REV. WRIGHT’S MISSION STATEMENT
The Rev. Wright’s unabashed racism, delivered as a firey sermon from the pulpit were his own words. Not someone’s opinion.
Below is the Statement of Faith for the Trinity United Church of Christ. Go to their web site and see for yourself. Read On!
United Church of Christ Statement of Faith in the form of a doxology
We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian… Our roots in the Black religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent. We are an African people, and remain “true to our native land,” the mother continent, the cradle of civilization. God has superintended our pilgrimage through the days of slavery, the days of segregation, and the long night of racism. It is God who gives us the strength and courage to continuously address injustice as a people, and as a congregation. We constantly affirm our trust in God through cultural expression of a Black worship service and ministries which address the Black Community.
The Pastor as well as the membership of Trinity United Church of Christ is committed to a 10-point Vision:
A congregation committed to ADORATION.
A congregation preaching SALVATION.
A congregation actively seeking RECONCILIATION.
A congregation with a non-negotiable COMMITMENT TO AFRICA.
A congregation committed to BIBLICAL EDUCATION.
A congregation committed to CULTURAL EDUCATION.
A congregation committed to the HISTORICAL EDUCATION OF AFRICAN PEOPLE IN DIASPORA.
A congregation committed to LIBERATION.
A congregation committed to RESTORATION.
A congregation working towards ECONOMIC PARITY.
Well two of their 10 “vision points” seem to address the Christian faith. The other 8 are all about politics and blackness. You also won’t find one word about America. Of course, Rev. Wright has made it abundantly clear how he feels about America. How is congregation should feel about America…
I wonder what a 20 year member of this church would do if he were able to control the highest office in America?
BY COMPARISON, HERE IS THE STATEMENT OF FAITH FROM MY CHURCH.
Church of Acts Statement of Faith
We Believe the Holy Bible to be the infallible word of God.
We Believe there is only One True God – revealed in three persons…Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (commonly known as the Trinity).
We Believe in the Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. As God’s son, Jesus was both human and divine.
We Believe, though originally good, man willingly fell into sin – ushering into the world- evil and death, both physical and spiritual.
We Believe every person can have restored fellowship with God through salvation by entering into a personal, intimate relationship with Jesus Christ as Lord.
We Believe and practice two ordinances – 1) Water Baptism by Immersion after repenting of one’s sins and receiving Christ’s gift of salvation, and 2) Holy Communion (the Lord’s Supper) as a symbolic remembrance of Christ’s suffering and death for our salvation.
We Believe the Baptism in the Holy Spirit is a uniquely personal experience following salvation that empowers believers for witnessing, discerning and serving, just as it did in New Testament times.
We Believe in the manifestations of the Holy Spirit of God as recorded in the Book of Acts, following the Feast of Pentecost. We believe that God is the same yesterday, today and forever; therefore the gifts of the Spirit are still available to all who believe.
We Believe “justification” occurs at salvation and is not only a declaration that a believer is holy, but also begins a progressive, lifelong process of “sanctification” (separating from evil as believers continually draw closer to God and become more Christ-like.)
We Believe the Church has a mission to seek and save all who are lost in sin. We believe the Church is the Body of Christ and consists of the people who, throughout time, have accepted God’s offer of redemption (regardless of religious denomination) through the sacrificial death of His son Jesus Christ. Furthermore, we believe that the church is responsible for looking after orphans and widows.
We Believe a divinely called and scripturally ordained leadership serves the church. The Bible teaches that each of us under leadership must commit ourselves to reach others for Christ, to worship Him with other believers, and to build up or edify the body of believers - the Church.
We Believe in the Second Coming – when Jesus will rapture His Church.
We Believe a final judgment will take place for those who do not have a personal, intimate relationship with Christ. They will be judged for their sin.
Tyra Says: March 29th, 2008 at 12:28 am
Buck,
Amen to your Church’s Statement of Faith. I believe in and support everything your church stands for! When the docterine of a church doesn’t base their beliefs on the Word of God, but on their own wordly agenda, it’s a HUGE red flag to me. Has Wright even read the bible??? Honestly, though, I’ve never understood how a person can call themselves a Christian and a Democrat in the same breath. The two principles do not match. Abortion? Homosexual Marriage? I know quite a few liberal Christians who truly believe that Christianity is not based on the Word, but on their own intellect and understanding. Somehow their ways are better than God’s. I’m doing an in depth bible study on Daniel, which is such a prophetic book of the bible. My brother, we are going to need to stand firm on the Word more and more during these last days. God bless you and your church’s direction/mission.
The Other Side Says: March 29th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
“I’ve never understood how a person can call themselves a Christian and a Democrat in the same breath” Tyra
why can’t you believe that? abortion and homosexuality are mere blips in the bible that extremists take way out of proportion. however, the ten commandments, love thy neighbor, and the general caring for other people message that jesus spread sounds almost…liberal. jesus ate with tax collectors and associated himself with other societal parriahs. instead of alienating them, he embraced them.
this “controversy” is dead. the media and other right wingers took thirty seconds of incidiary remarks and generalized it to define one man’s decades long religious service. how unfair is that. at least this should PROVE that obama isn’t muslim.
Tyra Says: March 30th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Yes, Jesus is for the underdog! His love, mercy, grace, compassion and patience are just some of His amazing attributes. However, I wouldn’t put liberals into this category. I find their politics to be extrememly hypocritical (most of the Democratic politicians are very wealthy, live in large mansions, put their children in private school, don’t drive “green” vehicles, etc…but blasphame those that live the same lifestyle), contadictory (legalizing abortion, but not murder), naive, unreliable, unethical and unbiblical. Politics as a whole is a sleazy business and I wouldn’t and don’t put too much faith in any politican (Dem or Republican)but the Republican Party at least stands for some of the same values that I think Jesus would stand for if He walked the Earth today.
Jesus said the poor will always be among us and that it is mankind’s (not necessarily the Government’s)responsibility to take care of them. In fact, we serve God most plainly when we serve others (Matthew 25:40). Jesus hung around sinners because He was the only sinless one. Again, that’s why He came to save us.
Jesus wants to be King of our lives and change our hearts. Even though He is full of grace and mercy, He also doesn’t just wink at our sin. He gave us free-will and the ability to choose the path we take, and He is deeply saddened when we make wrong choices. He wants us to repent and seek forgiveness, not keep going down the same path towards destruction. In my humble opinion, if you say you are a follower of Christ, you can’t pick and choose what to believe or not believe…if God created us in His image, and He knew us while we were being formed in our mother’s womb, it would be fair to say that the choice of abortion would sadden and outrage our Heavenly Father. Unfortunately, I feel that the Democratic Party, as a whole, has chosen to “pick and choose” what biblical standards to agree or not agree with. Of course, God loves the women who chooses abortion, but does not agree with the sin of murder. This was my point in making the comment that I did.
The Other Side Says: April 26th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
bill moyers devoted a whole hour to reverand wright, his church and his comments. it was unbelievably different from the heated, emotion driven soundbytes that the mainstream media used to define a man of god. this article plays upon comments take out of context and uses a bias of christianity to pick apart the trinity church.
rev. wrights comments that were played over and over again and used against obama were taken out of context to define wright as some kind of fanatic. if you listen to the themes of his sermons you would see the larger picture to which the comments were inserted.
this article has some obvious biases for what a christian church should be like. rev. wright ties his general view of what the bible says and applies it to the black community. he does this without losing his african identity, A congregation with a non-negotiable COMMITMENT TO AFRICA. the history of the church has taken people of other ethnicities and conformed them into the european ideas of the church. rev. wright wants to bring the church into a community and apply its ideals to the daily issues of that community. that seems like a better way for people to grasp the bible because when things are applicable to people’s lives, it sinks in deeper. why should it matter how rev. wright preaches as long as its based off the same bible that buck uses?
buck, what do you think obama would do if he was president based off of his church? how is rev. wright a racist? because he preaches to a black community about black issues? is he supposed to talk about white issues that have no meaning to the congregation? there are many ways to view the bible, but buck thinks there should be only his way. and those other views are how people can be democrats and still be religious.
if you watch rev. wright on bill moyers you’ll see that he knows the bible and is a very learned man. but that assumes that people actually want to learn about rev. wright instead of watching what the media wants you to think. it is horribly unfair to define a man of god who has devoted over three decades to the church by short sound bytes. as i see more of rev. wright, the more i think this contraversy is a farce. he gets firey in his sermons. does that mean that he’s inciting hatred or that he is passionate about what he is saying?
Tyra Says: April 28th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
The Other Side - I didn’t watch Bill Moyers interview with Wright but I wished I had. I would have liked to have heard a full sermon to discern for myself whether or not what he is saying is biblical or not. Perhaps I can “google” it and watch or read about it.
What I find interesting is that you view a congregation that has a “non-negotiable commitment to Africa” as a positive thing. This generation of black people who live in America should have a non-negotiable commitment to America. We all have “roots” somewhere, and unless one is Jewish, how is having a commitment to ones ancestors’ homeland biblical? Respecting, honoring and remembering history, is one thing, making it a “creed” to live by is another. In my humble opinion, if the “past” is your creed, how can one move forward?
Hopefully, once I view a full sermon I can speak more intelligently on this matter.
Tyra Says: April 28th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
I just listened to the podcast on Moyer’s interview with Wright. WOW! I’m glad I did. I did not hear him say his congregation had a non-negotiable comittment to Africa but that they were “unashamededly black; unapologetically Christian”. If I missed this, please correct me. He explained that blacks need to be proud of their heritage, not ashamed, and keep traditions alive. That is very different than having a non-negotiable comittment to Africa. He did reference Psalm 137 as his “anthem for the black people” so perhaps he did mean that they should never forget their homeland, not quite sure. Psalm 137 is about the Israelites mourning their homeland when they were captured by the Babylonians. The Babylonians mocked them asking them to sing songs of Zion in order to make fun of them. Psalm 137:4-6 - “How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy.”
Wright did say several things that I agreed with and did give quite a few biblical references that were acurate. However, after listening to his full sermons that those “soundbites” were taken from, I still have some issues about his overall message/sermons. Basically, what he was trying to point out is that America “gets what it deserves” (911) because of what she did to the Indians, Japanese and Africans. Why is she surprised that terrorism struck us when have terrorized so many? He later said to Bill Moyer (but not in his sermon) that what he meant was that one cannot have an alligence to Government but only to God. He also said to Bill Moyer (but not in his sermon) that he was thankful he lived in a country where he was not executed for saying what he believed, but was free to express his opinions. Shouldn’t he have said these things in the pulpit as well?
He is right that one cannot have full alligence to Government but only to God because Government is made up of human beings. Putting full faith in man instead of God will only lead to a false sense of hope. (I wonder how he votes…Democrat or Republican?) Instead of preaching about the oppression, wouldn’t it be more hopeful to preach on how to move out of oppression? Wouldn’t it be more “Christian” to preach on how to obtain peace through Jesus instead of saying…”the chicken have come home to roost”? As Bill Moyer said, “A Nation capable of greatness is also capable of cruelty.” Since the world is a “fallen” world, cruelty, opression, conflict, etc…is all the result of sin. It is okay to want and seek justice, but it’s not okay to delight in others’ suffering, whether justifiable or not. Forgiving one’s oppressor should be the message of Wright, which I didn’t really hear in his sermons, in fact, they were somewhat confusing to me. On one hand he says “God wants redemption, man wants revenge” but on the other “America, the chicken are coming home to roost.” His sermons were riddled with anger instead of love…”America is the oppressor”. This was not Jesus’ message! Nations will fall and rise, our only hope is in Jesus! Isn’t that the true message? In the last 3,000 years of recorded secular history, there have been over $41,000 wars! What does this tell us? Peace will never come by man’s hand or doing alone.
Another thing he said in his sermon was “How can they (meaning white America) expect us (meaning black America) to sing ‘God Bless America’ when they are the ones that have made us ashamed of our race, oppressed us….no, not God Bless America but God Damn America.” This is preaching hope and love? I understand the anger, just not from the pulpit and not in the name of Jesus or God. This is like saying God hates sinners instead of God hates sin. He LOVES sinners, but HATES the sin.
Another interesting point he made was “We are ALL God’s creations…we have no right to take a life.” He spoke angrily about war, but never about abortion. This doesn’t make sense to me. Shouldn’t a country be equally ashamed of allowing both?
In the end, I think each person should carefully consider what the biblical teachings of Jesus are. Are they about hate, revenge, unforgiveness, etc.. or are they about love, peace, hope, forgiveness, redemption, etc…