Comments on: Obama, Wright, and Trinity

By: Randal Maurice Jelks

Randal Maurice Jelks — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 18:58:18 +0000

Thank you for your kind words about the piece on Obama, Wright, and Trinity. I lived in Chicago throughout my high school years and part of my graduate training. Chicago politics was followed in my household with the same passion that one would follow the Cubs or the White Sox. Although Chicago is known as the “second city” I can think of no city that can give you any better training for 20th and 21st century American politics than Chitown. Living in Chicago was great training ground for me as a scholarly observer of American politics and religion. If I can be of any help to the two of you, let me know. All the best.

By: Curtis Evans

Curtis Evans — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 21:45:48 +0000

Thanks for the excellent article and the response to critics. Very important points made. I’d love to talk with you more about some of these issues, Dr. Jelks. I am impressed with your knowledge of Chicago’s politics and religion. As a relative newcomer, I could benefit from your extensive knowledge, especially as I begin teaching this fall.

By: Alexander Riley

Alexander Riley — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 03:34:23 +0000

Thanks, Dr. Jelks, for writing one of the very few informed things I’ve found on the Internet on the Wright/Obama/Trinity situation. I’ll be sharing this link with students.

By: Randal Maurice Jelks

Randal Maurice Jelks — Fri, 23 May 2008 21:12:50 +0000

Thank you for your comments. I agree many of the old black churches were in the pocket of the Cook County Democratic Machine under Mayor Daley (I). Olivet Baptist Church headed by Joseph H. Jackson, the longstanding president of the National Convention was clearly in the Mayor’s debt. In sympathy with that generation of ministers who came to Chicago from Mississippi, Daley’s patronage was a far cry more hospitable than Mississippi’s white supremacists regime they faced. Even if I did not like what they did they were political realists and opportunists. They were in debt to the Mayor because they wanted prestige for themselves and jobs for their parishioners. They tried to do two things, no different than white evangelicals who have curried favor from Reagan to Bush. There were only a few who took the risk of offending the Mayor back then and not accepting his patronage. I can think of Clay Evans, Fellowship Baptist Church and few others. This is why Trinity Church was so important at the time Wright became the church’s pastor. Wright seized the moment and established a church different than his predecessors and showed a black progressive congregation could work. I am sure Senator Obama also seized the moment too and socialized and networked with the younger progressive crowd around Chi-town that Wright attracted. With that stated, you cannot possibly deny that Trinity fulfilled a spiritual need for many in the black middle-class—case in point Mrs. Obama, a long time native of Chicago. While I am cynical, I am not cynical enough to believe that Senator Obama’s spiritual journey is not real. If that were the case he should have left Trinity like Oprah. I do not see your comments off-setting what I have stated. Trinity proved to be a progressive force for black people in the city. It was liberating for a black Southside church to be progressive and not in the pockets of the city politicos and black people folked to it. I am not pollyanish sir. I know the city of Chicago’s politics.

By: Michael Brett

Michael Brett — Fri, 23 May 2008 05:55:57 +0000

Even as an Obama supporter, I find your commentary a wee bit too Pollyanish. Trinity Church granted the young organizer Obama the opportunity to acquaint himself with those individuals who had not only fought for civil rights, but also successfully elected a black mayor in racially divided city. Barack Obama is VERY ambitious. His goals played a major role in his choice of church. Spirituality is grand, but politicians will always put politics first and Barack is a politician. We are campaigning for him to be President, not Bishop.

I also believe that you and your respondents sugarcoat the truth about South Chicago’s inner city churches. They all were bought off by Daley years ago. The greatest failure of both Jackson and Farrakhan (the two prominent black leaders of my generation) is that they did not in any way prevent the legacy of Harold Washington to be but a minor miracle in their own backyard. Barack is succeeding because his message is superceding civil rights. In a way, Barack is fast forwarding to the realization of Dr. King’s dreams. When Barack is elected, though, I will still live in a Chicago where poor blacks have been deserted by their leaders and have not much to show twenty years on from the death of Mayor Washington.

Celebrate Barack Obama’s potential, but please do not forget that his Chicago longs for politics of real change as well.

By: Tanvier Lee

Tanvier Lee — Tue, 20 May 2008 20:26:10 +0000

As always, I enjoy your messages Dr. Jelks. I personally think this whole situation misrepresents both the black community, and the black church. I have been raised in a black church and have attended almost every Protestant denomination under the sun. The common thread which tied these denominations together was their role in the black community. I personally feel that what Rev. Wright said is not as far fetched as the media would like to portray. His comments about Natalie Halloway (a white teenager who went missing in Aruba) were on the money. Think about how much media attention was received on a young, white teenager who fraternized with multiple, male peers whom she did not know. Several years have passed and we are still talking about Natalie Halloway. I agree with Rev. Wright that if it was a woman of color, we would be so lucky to hear about it on “The Today Show.” Case in point, the young, black female in WVA. She was kidnapped, abused and sodomized by six white people for a week. There is no comparing the coverage and it saddens me because while Natalie H. put herself in the company of unknown company, this woman was taken from her own.

Rev. Wright has a tone that is very old-school. It is direct, aggressive, and emotional. I believe that the messages which Rev. Wright has spoken are common discussions in the black church. The only difference is his presentation and animation towards the topics. Many of the critics of Wright do not attend a black church, nor have ever visited one. I feel that the topics of my mother’s generations [of injustice, institutional racism, and equality] are the same in modern day because they still occur. Whether a Pastor is charismatic like Joel Osteen, or fire & brimstone like John Hagee, the message remains the same. The execution is what raises eyebrows.

What also strikes me about this media coverage is that it focuses on Obama, and not McCain or others who have had questionable mentors. John McCain voted against making Dr. King’s birthday a holiday in 1983 and has helped raise money for George Wallace’s son. McCain employs Richard Quinn, who has called Nelson Mandela a “terrorist” and promotes the Ku Klux Klan. How many networks has that be played on?

I will conclude by saying that Obama has done nothing but promote peace and equality. His campaign is people-oriented and does not bash anyone with “black power.” Just as a person raises awareness about issues that impact their community and their family, why do we prohibit Obama from doing the same? He was the first candidate to continuously address the still present victims of Hurricane Katrina. Because he is half black and half white, do we now require him to attend a black and white church?

By: Randy Gabrielse

Randy Gabrielse — Tue, 20 May 2008 19:14:15 +0000

Thank you, Randal for highlighting both the historical connections of Mr. Obama’s campaign to Jesse Jackson’s and the utter ignorance, let alone self-servingness, of the mostly white media establishment who have no clue about the Black Church or the Church in general.

I personally found Mr. Obama’s retreat from Rev. Wright more alarming than I ever found Rev. Wright’s comments. Having visited Chicago’s South Side (uncomfortably) before the replacement of the public housing, I just wish that the media would consider what it meant for Rev. Wright to have built a church that brought together the African American middle class that you address with others in that particular place.

By: Randal Maurice Jelks

Randal Maurice Jelks — Tue, 20 May 2008 19:03:05 +0000

I agree that black evangelicals have failed the smell test in terms of their commitment to social justice. I also agree that Jessie Jackson has coped out in standing up for Wright. Wright was always cool to Jackson in Chicago for good reason and so Jesse is cool to Wright. Wright never let Jesse use Trinity for a platform. The NYC black preachers Butts, Forbes, and Sharpton have been too much in the pocket of the Clintons politically, and maybe otherwise, for them to be independent and speak out. Andrew Young, who is UCC like Wright, but in typical fashion I might add, badly played his Clinton card with his less than judicious remarks about President Clinton having more black women than Senator Obama earlier this year. All-black denominations such as COGIC, the National Baptist Convention, and the AME are in such disarray in terms of its national leadership to be of any assistance to Wright. I know that Wright left the Baptist Church because it was not committed to social justice. Thanks for your comments.

By: William Winslow

William Winslow — Tue, 20 May 2008 17:34:29 +0000

This is an excellent analysis of the role of the black Protestant church. But even in the black church there are degrees of commitment to justice and equality, based in part on denominational affiliation. Many black evangelical churches fail to make a connection between the struggle for equality/justice for gays and women and the specifically black community. Wright happens to belong to a denomination, the United Church of Christ, which is comitted to justice and equality on many fronts.

I am also disappointed that national black leadership has not come to the defense of Mr. Wright. Surely, leaders like Calvin Butts, James Forbes, Jessie Jackson, Al Sharpton, Ralph Abernathy, Andrew Young and leaders of predominantly black denomination could have spoken on the record.

By: Randal Maurice Jelks

Randal Maurice Jelks — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:38:54 +0000

Of course there are many things that are similar. First, two-thirds of black Americans are working class. However, there are differences. Black Christianity, at least the Social Gospel tradition, as I mentioned in my post, has been on the whole more progressive and positive in its orientation toward democratic social change than their white Christian counterparts. The long history of American slavery and segregation gave black Christians as a whole a more positive direction than white counterparts. Let me recommend to you Michael Emerson and Christian Smith's book, Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America. I would like you to compare that book to C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence Mamiya's, The Black Church in the African American Experience. I think you will see some the profound differences in social attitudes that black Christian have held. Lastly, I view some aspects of black Protestant Christianity as positive; there are other parts that are negative. The goal of this post was to discuss the positive aspects, which have largely been ignored by the dominant media, whose biases about religion in general are far too evident.