Barack (Hussein) Obama's Church

Barack Hussein Obama (I have to include the "Hussein" part now that it irritates so many people) is a member of Trinity United Church of Christ. He has named the church's pastor, the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., as one of his mentors. After the endorsement of "Nation of Islam," I thought it might be a good idea to see what Trinity United stands for. So I did. And I've gotta tell ya, the church has flavor... and not a good flavor.

The church adopted a motto, "Unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian," quite some time ago. What does this mean? If you choose to be a person who sees sunshine in the sky, you could see that statement and think that the black people of that congregation want to shine the light of Jesus on everybody - and that they're not ashamed of their skin color. Nothing wrong with this. But if you tend to be a cloudy sort, you could read that and think, "They don't want white people in their church. They want to be a BLACK church... and unapologetically "Christian" - which doesn't mean much if they're racist." 

Clearly, for me, learning their motto was not enough. I decided to look at the mission of the church. In this, too, there are some things that sound good -- and some things that sound not so good. Somehow this church in Chicago says it has "African roots." Not sure how they grew their roots in Africa, but so be it. Throughout their website there appears to be a heavy focus on race, which I find to be unfortunate. However, considering the heavy focus on race there has been for centuries before I guess it's understandable. 

In the church mission statement, they speak to being a "chosen people" that pays no attention to socio-economic or educational backgrounds. This is good. They don't discriminate on the basis of how much money one has or what their social status appears to be. Sounds Christian. But wait! There's more...

"The fortunate who are among us combine forces with the less fortunate to become agents of change for God who is not pleased with America's economic mal-distribution!" Say wha-??? Where do people come up with this stuff?? America has "economic mal-distribution?" (What is with these Obama supporters making up words, anyway?) Is it true that in order to be pleasing to God, we Americans must distribute the green stuff equally regardless of one's work ethic? 

Then the mission statement goes on to say, "W.E.B. DuBois indicated that the problem in the 20th century was going to be the problem of the color line. He was absolutely correct." This strikes me as an interesting inclusion since DuBois was one who thought all were equal. He wrote of the "talented tenth" and was a strong supporter of eugenics. Perhaps Obama is part of the "talented tenth," and thus doesn't find this line of thinking so offensive... 

Regardless, I question whether it is wise for the American people to give a position of power to a person who subscribes to such a theory along with a leaning towards political socialism. Nothing good has come from that particular combination in the past. In fact, great evils have been propagated from this very mindset. They say history repeats itself - let's try to make sure that doesn't happen here.