barack obama question

[qckmstr]

i've heard all the stuff bout he would put his hand on the Bible when being sworn in, the hand on the heart pics, and he's a muslim,, now don't take this wrong.. i am by all means NOT a democrate.. i am 110% republican. but i have a good friend that i argue with everyday about freak'n obama.. does anyone know where on the internet you can find dirt on this guy.. or where you can find truth to the rumors about the muslim issue, wouldn't place hand on the Bible issue,etc.. i need some ammo.. in a bad kinda way.. and haven't found anything that can back these accusations up.

[mudsucker]

His father is from Kenya(I think) hence the name. Claims to be "affiliated" with some Black christian church in IL. If you go to that church's web site, it is all about black this and black that(rights). Who knows if "affiliated" is the same as being a member/saved? There was a thread on here about the church I believe.

[timberjack]

You have to consider the source when you're looking for political dirt. You can find just about anything on any candidate if you look in the right place. Snopes.com seems to be pretty impartial, I'd start there.

[Drakeshead]

As stated from the Trinity United Church of Christ:

We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian... Our roots in the Black religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent. We are an African people, and remain "true to our native land," the mother continent, the cradle of civilization. God has superintended our pilgrimage through the days of slavery, the days of segregation, and the long night of racism. It is God who gives us the strength and courage to continuously address injustice as a people, and as a congregation. We constantly affirm our trust in God through cultural expression of a Black worship service and ministries which address the Black Community.

The Pastor as well as the membership of Trinity United Church of Christ is committed to a 10-point Vision:

1) A congregation committed to ADORATION.
2) A congregation preaching SALVATION.
3) A congregation actively seeking RECONCILIATION.
4) A congregation with a non-negotiable COMMITMENT TO AFRICA.
5) A congregation committed to BIBLICAL EDUCATION.
6) A congregation committed to CULTURAL EDUCATION.
7) A congregation committed to the HISTORICAL EDUCATION OF AFRICAN PEOPLE IN DIASPORA.
8.) A congregation committed to LIBERATION.
9) A congregation committed to RESTORATION.
10)A congregation working towards ECONOMIC PARITY.

From FoxNews

Barack Obama has put his religion back into the headlines, trumpeting the power and salvation of faith and asking a church audience in South Carolina to help him become “an instrument of God” and join him in creating “a Kingdom right here on Earth."

But the Democratic contender's talk on Sunday of breaking down religious and political differences has some critics questioning the Illinois senator's own beliefs — and those of the man identified as his spiritual adviser — and whether his messages of spiritual inclusion and tolerance have remained consistent.

Obama has written and spoken about being inspired by the preaching of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., and his calls to “spur social change.” The title of Obama’s second book, “The Audacity of Hope,” which essentially launched his presidential bid, was taken from a sermon by Wright.

Baptized in Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ, Obama has been an active member for two decades, regularly attending services with his family under Wright's spiritual mentorship.

Some of Wright’s sermons, which often address themes of white supremacy and black repression, have come under scrutiny by those who interpret them as racially divisive. Such preaching, they believe, polarizes Americans rather than unites them.

“Wright’s preaching does promote a sort of racial exclusivity,” said Michael Cromartie, vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington.

“Statements that suggest you cannot truly understand God unless you are black or poor are exclusive.”

Remarks attributed to Wright that were posted on audio files on the Internet and cited in press accounts earlier this year may have prompted the criticism.

“Fact number one: We’ve got more black men in prison than there are in college.

"Fact number two: Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run.

"We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns and the training of professional killers. ... We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God. ... We conducted radiation experiments on our own people. ... We care nothing about human life if the ends justify the means.

"And ... And ... And! God! Has got! To be sick! Of this s***!"

Click here to hear an audio clip of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.

Wright had been scheduled to speak at Obama’s Feb. 10 presidential announcement. But after news of the remarks were published, the senator apparently changed his mind the night before and chose the Rev. Otis Moss III, Wright’s successor at Trinity United Church of Christ. Moss declined the invitation.

A request for an interview with Wright was not granted. All requests for an interview were referred to the Obama campaign.

An Obama spokesman referred to Wright as “media shy," although Wright has routinely posted live webcasts of his sermons on Trinity United's Web site.

Obama met Wright after college while working with local churches in Chicago to tackle problems of drug abuse and unemployment in inner-city neighborhoods. Wright preached an Afrocentric theology that interpreted the Bible through shared suffering of African Americans.

For Obama, this experience was a spiritual turning point. He had been exposed to various faiths during his life but never formally adopted one until after meeting Wright.

“Inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones,” he wrote in his memoir, "Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance."

“Those stories — of survival, and freedom, and hope — became our story, my story.”

Wright’s defenders say his theology has been misunderstood and taken out of context. They say Wright seeks only to give blacks a sense of dignity and identity, and that his philosphy and sermons are not racist.

“The idea that this preaching is divisive is absolutely ridiculous,” said the Rev. Dr. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina Church in Chicago, who has known Obama for more than 20 years.

“The job of pastor is to shepherd his or her congregation, and that requires speaking to your congregants in the language and context they understand.”

For his part, Obama has said he does not agree with Wright on every issue, religious or political. But that doesn’t sit well with some.

“If Barack Obama has really submitted himself to his church like he’s claimed, why does he have a different expression of faith from his own pastor?” asks Anthony Bradley, theologian and research fellow at the Acton Institute in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Meanwhile, in a statement on his church’s Web site, Wright defends the principles of his theology:

“To have a church whose theological perspective starts from the vantage point of Black liberation theology being its center, is not to say that African or African American people are superior to any one else. …There is more than one center from which to view the world. In the words of Dr. Janice Hale, ‘Difference does not mean deficience’ [sic]. It is from this vantage point that Black liberation theology speaks.”

From News Max

Obama Controversial Pastor Retiring

Monday, January 14, 2008 11:09 AM

By: Newsmax Staff

The pastor to Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, whose fiery sermons are often seen as racial divisive, plans to retire in May and will apparently assume a lower profile during the height of the election season.


The move could be a political break for Obama, who has repeatedly been asked whether he agrees with Chicago Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr’s black-liberation theology.


Charles Lofton, a spokesman for Trinity United, confirms to Newsmax that Wright plans to retire in May.


Lofton refused to answer any questions about any joint travel plans Obama and Wright may have. [Editor's Note: Read Newsmax's Original Report "Obama's Church: Cauldron of Division" - Click Here]


Wright has occasionally traveled with Obama on the campaign trail. Whether Wright could be playing the role of Obama’s personal spiritual adviser is undetermined.


In an address to a group of ministers in June, Obama described his personal relationship with Wright: “It was ... at Trinity United Church of Christ on the South Side of Chicago that I met Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., who took me on another journey and introduced me to a man named Jesus Christ. It was the best education I ever had.”


“What I value most about Pastor Wright is not his day-to-day political advice,” Obama told the Chicago Tribune in January 2007, when Wright announced his retirement plans. “He’s much more of a sounding board for me to make sure that I am speaking as truthfully about what I believe as possible and that I’m not losing myself in some of the hype and hoopla and stress that's involved in national politics.”


Wright’s message has clearly embraced a black power agenda. “Some white people hear it as racism in reverse,” Dwight Hopkins, a professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School and a member of Trinity, tells The New York Times. Blacks tend to hear a different message, Hopkins says: “Yes, we are somebody; we’re also made in God's image.”


Several prior remarks by Obama’s pastor have caught the media’s attention:


• Wright on 9/11: “White America got their wake-up call after 9/11. White America and the Western world came to realize people of color had not gone away, faded in the woodwork, or just disappeared as the Great White West kept on its merry way of ignoring black concerns.” On the Sunday after the attacks, Dr. Wright blamed America.


• Wright on the disappearance of Natalee Holloway: “Black women are being raped daily in Africa. One white girl from Alabama gets drunk at a graduation trip to Aruba, goes off and gives it up while in a foreign country and that stays in the news for months.”


• Wright on Israel: “The Israelis have illegally occupied Palestinian territories for over 40 years now. Divestment has now hit the table again as a strategy to wake the business community and wake up Americans concerning the injustice and the racism under which the Palestinians have lived because of Zionism.”


• Wright on America: He has used the term “middleclassness” in a derogatory manner; frequently mentions “white arrogance” and the “oppression” of African-Americans today; and has referred to “this racist United States of America.”


Wright’s day-to-day political and spiritual advice to Obama – his sermons have furnished the titles for two of Obama’s books -- may continue on the campaign trail.


Repeated Newsmax attempts to contact Wright for an interview have been met with explanations that “the Reverend is traveling,” during periods when Obama has been bounding back and forth between Washington DC and the early primary states.


During these periods, Sunday sermons at Trinity United were delivered by Rev. Otis Moss III, who has been tapped to formally replace Wright as head of the church when he retires.


But on the rare occasions in the past year when Wright has been available to preach at Trinity United, Obama has been present as well. These virtually identical attendance patterns may not be a coincidence, since Obama continues to describe Wright’s “day-to-day” influence on the rare occasions when Wright is now mentioned.


Wright has also been observed, on at least two occasions, traveling with Obama during the past year.


Wright has been described as “divisive” and a “maverick.” While Obama clearly places a high value on his spiritual and political advice, it may be seen as a prudent maneuver to move him out of his highly-visible role at Trinity United, and into a virtually invisible role in Obama’s private campaign entourage.


Wright arrived at Trinity United in 1972 wearing a red Afro and dashiki robes, and immediately started preaching about “white arrogance,” “the racist United States of America,” and “the United States of White America.”


The church motto, “Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian,” was coined by Wright’s predecessor, Rev. Reuben Sheares, and the congregation officially adopted it soon after Wright started his tenure. Obama began attending in 1985, when he noticed the “Free South Africa” sign that had been standing on the church lawn for seven years.


Today, Trinity United boasts 8,500 members. Sunday sermons are broadcast live on cable TV and radio, and rebroadcast on the church website Monday through Friday. Among its more than 80 outreach ministries to various segments of the community is one for gay and lesbian singles, who are often neglected by other churches.

But recently, the church motto, “Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian,” and other messages of empowerment have been removed from the Trinity United website.

As Wright’s successor at Trinity United, Moss has taken a more careful and calibrated approach to weaving the black power agenda into the spiritual mission. He practices what has sometimes been described as “dog-whistle politics.”

The term refers to the whistles that are so high-pitched that they are inaudible to humans, but a dog can hear them. Practitioner of dog-whistle politics speak in carefully coded words and phrases that don’t lend themselves well to the unequivocal sound bites seen above, and are clearly understood only by their followers.

All of these maneuvers – replacing Wright at Trinity United with a more subtle preacher of racial divisiveness, toning down the racial empowerment messages on the website, and moving Wright into a behind-the-scenes role in Obama’s personal entourage – seem designed to make Obama more palatable to white voters.

Some professional political observers have given Obama the benefit of the doubt. Jay Stewart, executive director of the Chicago government watchdog group Better Government Association, was contacted by Newsmax via cell phone as he was returning from Springfield, after winning a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich.

“I think we should judge Obama on what he says rather than what his former pastor said,” explained Stewart. “I’m not inclined to make much of it. Obama doesn’t screen what the pastor says.” But Obama’s choice of Wright as his personal, “day-to-day” spiritual advisor is well within his control.

Obama: No Hand on Heart for National Anthem



During rendition of the national anthem when the flag is displayed, all present except those in uniform should stand at attention facing the flag with the right hand over the heart. Men not in uniform should remove their headdress with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart. -- United States Code, Title 36, Chapter 10, Sec. 171

Turns out that not wearing a flag lapel pin isn't the only way Barack Obama chooses to show he's a different kind of Democrat.

Have a look at the photo from the October 1, 2007 edition of "Time." It shows Obama, Hillary and Bill Richardson at the Steak Fry of Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) on September 17 in Indianola, IA during [according to the photo caption ] the National Anthem. Richardson and Clinton have their hands on their heart. But not Obama. Does he perhaps believe that, like wearing the flag pin, the hand on the heart isn't "true patriotism"?

View video of anthem-playing here, showing that Obama never placed hand over heart. Warning: prepare ears for fingernails-on-blackboard rendition of anthem.

[mudsucker]

He went way down in my book. That's just wrong!

[kutem1023]

http://www.freedomsenemies.com/_more/obama.htm

[Faithful Retrievers]

Nawteek can give you the run down in about 6 letters and thats the bible truth, including Oprah.