US being in their country.

[Dr. Shane]

PRESIDENT BUSH – Overall Job Rating

Last time Bush's approval ratings were at 50% were in December of 2005. Perhaps this other poll was something specific like if Bush has done a good job of protecting America.

[Dr. Shane]

The best thing for Obama is for a big news story to send this story to the back pages. I guess this is the best time for it to break. He is ahead in the delegates, ahead in the popular vote, he is taking a beating in the polls but still has a month before the next primary. That is plenty of time for other news stories to get the media to stop obsessing about Obama's ex-pastor and for Obama to stop the bleeding. He isn't likely to win Pennsylvania but I doubt he is going to lose by as much as he is now behind in the polls.

I don't buy this idea that because he is a senator he should have confronted the pastor. Most people go to church because it is like a social club for them. I am sure Obama had a network of friends in the church and was active in programs to help the poor. It is unreasonable for us to expect him to quit the church or confront the pastor because the pastor makes goofy remarks and holds some wacky ideas.

The networks are just eating this up and milking it for all the ratings they can get. Give me a break! Maybe they should have taken Al Gore Jr. to task for Al Gore Sr.'s racism. At least that was an actual father-son relationship. This was the pastor of Obama's church that happens to have a membership of over 10,000.

[Dr. Shane]

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I don't require that my president be a truthful man.

The media is trying to paint Obama as a liar because in his interview with FOXNews he said he had not heard the clips being played on YouTube when he was sitting in the pews. Then they play a part of his speech yesterday where he said he did hear objectionable things while in the pews.

I don't see that as being a contradiction. He is saying that he wasn't in the pews when the pastor preached those specific things being played on YouTube. However he is admitting that he did hear objectionable things while sitting in the pews. Yet he said it wasn't an ongoing or regular thing.

I don't see a problem here. I see a bunch of people making a mountain out of a mole hill. I am starting to suspect Hillary is behind something here.

[John317]

I look at the issues that have come up in regards to Pastor Wright from several perspectives. ... I heard jan Marcussen lecture that Prez Bush, Osamba Bin Laden, the prime min. of england, the pope, et al, were all connected in some world domination ring. Marcussen's proof of this was different masonic hand gestures these leaders were photographed using, allegedly.

I liked and agreed with your whole post here. Good thoughts.

I know of Jan Marcussen's ideas on this, and have read books on the same theory, but I don't find the evidence convincing.

[Neil D]

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... Of course they see the race problem from a different perspective than we do. I agree. But the question about Obama is not about race per se. I have no objection to Wright's preaching what he does. The question is whether Obama was right to lend the prestige and support of his political office to Wright's teaching.

It's significant that Wright's approval rating is at 8% which shows that there are also a lot of blacks who disapprove of what Wright teaches. The extreme views of Wright, which are at the center of the controversy, are no more common with blacks than they are with whites.

First off, Obama has been going to this church for how many years?....? I believe the number being bantied about is 20 years.

2nd, If I were to take your arguements to my black friends, they would crucify me and chastize me for not understanding the position of the black man in america. Malcom X is a major influence in todays black man. And some of his thoughts are as common among blacks as David Duke words among the white trash of this nation. It is a culture that the majority of americans do not understand, nor do we subscribe to it's violant epitaths. However, it is a culture...and not all cultures are understood as well as some THINK unless you grew up in it.

Third, I live with what looks to be some conservative individuals...Me, a liberal democrate leaning individual living among some pretty ultra conservative republicans..They have nothing good to say about republicans and especially democrates. When it comes to it, they dont want the republican agenda at all....they don't want change...they want to be left alone....Because both sides have stabbed them [the common working man] in the back...And when it comes to specifically pointing out the errors of either caucus, the list is an energizer bunny...it keeps going and going and going...Harsh, cruel, unreasonable in thier opinions, they are just that way....But I stick with them...Why? Because mixed into thier demographic demonizing ways, they are also very nice people to talk to. They'll give you the shirt off thier back, if it would help you. They are always helping others, contacting other older folks to check up on them, they are checking up and being responsible in other ways that temper thier faults. I suspect that WRight doesn't always show his faults at the sermon table. I greatly suspect that he does show it as an illistration.

4] The Rev is retiring...If you were retiring in a church, and you wanted to make sure that the congregation remembered you by, what better way than to preach a few Liberal Marxist theology intersperced with MalcomX, add some black culture, and some white culture for contrast, pore out and bake it at 350 degress, and sure, I suspect the end product might be a bit warm.

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It would be like a President sitting year after year in a church taught by a known white racist who says wrong and harmful things about black people.

Again, it wasn't all the time that things were being said. It wasn't every Sunday. Add to that there was some good works being done in thier. And I am sure there were, on more than one occasion, interspersed in thier converstations, someheated talks about politics. Why is that not get the press that is needed? Falwell made some pretty rediculous statements which are the butt of many jokes, and he isn't getting the press that he deserveds yet! There is a double standard going on here.

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The nation does not need, nor did it want, a lecture from him about race. The problem is not one of race but of a man's judgment. He was answering the question why he continued to sit in Wright's church for 20 years listening to things he says he now knows were wrong and very divisive to the people of this country.

He wasn't lecturing...He was leading...a nation into a badly needed and over due talk about race relations that has not even been scratched on the surface. The problem is that you don't want to admit that we need this talk....and we do need this talk.

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Besides, if he intended to set the nation right on the question of race, he should not have made the comparison of Wright's public preaching to something he heard his grandmother infrequently say in private. Nor should he have compared his listening for years to Wright's wrong and hurtful sermons to hearing one's priest or pastor say things you may occasionally disagree with.

You missed the point. The point there is that you don't give up on family. You may not like what they say, you may not like how they say some things...You may have even talked about it....but you don't give up on them....like what you are avocating...

And remember, there were other good deeds that were intersperse the bad things being said.

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In that way, Obama skirts the main issue: why didn't Obama see that he was doing the wrong thing by staying in that church and lending his support and prestige to it?

Because it wasn't done every Sunday, and the church and the pastor did other things worth while and important to the church life of the church....and life got in the way of the judgement....Why don't I just move away from my ignorant, self serving relatives? Because I don't give up on my family...

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Just as it is best for the country for the President to know when he must lie for the good of national security, etc., the president must also know when stop having an individual as a spiritual counselor or pastor to the President. The President has to be ruthless when it comes to these kinds of decisions, and use good judgement, because the security and stability of the nation is at stake. It means putting the good of the country ahead of one's personal friends or associations. In that, I submit, Obama has failed miserably.

Not so....He has currently distanced himself from his pastor, publically repudiated a retiring pastor, and engaged the nation in talking about badly needed race relations....

That is pretty good Leadership qualities from a personal situation....

[John317]

... his [bush's] approval rating in the low 30s...

Look at what President Truman's approval rating was when he left office in 1950. It was far lower than President Bush's. Yet Truman today is recognized as one of the best presidents in our nation's history.

Check this out:

"He overcame the low expectations of many political observers who compared him unfavorably with his highly regarded predecessor. At one point in his second term, near the end of the Korean War, Truman's public opinion ratings reached the lowest of any United States president, but popular and scholarly assessments of his presidency became more positive after his retirement from politics and the publication of his memoirs. He died in 1972. Many U.S. scholars today rank him among the top ten presidents."

Let history be the judge of Bush. He says the same thing. (It's often much different from contemporary views. No one living in Lincoln's time would have thought he would one day be considered our greatest president. In his time he was considered by many to be "the big gorilla.")

[Bravus]

Hmmm - get back to me when historians rate Bush as a top president. My point was just that I wasn't sure where Redwood's numbers were coming from, nothing deeper than that.

[John317]

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JOHN3:17-- Of course they see the race problem from a different perspective than we do. I agree. But the question about Obama is not about race per se. I have no objection to Wright's preaching what he does. The question is whether Obama was right to lend the prestige and support of his political office to Wright's teaching.

It's significant that Wright's approval rating is at 8% which shows that there are also a lot of blacks who disapprove of what Wright teaches. The extreme views of Wright, which are at the center of the controversy, are no more common with blacks than they are with whites.

Certainly long enough to know what it represented and what Wright was teaching and believed. In fact, he said that he went looking for a church that represented his views. What he meant was that it represented the views he wanted to be associated with at that time; it represented the views he wanted to have, but they were not views that were based on his personal experience up to that time. Why do I say this? Because at the time he joined, he had recently come to Chicago from Hawaii and Columbia University, and had not been brought up in, or experienced, the black community. That is why I and others, including Juan Williams of NPR, say that Obama attached himself to Wright and his church with an eye to Obama's political future.

Here are facts about Wright's views:

"When tapes were put for sale by the church after Wright's retirement, ABC News publicized several controversial sermons. In the sermons, Wright accused the federal government of crimes against people of color, including selling drugs to blacks, creating the HIV virus to infect blacks, and perpetuating racism that led to disproportionate imprisonment of blacks. In one sermon, Wright said that the United State was responsible for the September 11th, 2001 attacks and urged black Americans to ask God to 'damn America.'

Wright's comments were heavily critical of the United States Government, saying of the events of September 11, 2001: 'The stuff we have done overseas is brought right back into our homes'. In other sermons, he said 'The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color', referring to AIDS origins theories, and 'The government gives them the drugs [referring to the Iran-Contra Affair], builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing "God Bless America." No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people...God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme'. Another of Wright's controversial sermons took place following 9/11, when he suggested the attacks were a consequence of violent American policies and proved that 'people of color had not gone away, faded into the woodwork or just "disappeared" as the Great White West went on its merry way of ignoring Black concerns.'"

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2nd, If I were to take your arguements to my black friends, they would crucify me and chastize me for not understanding the position of the black man in america.

This has nothing to do with "the position of the black man in America." I don't know of anyone who is questioning the right of that church to teach what it wants. This has to do with whether Obama has good judgment, and he didn't show good judgment to stay in that church after he knew what Wright taught and believed about the United States and about whites.

Besides, not all are in agreement with what the current position is of the black man in America. This is reflected in Wright's previously mentioned 8 % approval rating, which includes blacks and whites. We can't assume that all blacks think alike about these things. That does an injustice to blacks. Many blacks disagree with Wright's repeated words, "God d--- America," and that the US government invented the HIV virus to kill blacks and other people of color. So we can't assume that Wright was teaching the common view about America held among blacks.

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Malcom X is a major influence in todays black man.

Which Malcolm X? There was the Malcolm X before he went to Saudi Arabia (i.e., the one who talked of "the ballot or the bullet") and then there was the very different Malcolm X who returned and was assassinated by fellow Black Muslims. The first Malcolm X wanted to see violence and blood shed as a way of bringing about change-- a way that was diametrically opposed to Dr. King's methods-- and the second Malcolm X wanted to bring about change through education and cooperation with whites.

This describes the first Malcolm X: "From his adoption of the Nation of Islam in 1952 until he left the organization in 1964, Malcolm promoted the Nation's teachings. He referred to whites as 'devils' who had been created in a misguided breeding program by a black scientist, and predicted the inevitable (and imminent) return of blacks to their natural place at the top of the social order."

This describes the second:

"I realized racism isn't just a black and white problem. It's brought bloodbaths to about every nation on earth at one time or another. Brother, remember the time that white college girl came into the restaurant — the one who wanted to help the [black] Muslims and the whites get together — and I told her there wasn't a ghost of a chance and she went away crying? Well, I've lived to regret that incident. In many parts of the African continent I saw white students helping black people. Something like this kills a lot of argument. I did many things as a [black] Muslim that I'm sorry for now. I was a zombie then — like all [black] Muslims — I was hypnotized, pointed in a certain direction and told to march. Well, I guess a man's entitled to make a fool of himself if he's ready to pay the cost. It cost me 12 years. That was a bad scene, brother. The sickness and madness of those days — I'm glad to be free of them."

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And some of his thoughts

Again, the thoughts of which Malcolm X?

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are as common among blacks as David Duke words among the white trash of this nation. It is a culture that the majority of americans do not understand, nor do we subscribe to it's violant epitaths.

Nor do all blacks. You are writing as if all blacks think alike about these things, but of course they don't. That's a stereotype that many blacks reject and resent. Bill Cosby certainly does not subscribe to its violent epitaphs, nor does former Secretary of State, Powell. Nor does current Secretary of State, Condeleezza Rice. I've worked with blacks who don't subscribe to them, and who work to get other blacks not to use them. Those violent epitaphs are not a positive thing for the black race.

It's like many other common things in certain parts of the black community: no father in the home but father, uncles, and brothers in jail or prison, mother on welfare or in the street, crime, dealin', whackin', wanna-bees, gangs, gang influence, gansta rap, wide use of "nigga," "ho," dislike of school, calling white's "crackers," doing "the down-under," doing "the nigga thing," runnin' with "homeys," "sagg'n," weed, tatoos, holdin' your "piece," the hood, signs, colors, admiring and wanting to be thugs and pimps, etc. etc.

Those things do exist to a great extent in the black community, but unfortunately America has come to the place where those are the things that too many people see as being representative of blacks. There are millions of successful, educated blacks who don't live that kind of life and for whom those things are just as foreign as they are for the vast majority of middle class caucasians.

Those things spell failure, destruction, and death in the black community.

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However, it is a culture...and not all cultures are understood as well as some THINK unless you grew up in it.

Then Obama can't possibly understand it either, because he didn't grow up in that culture. He grew up in Hawaii and went to a preparatory school there for children of wealthy parents, and almost all of them were whites.

I believe the evidence shows that it was this very lack of experience which you mention here that caused Obama to decide to joined Wright's church: because of the fact that he didn't have that experience among blacks and he knew he needed it if he was to succeed politically.

He certainly didn't go to that church in the 1980's because it represented the way Obama believed or thought at the time he came to Chicago after spending most of his life up that point at Columbia University and the Hawaii Preparatory School. The truth is that although he had black skin, Obama didn't know what it was like to grow up black. He says this in his autobiography. So it makes sense that he realized he needed to make up for this lack that he felt, and one way to do it was to attach himself to the well-known Black Liberation preacher, Wright, and to Wright's church in Chicago.

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The Rev is retiring...If you were retiring in a church, and you wanted to make sure that the congregation remembered you by, what better way than to preach a few Liberal Marxist theology intersperced with MalcomX, add some black culture, and some white culture for contrast, pore out and bake it at 350 degress, and sure, I suspect the end product might be a bit warm.

But this is not what Wright did. Wright was well-known as a proponent of Black Liberation Theology from early on in his career. It wasn't something that he adopted recently. The videos recorded of his church services show that Jeremiah Wright preached these things often and that they were in harmony with his thinking on many matters. No one who knew him was shocked or found it hard to believe that he taught these outrageous things.

It's plain that Obama knew that Wright taught these things. That is obvious because after Obama invited Wright to give the public invocation at Obama's presidential announcement, Obama withdrew the invitation because he said he realized that Wright might say something that Obama did not want the public to hear.

Yet despite this, Wright was later appointed to Barack Obama's African American Religious Leadership Committee. Of course, he is no longer serving, but this did not show good judgment on Obama's part. Since then, Obama has distanced himself from Wright's political views, but that only after the media forced him to face the issue. That is not good leadership.

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JOHN3: 17-- It would be like a President sitting year after year in a church taught by a known white racist who says wrong and harmful things about black people.

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NEIL D--- Again, it wasn't all the time that things were being said. It wasn't every Sunday.

What does that matter? Does something have to said every Sunday for it to be taken seriously and have real meaning? Obama is the one who is saying in his campaign that words really mean something. Do they only mean something if they are said every Sunday? The fact is that Wright said them often enough that people knew his beliefs on those things. His Compact Disks were being sold and watched by the congregation and by the school children.

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Add to that there was some good works being done in thier. And I am sure there were, on more than one occasion, interspersed in thier converstations, someheated talks about politics. Why is that not get the press that is needed?

What heated talks about politics do you refer to? Do you mean between Wright and Obama? Do you mean where Obama told Wright that he was wrong and that he shouldn't be preaching those lies? What evidence do you have that such conversation ever took place?

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Falwell made some pretty rediculous statements which are the butt of many jokes, and he isn't getting the press that he deserveds yet! There is a double standard going on here.

Possibly it's because no president or presidential candidate spent 20 years in Falwell's church.

But besides, as I said before, the issue is not about what Wright taught. He had a right to teach those things. Falwell had a right to teach whatever he taught. The issue is Obama and his decision to remain a member of Wright's church.

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JOHN 3: 17---The nation does not need, nor did it want, a lecture from him about race. The problem is not one of race but of a man's judgment. He was answering the question why he continued to sit in Wright's church for 20 years listening to things he says he now knows were wrong and very divisive to the people of this country.

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He wasn't lecturing...He was leading...

You don't lead by making false comparisons in order to make it look as if you had good reason to stay in a church where divisive and racist and hateful speech is being used. The false comparisons were (a) comparing Wright's public sermons to his grandmother's occasional words; and ( comparing Wright's lies about the US to things your priest or pastor might say which you disagree with.

Those comparison are invalid and inaccurate and show that Omaba is not being forthcoming but is looking for a way to make it seem as if it was totally reasonable for a Senator and presidential candidate to give his prestige and support to Wright's church.

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a nation into a badly needed and over due talk about race relations that has not even been scratched on the surface.

Please note that the only reason for the "talk" is due to Obama's being forced to do it in order to explain his actions. Otherwise, he wouldn't have brought the subject up. Obama didn't want to have this talk.

The more Obama talks about race, the more he will lose. Obama definitely does not want to be viewed as "the black candidate" or "the angry black man." If he is viewed in this way, he won't have a chance of winning the general election against Senator McCain.

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The problem is that you don't want to admit that we need this talk....and we do need this talk.

The problem is not about race per se. It is about what Obama did and whether he should have done that? It is about how Obama thinks and whether he uses good judgment.

I am saying that Obama did not choose to have this talk because of his "leadership." He is forced to talk about race because of his poor judgement and because he doesn't want to lose the race for the presidency.

The time to show some leadership was back when he first became aware of what Wright preaches about America. Leadership would have called for him to challenge those lies when Wright accused the federal government of crimes against people of color, including selling drugs to blacks, creating the HIV virus to infect blacks, and perpetuating racism that led to disproportionate imprisonment of blacks; and again, when Wright said that the United State was responsible for the September 11th, 2001 attacks and urged black Americans to ask God to "damn America."

THAT WAS THE TIME TO SHOW REAL LEADERSHIP.

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JOHN 3: 17-- If Obama intended to set the nation right on the question of race, he should not have made the comparison of Wright's public preaching to something he heard his grandmother infrequently say in private. Nor should he have compared his listening for years to Wright's wrong and hurtful sermons to hearing one's priest or pastor say things you may occasionally disagree with.

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You missed the point. The point there is that you don't give up on family. You may not like what they say, you may not like how they say some things...You may have even talked about it....but you don't give up on them....like what you are avocating...

I am not advocating giving up on them. Are you suggesting that if he stopped attending the church, Obama would necessarily have been giving up on "family"? Does a president or a Senator give up on people just because they are not members of a church or because they don't have some people as personal friends or as part of their political campaign? I would deny that's the case, and I deny that Obama would have been giving up on people if he had done the right thing by withdrawing from that church and moving to a different one.

Is it helpful either to Obama or to America for Americans to believe that Obama supports Wright and that congregation? I don't think so. That is why Obama no longer has reference to Wright on Obama's official campaign website. He took it off. Wright is also no longer a part of Obama's campaign in any way. Why did he wait so long to take this action? He was forced to do it because he recognizes that it is not conducive to a successful presidential campaign. But he should have recognized this long before and not waited until he was compelled to do it. THAT would have demonstrated wisdom and leadership.

I submit that the fact that Oboma could not see this before shows he does not have the good judgment necessary to be president of the United States.

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JOHN 3: 17-- In that way, Obama skirts the main issue: why didn't Obama see that he was doing the wrong thing by staying in that church and lending his support and prestige to it?

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Because it wasn't done every Sunday, and the church and the pastor did other things worth while and important to the church life of the church....and life got in the way of the judgement....Why don't I just move away from my ignorant, self serving relatives? Because I don't give up on my family...

Doing other worth while things does not excuse the lies and evil things Wright was teaching and preaching to his congregation, and it is these lies that should have caused a man in Obama's position to realize he needed to find a different spiritual adviser and church. I think Obama is going to be sorry he didn't understand this sooner, if he isn't already.

I doubt if he wins any other states between now and the convention. I certainly believe he has no chance now of winning Pennsylvania. I believed a few weeks ago that he would win it. Now I can't see it.

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JOHN 3: 17-- Just as it is best for the country for the President to know when he must lie for the good of national security, etc., the president must also know when stop having an individual as a spiritual counselor or pastor to the President. The President has to be ruthless when it comes to these kinds of decisions, and use good judgement, because the security and stability of the nation is at stake. It means putting the good of the country ahead of one's personal friends or associations. In that, I submit, Obama has failed miserably.

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Not so....He has currently distanced himself from his pastor, publically repudiated a retiring pastor,...

He should have seen that this was necessary a long time ago. Why didn't he do it before? Because, it seems now, he was evidently blind to it, or because he misjudged the effects. Either way, it begs the question whether he has the judgment to be president.

By the way, what did Obama say when first confronted about this issue? Wasn't it that he was unaware of Wright's beliefs and teachings on this subject? Why would a good leader, when first confronted with the question about it, deny knowing of Wright's false teachings?

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and engaged the nation in talking about badly needed race relations.... That is pretty good Leadership qualities from a personal situation...

Again, it was a situation forced on him because the media brought it out in the open. He tried to avoid it but it was too late. He took too long to act.

[John317]

Hmmm - get back to me when historians rate Bush as a top president. My point was just that I wasn't sure where Redwood's numbers were coming from, nothing deeper than that.

I was simply thinking how interesting it is that the favorability ratings are very temporary and do not accurately show whether presidents are really doing a good job or how history will eventually judge them.

[Kountzer]

I was listening to some recorded audio of Pastor Wright on the radio last night. It sounds as though he is some type of political facilitator in the democratic party. He's a big supporter of the Clintons. He sounds as though he doesn't care for Obama too much. He said he wasn't black, but was a half white boy, etc.

If he is a recognized name in the dem. party, that partially explains why Obama belongs in his church.

The more I listen to Wright the more appreciative I am of my Pastor, my church & my denomination.

DB

[lazarus]

It isn't about Wright, though. Wright has a perfect right to say what he does, just as do those other men you mentioned. The problem is what Obama did in giving his prestige and financial support to Wright by sitting there for 20 years. It's not even a question of whether Obama had a right to sit there. Of course he had that right. The question is, did it show good judgment for a U.S. representative and Senator to do it? And why did he do it? Was it because Obama agrees with Wright's Black Liberation Theology?

Did it show good judgment for Bush to go to Bob Jones university? Did you still vote for him?

Of course this about Wright, but is also about politics.

Obama does agree with many things Wright has said but not everything. People don't come to my church because they believe all the things I say. There are other factors.

I'm exited about much of James Cone writings but I don't believe everything he says. I still read his books. I would be proud to have him as friend and an associate.

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After all, the sermons in which he said these things were made into Compact Disks and sold to the public and to the school. Does his ignorance about this show that he is ready to be president of the United States?

He's not ready to be president because he does not know whats on the sermon CD's of the church he attends? Dude, please!!!

I served in a church for 5 years I could not tell you half things the Senior pastor preached about because I was away preaching, doing youth church, trying to get the teens inside church.

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As we look at the sermons of Wright, we find that he often spoke negatively about America.

Is his allegiance to America or to God. Sounds like an OT prophet to me. The role of a preacher is to call his community to a higher standard. His church, community and country.

Do white right preachers speak negatively about America? Of course they do but its groups like Gays, the ACLU, liberals. And of course God wants us to talk negatively about them because they don't vote republican.

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Wright's approval rating is at 8%, so there are also a lot of blacks who disapprove of what he teaches.

since when do we judge a preacher by an approval rating. I wonder what MLK's approval rating was at the height of the civil rights struggle.

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As for Falwell and Robertson, Haggie, etc., I wouldn't defend their political beliefs one bit

The GOP panders to them. They are never criticized and condemned for the anti-Americanism. Why? Because politically it is not expedient to do so.

Its OK of you want to condemn Obama for listening to what his Pastor says. Wright's ministry, I suspect, is more than a few soundbites played over and over on the Sean Hannity show. There's are thousands he's bought to Jesus, counseled, married etc. Same with right wing preachers.

[lazarus]

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Wright accused the federal government of crimes against people of color,

I think American history has show that to be true.

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including selling drugs to blacks,

"For the better part of a decade, a San Francisco Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles and funneled millions in drug profitsto a Latin American guerrilla army run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency." So begins the controversial three part series, published last August, by Gary Webb in the San Jose Mercury News.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/forum/october96/crack_contra_11-1.html

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creating the HIV virus to infect blacks,

of course thats crazy but where did HIV come from anyway?

perpetuating racism that led to disproportionate imprisonment of blacks.

Crack v Cocaine sentencing guidelines.

In one sermon, Wright said that the United State was responsible for the September 11th, 2001 attacks and urged black Americans to ask God to 'damn America.'

He's talking about Blowback: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowback_(intelligence)

[lazarus]

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The more Obama talks about race, the more he will lose. Obama definitely does not want to be viewed as "the black candidate" or "the angry black man."

Thats is because the issue of race is still highly charged in this country. Many White people have not yet confronted, been healed from and rejected racism. Many would not readily admit that the USA has been a racist country. The US has not apologized for its for its racism. Why would someone not apologies? because they are not sorry.

If this were are a white right wing candidate's Pastor criticizing America this would have been a story in the progressive blogs. How dare a black man criticize America.

[Woody]

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I am starting to suspect Hillary is behind something here.

I'm not big into conspiracy theories ... so I doubt this one. There is nothing new about this story. I heard it a year ago. It is just now getting legs.

Which bring me to the point that since I heard this a year ago ... how come Obama is just now hearing the same clips? Bring up lots of questions don't it.

[Woody]

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Did it show good judgment for Bush to go to Bob Jones university? Did you still vote for him?

It would not show good judgment if he did this for 20 years. THEN ... I would not vote for him.

[Woody]

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The US has not apologized for its for its racism. Why would someone not apologies? because they are not sorry.

This is the KEY to the issue. The Blacks will not accept the reality of progress and want to dwell on the past instead of the present. They will want more and more apologizes . There will be no end.

Hey folks ... lets move on. How long must we be en-slaved by this past.

[Amelia]

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If this were are a white right wing candidate's Pastor criticizing America this would have been a story in the progressive blogs. How dare a black man criticize America.

Anyone and everyone is entitled to criticize our government. That's what our country is all about. It's just my opinion that it doesn't belong in church as a sermon. I don't feel a pastor ahould encourage people to pray for God to damn America. What if He did? What would they do? Pray then for God to spare them the damnation?

[Dr. Shane]

In the Adventist church we go to great lengths to separate politics from religion. Most churches do not do that.

In the black tradition, pastors often raise their voice and beat the pulpit when they don't. Most white people are not use to seeing that. Many white people see that and think this guy is hate-filled and cannot imagine his loving compassion side which is what Obama knows.

[John317]

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Did it show good judgment for Bush to go to Bob Jones university? Did you still vote for him?

But those hardly comparable situations, as I believe you will concede. In the case of Bob Jones U, Bush went to speak there, not to listen to what they were teaching. And he didn't go there every Sunday, support it with his presence and with his money, for twenty years.

This is not about the fact that Obama simply went to visit Wright or his church. Nor is it about Wright's preaching what he did. It is, again, about Obama's thinking and his judgment.

Knowing what you know about America, and about what Wright taught, do you believe that it showed good judgment for Obama as a state legislator and Senator to go to Wright's church, ask him to have the invocation at the announcement of his candidacy, and hire him to work in Obama's campaign?

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Of course this about Wright, but is also about politics.

No one denies Wright the right to preach or believe what he want to. No one denies Obama the right to go there for 20 years. If Obama had been an ordinary citizen, no one would be talking about it. It has to do with the fact that Obama wants to be every American's president, while he sits in a church for many years and hears harmful and racially divisive preaching and lies about the United States.

Of course it is about politics. Politics is involved in any race to hold public office. That should not be a surprise to anyone, least of all to Obama. Yes, politics are important here.

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Obama does agree with many things Wright has said but not everything. People don't come to my church because they believe all the things I say. There are other factors.

How long do you think someone-- and especially a US Sentator-- would remain in your church if you taught the outrageous things that Wright taught?

Of course we're not saying every member has to agree with everything a pastor teaches or says in order to stay in the church. That is not the issue. The issue here is that Wright was teaching things untrue (lies), offensive and racially divisive, while Obama sat there for years and remained silent through it all. As far as anyone knows, Obama never challenged him or his theories or ideas. That makes it appear that Obama is going along with the flow, even if he didn't agree with it. How is that leadership? How is that good judgment?

Therefore, it is not an accurate or fair comparison to draw an analogy between your own preaching and that of Wright, or between your members and Obama. Not unless you are preaching that the US government invented the HIV virus or unless you preach that blacks ought to pray "God d--- America." Which I am sure you do not and never would.

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I'm exited about much of James Cone writings but I don't believe everything he says. I still read his books. I would be proud to have him as friend and an associate.

But does Cone preach the lies that Wright preached? Does he agree with Wright that the US made the HIV virus to kill blacks, that blacks should pray for God to damn America, that the US is run by a lot of rich white people, that the US deserved to be attacked on 9/11, and that the US bombing of Japan in WW II is comparable to 9/11?

I found that Cone says the following things:

1) "All white men are responsible for white oppression."

2) "While it is true that blacks do hate whites, black hatred is not racism. Racism, according to Webster, is 'the assumption that psychocultural traits and capacities are determined by biological race and that races differ decisively from one another, which is usually coupled with a belief in the inherent superiority of a particular race and its rights to dominance over others.' "

3) "Theologically, Malcolm X was not far wrong when he called the white man 'the devil.' The white structure of this American society, personified in every racist, must be at least part of what the New Testament meant by the demonic forces."

4) "Racism is a complete denial of the Incarnation and thus of Christianity...If there is any contemporary meaning of the Antichrist (or "the principalities and powers"), the white church seems to be a manifestation of it. It was the white 'Christian' church which took the lead in establishing slavery as an institution and segregation as a pattern in society by sanctioning all-white congregations." [black Theology and Black Power, p. 73']

5) "Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us, if God is not against white racists, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill gods that do not belong to the black community." [A Black Theology of Liberation, p. 27]

6) "Black theology cannot accept a view of God which does not represent God as being for oppressed blacks and thus against white oppressors. Living in a world of white oppressors, blacks have no time for a neutral God. The brutalities are too great and the pain too severe, and this means we must know where God is and what God is doing in the revolution. There is no use for a God who loves white oppressors the same as oppressed blacks. We have had too much of white love, the love that tells blacks to turn the other cheek and go the second mile. What we need is the divine love as expressed in black power, which is the power of blacks to destroy their oppressors, here and now, by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject God's love." [A Black Theology of Liberation, p. 70]

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JOHN 3: 17-- After all, the sermons in which he said these things were made into Compact Disks and sold to the public and to the school. Does his ignorance about this show that he is ready to be president of the United States?

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He's not ready to be president because he does not know whats on the sermon CD's of the church he attends? Dude, please!!!

I served in a church for 5 years I could not tell you half things the Senior pastor preached about because I was away preaching, doing youth church, trying to get the teens inside church.

Obama does not show that he is very observant or knowledgeable if he does not know what all the other members of the church know about Wright. I am not saying he has to know everything that is on those CDs. Certainly not. But my point is that there is no reason for him to be ignorant of what Wright believes and teaches. Remember that at first, Obama said he did not know that Wright said those things, which he now admits he did know about.

I have no doubt that if the Senior Pastor was preaching the things that Wright was teaching, you would know about it. I think you would concede that.

[Amelia]

*GP*

Everyone FYI. The longer the post the lest apt it is to be read thoroughly.

[John317]

Maybe I should try putting all that on several posts instead of on one. That's what I'll do from now on. Thanks.

[John317]

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JOHN 3: 17-- As we look at the sermons of Wright, we find that he often spoke negatively about America.

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Is his allegiance to America or to God.

As an American, my allegiance belongs first to God and then to America. But the Bible says we should obey the laws of the country we live in unless they conflict with the laws of God, and then we must obey God as ruler rather than man.

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Sounds like an OT prophet to me. The role of a preacher is to call his community to a higher standard. His church, community and country.

But a person doesn't do that by being divisive and saying things that are wrong and harmful, which Obama has already conceded that Jeremiah Wright did. How is telling lies about the US calling the church, the community and the country to a higher standard? The OT did not tell lies. It is a lie to say that the U.S. made the HIV virus or to say it made it for the purpose of killing black people. It is a lie to say that the US deserved to be attacked on 9/11. It is a lie to say the U.S. bombed Japan without batting an eye and that it was on the same moral level as those who attacked us on 9/11. That is not what God calls prophets to do or say. He does not call them to lie and encourage hatred between races. That's the work of demagogues. Obama does not want to associate himself with that if he wants to be president of the United States.

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Do white right preachers speak negatively about America?

I am sure they do, but I don't listen to them and I certainly don't sit in their churches year after year.

Would you be OK with Bush sitting in their churches for years and listening to their garbage without a public rejection of their teaching? If he did sit there for years, I would definitely question his judgment just as I am questioning Obama's.

I am in favor of speaking the truth about everything, including the truth about America. But there is a way of speaking the truth about America in love and there is a way of speaking of it in hatred and anger. I only heard and saw anger and hatred for America in Wrights preaching and in his voice. I did not hear love.

Perhaps, after listening for years to that kind of language for years, that is why Obama's wife says she did not feel proud of America until just a couple of months ago. I am not surprised. Who could feel proud of America while listening to, and accepting, the lies and propaganda of Jeremiah Wright?

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Of course they do but its groups like Gays, the ACLU, liberals. And of course God wants us to talk negatively about them because they don't vote republican.

It's got nothing, as far as I am concerned, with who people vote for. I don't vote along party lines and I have voted many times for Democratic candidates. I have voted Socialist before.

If you are speaking of white preachers on the far right, I don't listen to them or pay any attention to what they are saying. I haven't listened to one of them since about 1982.

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JOHN 3: 17-- Wright's approval rating is at 8%, so there are also a lot of blacks who disapprove of what he teaches.

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since when do we judge a preacher by an approval rating. I wonder what MLK's approval rating was at the height of the civil rights struggle.

I am simply making the point that there are a lot of blacks also who do not agree with Wright. Just as Obama does not agree NOW with what Wright said about the US.

Actually, as a kid I remember MLK and the civil rights struggle, and I can tell you that MLK would have had high approval ratings among blacks and also among whites in some sections of the country. I certainly favored what he was doing. Some of my heroes back then besides MLK, were Stokely Carmichael, Eldridge Cleaver (1968), Huey P. Newton, Malcolm X, Bobby Seale, and later, George Jackson, one of the Soledad Brothers. (Google any you don't know.)

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JOHN 3: 17--As for Falwell and Robertson, Haggie, etc., I wouldn't defend their political beliefs one bit

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The GOP panders to them. They are never criticized and condemned for the anti-Americanism. Why? Because politically it is not expedient to do so.

Could you tell me the worst thing they have said about America?

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Its OK of you want to condemn Obama for listening to what his Pastor says. Wright's ministry, I suspect, is more than a few soundbites played over and over on the Sean Hannity show. There's are thousands he's bought to Jesus, counseled, married etc. Same with right wing preachers.

Do you believe that it showed good judgment for Obama as a US legislator and Senator to stay in that church and listen to what Wright taught without raising his voice against those things? Is Obama wrong to distance himself from Wright? Was he right to tell Wright he could not give the invocation at the announcement of his presidential campaign? I believe there is evidence that Obama realizes he made a mistake. It's just that he was too slow to understand, and this is what calls his judgment into question. He should have realized it a long time ago.

Good discussion, Lazarus!

I know where Black Liberation Theology comes from. I can understand it. It's just that I don't believe all of it follows the Bible or is something we Christians can encourage or spread. Many of those beliefs encourage hatred, not love; bitterness and resentment, not forgiveness. The Bible calls me to love the person who thinks of himself as my enemy and does evil things to me. It does not call me to hate him. And if I hate him, preachers do not do me a favor by simply understanding my hate and telling me it's OK to hate. Hatred must be condemned, at the same time that I must love the person who hates. James Cone's theology says we must kill the kind of God who is "for" our white enemy. But the Bible teaches that God is "for" our enemy as much as God is "for" me or for you. At the trial of Jesus, God was "for" Pilate as much as He was "for" His Son. That is a radical departure from the teaching of those who encourage black anger and hatred toward other races by telling them God needs to killed if he is isn't against people they consider to be racist.

In my work, I have always shown love toward those who are unloving. I don't help them by hating in return. This is the difference between the teachings of MLK and the early Malcolm X, or between Gandhi and George Jackson. It's interesting that Eldridge Cleaver also underwent a spiritual change somewhat like Malcolm X did, although Cleaver later had health problems that evidently, sadly, affected his thinking and judgment. I was fortunate enough to be able to meet and talk with Cleaver about 1984.

[Dr. Shane]

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I am starting to suspect Hillary is behind something here.

I'm not big into conspiracy theories ... so I doubt this one.

FOXNews was reporting this afternoon that Hillary has been working hard to keep this story in the news.