Thursday, April 03, 2008

Chickens ... come home ... to roost! at Obama's church

I caught a clip on CNN just now with Rev. Otis Moss, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's successor at Trinity United Church of Christ, complaining about the press and the public reaction to Rev. Wright's hate speech. I can't find anything online about Moss's remarks, but there's this item in today's Chicago Tribune.
On Thursday, Thomas will join Wright's successor, Rev. Otis Moss III, and the head of the National Council of Churches at Trinity to stress that houses of worship are not political arenas [Oh, really?? --ed.] but hallowed spaces reserved for sacred conversations with each other and with God.

"Churches are not designed for this," Moss said. "All of a sudden you inject a group of people looking for a story and some unethically looking for something salacious to report -- it heightens the anxiety."

Moss said the day-to-day business of the church cannot pause for a national controversy. During this period, families have dealt with divorce, terminal illness, a shooting and a car accident. Their pain, he said, was amplified when reporters showed up at funerals to interview members.
The press, as usual, is conducting itself abominably, but Wright and Moss have brought this upon their parishioners themselves.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

From UCCTRUTHS.com:

Thomas plays race card to dodge Wright criticism
Thursday, April 03, 2008

The effort to have a national conversation on race would be admirable had it not been hastily called for in response to the criticism that Thomas and the UCC has been facing in defense of comments in sermons and in publications by Trinity's former minister, Jeremiah Wright, Jr. who did not even attend the press conference. As disgusting and vulgar as it sounds, Thomas appears to be playing the race card to dodge the criticism which ultimately undermines the very conversation on race that he and others are seeking.

The consequences of this will be damaging on a number of levels. First, Thomas has made it pretty clear that he's not going to actually respond to the concerns raised within and outside of the denomination on Wright. Like so many other actions he and the national office have taken, it will be local pastors left to react and they really aren't being given much to work with here.

Second, members of the UCC are pretty wise to what is going on here. The problem isn't race, it's about Wright's comments and Thomas' reaction to them.

Finally, all this has really done is guarantee that this issue won't die down anytime soon.