Pastor Otis Moss III : Divine Love: You Don't Have to Choose

Rev. Moss gives some spiritual insight on how to deal with the current media scrutiny surrounding Obama and Rev. Wright

Bill Moyers : 'Beware the Terrible Simplifiers'

Wow I guess Bill Moyers and I were totally on the same page

By Bill Moyers
May 3, 2008

Editor’s Note: The furor over Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s outbursts has altered Campaign 2008, inflicting grave damage on Barack Obama’s candidacy. But is this media obsession fair when compared with far less attention given to other political pastors, like John Hagee, a John McCain backer, who called Hurricane Katrina God’s punishment of New Orleans?

In this guest essay, Bill Moyers – who interviewed Wright on PBS – tries to answer that question:

I once asked a reporter back from Vietnam: “Who’s telling the truth over there?”

“Everyone,” he said. “Everyone sees what’s happening through the lens of their own experience.”

That’s how people see Jeremiah Wright.

In my conversation with him and in his dramatic public appearances since, he revealed himself to be far more complex than the sound bites that propelled him onto the public stage.

More than 2,000 people have written me about him, and their opinions vary widely. Some sting: “Jeremiah Wright is nothing more than a race-hustling, American-hating radical,” one of my viewers wrote. Another called him a “nut case.”

Many more were sympathetic to him. Many asked for some rational explanation for Wright’s transition from reasonable conversation to the shocking anger they saw at the National Press Club.

A psychologist might pull back some of the layers and see this complicated man more clearly, but I’m not a psychologist.

Many black preachers I’ve known—scholarly, smart, and gentle in person—uncorked fire and brimstone in the pulpit. Of course, I’ve known many white preachers like that, too.

But where I grew up in the South, before the civil rights movement, the pulpit was a safe place for black men to express anger for which they would have been punished anywhere else. A safe place for the fierce thunder of dignity denied, justice delayed.

I think I would have been angry if my ancestors had been transported thousands of miles in the hellish hole of a slave ship, then sold at auction, humiliated, whipped, and lynched.

Or if my great-great-great grandfather had been but three-fifths of a person in a Constitution that proclaimed: “We, the people.”

Or if my own parents had been subjected to the racial vitriol of Jim Crow, Strom Thurmond, Bull Conner, and Jesse Helms.

Even so, the anger of black preachers I’ve known and heard and reported on was, for them, very personal and cathartic. That’s not how Jeremiah Wright came across in those sound bites or in his defiant performances since my interview.

What white America is hearing in his most inflammatory words is an attack on the America they cherish and that many of their sons have died for in battle – forgetting that black Americans have fought and bled beside them, and that Wright himself has a record of honored service in the Navy.

Hardly anyone took the “chickens come home to roost” remark to convey the message that intervention in the political battles of other nations is sure to bring retaliation in some form, which is not to justify the particular savagery of 9/11 but to understand that actions have consequences.

My friend Bernard Weisberger, the historian, says, yes, people are understandably seething with indignation over Wright’s absurd charge that the United States deliberately brought an HIV epidemic into being.

But it is a fact, he says, that within living memory the U.S. public health service conducted a study that deliberately deceived black men with syphilis into believing that they were being treated while actually letting them die for the sake of a scientific test.

Does this excuse Wright’s anger? His exaggerations or distortions? You’ll have to decide for yourself, but at least it helps me to understand the why of them.

In this multimedia age the pulpit isn’t only available on Sunday mornings. There’s round the clock media – the beast whose hunger is never satisfied, especially for the fast food with emotional content.

So the preacher starts with rational discussion and after much prodding throws more and more gasoline on the fire that will eventually consume everything it touches. He had help – people who, for their own reasons, set out to conflate the man in the pulpit who wasn’t running for president with the man in the pew who was.

Behold the double standard: John McCain sought out the endorsement of John Hagee, the war-mongering, Catholic-bashing Texas preacher, who said the people of New Orleans got what they deserved for their sins.

But no one suggests McCain shares Hagee’s delusions or thinks AIDS is God’s punishment for homosexuality. Pat Robertson called for the assassination of a foreign head of state and asked God to remove Supreme Court justices, yet he remains a force in the Republican religious right.

After 9/11, Jerry Falwell said the attack was God’s judgment on America for having been driven out of our schools and the public square, but when McCain goes after the endorsement of the preacher he once condemned as an agent of intolerance, the press gives him a pass.

Jon Stewart recently played tape from the Nixon White House in which Billy Graham talks in the Oval Office about how he has friends who are Jewish, but he knows in his heart that they are undermining America.

This is crazy and wrong -- white preachers are given leeway in politics that others aren’t.
Which means it is all about race, isn’t it? Wright’s offensive opinions and inflammatory appearances are judged differently. He doesn’t fire a shot in anger, put a noose around anyone’s neck, call for insurrection, or plant a bomb in a church with children in Sunday school.

What he does is to speak his mind in a language and style that unsettles some people, and says some things so outlandish and ill-advised that he finally leaves Obama no choice but to end their friendship.

We’re often exposed to the corroding acid of the politics of personal destruction, but I’ve never seen anything like this – this wrenching break between pastor and parishioner played out right in front of our eyes.

Both men no doubt will carry the grief to their graves. All the rest of us should hang our heads in shame for letting it come to this in America, where the gluttony of the non-stop media grinder consumes us all and prevents an honest conversation on race.

It is the price we are paying for failing to heed the great historian Jacob Burckhardt, who said, “beware the terrible simplifiers.”

The Political Psychology of Race and Gender - Obama's Real Problem!

I found this article and for me it answers a lot of the questions I've had personally as to why Pastor Wright is in the news and why he's getting the reaction he is......

Click to read the article in it's entirety

Expertinent: The Political Psychology of Race and Gender

Wednesday, March 12, 2008 5:30 PM **the day before the "Wright Controversy"**

By Andrew Romano

Expertinent is a regular Stumper column featuring interviews with experts on the news of the day.

Talk about good timing. A week ago, Cornell law student Gregory S. Parks emailed me a law review article that he had just coauthored with university professor Jeffrey Rachlinski. The subject? "Unconscious race and gender bias in the 2008 election." In addition to their legal studies, both Parks and Rachlinski (whose academic efforts have focused on the influence of human psychology on decision-making by courts, administrative agencies and regulated communities) boast Ph.Ds in psychology. On Monday, I decided to call them up for a chat. The next day, of course, race and gender consumed the national conversation (yet again) when Clinton supporter and former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro told a California newspaper that "if Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position." Revisiting my conversation with Parks and Rachlinski this morning, I realized that many of the questions we covered--who's battling the more difficult biases? is the 'victim pose' politically helpful? what should we expect in the general election?--are precisely the questions that everyone is asking in the wake of the Ferraro flap. Thus, I defer to the experts:

How about Obama?
R: Obama has a tougher job. The biases against African Americans are just a raw animus in a lot of ways. What you see in the studies is that people associate black with negative imagery, just wholesale, without regard to specific content. Blacks are bad, whites are good. You see it over and over in the unconscious bias literature. So what does he have to fight? He has to fight against being black in a way. He has to have people look at him and associate him with the positive imagery that Americans tend to associate with whites. It's not surprising, then, that his campaign is about very amorphous goals like hope and aspiration. That's the message that can work, because he can't embrace black issues without activating unconscious biases in white voters. That's very difficult to begin with.

On the other hand, Obama risks raising specific concerns among his core supporters--notably, African-Americans--if he fights too hard against being black. There's a specific in-group favoritism among African-Americans--a favorable, explicit self-image that's stronger than what you see among whites. When a black leader seems to be running away from his image as a black person, that's viewed negatively. In order to keep his base, then, he can't deny that he's black. It's a thin line that he has to toe.

You said before that "credentials help white applicants a lot more than they help black applicants." Does that mean that Obama shouldn't recite specific accomplishments and resume points?
R: The data suggests that it doesn't help black job applicants, and that it wouldn't help him. According to the research, adding resume credentials helps white applicants much more than black applicants. So if his campaign starts to be about what he's done, it won't help.


What about Obama (in the general election)?
R: He faces fewer white voters who like or care about the idea of a post-racial future. Liberal Democrats like the idea that someday race won't matter; Independents and Republicans, not as much. There's good data showing that Republicans harbor stronger negative implicit biases towards African-Americans than Democrats. So he's got to fight those biases a good deal more than he does among Democratic voters, and liberals are no longer enough. The other problem for Obama in the general election is that strong link between "black" and "foreign."

P: There was a study that came out a couple of years ago titled "American Equals White." And what it showed was that at the implicit level people tend to correlate whiteness with Americanness as opposed to blackness with Americanness. What's more, studies of the 2008 election have shown that when you prime individuals with images of the American flag--at a subliminal level, so you just flash is for a millisecond--it has a tendency to make white individuals show less liking toward Barack Obama. This harkens back to question of Obama not wearing the American flag pin and the accusations that he failed to put his hand over his heart during the singing of the national anthem. This stuff is tricky for him, especially considering that some opponents are questioning his patriotism. If images of Americanness make white Americans see Obama as less American at the implicit level--while at the explicit level rivals are questioning his patriotism--then he's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.

Is there anything to be gained by either campaign accusing their opponents of being sexist or racist? It seems to happen every day now. Does the 'victimhood pose' help in any way?
P: Obama, for one, cannot afford to address these things head on. If he gets up and says XYZ is racist and calls people on the carpet about race issues, it will only hurt him. The data supports this view. Studies suggest that when you press people on their gender-stereotypical biases, they kind of laugh it off. Because it's not such a hot issue. They're like, "Whatever. I'm not sexist." But if you press them on their racial biases, particularly in regards to blacks, one of two things happens. If they're low on explicit racial prejudice, they become contrite, apologetic, they want to know what they can do to overcome it. But if they are high on explicit racial bias, they become angry and antagonistic. When you accuse whites who harbor certain levels of racism of racist behavior, it actually makes them angry towards you. And that's why Obama can't afford to push back. He has to acknowledge and affirm that he's black so as not to alienate black voters, but he can't do it in such a way as to raise anxieties among white voters.

Is the calculus different with Clinton? Her campaign has been pretty explicit about pushing back in a way that's centered on her gender, as in the incident with David Shuster at MSNBC.
R: Of course, there are more women then there are black voters, right? It doesn't make blacks angry to point out that blacks are disadvantaged by bias. It makes whites angry. The same is true of gender. In the Democratic primaries she's dealing with a more sympathetic audience among women and to some degree among men. I don't think you'll see that in the general election at all, because she'll be fighting the implicit associations between women and nurturing domestic roles rather than leadership roles. At that point, any effort to play the gender card, if you will, is going to alienate some of the voters she needs--the voters who think it's a good idea for women to stay home.

There's a real split here about implicit associations and explicit ones. The efforts to articulate concerns about racism in the way you described are explicit efforts. Look at yourself, think about it, examine the data--that's a deliberative process meant to get people to reason through the problem and confront themselves in a different way. But you can't fight implicit biases with reasoned argument. It's not how they work. They work on an intuitive, affective, emotional level. Pushing back just makes people angry. You don't see that working very well in the research. And it wouldn't work in this campaign either. Instead, the candidates should combat implicit bias implicitly--Hillary has to look like a leader all the time; Obama looks inspirational. You fight fire with fire.

Do you expect the race- and gender-baiting to get worse in the general election?
P: Even though the RNC has indicated that they are kind of scared about how to attack Hillary Clinton without charges of sexism being leveled against them, and Barack Obama without allegations of racism, you'll still have ancillary individuals and groups who will make these attacks--that, for example, Obama used drugs at one time. There's ample evidence that, at least with regards to juries, they tend to view defendants more harshly when they've committed a crime that seems racially congruent, like a black person committing a more blue-collar crime--robbery, drug dealing and so forth. If they play that up, it could be problematic for him. If they question his patriotism, again, that could be problematic for him, because it raises these implicit biases about whether he's American enough. Republicans will probably play on these things, and perhaps his relationship with his pastor Jeremiah Wright, who openly espouses a black value system, to raise implicit biases in the electorate. And I think that poses some significant challenges for Obama.

What about the "Hussein" issue? McCain himself has already said that his allies should not use Obama's middle name as a political jab.
R: But it doesn't cost McCain anything to disassociate himself from it. The unconscious bias works automatically, quickly and deductively. So you hear the name three times and the context afterwards where McCain carefully explains that this is not something he endorsed is sort of irrelevant. To the extent that saying Hussein over and over again is at all effective on voters, McCain disassociating himself doesn't undo that effect. Because it's that first system, that affective, intuitive one, that's at play.

P: It's the benefit without the burden. He can distance himself after the fact. The RNC has said that they're not going to officially make attacks on race and gender, but you can have other groups raise these concerns and it works to McCain's advantage. The other question here is how Obama and Clinton may tear themselves apart heading into the convention and the general election by raising all these questions about each other. They're provoking these implicit biases among the general electorate as we speak--and the Republican Party may not have to do much next fall.

Let's Discuss.........

I Stand with My Pastor! Here is why....

I like many have watched nervously while Rev. Wright made his appearances with the media this weekend. Feeling both joy and just a bit of pain. I'm not one to make snap judgments and try my best to think rational about all issues, especially ones that tend to drive us to highly emotional responses. Having said that, allow me to review the facts.....

1. Rev. Wright did not ask to be in this position
1. Never before in history has the mainstream media given so much scrutiny to ANY presidential candidates Pastor OR Church OR secret society memberships. I mean Hillary's association with 'The Family' was mentioned on blogs but never covered in depth by the mainstream media! And what religion is John McCain anyways? He didn't even seem know
   
2. If Rev. Wright had not attempted to defend himself, HE WOULD STILL BE AN ISSUE IN THIS POLITICAL SEASON
1. The North Carolina republicans were set to air 'Willie Horton' style attack ads featuring Rev. Wright against the wishes of the presumed Republican Nominee
   
3. Rev. Wright is NOT a politician. and saying that I feel that it shouldn't be surprising that he wouldn't use political posturing during a press conference........
1. It could be argued that no ones pastor really needs to be in front of the National Press Club. One should really be asking why he was invited
   

I won't stand by and allow my pastor to be scapegoated as a political liability without asking some critical questions of his attackers? And as I mention my points, I invite you to examine with me why we are/ are not witnessing BLATANT RACIAL DOUBLE STANDARDS..... shall we :) okay

1. Why is it so much of a political deal breaker for Obama that one of his supporters, and former pastor Rev. Wright to say that Minister Farrakhan is someone respected by Black America and that he's not such a Bad Guy at all??? I mean event Clinton Supporter PA Governor Ed Rendell while he was MAYOR said the same thing. That didn't seem to be such a political liability for him. I guess the good Governor gave up trying to end racism given that he stated a week before the "Wright Controversy" started, that WORKING CLASS WHITE VOTERS WILL NEVER VOTE FOR A BLACK MAN! But that day he was really kissing Farrakhans ass wouldn't you agree???
2. I'll reserve another bullet point for now far right democrat Joe Lieberman who also took a turn at getting to know Farrakhan the man and kissing his ass............... OBVIOUS QUESTION FROM ME IS .. HOW WAS HE ABLE TO HOLD HIS SENATE SEAT.. HE OBVIOUSLY HATES WHITE PEOPLE RIGHT????
3. Okay ... Maybe throwing up an Omega signal was over the top for Rev. to do. I'll give you that.. But again he's not running for office. Whats more outrageous, Rev. Wright throwing up an Omega sign at a press conference orJohn McCain trying to WHIP SOMEBODY'S ASS on the Senate floor.. WHICH IS WORSE? Do we not swift boat McCain when he's accused of calling his wife a trollip and a c*nt??? Or how about dropping the F bomb on the senate floor? Is that not a sign of arrogance?
   
4. Our favorite President George Bush has even told all of us the MIDDLE FINGER.... and acted an ass on many business occasions
   Did he just disrespect a world leader by giving her a massage???? He got away with that huh......
5. The perceived causes for 9/11... John McCain doesn't get any flack for courting right wing preachers nominations who have blamed 9/11 on gays but the 'other' candidate doesn't So is the message here that the American people feel that it is more legitimate to blame 9/11 on gays, feminist, and abortionist.. and that blaming it on American foreign policy is totally illegitimate?? Is that what I should take away from this. Please engage me on this because I'm trying to be Post Racial and understand really!
   

The fact that we have to deal with these obvious double standards proves that the notion of POST RACIALISM is impossible in the U.S. Rev. Wright is being held to a standard WE NEVER EVEN HOLD OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS TOO... this is real.......

You what I'd like to see discussed in the media right now......

1. What do these candidates feel about the Patriot Act, Real Id, and the continuing decline of the dollar. You know the dollar is not that much in value compared to the damn Peso anymore.. Why isn't McCain Hillary and Obama addressing that. Why is the media focusing on my PASTOR and not the POLITICIANS AND THEIR POLITICAL VIEWS AND SOLUTIONS.....
2. Out of these three candidates WHO IS BENEFITING FINANCIALLY FROM INVESTMENTS RELATED TO THE IRAQ WAR AND THE DECREASING DOLLAR??? Does McCain have stock in Black Water??? Does Hillary or her husband or ,since we're there, HER PASTOR have stock in the Defense industry?????? (Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), who voted for Bush’s war, had stock in defense companies, such as Honeywell, Boeing and Raytheon, but sold the stock in May 2007. How fake is that!)
3. When will the candidates address the Global Food Shortage issue and why is Costco rationing rice for God's sake....
   

Will the media ever address these issues??? No they won't because they know that elections aren't based on reason.. they're based on fears and irrational emotions.

Pastor Wright You taught me to be unapologetic... I am. You did the best you could in a no win situation and I am PRAYING FOR YOU AND YOUR FAMILY and our church.

Please stay encouraged.

NOW BLOGOSPHERE BRING IT ON............................................

Peter Gomes : The Pastor as Prophet

I just love biblical scholars don't you?
Peter J. Gomes is Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in The Memorial Church, Harvard University, and a best-selling author. He's written a really good piece about our current situation entitled "The Pastor as Prophet" :

"While I could not possibly agree with everything that Jeremiah Wright says, I do know that when a preacher, especially a black urban preacher, fails to speak truth to power and refuses to speak of what is wrong in the ardent hope of making it right, that preacher is, in Milton’s words, a “blind mouth,” and a repudiation of God’s solemn call to him. Preachers, despite much evidence to the contrary, are not called to celebrate the status quo, even an American status quo, and when they do their job properly they call us all to a higher standard. Preachers are not perfect, nor are they the only people allowed to be credible critics of our time and place, but they are among the very few whose vocation it is to make us aspire to something other than the status quo. For too long we have made God an ally in the American way; the highest standards of preaching in America require that we should seek to be God’s ally, helping God and one another to create a world in which we seek to live as God would have us live. To criticize America is not a sin, but it is a sin to mistake America for God, and it is both sin and dereliction of duty to fail to note the difference."

Read the entire article HERE

Rev. Wright and Rev. Otis Moss III receive their Sermons from the Bible NOT The Obama Campaign

So, another week goes by and my church finds itself in the mouths of the talking heads. My new pastor, Rev. Otis Moss III, is now the target their anger and outrage for using the word lynch to describe the way our Senior Pastor and our church is being demonized. I thought these "journalist" were supposed to be so smart! One definition for the word Lynch is to put a person to death without due legal process or authority. On this Easter Sunday, Pastor Moss reminded us that Jesus himself had been lynched, his life thrown into the hands of an angry mob without proof of his guilt or innocence. Being the master of words that he is, Pastor Moss then used the word Lynch as a METAPHOR to describe the way OUR PASTOR AND OUR CHURCH was being charged, judged, and sentenced without a fair trial or due process. Can any American Citizen cast judgment on our church's ministry based on under a minutes worth of evidence? Here are Pastor Moss's comments in context....

• Fox News - I anticipated that if Barack Obama got very far in the Democratic Primary it would only seem natural for FOX to attack him. I'm sure he saw the writing on the wall as well when he found out that Rupert Murdock is a Hillary Clinton supporter!!! So like everyone else, with popcorn in lap, I anxiously awaited the blood letting. You can imagine my horror when I realized some of that blood would be my own faith community.
• Why they do this - Admittedly, I've always been a bit skeptical about the fairness of our democratic process. I've had the opportunity to vote in the last 3 presidential elections and I noticed early on that people's emotions were being manipulated. I wasn't quite sure if this was the case but I read up on the philosophies of Freud and Berneys and how these philosophies have been used by politicians to bring the worst out of us all. I believe Michael Richards referred to this as 'what lies beneath the surface'. In 2004 it was Terry Shiavo and Gay marriage. In 2008 the irrational political non issue seems to be what are the Negroes doing talking about politics and oppression in church on Sunday and why do the 'ungrateful Negroes' complain why don't they go back to Africa!
  

"Politicians and planners came to believe Freud's underlying premise - that deep within all human beings were dangerous and irrational desires and fears. "


From the documentary The Century of Self




• Lou Dobbs - Today Lou Dobbs gave his opinion on Pastor Moss's Easter Sermon all in a tizzy! He also was particularly irritated by the lynching metaphor, and questioned WHY THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN ISN'T DOING SOMETHING?? THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN HAS TO STOP THIS. Mr. Dobbs, hate to inform you but we aren't part of Obama's campaign. Our Pastors develop their sermons straight from the Word of God, not Axlerod, not Hannity, and not YOU, Sir! No matter the results of this election, the Word of God doesn't change. Jesus had compassion for the poor! Jesus fed the hungry! Jesus went into to the temple and raised Holy Hell! Jesus Christ was considered a "liberal" by that days scribes and pharisees! If Jesus were among us today, I'm positive he would have marched against the War in Iraq! Trinity United Church of Christ Cares for our communities spiritual AND their social needs JUST LIKE JESUS DID