Obama's Minister Committed "Treason" But When My Father Said the Same Thing He Was a Republican Hero
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 -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.
Dad and I were amongst the founders of the Religious right. In the 1970s and 1980s, while Dad and I crisscrossed America denouncing our nation's sins instead of getting in trouble we became darlings of the Republican Party. (This was while I was my father's sidekick before I dropped out of the evangelical movement altogether.) We were rewarded for our "stand" by people such as Congressman Jack Kemp, the Fords, Reagan and the Bush family. The top Republican leadership depended on preachers and agitators like us to energize their rank and file. No one called us un-American.
Consider a few passages from my father's immensely influential America-bashing book A Christian Manifesto. It sailed under the radar of the major media who, back when it was published in 1980, were not paying particular attention to best-selling religious books. Nevertheless it sold more than a million copies.
Here's Dad writing in his chapter on civil disobedience:
"If there is a legitimate reason for the use of force [against the US government]... then at a certain point force is justifiable."
And this:
"In the United States the materialistic, humanistic world view is being taught exclusively in most state schools... There is an obvious parallel between this and the situation in Russia [the USSR]. And we really must not be blind to the fact that indeed in the public schools in the United States all religious influence is as forcibly forbidden as in the Soviet Union...."
Then this:
"There does come a time when force, even physical force, is appropriate... A true Christian in Hitler's Germany and in the occupied countries should have defied the false and counterfeit state. This brings us to a current issue that is crucial for the future of the church in the United States, the issue of abortion... It is time we consciously realize that when any office commands what is contrary to God's law it abrogates it's authority. And our loyalty to the God who gave this law then requires that we make the appropriate response in that situation..."
Was any conservative political leader associated with Dad running for cover? Far from it. Dad was a frequent guest of the Kemps, had lunch with the Fords, stayed in the White House as their guest, he met with Reagan, helped Dr. C. Everett Koop become Surgeon General. (I went on the 700 Club several times to generate support for Koop).
Dad became a hero to the evangelical community and a leading political instigator. When Dad died in 1984 everyone from Reagan to Kemp to Billy Graham lamented his passing publicly as the loss of a great American. Not one Republican leader was ever asked to denounce my dad or distanced himself from Dad's statements.
Take Dad's words and put them in the mouth of Obama's preacher (or in the mouth of any black American preacher) and people would be accusing that preacher of treason. Yet when we of the white Religious Right denounced America white conservative Americans and top political leaders, called our words "godly" and "prophetic" and a "call to repentance."
We Republican agitators of the mid 1970s to the late 1980s were genuinely anti-American in the same spirit that later Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson (both followers of my father) were anti-American when they said God had removed his blessing from America on 9/11, because America accepted gays. Falwell and Robertson recanted but we never did.
My dad's books denouncing America and comparing the USA to Hitler are still best sellers in the "respectable" evangelical community and he's still hailed as a prophet by many Republican leaders. When Mike Huckabee was recently asked by Katie Couric to name one book he'd take with him to a desert island, besides the Bible, he named Dad's Whatever Happened to the Human Race? a book where Dad also compared America to Hitler's Germany.
The hypocrisy of the right denouncing Obama, because of his minister's words, is staggering. They are the same people who argue for the right to "bear arms" as "insurance" to limit government power. They are the same people that (in the early 1980s roared and cheered when I called down damnation on America as "fallen away from God" at their national meetings where I was keynote speaker, including the annual meeting of the ultraconservative Southern Baptist convention, and the religious broadcasters that I addressed.
Today we have a marriage of convenience between the right wing fundamentalists who hate Obama, and the "progressive" Clintons who are playing the race card through their own smear machine. As Jane Smiley writes in the Huffington Post "[The Clinton's] are, indeed, now part of the 'vast right wing conspiracy.'
Both the far right Republicans and the stop-at-nothing Clintons are using the "scandal" of Obama's preacher to undermine the first black American candidate with a serious shot at the presidency. Funny thing is, the racist Clinton/Far Right smear machine proves that Obama's minister had a valid point. There is plenty to yell about these days.
Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of "CRAZY FOR GOD-How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back
I find it hard to believe this Pastor/Minister hasn't said such controversial things in the past when Obama boy was in attendance, therefore if he did and continued to attend this ers services then I would have a big problem. In other words You Hussein Obama!
These charges REEK of Republican desperation.. what do they want to talk about? Values? no. What about policy? No. There's alway's national defense? NO.
But let's play the guilt by association charge..
on a much smaller note it is amazing to me that the same people who claim the Clinton's always play dirty are the one's whoring this story.. If the Clinton's so much as whispered about this story they would be accused of being up to their old dirty tricks but they haven't so it's just politics when they aren't involved..
Fox News and talk radio are very interested in this story..
Oh come on GGA. Take a deep breath. RepublicanThese charges REEK of Republican desperation.. what do they want to talk about? Values? no. What about policy? No. There's alway's national defense? NO.
But let's play the guilt by association charge..
on a much smaller note it is amazing to me that the same people who claim the Clinton's always play dirty are the one's whoring this story.. If the Clinton's so much as whispered about this story they would be accused of being up to their old dirty tricks but they haven't so it's just politics when they aren't involved..
Fox News and talk radio are very interested in this story..
desperation. The blasted dimm-o-craps brought all
this junk up.
which dimm-o-craps ray?
I think Obama opponents may be overplaying their hand here...
The worst case scenario here is that Obama agrees with everything his minister has said. So what if that's true? Is Obama an anti-American mole who would use his position of power to destroy the country? I doubt it. We all know his campaign is about "change"... and the desire for "change" and the promise of "hope" comes from dissatisfaction with the status quo. He's published his "Blueprint for Change" and we know the extraordinary budget that goes with it.
So I don't think it would be any stunning revalation to find that Obama isn't "Proud to be an American" right now. And that's still the worst case scenario. The more likely scenario, which I alluded to earlier in the thread and ES suggested in better detail, is that Obama is a member of this church and a friend of the pastor because it is politically convenient for a minority Democratic politician.
The minister leads a congregation that feels victimized and repressed and expects their government to do more for them. Sounds like your average Democratic campaign rally. The only reason it's offensive to me is that Wright is supposed to be a shepherd for Christ, not a shill for party politicians. But sadly he's not the only one who is guilty of misusing his position as a spiritual leader.
ie every religious leader since the dawn of man, whether a lowly tribal shaman or a pope.
Nah, there are many great people leading congregations in this country. Their hearts are in the right place and they're serving God and helping a lot of people. But they don't get the same amount of attention as the religious leaders with big stages and Nightly News-friendly soundbyte messages.
First of all, Republican desperation? Hey, from my view, all non-liberals are on the sidelines on this one...it's up to Democrat voters to decide if it affects his getting the nomination.
Let's pretend he was Republican, white and attended a church led by a Grand Kleagle of the KKK...or, a white separatists (Wright is a black separatist).But let's play the guilt by association charge..
Would he get a pass? Would you question his reasons for attending THAT church when ther are others, preaching the Gospel (many in the same denomination), right there in Chicago?
How 'bout if he allowed the white separatist pastor to baptize his children, counsel him, sit on a campaign committee...etc...
Is it really not an issue?
If you don't think the Clintons are loving every minute of this, you're stupid.on a much smaller note it is amazing to me that the same people who claim the Clinton's always play dirty are the one's whoring this story.. If the Clinton's so much as whispered about this story they would be accused of being up to their old dirty tricks but they haven't so it's just politics when they aren't involved..
Again, it was ABC News that re-introduced the topic this past week.
We are judged by the company we keep.
I also suspect his waxing poetic about how important his faith is in his life, and what a mentor Wright has been to him, is partly to reinforce his image as this uniter for hope and change, to tell some of the more moderate religious folks, whose vision of the intersection of faith and politics is more than just abortion and gay marriage, "See, I'm like you and understand you. Religion is important to me." And while I don't doubt it is indeed important to him, his verbosity in expressing it is just taking a page out of the Republican playbook. In this case, it backfired, because the voters he was trying to appeal to by bringing up his relationship to his pastor are probably immediately turned off by the things his pastor said.
this should be interesting:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmi..._tomorrow.html
March 17, 2008
Categories: Barack Obama
Obama plans major race speech tomorrow
Barack Obama will give a major speech on "the larger issue of race in this campaign," he told reporters in Monaca, PA just now.
He was pressed there, as he has been at recent appearances, on statements by his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright.
"I am going to be talking about not just Reverend Wright, but the larger issue of race in this campaign," he said.
He added that he would "talk about how some of these issues are perceived from within the black church issue for example," he said.
He also briefly defended Wright from the image that has come through in a handful of repeatedly televised clips from recent Wright sermons.
"The caricature that’s being painted of him is not accurate," he said.
The speech could offer Obama an opportunity to move past the controversy over his pastor, and to turn the conversation to a topic he'd rather focus on: his Christian faith. But the speech also guarantees that the Wright story will continue to dominate political headlines.
Mitt Romney's attempt directly to address his Mormonism last year never decisively put the issue to rest for some voters.
Obama's schedule puts him in Philadelphia tomorrow.
By Ben Smith 01:40 PM
From an Obama supporter:
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gerald...c_b_91693.html)
I am a Barack Obama supporter. I liked Senator John Edwards, think Hilary Clinton would make a super president, but have been persuaded ever since the start of the campaign that Barack offers the greatest chance for substantive, and greatly over needed, change.
I'm still in the Barack camp. But, as a vocal supporter, I'd like just a couple of answers about the flap over Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr, the former pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, the Chicago megachurch where the Obamas have been members for 20 years.
Comments
Buzz up!on Yahoo!Guilt by association is totally unwarranted. Barack is not responsible for Wright's views. However, how he responds to those views -- and whether he is being straight with us, the voters -- is critical as to whether he should lead our country.
The key issue for me, as both a supporter and as a reporter, revolves around what I view as Wright's most incendiary comments, those implying that America -- because of its own actions -- deserved the 9/11 terror attacks.
Wright made his comments on September 16, only 5 days after the deadly strikes in New York and Washington. He said, in part, "We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye....We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."
Barack was then serving in the Illinois senate. He had unsuccessfully run for Congress the previous year. Although the Trinity United Church is large (6,000 members), the Obamas were then, and have been since his 1997 election to the State Senate, some of the best known parishioners.
A church, synagogue, mosque, and other places of worship, are like extensions of the local communities they serve. Afro-centric churches like Trinity serve not only as houses of worship but as a backdrop for a wide range of social, personal, and often business, relationships. When a parishioner is away from their house of worship, if the preacher/priest/rabbi/imam says something particularly out of character -- or wildly controversial -- it is almost impossible that members aren't going to talk about it endlessly as gossip.
There was no more traumatic event in our recent history than 9/11. Reverend Wright's comments would have raised a ruckus at most places in America, coming so soon after the the attack itself. Political commentator Bill Maher lost his TV show when he seconded a guest's observation that the hijackers had courage to carry out their attack. The country was emotionally raw.
If the parishioners of Trinity United Church were not buzzing about Reverend Wright's post 9/11 comments, then it could only seem to be because those comments were not out of character with what he preached from the pulpit many times before. In that case, I have to wonder if it is really possible for the Obamas to have been parishioners there -- by 9/11 they were there more than a decade -- and not to have known very clearly how radical Wright's views were. If, on the other hand, parishioners were shocked by Wright's vitriol only days after more than 3,000 Americans had been killed by terrorists, they would have talked about it incessantly. Barack -- a sitting Illinois State Senator -- would have been one of the first to hear about it.
Can't you imagine the call or conversation? "Barack, you aren't going to believe what Revered Wright said yesterday at the church. You should be ready with a comment if someone from the press calls you up."
But Barack now claims he never heard about any of this until after he began his run for the presidency, in February, 20007.
And even if Barack is correct -- and I desperately want to believe him -- then it still does not explain why, when he learned in 2007 of Wright's fringe comments about 9/11 and other subjects, the campaign did not then disassociate itself from the Reverend. Wright was not removed from the campaign's Spiritual Advisory Committee until two days ago, and it appears likely that nothing would have been done had this story not broken nationally.
Come on, Barack. I'm backing you because you are not 'one of them.' You have inspired me and millions of others because you are not a typical politician. You tell it like it is, don't fudge the facts, and don't dodge and weave with clever words to avoid uncomfortable truths.
Tell it straight. Was Reverend Wright so radical that his post 9/11 comments did not cause a stir at the Church, and you never learned about them until 2007, nearly 6 years later? Why, when you did learn about them, did you not ask Revered Wright to step down from his role in your campaign?
Give us the plain truth. You won't lose us by being brutally honest. You only risk shaking our faith in you if you seem like so many other politicians that crowd the field.
Gerald Posner is the author of 10 books of investigative non-fiction, seven NYT bestsellers, and a finalist for the Pulitzer in History. His last book was Secrets of the Kingdom: The Inside Story of the Saudi US Connection.
It's turning out that Mr. "I'm not one of those politicians" is exactly that.
It seems that PeeWee and the writer of this letter both have ulterior motives - pretend to like Obama and then regurgitate wing-nut talking points...Yes, anyone who questions if past U.S. foreign policy might have led to the 911 attacks is anti-AmericanI also suspect his waxing poetic about how important his faith is in his life, and what a mentor Wright has been to him, is partly to reinforce his image as this uniter for hope and change, to tell some of the more moderate religious folks, whose vision of the intersection of faith and politics is more than just abortion and gay marriage, "See, I'm like you and understand you. Religion is important to me." And while I don't doubt it is indeed important to him, his verbosity in expressing it is just taking a page out of the Republican playbook. In this case, it backfired, because the voters he was trying to appeal to by bringing up his relationship to his pastor are probably immediately turned off by the things his pastor said.
I think the deeper issue here is that what we are saying to everyone, and especially our future leaders, watch what you say and who you congregate with, no matter what you may believe, because it can and will be used against you by the your enemies M$M....now that's an Amerika to be proud of...
Obama will still get the nomination and run with Bill Richardson. McCain will run with J.C. Watts who will go into full attack mode while McCain sits back and sips Pena Coladas from his bus.
It's important!
It seems that PeeWee and the writer of this letter both have ulterior motives - pretend to like Obama and then regurgitate wing-nut talking points...Yes, anyone who questions if past U.S. foreign policy might have led to the 911 attacks is anti-American
I think the deeper issue here is that what we are saying to everyone, and especially our future leaders, watch what you say and who you congregate with, no matter what you may believe, because it can and will be used against you by the your enemies M$M....now that's an Amerika to be proud of...
I'm not an Obama supporter.
I voted for Hillary in the Texas Primary.
You're talking out of your ass.
The whole point of my previous post, where one of his supporters is openly questioning him, is that Obama, for all of his "I'm not one of them" speeches, is turning out to be just another politician.
Rice would be tiptoeing near pandering territory but JC Watts would diving in head first.
Bookmarked.
McCain should run with Kat Williams.
They would win the South in a landslide.
You don't seem to get it. If you didn't fall in love with Obama then you obviously have an agenda and hate black people.
If Nbadan disavows guilt by association, how will he be able to post?
Is Wright a criminal? NOT!
Political guilt.
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