Matters of Religious Politics

Barack Obama has resigned his membership from his church of nearly twenty years. Isn't that interesting? His reasoning for the resignation is that he and his fellow parishioners can no longer worship in peace, with the press hounding them and scanning every sermon for questionable content. 

The Obamas plan to seek a new church home after the general election. Obama cited a "cultural, stylistic gap" between black and white churches - which he says will make it difficult for them to find a church. I suppose the real problem for them is finding a church they can agree with that the American people at large won't find to be completely offensive. 

Frankly, Barack Obama appears to attract offensive, hateful people. The friends I know about, Reverend Wright, William Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, and Father Michael Pfleger, are all people who are well-known to be exceedingly radical. Reverend Wright? Well, we've all heard about his inflamed rhetoric by now. William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn are both unrepentant members/leaders of Weather Underground from the late 60s and early 70s. And Father Michael Pfleger is now on YouTube after preaching a controversial sermon at Obama's (now former) church. How anybody can listen to what comes out of the pulpit at that church and not view it as racist is beyond me. 

Pfleger says that white people owe black people reparations for what our ancestors did because we whites are still reaping the benefits associated with the "insurance policy" our ancestors created. Say wha-? He also accused Hillary of assuming the Democratic nomination belonged to her because of her skin color -- and accused her of being angry that some black man is coming and trying to steal what's rightfully hers. What hilarity. Of course, Obama distanced himself from Pfleger's preaching - expressing disappointment at his "divisive, backward-looking rhetoric." But it stands to reason that this sort of divisive, backward-looking rhetoric has been spewing from that pulpit for a very long time, or the people of the church would be appalled by it rather than visibly euphoric.

The New York Times ended an article on this topic by saying, "Now that Mr. Obama has addressed his ties to the church and pastor in a long speech and fully broken with both, it is not clear what else he can say or do to ameliorate the continued concerns of some voters about those associations." Damage control is everything -- how can Obama make us forget what we have found out about his belief system? What can he say or do to change our minds about his associations? Knowing most people, he won't have to do much. Many people will be willing to swallow whatever he says next... Politics is politics. People are forgetful, unless consistently reminded. And the MSM will not be interested in reminding people about Barack Obama's negatives during the general election.