Guilt by Religious Association For Obama

MEDIA SILENCE FOR McCAIN’s AND CLINTON’s RELIGIOUS CONNECTIONS

by Larry Jones

For much of March mainstream media, especially Fox News, seemed to run
a continuous loop of snippets of The Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s recent
sermon railing against the crimes of America, which this writer
actually found historically accurate.  Wright is a highly education
minister in the United Church of Christ (UCC) which, overall is one of
the most liberal denominations in the U.S.  He has just retired from
Trinity UCC Church in Chicago; the denomination’s largest with 6,000
members.

The entirety of the controversial sermon click can be listened to or
read by anyone with an internet connection. The right wing wanted to
make certain than everyone heard a portion of Wright’s speech, but
here’s the larger context in which Wright said, “God damn America.””The
United States of America’s government has failed. When it came to
treating its citizens of Indian decent fairly, she failed.  She put
them on the reservation.  When it came to treating her citizens of
Japanese descent fairly, she failed.  She put them in internment prison
camps.  

“When it came to treating citizens of African decent, she failed.  She put them in chains.  The government put them in slave quarters.  She put them on auction blocks put them in cotton fields, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education, and locked them into positions of hopelessness and helplessness.  The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law, and then wants us to sing God Bless America.  No, No, No.  Not God bless America, God damn America.  That’s in the Bible – for killing innocent people.  God damn America for treating its citizens as less than human.  God damn America when she tries to act like she is God, like she is supreme.”

Wright has been for 20 years Barak Obama’s pastor.  So the “news” clips of Wright’s calling for the damnation of America, were put forth as an attack on Obama.  Wright is in the prophetic rather than the priestly tradition of ministry, which means that he has lead Trinity Church in strong community involvement and issues of social justice.  He has the support not only of his own congregation, but that of the national leadership of the UCC and countless others across the nation.  The Rev. John Thomas, President of the UCC, spoke at Trinity Church on March 2 and said of Wright:  

“[W]hat was his real crime?  He is condemned for using a mild “obscenity” in reference to the United States.  This week we mark the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq, a war conceived in deception and prosecuted in foolish arrogance.  Nearly four thousand cherished Americans have been killed, countless more wounded, and tens of thousands of Iraqis slaughtered.  Where is the real obscenity here?  ”  Pastor Wright’s judgment may be starker and more sweeping than many of us are prepared to accept.  But is the soul of our nation served any better by the polite prayers and gentle admonitions that have gone without a real hearing for these five years while the dying and destruction continues?
Not only are the words of The Rev. Wright true, but they also reflect the sentiments of what large numbers of Americans of all races believe.

It is sad indeed that Obama found it “politically necessary” to strongly distance himself from the true words of his own pastor.  But you can’t get elected president if you stand firmly with those who tell it like it is.
 

McCAIN’s RELIGIOUS SIDEKICKS: #1 EVANGELIST HAGEE

Meanwhile, there has been almost zero media coverage of the beliefs of John McCain’s clergy backers.  He sought the endorsement of fire-and-brimstone preacher John Hagee, pastor of a megachurch in San Antonio, Texas.  McCain has stood on stage with Hagee this year and warmly accepted his accolades.   

But here’s what John Hagee stands for.  He proclaimed that Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for the gay pride parade in New Orleans.  When interviewed he said that his church is not hard on gays but that homosexuality is an unrighteous lifestyle.  However, he says, a Christian has to love the sinner but hate the sin.  He has also called the Catholic Church a “false cult system.”  And he is an avid supporter of Israel, which fits in with his rapture theology which holds that before Jesus returns and raptures the faithful on earth up to heaven, all the lands of biblical Israel must be restored to the present Israel.  This means that all Arabs must leave even the small amount of land on which they now live, or even better be disappeared.  McCain has said he does not accept everything Hagee says, but is glad for his endorsement.  

McCAIN’s RELIGIOUS SIDEKICKS #2: WORLD HARVEST PARSLEY  

However, regarding The Rev. Rod Parsley, head of the vast World Harvest Ministries in Ohio, McCain says that he turns to him for guidance.  He calls Parsley “one of the truly great leaders in America, a moral compass, a spiritual guide,” Parsley’s main claim to fame (or infamy) is his hatred of Islam, calling it an “anti-Christ religion” based on deception.  He has written that Mohammad “received his revelations from demons and not from the true God” and adding that Allah is a demon spirit. 

He has stated: “I cannot tell you how important it is that we understand the true nature of Islam, that we see it for what it really is. In fact, I will tell you this: I do not believe our country can truly fulfill its divine purpose until we understand our historical conflict with Islam. ” The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed, and I believe September 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore.”

Well, that should do a lot to dispel the perception in the Middle East that America is on a crusade to destroy Islamic culture.  It may not be that McCain believes all that, but using Parsley’s guidance combined with his super-hawk position on Iraq is surely a volatile mix.   

How come we are not hearing any looped clips of Hagee’s or Parsley’s hate-filled sermons?

DOn’t FORGET HILLARY

Well, first off, Hillary Clinton has said that if she had been a member of Rev. Wright’s church she would have left after his controversial sermon.    So both she and Obama run scared at the thought of a preacher who actually denounces the crimes of America.
But Hillary is much more vulnerable on the religion question because of her long time association with a secret right wing religious group called The Fellowship or The Family.  Clinton has been an active participant for years in their fundamentalist Bible study and prayer circles.  The Family’s best known activity is the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C.  But its real work goes on behind the scenes.   

According to Barbara Ehrenreich in The Nation, The Family has knitted “together international networks of rightwing leaders.  ” In the 1940’s, The Family reached out to former and not-so-former Nazis””  “During the 1960s the Family forged relationships between the U.S. government and some of the most anti-Communist (and dictatorial) elements within Africa’s postcolonial leadership. The Brazilian dictator General Costa e Silva, with Family support, was overseeing regular fellowship groups for Latin American leaders, while, in Indonesia, General Suharto (whose tally of several hundred thousand “Communists” killed marks him as one of the century’s most murderous dictators) was presiding over a group of fifty Indonesian legislators. During the Reagan Administration the Family helped build friendships between the U.S. government and men such as Salvadoran general Carlos Eugenios Vides Casanova, convicted by a Florida jury of the torture of thousands, and Honduran general Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, himself an evangelical minister, who was linked to both the CIA and death squads before his own demise.”

Clinton linked up with The Family in 1997 when she joined a prayer group for the wives of very conservative political leaders.  Now she is part of what they call their “most elite cell.”  The orientation is the connection between Christians and power, which many see as an obvious draw for the now-presidential candidate.  She has written of The Family’s current leader, Doug Coe, that he is “a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God.”

Coe, however, has made it clear that The family’s worship of Jesus is not the one who reportedly said “Blessed are the meek.”  A soon to be published book by Jeff Sharlet entitled The Family: the Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power will reveal the following:

They believe that, in mass societies, it’s only the elites who matter, the political leaders who can build God’s “dominion” on earth. Insofar as The Family has a consistent philosophy, it’s all about power-cultivating it, building it and networking it together into ever-stronger units, or “cells.” “We work with power where we can,” Doug Coe has said, and “build new power where we can’t.”

As with McCain’s religious backers, don’t expect any looped snippets about Clinton’s religious connections either.  They have been made only for the minister who speaks truth to power about America, a truth his detractors cannot bear to hear.
While some in World Can’t Wait may want to struggle with people like Jeremiah Wright about his religious worldview, a man of such integrity and concern about the evils in the world being perpetuated by the Bush regime should definitely be united with and supported.

If you haven’t already, go back to the link to his entire controversial sermon.

Larry Jones is a long time political activist
and former United Church of Christ minister who lives in Honolulu.