Wright: 'Black Evangelism' Produces 'Religion of Hatred'
By Penny Starr
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
April 02, 2008

(CNSNews.com) - In an essay entitled "What Do I Tell My Children" that was published in the August 2007 issue of Trumpet Newsmagazine, a publication of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. spoke critically of a "Black Evangelism," which he said "produces a religion of hatred, gay-bashing and heterosexism."

"My grandson, Jeremiah, has already run head-on into the contradiction called Christianity in his twenty-one years of life," Wright wrote. "He has seen the racism of Christianity that has produced slave castles and white supremacy. He has also seen the ignorance calling itself 'Black Evangelism' which produces a religion of hatred, gay bashing and heterosexism."

"While serving as a keyboardist for the Howard University Gospel Choir, my grandson has heard at concert-after-concert-after-concert that the definition of being 'saved' meant 'being delivered from homosexuality' and speaking in tongues," Wright wrote. "He said to me, 'That is all I hear in terms of what it means to be 'saved,' Grandaddy. Isn't there more to Christianity than this? Isn't there more to salvation than this?" [Italics in original.]

"What do I tell my grandson, Jeremiah, about the rabid denial, the lying, the 'DL' ['down low'] life among Black psalmists, Black preachers, and 'saved' Black Christians?" wrote Wright. [Italics in original.]

Wright is the pastor emeritus at Trinity United and, until recently, was an official campaign "spiritual adviser" to presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D.-Ill.), who has been a member of the church for 20 years. Wright presided over the marriage of Obama and his wife Michelle, and the couple's two daughters were baptized at the church.

In response to Wright's criticism of "Black Evangelism," the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, president and founder of Brotherhood of a New Destiny (BOND), told Cybercast News Service: "Barack Obama said that Rev. Wright brought him to Christ, but how can a man of hate bring you to the Prince of Peace?"

"I cannot see how this man could bring anyone to Christ when his sermons and writings indicate that he hates Christianity," Peterson said.

The Rev. Clenard H. Childress Jr., senior pastor at New Calvary Baptist Church in Montclair, New Jersey and president of the Life Education and Resource Network, also responded to Wright's criticism of "Black Evangelism."

"To watch Obama and certain news commentators attempt to justify Wright's message is disturbing," said Childress. "They all give the impression that the Black Church speaks some cryptic ethnic language that you have to be Afro-American to understand. It's ridiculous!"

"Does America have any problems understanding Martin Luther King and his words?" said Childress. "'I have a dream that the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will sit down at the table of brotherhood.' Does that sound like something Wright would say?"

Deneen Borelli, a fellow with the non-profit Project 21, a black leadership network, was also critical of Wright's remarks.

"(Wright's) message has nothing to do with love, forgiveness or unity," Borelli told Cybercast News Service , "which is unfortunate considering the size of his former congregation and the access he had to get it out."

"And what about the children?" Borelli said.

Wright was also critical of some African American clergymen in an essay entitled "I Am Black and Beautiful" that was published in the May 2007 issue of Trumpet .

"The story of Africans before slavery really gets lost in the shuffle because the story of Africans during the Transatlantic Slave Trade is not told," Wright wrote. "That makes you end up with 'colored preachers' who hate themselves, who hate Black people, who desperately want to be white and who write and say stupid things in public to make 'Massa' feel safer, and that is so unfortunate.

"Those Black enemies of beauty are just as dangerous as are the white racists who really do believe in white supremacy. They live and die by white supremacy--an ideology based on ignorance!" said Wright.

In a March 18 speech in Philadelphia, Obama distanced himself from what he described as the "incendiary language" used by Wright, but declined to "disown" him. /ldblquote [W]e've heard my former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation and that rightly offend white and black alike," said Obama.

"Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views?" said Obama. "Absolutely, just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests or rabbis with which you strongly disagree.""

"I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community," said Obama.

Last week, Obama distanced himself further from Wright, saying that if the pastor had not retired he would not have stayed in Wright's church.

"Had the reverend not retired, and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn't have felt comfortable staying at the church," Obama said on ABC's "The View."

Cybercast News Service obtained copies of Trumpet Newmagazine from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a division of the New York Public Library.

Calls to the Trinity United Church of Christ requesting comment were not returned.

Article published Mar 31, 2008
Planning for America's security

March 31, 2008

By Elizabeth Dole - What nation's Air Force is flying aircraft more than 50 years old? What nation's Navy has the smallest fleet since before World War II? And what nation's military transports are banned from the airspace of a South American country because they are notoriously unreliable? Most Americans would be shocked to learn the answer is none other than the United States.

For far too many years, our military has been trying to stretch dollars by repairing aging equipment. Can you imagine the public outcry if commercial airlines were flying 50-year-old planes? Clearly, this is unacceptable — especially to the brave men and women who defend our country. The least we can do is ensure they have the best equipment when in harm's way and the best health care, housing and benefits upon their return.

Our projected defense spending falls short of meeting our military's critical needs. That's why I have introduced a resolution recommending that our nation commit no less than 4 percent of our gross domestic product to the annual defense budget, a measure supported by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the secretary of defense. Today's defense budget is at one of the lowest levels since World War II—- 3.3 percent of GDP, exclusive of supplemental war funding.

Following the Cold War, our nation cut the size of the Army, Navy and Air Force by almost one-half and took an extended "procurement holiday," purchasing only one-half to one-tenth the average number of helicopters, ships, fighters, bombers, tankers, transports and armored vehicles purchased annually from 1975 to 1990.

The current Bush administration planned to "transform" the military through further cuts in manpower to pay for advanced weapon systems; however, September 11 changed everything. The cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan forced the administration to defer modernizing an already aging inventory of weapons.

It remains important for the Army to develop its Future Combat Systems, a networked family of manned and unmanned vehicles to replace many tanks and armored vehicles. Yet at existing funding levels, we risk developing these vehicles only to find that we can afford to equip just a small portion of the force.

In addition, the Air Force must replace aging fighters and tankers. Presently, only one-half of the funding is budgeted to purchase the 381 F-22 stealth fighters that the Air Force needs to replace the F-15As/C Eagles built in the 1970s. The need for new fighters became more obvious last November when the fuselage of an F-15 broke in half during a training flight.

The Air Force also must replace more than 500 KC-135 tankers, many of which were built in the late 1950s. At the current rate, we will procure 12 to 15 new tankers per year, which means the great-grandchildren of the original aircrew members will be flying them in the late 2030s! The same holds true with our B-52 bombers, which were built in the early 1960s.

No less telling, today's Navy includes 280 vessels, down from President Reagan's Navy of 568 ships. Additionally, we are building only one Virginia-class attack submarine per year, compared to China's annual production of four to five advanced subs.

Furthermore, an inadequate defense budget will erode military pay, health care and housing. Personnel costs have doubled since 2001 and are expected to double yet again by 2015. These funding constraints will jeopardize the sorely needed expansion of the Army and Marine Corps.

Military construction projects will be delayed, and military readiness, which took a nosedive in the late 1990s, will again decline due to aging equipment and limited training funds. Military research, which supports the development of next-generation weapons, force protection capabilities and medical technologies that save lives on the battlefield, will be further cut from already insufficient levels.

Given the major challenges that we face around the globe, we must invest generously in the future of our nation's defense. Our service members stand ready to put their lives on the line for us. The very least we can do in return is ensure they have the training, equipment and benefits they obviously deserve.

Sen. Elizabeth Dole, North Carolina Republican, is a member of the Armed Services Committee.

In Speeches, Clinton Often Veers to Dark Side
By Anne E. Kornblut
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 3, 2008; A06

It almost always comes when the audience least expects it: the moment Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton brings a roaring crowd to a hush with a heart-rending anecdote.

"I remember listening to a story about a young woman in a small town along the Ohio River, in Meigs County, who worked in a pizza parlor," the Democratic presidential candidate said during a stop in Cleveland, beginning a particularly grim tale.

"She got pregnant, she started having problems. There's no hospital left in Meigs County, so she had to go to a neighboring county. She showed up, and the hospital said, 'You know, you've got to give us $100 before we can see you.' She didn't have $100," Clinton said.

"So the young woman went back home," she continued. "The next time she went back, she was in an ambulance. It turned out she lost the baby. She was airlifted to Columbus."

She paused before concluding: "And after heroic efforts at the medical center, she died." The audience, as always, gasped.

The story has become a staple of Clinton's stump speech, a prime example of how, in a campaign year in which lofty phrases have taken center stage, she has rejected sweeping oratory -- "just words," as her campaign likes to accuse Democratic rival Barack Obama of offering -- in favor of a dramatic speaking style all her own.

In hushed tones, sometimes with palpable sadness in her voice, Clinton tells dark, difficult anecdotes picked up on the campaign trail. They often relate to health matters, culled from her conversations with voters, and are designed to illustrate a policy point.

Presidential candidates across the decades, from Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton to George W. Bush, have honed the art of picking out stories to bolster a policy position in particularly human terms. Former senator John Edwards (N.C.), who left the Democratic race this year, often cited the stories of people he defended as a trial lawyer. For all of his grandeur, Obama can turn serious as well; at least once, in an effort to demonstrate how fleeting life can be, he detoured from his speech to tell the story of a woman he had recently met who, moments later, found out that her child had been killed in a car accident.

For Clinton, the approach seems to bring together her best skills, especially her ability to listen to voters she meets. In speeches that sometimes wear on and sometimes derail into deadening policy, sharing bleak stories can focus the audience's attention.

It also allows Clinton, who has only recently grown more comfortable talking about herself, to show that she understands how people live and how her policies would affect them. The story of the pregnant woman, which the candidate heard from a deputy sheriff in Ohio, provides a chance for her to talk about health care. At a town-hall meeting in Hanging Rock, Ohio, where the story drew audible gulps of horror, she ended by saying: "It's a real indictment of our health-care system. That shouldn't happen in America."

To emphasize her work on mental-health care for veterans, Clinton regularly describes meeting an Iraq war veteran whose wedding ring melted into his hand during an attack, and who also suffered a brain injury that forced him to rely on his wife for basic directions.

She routinely quotes the young man as asking: "Where do I go to get my brain back?"

"He said, 'You know, I went to West Point. Nobody had to take care of me before,' " Clinton said as she told the tale in Huntington, W.Va., on March 19. " 'Now every morning my wife has to give me a list about where I'm supposed to go and what I'm supposed to do.' "

In another story, retold recently in Youngstown, Ohio, she describes a "young woman who lost her husband in Iraq, a lovely young woman who had a daughter."

"Here's what happened to her," Clinton said. "She was given $6,000. She was told to leave the [military] base within 90 days. She was told her daughter was no longer eligible for Army medical care. She was basically on her own. So I said, 'That's not right.' So we began to work to change what was really cruel -- you lose your husband, you lose your wife, you lose your mom or your dad, and you're out, and nobody seemed to care."

Shortly before the Texas primary, Clinton spoke of a mother whose daughter collapsed in the crowd at a Houston rally and who, upon receiving a bottle of water from the candidate, whispered in her ear that she could not get her daughter medical treatment.

"She said, 'I don't have any health insurance -- I can't take her anywhere,' " Clinton recalled a few stops later. She said it was people like that who need for her to be president. "I'm not asking you to vote for me so much as I'm asking you to vote for yourselves," she said.

Perhaps the most shocking story Clinton has conveyed in recent months happened on Feb. 22, when a Dallas police officer was killed in an accident while escorting her motorcade. Late that night, in front of a riled-up crowd in Toledo that seemed only vaguely aware of what had happened, she described an "accident that resulted in his death, and it was just an incredibly sad loss, not only for his family -- he was a wonderful man; I visited the hospital and got a chance to express my sympathy to his family -- but to the police department."

Even though it was past 10:30 on a Friday night, she seemed determined to hush the crowd with a solemn message, saying: "It was really a reminder of the extraordinary work that our law enforcement officials do for us."

But it is the story of the pregnant pizza worker to which Clinton comes back repeatedly. At a Democratic dinner on March 2, she recounted it in full. She told it at a late-night rally in Cleveland just two days before the Ohio primary March 4, bringing the noisy audience to near-silence. She told it again in Charleston, W.Va, last month. Even her daughter, Chelsea, who was with her mother in Ohio when she heard the story, repeated it at a campaign stop in Pennsylvania last week. Clinton was told the story by Bryan Holman, the Meigs County deputy sheriff, who said the deceased woman was Trina Bachtel, whom campaign officials had been unable to identify.

Bachtel, Holman said, had been turned away from the hospital not only for lack of $100 but also because she had unpaid bills -- a detail that Clinton has not mentioned. Public records show that Bachtel of Pomeroy, Ohio, died on Aug. 15, 2007, at age 35. She previously had thousands of dollars in hospital debt, but it was paid off by 2005.

"It was a really terrible story," said Holman, who said he voted for Clinton in the Ohio primary. He said he is grateful that she has taken Bachtel's story to heart. "That is what we wanted."

Research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.

Alliance Invites In Croatia, Albania
Bush Is Rebuffed In Bid for Support Of Ex-Soviet States
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 3, 2008; A08

BUCHAREST, Romania, April 2 -- NATO's political leaders agreed Wednesday night to admit Croatia and Albania into the military alliance, but after a vigorous debate they effectively rejected President Bush's bid to put two former Soviet republics on the path to membership.

The invitations to Croatia and Albania will bring NATO membership to 28 countries, the organization's first expansion in six years as it renews its push to integrate Europe under a common security umbrella. The alliance will not, however, accept a third Balkan state, Macedonia, because Greece decided to veto its application because of a long-standing dispute over the former Yugoslav republic's name.

The opening of a NATO summit here exposed a major fissure over the future of the alliance as a reinvigorated Russia increasingly flexes its muscles 17 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The leaders and their foreign ministers engaged in what a senior U.S. official called "spirited discussion" behind closed doors of Bush's proposal to offer road maps to membership to Ukraine and Georgia, two countries at odds with their former masters in Moscow since democratic revolutions within the past five years.

Russia has firmly opposed membership for the two countries, saying it would target them with nuclear missiles in response. The NATO leaders insisted Russian objections should play no role, but they made clear Wednesday night that there was no consensus for Ukraine and Georgia to move forward at present.

"I would be happy to be proven wrong, but for the moment I do not expect membership action plans for Georgia and Ukraine here at Bucharest," NATO spokesman James Appathurai said after Bush and other NATO leaders met at a dinner that ran two hours over schedule.

The U.S. official, briefing reporters under White House ground rules that did not permit him to be named, said Bush would still press the case during formal sessions Thursday but acknowledged he may have to settle for a vaguer statement that NATO would still consider Ukraine and Georgia at a later date.

"It's not a question of defeat," the official said. "If the alliance can come together and can show that the door remains open and the process of new members coming into NATO continues, that will be a success."

Bush appeared to be doing better in winning support for the war in Afghanistan and a missile defense system in Europe. Responding to his pleas for more forces, France came through with a promise for another battalion, perhaps as many as 1,000 troops, to be sent to relatively calm eastern Afghanistan.

That would free up more U.S. troops to head south, where the radical Taliban movement has been staging a fierce comeback. The U.S. reinforcements would satisfy Canada, which has threatened to pull its troops out of the south if they did not get help.

Officials said other countries were poised to commit more troops as well, though probably not as many as NATO commanders have sought. British officials had previously said they plan to send another battalion of perhaps 800 troops, Poland has already committed 400 more and Romania will send additional troops. Bush has also ordered another Marine brigade of about 3,500 troops to go to Afghanistan this month.

The alliance was also working on a joint statement broadly supportive of Bush's plan to build a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic over the virulent opposition of Russia. The language of that communique was still being crafted, and it was not clear how strongly it would back the U.S. effort.

The main drama, however, centered on the question of expansion. NATO invited in its first three new members in Eastern Europe in 1997 and seven others in 2002, irritating Russia both times but helping to anchor former communist states to a unified and democratic Europe.

The decision to admit Albania and Croatia takes NATO deeper into territory that was at the heart of bloody conflicts after the breakup of Yugoslavia began in 1991. Croatia fought a war for four years against Serb rebels aided by the Serb-dominated Yugoslav forces. Albania was a key player as ethnic Albanians in the Serb province of Kosovo fought for independence, culminating in a 78-day air war led by NATO in 1999. After nine years under international protection, Kosovo declared statehood in February.

Two other former Yugoslav republics, Bosnia and Montenegro, are now seeking to open preliminary discussions with NATO about eventual membership, a process called "intensified dialogue." With Bush's support, the NATO leaders Wednesday night reached a consensus to grant those requests.

But Macedonia appeared to be left on the roadside. Although all NATO leaders agreed that the tiny landlocked country of 2 million had met NATO standards, the alliance operates by consensus and Greek objections to its name were enough to thwart its ambitions for now. Greece considers the name Macedonia to be an implied threat to its territorial integrity because it has a province by the same name.

Most nations, including the United States, have recognized Macedonia by that name, although Greece and the United Nations still call it the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, or FYROM. Appathurai said NATO would readily bring in Macedonia if it ever resolves the dispute with Greece.

The debate over Ukraine and Georgia produced a more serious schism within the alliance. The two countries were not seeking membership invitations now, but rather programs known as membership action plans, under which they would restructure government institutions and armed forces over a period of years with an eye toward an eventual place in the alliance.

Germany and France were opposed, arguing that this would be an unnecessary provocation to Russia and that the two were not ready because most Ukrainians are against joining NATO and Georgia has not resolved internal conflicts with two breakaway regions.

Bush, who had the backing of nine East European members, argued passionately for the two former Soviet republics, stopping in Ukraine on his way here to demonstrate support and then giving a speech and making two media appearances to press his case.

"Ukraine and Georgia is a very difficult issue for some nations here," he said during a session with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. "It's not for me. I think that these nations are qualified nations to apply for membership application."

Appathurai said other NATO countries agreed in principle but disagreed on timing. The question, he said, was "not of whether but when."

Will Europe Resist Islamization?

by Daniel Pipes
Jerusalem Post
April 3, 2008
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5503
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[JP title: "A movie and a conversion: Europe begins to resist?"]

Some analysts of Islam in Western Europe argue that the continent cannot escape its Eurabian fate; that the trend lines of the past half-century will continue until Muslims become a majority population and Islamic law (the Shari‘a) reigns.

I disagree, arguing that there is another route the continent might take, one of resistance to Islamification and a reassertion of traditional ways. Indigenous Europeans – who make up 95 percent of the population – can insist on their historic customs and mores. Were they to do so, nothing would be in their way and no one could stop them.

Indeed, Europeans are visibly showing signs of impatience with creeping Shari‘a. The legislation in France that prohibits hijabs from public school classrooms signals the reluctance to accept Islamic ways, as are related efforts to ban burqas, mosques, and minarets. Throughout Western Europe, anti-immigrant parties are generally increasing in popularity.

That resistance took a new turn last week, with two dramatic events. First, on March 22, Pope Benedict XVI himself baptized, confirmed, and gave the Eucharist to Magdi Allam, 56, a prominent Egyptian-born Muslim long living in Italy, where he is a top editor at the Corriere della Sera newspaper and a well-known author. Allam took the middle name Cristiano. The ceremony converting him to the Catholic religion could not have been higher profile, occurring at a nighttime service at St. Peter's Basilica on the eve of Easter Sunday, with exhaustive coverage from the Vatican and many other television stations.

Allam followed up his conversion with a stinging statement in which he argued that beyond "the phenomenon of Islamic extremism and terrorism that has appeared on a global level, the root of evil is inherent in an Islam that is physiologically violent and historically conflictive." In other words, the problem is not just Islamism but Islam itself. One commentator, "Spengler" of Asia Times, goes so far as to say that Allam "presents an existential threat to Muslim life" because he "agrees with his former co-religionists in repudiating the degraded culture of the modern West, and offers them something quite different: a religion founded upon love."

Second, on March 27, Geert Wilders, 44, released his long-awaited, 15-minute film, Fitna, which consists of some of the most bellicose verses of the Koran, followed by actions in accord with those verses carried out by Islamists in recent years. The obvious implication is that Islamists are simply acting in accord with their scriptures. In Allam's words, Wilders also argues that "the root of evil is inherent" in Islam.

Unlike Allam and Wilders, I do distinguish between Islam and Islamism, but I believe it imperative that their ideas get a fair hearing, without vituperation or punishment. An honest debate over Islam must take place.

If Allam's conversion was a surprise and Wilders' film had a three-month run-up, in both cases, the aggressive, violent reactions that met prior criticisms of Islam did not take place. According to the Los Angeles Times, the Dutch police contacted imams to gauge reactions at the city's mosques and found, according to police spokesman Arnold Aben, "it's quieter than usual here today. Sort of like a holiday." In Pakistan, a rally against the film attracted only some dozens of protestors.

This relatively constrained reaction points to the fact that Muslim threats sufficed to enforce censorship. Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende denounced Fitna and, after 3.6 million visitors had viewed it on the British website LiveLeak.com, the company announced that "Following threats to our staff of a very serious nature, … Liveleak has been left with no other choice but to remove Fitna from our servers." (Two days later, however, LiveLeak again posted the film.)

Three similarities bear noting: both Allam (author of a book titled Viva Israele) and Wilders (whose film emphasizes Muslim violence against Jews) stand up for Israel and the Jews; Muslim threats against their lives have forced both for years to live under state-provided round-the-clock police protection; and, more profoundly, the two share a passion for European civilization.

Indeed, Allam and Wilders may represent the vanguard of a Christian/liberal reassertion of European values. It is too soon to predict, but these staunch individuals could provide a crucial boost for those intent on maintaining the continent's historic identity.

Mr. Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, is the Taube/Diller Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University during the spring semester.

Related Topics: Dhimmitude, Muslims in Europe