obamarama and the Reverend Jeremiah Wright

Disclaimer: While I defend Rev. Wright below, I certainly don't agree with everything he has said or done. But can you think of any pastor with whom you have always agreed 100%? I can't. Like the Bereans, we are always testing what we hear from the pulpit to see if it is true or not.

Part One:

Polls show that both Hillary and Obama are going down in likability. It's not surprising: any life scrutinized so closely for so long will start showing some sin. None of us would be very liked if people knew everything about us, all our carefully hidden flaws. And thus the exact causes of the decline in likability are important: perhaps in them we can see some of the carefully hidden flaws in our potential candidates.

What has made Obama's likability ratings drop? One of the primary causes may be the remarks of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. And I am definitely bothered by this whole Rev. Wright business: how it's hurting Obama, and how Obama has started responding to it.

After reading some transcripts of Rev Wright's speeches, I believe that he may very well be the true kind of patriot who is willing to criticize a country he loves. I believe that has spoken prophetically against unjust war and killing, as others in the past have spoken prophetically against racism, abortion, or slavery. Yes, he sometimes sounds angry. But it's never wrong to angered by the death of an innocent child. I learned in 8th grade Bible class that that kind of anger is called thumos, and that it is righteous anger.

But let's suppose it's true that the Rev. Wright, (a pastor of over 30 years, with four earned degrees, whose church offers 70 ministries to the community), is in fact a little bit of an anti-American ranter. (First of all, I wouldn't blame him that much, considering how African Americans were treated in America during his childhood.) The important question is: how much would that influence Obama?

Let me ask you, dear reader: Do you ever take your pastor's words with a grain of salt? Ever disagree with him (or her) a little bit? How would you like to be held accountable for what your pastor says? It's a little bit insulting to your intelligence, isn't it, to have someone suggest that you are so mindless as to willingly and unquestioningly swallow everything you are fed? Now take Obama. He's not really a dumb guy. Remember Harvard Law? And he's not really known for hatred; he spent the first years of his adult career working tirelessly to improve the lives of the poor in urban Chicago. That's a difficult and often thankless job. And in doing it, as he recounts in Dreams from my Father, he had to work very hard to bring people from different political and social spectrums together on issues. Hmmm. Sounds like a useful skill for a President, doesn't it? But I digress.

And so, in sum, I don't believe the Rev. Wright to be a dangerous influence on Barack Obama. And yet, this whole business has troubled me for a different reason. I appreciated Obama's "A More Perfect Union" speech. Since then, things have gone downhill. Rev. Wright acted like his feeling were hurt and then Obama went and called Rev. Wright's sermons "divisive and destructive."

As Rev. Wright acknowledged in his remarks last week, Obama is a politician, and he "had to" distance himself from Rev. Wright. And I guess that's what makes me sad. That because of our media-drenched, controversy-loving, soundbyte society, no one gets to hear the nuances of the story. No one gets to understand the Reverend's sermons in context, and Obama can't make a complex explanation of the relationship between his pastor and himself. Instead, because a hint of anti-American spirit anywhere near a political candidate is damning, Obama just has to deny association.

In this, Obama has disappointed me. It seems he has been willing to sacrifice a relationship and publicly dishonor his pastor for the sake of winning a campaign.

Politics and the Whole Truth remain separate, even for Obama, who is our hope for change.

here, read Rev. Wright's remarks last week

and the full text of the "Audacity of Hope" sermon

and the first fifteen minutes of the infamous 9/11 sermon, transcribed here on a site very critical of Obama






Part Two:
If you want to see a good example of rumor and racism emanating from "Christians," look not to Rev. Wright but to this email from "missionaries" which has been circulating the web for some time. My comments will follow.

Subject: Message From Missionaries in Kenya About Obama


Celeste and Loren Davis are indeed Missionaries in Africa and can shed some light on one of our Presidential candidates. If you put their names in Google there is much to read including responses from those who choose to not believe what has been written below. I choose to think we Americans need to be very suspicious of this man. We need to get this message out! Please circulate this to all your contacts! This man must not get into office!!





Thanks for sending out an alert about Obama. We are living and working in Kenya for almost twelve years now and know his family (tribe) well. They are the ones who were behind the recent Presidential election chaos here.



Thousands of people have been displaced by election violence (over 350,000) and I don't know the last count of the dead. Obama under "friends of Obama" gave almost a million dollars to the opposition campaign who just happened to be his cousin, Raila Odinga, who is a socialist trained in east Germany . He has been trying to bring Kenya down for years and the last president threw him in prison for trying to subvert this country! December 27th elections brought cries from ODM (Odinga Camp) of rigged election. Obama and Raila speak daily. As we watch Obama rise in the US we are sure that whatever happens, he will use the same tactic, crying rigged election if he doesn't win and possibly cause a race war in America .



What we would like you to know is what the American press has been keeping a dirty little secret. Obama IS a Muslim and he IS a racist and this is a fulfillment of the 911 threat that was just the beginning. Jihad is the only true Muslim way. We have been working with them for 20 years this July! He is not an American as we know it. Please encourage your friends and associates not to be taken in by those that are promoting him. It is world wide jihad. All our friends in Europe are very disturbed by the Muslim infiltration into their countries. By the way, his true name is Barak Hussein Muhammed Obama. Won't that sound sweet to our enemies as they swear him in on the Koran!



God Bless you. Pray for us here in Kenya . We are still fighting for our nation to withstand the same kind of assault that every nation, including America , is fighting. Takeover from the outside to fit the new world order. As believers, this means we will be the first targets. Here in Kenya , not one mosque was burned down, but hundreds of churches were burned down, some with people in them, burned alive.



Jesus Christ is our peace but the new world order of Globalism has infiltrated the church and confused believers into thinking that they can compromise and survive. It won't be so. I will send you a newsletter we sent out in February documenting in a more cohesive manner what I've tried to say in a few paragraphs.



Love, Celeste

Celeste and Loren Davis
About our Father's business!
Luke 2:49b


According to Snopes, none of these claims can be shown to be true (about his "cousin", the money, the phone conversations, etc.) . Rather, the facts show that Obama was sworn into the Senate with his hand on a Bible. The facts show that his name is Barack Hussein Obama. But if Obama's full name was "Barak Hussein Muhammed Obama," that wouldn't be strange: Muhammed is the most common name in the world. I have a friend named Muhammed. How would you like to be judged by your name alone?

"He is not an American as we know it." What does this mean? That he's not white? That he's Muslim? Is it un-American to be black, biracial, or Muslim? Are they perhaps confusing "American" with "white Christian," or "Patriotism" with "Christianity," or "the USA" with "God"?

I'll stop there. This kind of slanderous, unsubstantiated, prejudiced rhetoric coming from Christians is the reason I sometimes hesitate to call myself one.