Much has been made in the past week about the words of the Rev. Jeremiah A.Wright, Jr., Barack Obama’s former pastor at Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ.
Over the years the now retired Wright has made a number of incendiary comments. People have reacted most strongly to one he made five years ago. “The government, “said Wright”,” gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America. No, No, no. God damn America! That’s in the Bible for killing innocent people.”
Obama repudiated the remarks, calling them “inflammatory and appalling”, and “vehemently” condemned them. “They in no way reflect and directly contradict my profound love for this country.” He also added that he did not “repudiate the man” who had married him and his wife and baptized his two daughters and “brought me to Christ.”
Both Obama detractors and supporters have been asking how he could not repudiate someone who could talk that way. Do we believe in guilt by association? Do we believe, as the bible says, to blame the sin but not the sinner.
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