Associated Baptist Press - 6/3/2008

Associated Baptist Press
June 3, 2008 (8-56)

IN THIS ISSUE:
Obama departure from Trinity garners concern, criticism
Sect’s children begin leaving Baptist caregiver’s custody
CBF General Assembly devotes prayer time to discerning way
Opinion: Politics and the power of the Cross

Obama departure from Trinity garners concern, criticism
By Robert Marus

WASHINGTON (ABP) -- Religious and political leaders are expressing both concern and criticism in the wake of Barack Obama’s recent break with the church that brought him to faith 20 years ago -- but has brought him headaches on the campaign trail more recently.

The Illinois senator and likely Democratic presidential nominee acknowledged May 31 that he had mailed a resignation letter to officials at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. He and his wife, Michelle, were married there and have been active members of the congregation for two decades.

But continued controversy over the church -- re-ignited by a guest preacher’s May 25 sermon in which he mocked rival Hillary Clinton and seemed to imply that she was a racist -- forced Obama’s hand.

“It's clear that now that I'm a candidate for president, every time something is said in the church by anyone associated with Trinity, including guest pastors, the remarks will be imputed to me even if they totally conflict with my long-held views, statements and principles,” he said, in a statement announcing the resignation. “This was a pretty personal decision and I was not trying to make political theater out of it.”

Obama’s resignation came after months of controversies focusing on the church -- and primarily on its former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Obama has acknowledged Wright as a spiritual mentor, and even named his autobiography, The Audacity of Hope, after one of Wright’s sermon titles.

But Obama was forced to distance himself from Wright in March, after several snippets from Wright’s sermons showed up on YouTube and were replayed repeatedly by cable-news programs. The sound bites contained rhetoric that some have interpreted as anti-American and anti-white, such as the declaration that God condemns America for its treatment of blacks as well as its foreign-policy mistakes. But many have defended Wright, saying that the comments were better understood in the context of the entire sermons in which they appeared and in the broader context of the African-American tradition of prophetic preaching that challenges the powers that be.

Then Obama was forced to denounce the minister more formally after an April 29 National Press Club appearance by Wright that was equal parts erudite speech, bitter tirade and theatrical performance.

The controversy over Obama’s ties to Trinity subsided until the Memorial Day weekend sermon by Michael Pfleger, the white pastor of a predominantly African-American Catholic church located near Trinity. In it, he mocked Clinton and claimed she was surprised by Obama’s success because of her white sense of entitlement.

Obama denounced the sermon and noted that Pfleger had resigned from a campaign advisory council months before. Pfleger also apologized for his homily. But it, like the Wright sermons before it, kindled a media firestorm nonetheless.

Explaining his decision to reporters during a campaign appearance in South Dakota May 31, Obama said that he and his wife had been talking about leaving the church since Wright’s National Press Club performance. He said they discussed it with Otis Moss III, Trinity’s new pastor, and decided that the separation was in the best interests of both his campaign and the church.

“We prayed on it and, you know, my interest has never been to try to politicize this or put the church in a position where is subject to the same rigors and demands of a presidential campaign,” he said. “My suspicion at that time … was that it was going to be very difficult to continue our membership there so long as I was running for president.”

Obama continued: “The recent episode with Father Pfleger I think just reinforced that view that we don't want to have to answer for everything that’s stated in a church. On the other hand, we also don't want a church subjected to the scrutiny that a presidential campaign legitimately undergoes. I mean, that’s … I don't want Rev. Moss to have to look over his shoulder and see that his sermon vets or if it’s potentially problematic for my campaign or will attract the fury of a cable program. And so, I have no idea how it will impact my presidential campaign. But I know it's the right thing to do for the church and for our family.”

But some political rivals suggested the decision to leave Trinity was clearly politically motivated.

“Early in the campaign, the Obama for President website was filled with glowing reports about the positive and close relationship that Sen. Obama enjoyed with his home church and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Once it became clear that Rev. Wright and the church were becoming a liability for Senator Obama, he resigned the church out of political expediency,” said Patrick Mahoney, of the Christian Defense Coalition, in a statement.

But several news reports indicated that Trinity members interviewed on their way to and from worship services June 1 were saddened, but not angered by their most famous member’s departure.

The church issued a statement wishing the Obamas -- and their two young daughters, who were baptized at Trinity -- well.

“Though we are saddened by the news, we understand that this is a personal decision. We will continue to lift them in prayer, and wish them the best as former members of our Trinity community,” the statement said. “As in the prayer of the Ephesians, the entire Trinity family asks that the nation entrust Barack, Michelle, Malia and Sasha to God's care and guidance, so that Christ may continue to dwell in their lives, in their hearts, and in their work. We ask now for God's peace to be with them.”

Obama, at the South Dakota news conference, rejected the suggestion that he had chosen Trinity out of political expediency and was now leaving it for the same reasons.

“There are a lot of big churches on the South Side of Chicago,” he said. “There are a whole bunch of churches that were better connected politically, so I reject that notion, which I think is a very cynical one, that I would join a church simply to maneuver politically.

He also said that, if political expediency were his motivation, he would have denounced Wright and left the church more than a year ago, when he made the formal announcement of his presidential bid. Then, a smaller controversy arose over Wright’s past statements and actions, and Obama disinvited Wright from giving the invocation at the announcement event.

Welton Gaddy, a Baptist minister who is president of the Interfaith Alliance, said all parties were to blame in the episode, which he views as a cautionary tale against politicizing churches or sanctifying politicians.

“No candidate for the presidency should ever have to resign from or join a particular house of worship in order to be a viable candidate for that high office,” Gaddy, who is also preaching pastor of Northminster Baptist Church in Monroe, La., said in a statement released after Obama’s announcement.. “To make such a decision for political reasons dishonors religion and disrespects the Constitution. This is a sad day in American politics and even sadder in American religion.

“Sen. Obama is at the center of the storm, but all who wed religion to partisan politics share responsibility for this tragic development.”

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Sect’s children begin leaving Baptist caregiver’s custody
By ABP staff

DALLAS (ABP) -- After court rulings declaring that the state of Texas had insufficient cause to keep them from their parents, more than 400 children taken from a compound owned by the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints began returning to their parents June 1.

The sect is led by imprisoned polygamist Warren Jeffs. In April, authorities seized the children from the FLDS Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Texas, on suspicion of sexual abuse. But the Texas Supreme Court found that the authorities had not produced enough evidence to justify keeping all of the compound’s children in state custody.

State officials asked Baptist Child and Family Services (BCFS), an agency affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas, to coordinate care for all of the children. In addition, several of the children were housed at BCFS facilities.

“There are no longer any FLDS children at the BCFS Youth Ranch,” according to a June 2 e-mail message from BCFS administrator Kevin Dinnin. He also said members of the agency’s incident-management team were in Austin, assisting Texas state authorities with the logistics of returning the children.

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CBF General Assembly devotes prayer time to discerning way
By Vicki Brown

ATLANTA (ABP) – How does God want us to use our resources? Finding an answer to that and related questions will be a priority at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly this year.

Leaders will seek input from attendees at the event, set for June 19-20 at Cook Convention Center in Memphis, Tenn.

Using the theme, “Embrace the World: Building Bridges,” the meeting will include a “prayer and discernment experience” to help determine the 17-year-old organization’s future.

According to pre-assembly information, the prayer time will cap a year-long effort by CBF’s Coordinating Council, state and regional leaders, staff and others to determine the body's future focus.

Participants will receive instructions for the prayer time at the Thursday morning business session. An hour during the afternoon worship experience that day will be devoted to prayer in groups of approximately 30 individuals.

Following worship, small groups of 10-15 people will meet to pray over and respond to specific questions and potential priorities. The smaller groups will meet again prior to a Friday morning business session.

CBF leaders will use the feedback to develop priorities for the organization. Some of those initiatives will be presented Friday morning.

No other major business items are expected during the meeting.

In other General Assembly-related events, CBF will commission 17 new field personnel during a service June 18. The commissioning will be held at First Baptist Church of Memphis.

An hour-long focus on poverty is scheduled for June 19 to allow participants to share and discuss ideas and challenges for meeting worldwide needs. Although a free event, organizers request attendees to register ahead of time at the CBF website planning purposes.

The two-day event will also feature several workshops sessions on topics including missions, disaster relief, religious freedom and poverty.

Keynote speakers include Lauren Bethell, an American Baptist Churches USA ministry consultant based in Prague, Czech Republic. Bethell helps mentor and facilitate ministry among the world’s exploited women and children.

A leadership summit, a poverty-emphasis breakfast, a CBF AIDS Network luncheon and several other auxiliary events will be held in conjunction with the General Assembly.

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Opinion: Politics and the power of the Cross
By Beth Newman

(ABP) -- Sen. Barack Obama’s recent resignation of his membership in Trinity United Church of Christ was probably inevitable, but it is a melancholy occasion nonetheless. Since I cannot know the likely Democratic presidential nominee’s heart, I don’t know whether this was a cynical political move or a heart-rending decision. But this much is obvious: in Sen. Obama’s opinion, his Chicago church home -- or at least his membership there -- had become a political liability.

The resignation is melancholy because it speaks so starkly of the division in our society not only among the races, the classes, and the political parties. It speaks of the price of power in our nation and of our convictions about where actual power is to be found. The affair illustrates for me the continual and forced relegation of faith to the sphere of the purely private.

As has been observed elsewhere, a great part of Sen. Obama’s appeal has been his seeming ability to overcome the divisions that have for so long characterized the political life of the United States. Not least among these divisions was the sacred/secular. Here was a Democrat who could speak convincingly not only of the importance of a generic faith, but of his specifically Christian faith. And he did so without the overtones of triumphalism or exclusivity that so often alienate those of the so-called “progressive” element of national life.

I think these words of faith were heard with such hope because Obama tied them not to the glittering generalities of the American civic religion, but to the actual life of a real congregation. It was at Trinity Church that he met Jesus, at Trinity that his marriage was celebrated, at Trinity that his children were baptized. That congregation formed his life.

And this is the congregation that he is willing to leave in order to gain the presidency.

I should say that I am not particularly troubled by the few minutes of “rantings” from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright -- Obama’s former pastor -- or by the few seconds of the same sort of things by Father Michael Pfleger, the Catholic priest who inflamed controversy over Trinity again over the Memorial Day weekend.

And further, I am quite willing to believe that the totality of the ministries of this congregation dwarf whatever offense is given by these YouTube moments. What bothers me is the implication that the real power to make a difference lies not in the church’s engagement with the world, but in the activity of a governmental office.

More than one “expert” called to offer insight on the recent pastor problems experienced both by Obama and his Republican rival, Arizona Sen. John McCain, has called for the complete relegation of religion to the private sphere (“Why won’t these preachers just shut up? Why don’t our politicians keep their religious opinions to themselves?”) so that we can get on with the serious business of electing our leaders. In other words, banish religion to the non-public sphere where it ceases to threaten or offend, and politics will be better off.

If the early followers of Christ, however, had understood religion as private and politics as the machinations of government in the public sphere, there would have been no conflict with the Roman Empire. The early church, however, refused to avail itself of the protection of the cultus privatus (private sect) status that it could have enjoyed under Roman law. They saw, rather, that Christianity entails a whole way of life -- one that encompasses both the so-called private and public spheres. Thus they described the body of Christ in political terms: “a holy nation”(I Peter 2:9), a citizenry (Ephesians 2:19) and the “Israel of God” (Galatians 6:16).

What we need to remember is that the gospel is offensive. Aside from whether the antics of certain preachers upset the world, the message of the gospel will upset many when faithfully preached. The wisdom of the Cross is foolishness to the world. If this cruciform folly is not embraced, “the Cross of Christ [will] be emptied of its power” (I Corinthians 1:17).

Sen. Obama says that he and his wife will choose a new church after the election. In other words, after the real work has been done. Such a decision makes quite clear where his hope for the future lies.

Hope in the power of the Cross, however, cannot be set aside or relegated to a private sphere. Rather, following the Cross empowers the body of Christ to overcome divisions in all areas of life and extend God’s love to all the nations.

Such hope might make Christians look foolish in the eyes of the world. Let’s hope so. It’ll be a sign that our lives, public and private, are more determined by the power of the Cross than other principalities and powers.

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-- Beth Newman is professor of theology and ethics at Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond. bnewman@btsr.edu