Deacon Carole Carter has sought healing at Trinity United Church of Christ nearly every Sunday since her chemotherapy began. If she’s not there, members call to check on her, thanks to a list of the ailing and homebound published in the church bulletin.
But when reporters and curiosity-seekers descended upon the church last month, Carter got a new kind of call. A producer who plucked her name and number from the prayer list wanted to interview her about Sen. Barack Obama’s church.”First of all, it’s not ‘Obama’s church.’ It’s God’s church,” said Carter, 47, who is being treated for a second bout of breast cancer. “It’s not a good situation to be in. I fear for my pastor. I fear for my church.”
It has been three weeks since incendiary snippets from sermons delivered by Trinity’s longtime pastor, Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., surfaced on the Internet and turned Obama’s 20-year membership at the South Side church into a potential political liability. Obama denounced the pastor’s remarks but did not disown Wright, who has remained silent on the subject since the controversy erupted.
Trinity’s leaders say media attention and threats have forced them to confront the question of how to keep the doors open to preach the gospel while comforting Trinity’s members and protecting its ministry.
Striking that balance is a challenge for any pastor, said Rev. John Thomas, president of the United Church of Christ, the denomination to which Trinity belongs.
[blockquote]On Thursday, Thomas will join Wright’s successor, Rev. Otis Moss III, and the head of the National Council of Churches at Trinity to stress that [b]houses of worship are not political arenas but hallowed spaces reserved for sacred conversations with each other and with God. [/b]
“Churches are not designed for this,” Moss said. “All of a sudden you inject a group of people looking for a story and some unethically looking for something salacious to report — it heightens the anxiety.”
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I try to not comment here but I can’t help myself.
This statement is incredible. How can a church embrace liberation theology, which Trinity has to the nth degree, and NOT be political arenas?
Rev. Wright’s replacement, Otis Moss, is an acorn that hasn’t fallen far from the diseased tree and TUCC has had at least one other lunatic cleric come and fulminate in precisely the vein of Wright and Moss as well. Rev. Wright wasn’t an exception, he was the rule.
“Diseased Tree”? I don’t know how I would evaluate such a claim. It’s a huge church with prayer circles and caring. [i] If she’s not there, members call to check on her, thanks to a list of the ailing and homebound published in the church bulletin.[/i]
Diseased?
The deacon says, “First of all, it’s not ‘Obama’s church.’ It’s God’s church.” That seems to a theologically astute answer.
Then this: [i] Carter, who joined Trinity 14 years ago, said that shortly after her mastectomy in the fall of 2004, she attended a service where Wright asked survivors of cancer to rise from the pews. He then proclaimed the diagnosis is not a death sentence.
Wright has personally encouraged Carter throughout her battle, she said, and the church has helped her survive.[/i]
This, of course, is liberation. It is what a Gospel church does.
Yes, diseased. Moss isn’t much different from Wright. It’s Westboro with a tan.
Reverse the circumstances. Let this congregation be a white congregation espousing entitled favor and Euro-Centrism and there would be a flash of a second before howls of racism would be heard.
Because the church is mainly African-American there seems to be a special entitlement to espouse that which its own leaders would decry as wrong if the roles were reversed. It’s called hypocrisy.
Jefferson – if you are insinuating that Trinity is anti-gay, well, that is a falsehood. Wright is a pro-gay black preacher. I sympathize with your anger, but I would hope that it would be based on a truth.
Choirstall – if we’re going to reverse the circumstances, then why not fantasize we are living in a predominantly black country where you, the white person, were living in a ghetto. Why not assume that you were the descendant of slaves. Perhaps we should begin there.
But then add that afrocentrism is different than white supremacy. Plainly “eurocentrism” is already practiced in most white churches – and if anything, whites are more welcom at Trinity than any black person would be at a church that claimed “white supremacy.”
If it were easily reversable, you’d be right. But you first have to articulate what you’re reversing.
# 6:
To be plain, the pendulum in the dominant culture has swung afield so that one can NEVER be critical of special entitlement to any minority lest we be accused of bigotry. I do not buy the notion that somebody is keeping others “down” as a group. I’ve seen too many people who don’t fit that mold. Race-baiting and enemy-stirring is what this church does best. Hate, envy, and jealousy are possible for anyone, no matter their race. Minority status does not equate to sainthood or perfection.
Choirstall: I’m not sure what “entitlements” blacks have in the country. It’s usually a slur that assumes people can’t handle their jobs. I, personally, do think we should be able to criticize. But I don’t think “entitlements” are the issue. And given that Trinity Church is pretty much a self-help, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, let’s help each other out sort of place, I’m not sure where you gathered your information. Trinity’s message is one of hope – hope even though we are all sinners. Is that controversial?
You say you do not “buy” the notion that somebody is keeping others “down” as a group. You might be right that Wright entertains conspiracy theories, if this is what you are saying. He does. He’s not the first pastor to do so, and he is empirically wrong in some cases (although, given the Tuskeegee experiments, it’s not hard to put some pieces together).
I think you probably haven’t quite heard what the real experience of most poor blacks are in this country. Even a few years ago – in the North – one of my neighbors had a difficult time getting a house in my neighborhood. Wealthy, professional – black. Fortunately, a few neighbors – once they realized what was going on – stood up for this particular family. But it still happens. And given then willful divestment (or lack of investment) in poor communities, it’s pretty clear that many poor blacks start out with some disadvantages. But is this the point?
You say that “race baiting” and “enemy stirring” is what this church does best, but – as someone who visited this church, and as someone who isn’t black – I had a very different experience. Those of us who understand the rhetoric recognize that one challenge of black liberation theology is for whites to act like Christians to blacks. It’s more sophisticated than people realize. In fact, Cone spiritualizes “blackness” – almost in the way the untouchables do in India. As christians, everyone of of us is called to recognize the despair, powerlessness that we might feel. It’s simply very different than white supremacy.
You mention that hate, envy and jealousy are possible for anyone … and I agree. Nor do I think minority status equates to sainthood. But who is saying these things?
This week’s New Yorker actually has a much more comprehensive article on Trinity Church. I recommend it.
Wright is not a bigot (how could he be – the guy graduated from the University of Chicago. His professors at the time were all white!) He condemned America – as an American; and he made the audacious claim that even the faithful want to justify killing innocent people. He ended his “chickens” sermon Not with a justification of how America is evil and we should change it – but with the call for his congregation to look in themselves for the violence that each one of them can do. Self- examination is what he led people to.
Did you get that part?
Entitlements right now include:
Preferred contracts, lowering requirements for loans, preferred racial admissions in order to balance college/university statistics (affirmative action), preferred hiring in order for businesses to qualify for contracts.
Is everything great? Not by a long shot. Are all blacks poor? Not at all. Visit Appalachia and see whole pockets of squalor across the races. Having worked for years beside black folks I can tell you that they (mainly elderly now) don’t appreciate the entitlement mentality and “blame the white man” mantra. I DO know people who have worked to break cycles of dysfunction. They MOVED. They went to another area to escape the pockets of hopelessness and chose a place to live where they could just work and settle down. My ancestors had to give up England for the same reasons in the late 1600s. They risked. They moved. They did without. They suffered so that the next generations would not be stuck in hopelessness. I have that in common with these very treasured black friends. They don’t buy the complaint / grievance lines for the same reasons that I don’t. Let’s see what people (whomever they are) will risk and do without before we talk any further about statistics.
Choir Stall, it seems that you think that the “entitlement” mentality is the norm. If it is, perhaps your resentment is justified. I remember reading about Obama who said he didn’t know if he had been the beneficiary of affirmative action, but he did hope that when the opportunity was given, he did the job well.
Perhaps you could tell me what percentage of contracts are given to minorities? It sounds like you think they all are. I don’t know.
Plenty of blacks try to move, but moving for poor people is… not easy. I wish everyone was like you, Choir Stall, with your tenacity and righteousness. Perhaps it is that easy – to move – but I do wonder : if it is so easy, why doesn’t everyone do it?
I admit, I don’t know what this has to do with Pastor Wright, because his church does not operate on the entitlement mentality. It is full of entrepreneurs.
I appreciate that you came from hardscrabble roots about 400 years ago, but I’m a bit surprised that you kind of skipped over the years of slavery and Jim crow, as if that wasn’t responsible for challenges blacks have faced.