Reverend Jeremiah Wright (1941- ), an American Christian minister, was the head pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ on the South Side of Chicago from 1972 to 2008. He is best known for being Barack Obama’s pastor from 1988 to 2008, the one famous for saying “God damn America”.
Trinity United is the largest of all the churches of the United Church of Christ. While his church is mainly black, the United Church of Christ is mainly white. These days it is a liberal mainline Protestant church. It goes back to the Puritan Congregationalist churches of New England. They condemned slavery, took part in the Underground Railroad and, after Emancipation, set up schools across the South for blacks. Some of these are now black universities, like Howard.
When Wright took over Trinity in 1972 it had 85 members. When he retired in 2008 it had over 6,000. Banks believed it was mostly his doing: before lending the church money they would ask to see his life insurance policy.
Wright was one of the top pastors in America. Bill Clinton, for example, invited Wright, among others, to the White House in 1998 to pray for him during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
His father and grandfather were pastors. His mother had a PhD. He grew up in middle-class Philadelphia. But when he went to university he dropped out and joined the Marines!
He had taken part in the civil rights movement. He could not see himself becoming a pastor: Christianity seemed like the dry, dead hand of the past holding back blacks.
After two years in the Marines and four in the Navy he returned to university, got three degrees, and became a pastor (he would later get a PhD). The difference this time was “Black Theology and Black Power” (1969) by James Cone. Cone applied the ideas of liberation theology to blacks in America. It was a Black American read on Christianity. The White American read had become way too blind the evils in the world – it had eyes but did not see.
An excellent example of that is Wright’s “God damn America” sermon. Back in Puritan times pastors regularly spoke out against the evils of society, not just against personal sins. Wright’s own namesake, the prophet Jeremiah, had done the same. But condemnable evil in (white) American Christianity had shrunk to the personal, and even that comes pretty much without a sense of original sin. American society was – presto change-o – more or less just.
Except that it was not.
The shock of hearing that in no uncertain terms in 2008, from a black man who did not have to kiss up to self-deluded white people, was too much to bear for most whites, whites who practise Novocaine Christianity – or No Christianity. Obama publicly agreed with white people in a Stirring Speech. Six weeks later, when it became clear that Wright was not going to keep quiet, Obama cut all ties with him.
See also:
- The Reverend Wright affair – the blow-by-blow
- Jeremiah Wright: Confusing God and Government – the “God damn America” sermon
- Obama’s Race Speech – Obama’s Stirring Speech
- The Five Rules of Racial Standing – Rule #4: When a black person does or says something that whites consider “outrageous”, other blacks are expected by whites to join them in their condemnation.
- Basically Good
- just world doctrine
The more you know. And the prophet Jeremian was proven right, huh?
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He was also a part of a medical staff for President Johnson at one point.
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[…] Jeremiah Wright […]
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– ch555x
“He was also a part of a medical staff for President Johnson at one point.”
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Right!
And for the upset and bothered naysayers and talking heads who insisted that the esteemed minister hates America:
“In 1961 Wright left college and joined the United States Marine Corps and became part of the 2nd Marine Division attaining the rank of private first class. In 1963, after two years of service, Wright joined the United States Navy and entered the Corpsman School at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. Wright was then trained as a cardiopulmonary technician at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Wright was assigned as part of the medical team charged with care of President Lyndon B. Johnson. Before leaving the position in 1967, the White House Physician, Vice Admiral Burkley, personally wrote Wright a letter of thanks on behalf of the United States President.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_Wright
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I think Dr. Wright is a speaker of truth. Many Americans can’t handle the truth.
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This is a very biased post which seeks to excuse Jeremiah Wright’s bigotry by blaming the victim.
Nor does military service preclude one from hating America. Case in point, Nidal Hasan.
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Abagond,
I may sound biased, but if more churches had ministers like Jeremiah Wright, I would go there every Sunday. Speaking of churches, or rather churchs…
Churchs,
Who is this victim?
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“Nor does military service preclude one from hating America.”
*Churchs*
Tell me this. Does God LOVE humanity?
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@ churchs
Please enlighten us how Jeremiah Wright is bigoted? Can you provide just one example?
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*Churchs*
Tell me this. Does God LOVE humanity?
*******
…. crickets ….
(Churchs, why are YOU here??)
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Jeremiah Wright is the antithesis of a Christian.
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