All Comments (55)

People, let's get back to real issue. The issue is not Rev. Wright or his opinions. Yes. He told an unpopular truth, he stated his opinion as it is his right as a citizen of this country.

Now, let's put our focus back on the candidates running for the office of president. Some of you will use the commentary of Rev. Wright to sway your vote and further divide the Democratic Party. Do you really want the Bush Clone in the oval office? Enough of the propaganda and bristling of political feathers. This whole mess has been devised to divide the voters and divert the focus from the positive message Mr. Obama is attempting to send.

WAKE UP! Take off your blinkers and look at the real issues that affect all of us as citizens of this country....and by the way, the commentary of Rev. Wright has not created the economic plight we are living with..

Let's get off of this tangent so we can move on and elect the best man for the job of president of this country. Mr. Barack Obama!

I am a member of Friendship West Baptist Church, in Dallas,Tx.

I have heard DR. Rev. Jeremiah Wright, speak on numerous occasions, becuase he comes to my church every year.

Each time that I heard him speak he was inspirarional and invigorating,touching on subjects that were real and true.

He has not been afraid to say what needed to be revealed. Which is his right ,I thought! (you should get condenmed for saying what is right)

I am sadden by the fact that the media has put so much emphasis on him rather than the true nature of the context.

Get over it? Are you kidding? We as a country can't get over what has never been addressed. The government of America has not apologized for what it allowed and wrote laws where Black people were not considered entirely human and considered as property. No. We are not over it.

Rev. Wright is no less an American for stating facts that White America deems to ugly to look at and is not ready to accept. There have been no reparations for the pain slavery inflicted; and of all the immigrants who came into this country, Black American's are the only ones with ancestors who were brought here against their will. Wear blinders if you must, but racism in America is alive and well today in 2008.

Mr. Obama is being criticized and drug threw the media mud based upon comments he did not make or was even a witness to. Yet White America holds him accountable for the words of another man. How strange is it that the American Media can over look the blatant lie Hillary told to the world about her dodging bullets in Bosnia, accept her apology for "misspeaking", and let that story die along with the immaginary shells fired at her, but keep the story and snipets of Rev. Wright on simmer. This is done only to discredit and hurt the campaign of Mr. Obama. Nothing more. Can we call this what it really is? Political Propaganda.

After weeks of being drug through media mud, Rev. Wright has decided to come out and defend himself. After being wrongly portrayed many of you now presume to be mindreaders and can look into the character of a man you do not know.

You want to say what Dr. Haynes is saying is nonsense. I ask you to look in the mirror and evaluate your own conscience. If you believe you live in an America that is color blind and is mature enough to accept the hurtful, painful, misdealings of it's past, then you are blind and live in a fantasy country.

Mr. Obama is sharing his hope of living in a color blind country where people are judged upon their merit and not their appearance. Many Americans feel like me and the majority of us wish the rest of you would grow up, stop perpetuating hatred, and move on.

Let the commentary of one man reflect his own view. Let the commentary of Rev. Wright speak for him and not for Mr. Obama.

Obama's family, not a single one of them, was ever a slave.
He was not victimized by the US, or Americans or whites.
He grew up in an upper middle class family in beautiful Hawaii. He attended private school. Both his parents had PHDs, his grandmother was a Bank VP of the largest bank In Hawaii.
He attended Private College, he went to Havard Law school.

At some point 20 years Obama joined a Rev. Wrights chruch. He embraced his inner victimhood.
He joined a culture that he has NO roots in.

Rev. Wright might be angry. Obama has no reason to be angry but his own damned ego.
I am sick of it.

"As He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free." sung by Union soldiers during the Civil War.

The Abolition movement was begun by Northeastern clerics and intellectuals. Northern congressmen promised to abolish slavery as soon as non-slave states had a majority of the Senate. The Missouri Compromise and Kansas-Nebraska Act were attempts to prevent this. There was no Secession movement before the Abolition movement.

I do not think it is a black church crisis. It is a case of senility Wright suffers from.
All you need is watch his spectacle on TV during his Press Club appearance to realize that disassociating with him and his ministry is the best thing that would happen to Obama.
Wright is destructive to black progress and hopes.

What Dr. Haynes writes here about Reverend Wright is nonsense. To claim that Wright has been "lynched" by the media because he made some clearly nutty statements is absurd. It's crazy in any context for Wright to claim that the U.S. government somehow caused the AIDS epidemic. It is true that for years, the federal government under Ronald Reagan was indifferent to the AIDS epidemic, and Reagan refused even to mention AIDS when the crisis was spinning out of control. But that's not the same as saying the government deliberately caused the epidemic. It's also deeply offensive for Reverend Wright to suggest that the United States somehow deserved to be attacked on September 11th.

I admire Barack Obama for standing up and denouncing Reverend Wright. Wright should be denounced. He is a demagogue on an ego trip, so taken with himself that he cannot control his mouth. The fact that African Americans have suffered for centuries is irrelevant to how we must think about Reverend Wright. He is not worth taking seriously.

i welcome the day the black community finds true leadership. let's all pray they don't settle for you in the meantime.

Well said.

Well said.

michael:
Get over it!

No doubt african americans were/are being unfarily treated. But then so are every other race of people across the globe. Hispanics are being rounded up and deported; American Indians have long been shipped off to reservations with special privileges. Asians know what it is like to work in sweat shops and child sex-slave rings. Even caucasians know the unfair treatment of being excluded from one job or another or for being the "authors" of the vile KKK and the like. Truth be told, across history, all races, all colors, all faiths, all peoples have been treated unfairly; discriminated against; given beatings undeserved. But, what matters, is how we as individuals act today. I can not change who I was or what happened in the past. I can influence, maybe even change, who I am and who I am becoming. All of us need to stop looking back and begin to look both ahead and up.

We are all just passing through; there are parts of everything all the time that is unfair, for every one. The question is, "How can we make it just a little bit better, in love?"

Selah.

____________________________________________________

Well, well, well....

Get over it right? Ok, close that damned Holocost Museum down in the District, because nobody in the District played a part in the Holocost. Why should that be funded by taxpayer dollars?

Sounds really COLD doesn't it....But let me continue with your logic.

It was the germans Nazi's that did that and none of them live in the District. The Jews need to learn to get over it and stop throwing that stupid "Never Forget" slogan in everyones face. They have used their tragedy to enrich themselves. Why don't they just shut up about Hitler and move on?

Sound's really cold, I know, and it is really ridiculous. All to prove a point. That is how what you say sounds and feels to African Americans about America's part in slavery. Just because others have suffered, and continue to in this world. Does not excuse the culprits of the act. It does not remove the pain associated with the suffering.

You would think Jews, above all others, would understand that.

Selah.....

gary:
unconfessed sin? 250000 northerners died to free the slaves. the message that rev. wright preaches has nothing to do with eternal salvation and he is leading his flock into a spiritual abyss.

_____________________________________________________

Now Gary, you know that is not so, said a diffent way, you know that is a LIE. That is the type of lie being prostituted as truth that Rev. Wright speaks out against. Shame on you. 250000 northerners did not die to free the slaves. They died to keep the Union together. They died to maintain control over the south. The north NEEDED slaves to fight for that mission as they would have surely lost without those slave "bodies" as soldiers.

Had there been no threat of succession from the Union, slaves would have remained slaves in the north inasmuch as they were in the south.

Manipulation of the truth makes the truth a LIE. Not just a "manupulated truth". This is why it is SO IMPORTANT for black folks to know their history. Failure to know it will allow folks like you to 'create' it for them.

I am so glad I paid attention in class, and, get this, THE BLACK CHURCH.

unconfessed sin? 250000 northerners died to free the slaves. the message that rev. wright preaches has nothing to do with eternal salvation and he is leading his flock into a spiritual abyss.

Get over it!

No doubt african americans were/are being unfarily treated. But then so are every other race of people across the globe. Hispanics are being rounded up and deported; American Indians have long been shipped off to reservations with special privileges. Asians know what it is like to work in sweat shops and child sex-slave rings. Even caucasians know the unfair treatment of being excluded from one job or another or for being the "authors" of the vile KKK and the like. Truth be told, across history, all races, all colors, all faiths, all peoples have been treated unfairly; discriminated against; given beatings undeserved. But, what matters, is how we as individuals act today. I can not change who I was or what happened in the past. I can influence, maybe even change, who I am and who I am becoming. All of us need to stop looking back and begin to look both ahead and up.

We are all just passing through; there are parts of everything all the time that is unfair, for every one. The question is, "How can we make it just a little bit better, in love?"

Selah.

Get over it!

No doubt african americans were/are being unfarily treated. But then so are every other race of people across the globe. Hispanics are being rounded up and deported; American Indians have long been shipped off to reservations with special privileges. Asians know what it is like to work in sweat shops and child sex-slave rings. Even caucasians know the unfair treatment of being excluded from one job or another or for being the "authors" of the vile KKK and the like. Truth be told, across history, all races, all colors, all faiths, all peoples have been treated unfairly; discriminated against; given beatings undeserved. But, what matters, is how we as individuals act today. I can not change who I was or what happened in the past. I can influence, maybe even change, who I am and who I am becoming. All of us need to stop looking back and begin to look both ahead and up.

We are all just passing through; there are parts of everything all the time that is unfair, for every one. The question is, "How can we make it just a little bit better, in love?"

Selah.

I didn't vote for Senator Obama in the first go round but in his defense I must say that Reverend Wright has plenty of company. I can think of beaucoup ministers that are POLITICIANS first and foremost and use their pulpits and television to push their own little (warped) agendas. If you truly listen to these people they are so far removed from actual soul salvation and providing comfort and bringing troubled people to the Lord one can't believe they still get a tax exempt status. Take out the Bible passages and it's still Marxism.

Hallelujah!

Try again.

Mr Wright has proven to the world he is paranoid. Unable to unite. Promoting dubious claims in order to build upon his cult of personality at the detriment of his church, and nation.

There is a change going on in the country from those of the old guard to those of the new. The new reject the divisive, slave mentality of the old.

The old want desperately to remain in the spotlight.

Now that Obama has REJECTED these rediculous notions and devisive statements of Mr. Wright's plainly and forcefully YOU, sir, need to answer.

YES YOU.

The perpetual victim slave mentality and philosophy of Al Sharpton, Mr. Wright, Andrew Young, and the rest of the old guard including YOURSELF are REJECTED!

Rejected by the nation in favor of future building, forward moving, nation uniting, societal assimilating, truths we all know and instantly recognize as right, good an positive the moment they are spoken by Senator Barack Obama.

The NEW rejects the fear of the OLD in favor of truth and success for all!

vote Obama for President!

I echo what the rev. said. We sure don't understand black churches, but I would like to. I think the Rev. Wright is right on and should not be vilified. He is right about the government!

If an white politicians blonged to an American hating Racist Bigot church for 20 years and listening to an paranoid, demented, raving nut like Wright he would be crucified, ran out of the country and his town burn down. Blacks would be rioting burning, killing and stealing from coast to coast!

Obama wants the American people to elect him on his judgment not on his experience. However, when you seek to be President of the US and your friends include Racist American hating Bigots, Terrorist, Killers and Crooks that cast lots of doubt about your judgment. Hard working, law abiding American have a hard time understanding that or wanting to give Amnesty to 20 or 30 millions Invading criminals that is costing Americans their Money, their lives, and their jobs & their culture!

Considering what the US government did to 399 African-American men over the course of 40 years in Tuskegee, is it any wonder that some in the community wondered if it was the government that was spreading AIDS? Rev. Wright did not invent this sentiment; he is simply repeating the views of the community. I would bet that 90 percent of the whites in this country do not know about the Tuskegee experiments.

The reason there are "black" churches and "white" churches is because blacks were not allowed to worship at all (by whites) let alone WITH whites. Today I do not know of a single "black" church that forbids whites from attending or joining, or vice versa. In fact, I feel more welcomed when visiting black churches than I do when visiting most white churches (I happened to be white).

I really don't think you can understand Rev. Wright unless you've formally studied church history and the Bible, and are either African-American or have spent a lot of Sundays in a predominantly African-American church.

Jeremiah Wright is a hate mongering racist. In quest of his own self aggrandizement, in contrast to the teachings of Jesus to be humble, Rev. Wright uses pseudo scientific writings and carefully selected gospel passages to serve as both props and camoflauge for his hatred and racism. Rev. Wright simulatenously lives in a time warp while attempting to hold onto whatever power there is in the civil right movement by keeping blacks in a constant Jim Crow state of mind. Rev. Wright is quick to draw the slavery card, constantly pushing the notion that the last cargo hull loaded with African slaves docked in Georgia a few months ago.

Dr. Wright, like Jesus, shook the comfort of the comfortable, while bringing hope to the hopeless. When one's comfort has been shaken, one can respond in one of two ways: lash out at the one who jarred their comfortable state of mind, or sincerely reflect upon why they were so comfortable when all hell was breaking loose around them.

If at no other time than now do we see why the Black Church is such a necessity in the community. Great article, Rev. Haynes. I think most of us see a new day dawning!

CONCERNED THE CHRISTIAN NOW LIBERATED:

You have finally revealed yourself: you are an anti-theist. Why did you pretend to be a scholar on religions?

The government create HIV as a means of genocide? This ranks up there with "the world will end after Y2K" and deserves about the same amount of respect. If someone wants to be taken seriously, then they have to not spew unsubstantiated, inciteful, patently false, outrageous comments such as this. When the dear Reverend can either prove this outlandish claim or retract and apologize for it, I might begin to take him and his message seriously. Until then, he is just another angry man standing on a soapbox using the media and his elite position to convey his message of ignornace and hatred. He should heed his own words:

"It is better to be quiet and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."

I am all for free speech & the truth. that is what Rev Wright preaches. You don't have to agree. No need for the Rev to defend himself because those who are true to themsleves know the truth when they hear it. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink!
Pastor Haynes, you did a great service by having the Rev at your church. God Bless us all!

I am all for free speech & the truth. that is what Rev Wright preaches. You don't have to agree. No need for th Rev to defend himself because those who are true to themsleves know the truth when they hear it. You can lead a house to water, but you can't make him drink!
Pastor Haynes, you did a great service by having the Rev at your church. God Bless us all!

"Prophetic witness does not begin with the text and title of a Sunday sermon but when the minister moves the community to respond to critical social issues."

Odd statement.

"The testimony of Jesus Christ is the Spirit of prophecy." Prophecy, the unerring foretelling of future events, has been redefined beyond recognition in the modern context of the world church system. "I am the Lord God and there is none like me, knowing the end from the beginning."

If Jesus were concerned with social issues, he would no doubt have taken up the sword and joined the Maccabees in their revolt against Rome. However, he was only concerned with man's relationship with God, not with his social status.

What crap. If he were white he'd be taken to task for his comments, too. And now he's tightening his own self-imposed noose by claiming it's not really about him. Oh really? He's not his own person? He doesn't have his own ideas? Everything he says is just an outgrowth of brainless parroting of angry black rhetoric? Give him (and yourself) more credit. His words were hurtful, and could only be accepted within a small portion of the public. They've been exposed to a wider audience and that audience doesn't like them. He's a grown-up. He should accept responsibility for his actions and recognize that anyone saying "Goddamn America" would raise the ire of quite a few Americans.

It is presumptuous to call what Wright said "Black Church". I assure you that you are deeply wrong, pastor on this. A lot of Black Churchs in USA do not subscribe to Black liberation Theology. Wright does not represent Black Church and you are being silly if you think the black community at large is going to follow your or wright's attempt to wrap the rest of the black community in this totally self inflicted "lynching" as you call it. And here you pulling the rope?

Good grief! (shaking her head at some of the posts below because reading this same old mess is exhausting sometimes)

Preacher! Well said. We ain't goin' nowhere. We exist in this country to remind the world that miracles do happen.

Contrary to what the Reverend says,the black church is not monolithic just as the media are not. And while it's patently unfair to generalize about the black church, the same can be said of doing the same thing to the media. Just something for the Rev. to think about.

Not one single American-born black was "bawn en bred in the briar patch." Which of you has ever been a slave? What white American alive right now, or even in the last hundred years, has ever owned a slave? The blacks who are slaves today are found on the African continent and their enslavers are also black. You have it pretty good here, so get over yourselves already. I am white and I have never owned a slave. I don't know or care if any of my ancestors owned slaves, because that was before my time and I had nothing to do with it. I will not accept your blame or your hatred of me because of my race. And I will not accept a president who condones that kind of vicious thinking.

Putting things in perspective for the Preachers Haynes and Wright:

1. Abraham founder/father of three major religions was either the embellishment of the lives of three different men or a mythical character as was Moses, the "Tablet-Man" who talked to burning bushes and made much magic in Egypt.

1.5 million Conservative Jews and their rabbis have relegated Abraham to the myth pile along with most if not all the OT.
simpletoremember.com/vitals/ConservativeTorah.htm

2. Jesus was an illiterate Jewish peasant/carpenter/simple preacher man who suffered from hallucinations and who has been characterized anywhere from the Messiah from Nazareth to a mythical character from mythical Nazareth to a mamzer from Nazareth (Professor Bruce Chilton, in his book Rabbi Jesus). Analyses of Jesus’ life by many contemporary NT scholars (e.g. Professors Crossan, Borg and Fredriksen, On Faith panelists) via the NT and related documents have concluded that only about 30% of Jesus' sayings and ways noted in the NT were authentic. The rest being embellishments (e.g. miracles)/hallucinations made/had by the NT authors to impress various Christian, Jewish and Pagan sects.

The 30% of the NT that is "authentic Jesus" like everything in life was borrowed/plagiarized and/or improved from those who came before. In Jesus' case, it was the ways and sayings of the Babylonians, Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, Hittites, Canaanites, OT, John the Baptizer and possibly the ways and sayings of traveling Greek Cynics. earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html

For added "pizzazz", Catholic/Christian theologians divided god the singularity into three persons and invented atonement as an added guilt trip for the "pew people" to go along with this trinity of overseers. By doing so, they made god the padre into god the "filicider".

3. Luther, Calvin, Smith, Henry VIII, Wesley et al, founders of Christian-based religions, also suffered from the belief in/hallucinations of "pretty wingie thingie" visits and "prophecies" for profits analogous to the myths of Catholicism (resurrections, apparitions, ascensions and immaculate conceptions).

With these three points as gospel, Haynes, Wright, their fellow preachers and also priests and rabbis will be receiving their pink slips thereby there will be no more "pulpitfying" from these "mumbo jumboers" and we can get on with the political debate free at last from religion.

Unfortunately, any truth in Rev. Wrights sermons have been drowned out by his own words. If Rev. Wright is being lynched, then he purchased the rope, tied it to the tree, put it around his own neck and kicked out the chair from under his own feet. Yes, there are racists who are enjoying his demise, but rational people realize that he has hurt his own people and their cause through his demagogic rhetoric.

We know that HIV is not a US government invention to destroy any particular race or culture. Rev. Wright's false teaching concerning the virus may win him "amens" in church, but it leaves his flock to follow a bitter shepherd down the bath of ignorance, thus adding to his people's continued oppression. This is truly an injustice.

Let the church say Amen!

Let the church say Amen!

dr haynes- i thought your piece quite inspired.
great and vivid analogy

Who appointed Jermiah Wright to speak for all black churches? He, of course can speak for the church of which he is the pastor; however, neither you, Dr. Haynes nor Dr. Jermiah Wright speak for all black churches. Jermiah Wright is nothing more than a spokesman for Senator Hillary Clinton's black supporters, especailly Cornel West and Louis Farakhan, a bosom buddy of Ed Rendel, governor of Pennsylvania and campaign manager of Clinton's campaign there.

They ought to be ashame of themselves for this denegrating use of the black church to further the political ambitions of the Clintons and themselves. Our black churches have never been used and abused like this before. This hurts deeply and is unforgivable.

To get insight into Rev. Wright, study Black Liberation theology, as he is a professed proponent of that. It is not a "theology". It is Marxism applied to race. It encourages the view of the world through the lens of class (race) warfare, and the struggle against the oppressor (whitey). Thus the strong current of victimhood. Jesus was a politician, not a savior in this "theology". After listening to this for 20 years, much has rubbed off on Obama, and even more has rubbed off on his wife.

Reverend Wright preached that the (presumbaly white) US government created AIDS to further enslave black people. This is hate speech meant to anger and enflame, and to sew seeds of division and racism. It does nothing to reveal the love of Christ, nor to uplift or empower an oppressed people.

If there is any good to come from this vitriol, it is the hope that morally responsible black churches will enlighten their congregations as to the ignorance of leaders like Reverend Wright.

There is always such intense focus on race by a vocal group of men when the unspoken issue is gender. The most impoverished group in this country are single mothers no matter what their race. The most economically disadvantaged group in this country is women who ear 75 cents to the dollar of their male counterparts. Black or white or brown is no matter - gender is the largest discriminator for financial hardship and challenge in this country. But leave it to all the men to keep the focus on race.....not on equality.

I been a Christian for 31 years and there should not be a black or white church. That is where the problem really is and that sin comes from the heart. We as Christians should remember the Great Commission and preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ and if you do that everything else will be set in order. Getting Save,Sanctify and fill with the Holy Ghost should be the message to live a life in Christ our Lord. A spiritual heart transplant will take care of the other stuff.

Well said DCP. i think you summed all of the blogs up.

Hogwash...as a minority myself...you can't continue to tell that sob story when illegitimacy/fatherlessness runs ABSOLUTELY rampant in the black community...THERE is your source of poverty! Too much pimpin' and ho'ing or the glamoritization thereof. Why don't others with far less, e.g, off-the-boat hispanics and Asians for many decades (who don't speak our language or understand our culture) seem to quickly THRIVE in the US??? Blacks need to listen to Cosby and own up to their own self-inflicted misfortunes.

I certainly agree. But

Dr. Haynes, what you have touched on goes much further. Anybody in this country that breaks ranks is viewed as a threat.

The civil liberties of all are under seige. Individuality is suspect. The economic stability of "most" is not taken for granted; it is being taken.

And then we turn on one another. Imagine building a wall between Mexico and the U.S.? The weakest link in our society is our future.

I would be curious to know how many of the above posters consider themselves Christians. They are clearly belong to the "low information" segment of this country, a segment that seems to grow exponentially day by day.

Since it's obvious that educational attainment is negatively correlated with degree of religious belief, and positively correlated with just about every desirable characteristic in a population, what blacks really need is less church and more real knowledge about things like math, science, history and business.

Jeremiah Wright and the black churches have every right to pursue their paranoid version of religion; plenty of white redneck preachers do the same. However we do not have to put up with their nonsense. Neither does Obama and he should take some action here.

Jeremiah Wright and the black churches have every right to pursue their paranoid version of religion; plenty of white redneck preachers do the same. However we do not have to put up with their nonsense. Neither does Obama and he should take some action here.

Reverand Wright has made an entire career out of catering to black racism couched in religious garb. His claim to being crusified is absurd. But it is in keeping with his philosophy of victimhood and blaming everything on whitey. Like Obama, Wright is incapable of taking responsibility for his own words or actions. Wright is a deluded racist who needs exposure and condemnation. No one should be making excuses for the vile poisen that spews from his pulpit in the guise of christianity.

Reverand Wright has made an entire career out of catering to black racism couched in religious garb. His claim to being crusified is absurd. But it is in keeping with his philosophy of victimhood and blaming everything on whitey. Like Obama, Wright is incapable of taking responsibility for his own words or actions. Wright is a deluded racist who needs exposure and condemnation. No one should be making excuses for the vile poisen that spews from his pulpit in the guise of christianity.

Jeremiah Wright has not been lynched in the media, but his words have been exposed there more fully than he might have liked. Those who are still tragically caught in the “briar patch” are there because of black indifference to their plight largely imposed on them by liberal politicians interested in retaining their votes by preventing their empowerment as individuals through race-divisive rhetoric and not condemning personality-destroying music and video entertainment. Not just people of color are “bawn en bred in de briar patch.” Each person has his own multiple Brer Foxes to deal with. But a person who tries to build himself up by tearing others down is divisive, destructive, and understandably ostracized by most people of good intent.

I think that it is the role of a spiritual leader to address everything that afflicts the soul- whether it be sin, an internal source of oppression, or any external source of oppression such as racism or slavery. It is difficult not to address race from the pulpit because it affects the condition of everyone's soul who is conscious of the role race plays in our society. A preacher cannot be expected to deny a blatant reality. No one criminalizes Moses for leading a social revolution. He was supposed to be only a spiritual leader, right? Yet he understood that external circumstances afflict the human spirit. Now whether he addressed those afflictions appropriately, I cannot say. It is his flock's evaluation to give as to whether or not his ministry was effective in their lives.