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Thursday, Mar. 20, 2008

Lexington minister says Obama's ex-pastor is being misunderstood

I was pleased to hear Sen. Barack Obama say Tuesday that even though he might not have been in the pew when his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, spoke of damning America for its racist history, he was definitely aware of Wright's leanings.

No one doubted that Obama knew.

Now, does that mean we should assume Obama totally agrees with Wright's criticism of America? Of course not.

That's no more believable than thinking that U.S. Sen. John McCain agrees with some of the radical ministers in his camp, including the Rev. John Hagee, who hasn't seen anything likeable about the Catholic Church. Or that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton agrees with her husband's statements or Geraldine Ferraro's statements about how Barack Obama's success is based on his race.

All three candidates have distanced themselves from the negative statements issued by those who endorse them. Including Obama.

But the Rev. Bishop Carter III of Bethsaida Baptist Church in Lexington, who studied under Wright for his doctorate, said we are taking Wright's words out of context.

”That church is one of the biggest mission-minded churches in the nation,“ Carter said. ”They are huge in prison ministries and they have a major inner-city ministry for the indigent and poor and HIV/AIDS.

”He also specializes in ministries for gays. He says, "I don't support the act, but I am responsible for your soul.'

”He's telling America that you are not what you think you are,“ Carter said. ”You have to stop being a ­chameleon and wearing this façade. You know racism still exists, and that you are throwing money away.“

Carter said one of Wright's recent messages criticized the Internal Revenue Service's decision to spend $42 million to mail letters telling Americans that rebate checks are in the mail.

Wright, who, according to The New York Times, fulfilled longstanding plans last month to retire, was the keynote speaker in Lexington two years ago for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration. At the time, Wright said King's legacy stopped at his 1963 ”I Have a Dream“ speech, and nobody listened to King's views on the Vietnam War.

”He exposed it as a war based on lies, like a war some of us are familiar with, and nobody heard him,“ Wright said in Lexington.

”After 2,200 American boys and girls are dead in a war they do not understand,“ Wright said then, ”can you hear King now?

”I hope to God you can hear him so we can begin to live together as ­brothers and sisters before we all die together as fanatical fools.“

A lot of people agree.

Some, however, seem to be having a hard time with Obama's unwillingness to leave Trinity Church of Christ in Chicago before Wright retired for another center of worship. After all, if you don't agree with your pastor, why not just leave the church?

I don't propose to be an expert on that topic. I left a church because I disagreed with a pastor's decision to divorce his wife. I had attended the church for about five years, so my roots weren't deep when I pulled them up.

Obama understood last year that his minister's views are controversial. But, he recently wrote in a statement to the Huffington Post, ”because Reverend Wright was on the verge of retirement, and because of my strong links to the Trinity faith community, where I married my wife and where my daughters were baptized, I did not think it ­appropriate to leave the church.“

I haven't attended any church for 20 years straight. That's a long time. A lot of friendships. Very deep roots.

That, and not a sense of loyalty to a pastor, might make me think twice about leaving after hearing words I ­disagreed with coming from the pulpit.

Should some of Wright's words be repudiated? Yes. Strongly. And they have been.

Should Obama continue to befriend the minister who has done so much for inner-city Chicago? He should.

And I would assume Ferraro is still a close friend of Clinton and that Clinton will remain married to husband Bill.

To intimate that Obama, who is ­biracial, was reared by a white mother and white grandparents, and whose ­sister is white and Indonesian, is ­racist is ridiculous. The man has more ­diversity in his family than most of us have in our neighborhoods.

Still, Obama has gone from being labeled a Muslim because of his father's religion to being a hatemonger because of his pastor's words.

Fine. That's the nature of politics.

This campaign was inspiring in the beginning. Now, it is simply politics as usual.