[Kat]
I'll be short (that will be a miracle and I'm not talking about my height). When the infromation about Obama's minister's sermon content and tone first came out, I paid little attention. I've been to a few bible thumping sermons and I'm sure some folks would find them fearful in their seeming condemnation of the unbeliever to hell, fire and brimstone before exulting and exhorting the same to have faith, believe in the one true God, that good works are not enough to secure a place in heaven and should, instead, accept Jesus as their savior, etc, etc.
Sometimes in there, the tone of the condemnation might appear over the top. I'm pretty sure that some people would have been put off by my last Baptist minister on a few occasions, much less the occasional foray into even more interesting churches. In general, the faithful sometimes feel a powerful urge to jump up, sing, shout and generally urge those who don't feel that power to join them. Which, to those of the "enlightenment", that faith often appears distorted and scary.
Saying that, I can honestly say that I have never attended a service where, even in the heat of a sermon, the minister blamed one particular people or the other for any modern plague of God (AIDS) or blamed them for a tragedy or the acts of other evil people.
Except sinners. That was one group of people that the minister believed needed to constantly atone for their sins. Of course, my minister told me we were all sinners and the only real atonement was being washed in the blood of the lamb, not the blood of victims of terrorism.
When the controversy about Obama's minister first came out, I ignored it in favor of the other things that were being said or done by his campaign. Faith is a pretty sacred thing to me and I don't mess with anyone else's if I can help it. It's why you don't see me screaming about "Muslims" and "Islam" in general, on a blog about the war against Islamist terrorism, but aim specifically at individuals (bin Laden) and schools of thought (wahhabism).
Still, I remember when I left my long time church to find another. Our previous pastor had went on a mission to South America. He had been at our church for over ten years. I grew up with his daughters. The deacons decided that they were going to choose a certain kind of pastor to replace him. One who was much more stringent and bible thumping than our last pastor (whom I could never remember banging on the pulpit). By sermon number four, I realized that our church had changed and so had the tone. Not that the minister preached hate of others (besides the sinner), or bigotry or conspiracy theories. It just seemed that it was a lot less about the love of God, even for the sinner, and a lot more about God hating the sinner, demanding his obedience to the laws of God, etc.
I realized that the church was no longer for me. If I wanted to know about somebody hating somebody, I'd just turn on the news. So, I left.
Now, Mr. Obama is going to tell us that he sat through over twenty years of sermons from Minister Wright and that he did not buy into, accept or otherwise support Mr. Wright's positions on most, if anything, that he said about modern day Jews (not even talking biblical Jews giving Jesus to Pilate to crucify, we're talking about Israel today), conspiracy theories about who committed 9/11, who created and released the AIDS virus (to kill Africans and other minorities, of course), etc, etc, etc.
If Mr. Obama did not believe in or support this minister's teachings and preachings, why did he stay there?
He's either lying and he does believe in what Mr. Wright preaches or he's a big hypocrite who attended the church as a calculating move to ingratiate himself with an electorate that he needed in order to get his political seat in the state of Illinois.
In truth, I think this whole controversy actually makes me like Mr. Obama a little bit. Perfect Politicians are no boon to our nation or any other, frequently leading to disaster. Now, he's finally where all politicians belong: in the company of sinners.
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