I'm not a Christian, but count me as deeply saddened by this move. I hear a lot of people talking smack about Trinity, mostly the same people that wouldn't walk in the neighborhoods Trinity serves without bodygaurds. I don't always roll with the message, but there's no dispute that Trinity does great work on behalf of the sort of people who I think would benefit most from an Obama presidency. That said, I don't think this equals the vaunted Sista Souljah move which the cynics have been calling for from Obama. The brother held out for as long as he could. And I don't think he thinks that this resignation will when him many votes from people who think he's a Muslim anyway. Still, it's sad.
UPDATE: Video guys. I think it backs up what commenter Matt was saying below
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
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That is depressing news. I'm not a Christian either, but I know from experience what kind of devotion Obama must have had to that church to have attended there for twenty years, and I know that they do valuable work in their community.
It is sad. I "roll" with TUCC's message because their message is one of black self-empowerment, pride and collectivism. Those are three things that we as a community do not have!!
Of course we knew that this was coming. I saw this from last year. Obama should have left the church from last year. He would have saved TUCC all the heartache. His minister's 36 years of ministry, prominence and deciation to his community would not have been destroyed. He allowed for the white establishment, white mainstream media and their conspirators to tell the narrative. These people know nothing about black liberation theology, the history or context behind black political thought or the diversity of black church traditions. These talking heads were fulfilling the political agenda that they were set out to do- destroy yet another black organization and leader/minister. The white establishment have been doing it for decades, centuries and it is always successful. This country has very little tolerance for what they consider black "radical" politics and organizations which set out to empower the black community and aid the disenfranchised. We knew the job of Cointelpro! I am sure that they are still with us. This country has stoop to all kinds of lows to get rid of black "radicalism" or any black person who disrupted their "order"/ comfort zone.
The job of the media is to distort and influence the information given to the American public and the minds of the American people. It kills me when I hear the hysteria over Wright especially when it comes from blacks. The media is hegemony at its best. They were able to follow through with their planned agenda without voices of opposition.
I am behind Obama 100% but this...this....I can't be down with.
Why must all black people, to be accepted in larger white society, have their I-must-disown-all-things-black-and-pledge-my-allegiance-to-your-white-interests moment? I realize it probably was a good political tatic. but why are white people so comforted by assimilation and submission to their thought process?
i'm a christian and i grew up in a fiery black church and my dad is still pastor of one. i don't have any problem with anything rev. wright said. the church is not a place for political correctness. a lot of the stuff said in places of worship -- synagogues, mosques, churches -- wild conspiracy theories and raw emotion are expressed. it's disingenuious to try to apply the rules to politics to these arenas.
not to mention people go to churches for all kinds of reasons. it's close to them. it's the most popular church in their city. they have personal relationships with parishioners. a pastor is not like a DJ -- you don't really have control over his playlist. and I know most preachers feel like if they haven't said at least one thing provactive or that makes you feel uncomfortable then they have done their job.
It's just sad. because the church does a lot in the urban community -- which a lot of their pundits and conservatives could give a damn about. minister farrakahn does a lot for prison reform which they could also give a damn about. these are important issues to the black community. it's a shrewd tatic to try and divorce his campaign from these issues by attacking isolated statements. i'm sad he fell for it.
I'm not down with it either. And the people who are attacking him know this. This is a no win for Obama. The people attacking him aren't going to give him any credit and his core supporters are going to be disappointed as well.
Damn.
I don't know much about Trinity, but the things I've heard about their social mission and their inclusive congregation are very impressive.
That said, they've become a serious problem for Obama, because they have people giving sermons every week, and they showed again last week that these will occasionally be speeches that, legitimately or not, can be used to generate kerfuffles damaging to Obama. Trinity is unable or unwilling to censor themselves for Obama's political safety. A very good argument can be made that they shouldn't even be asked to do so. But, given the scrutiny for any words that might be said from Trinity's pulpit, they lack the message discipline for Obama to maintain his association with them at this time.
I hope Obama can move back to Chicago and rejoin Trinity in January 2017.
re Rhonda's "His minister's 36 years of ministry, prominence and dedication to his community would not have been destroyed." I think that's an overstatement. I hear the Chicago media was rather careful about the whole Wright to-do, because they remember all the good he'd done. His ministry was local, and what Trinity did for its community isn't affected by its national reputation.
That said, I think Obama's leaving is sad too. It wasn't fair to Trinity's pulpit that everything said there was a potential headache for Obama. We're getting a selective object lesson in the value of the separation of church and state.
This is a lesson of how this non-European based church with it's Afrocentric orientation was seen as unacceptable. And that was well before the YouTubes of March. Indeed, those YouTubes only showed up because the idea of a Black church with a social gospel and Afrocentric theology just couldn't be something a Black president belonged to.
The YouTubes were just icing on the COINTELPRO-2007/08 cake.
The seperation desired is more like another American institution: the separation of Africans from things African.
That's one of those American values that go back like the European one you invoked.
"That said, I think Obama's leaving is sad too. It wasn't fair to Trinity's pulpit that everything said there was a potential headache for Obama. We're getting a selective object lesson in the value of the separation of church and state."
The only thing I would take issue in this sentiment is that, it was a heartache for the church. Obama's membership was interfering with the Fellowship and Community. Not because of anything he did or said, but because of who Obama (with the funny scary name) is.
I feel great sadness for the Obamas that they had to leave a spiritual home (even if they weren't there every Sunday, they knew where to for sustenance), but I feel sadder for the people of TUCC who were subjected to ridicule and harassment by a racist White MSM who had no desire to understand or learn about the Black Church experience - or even a church experience that was not economically privileged.
ceeusbeeus, I agree with all that. Maybe the Trinity laity can take some solace from this, from Obama's press conference:
Q: . . . There will be a lot of people who are not going to be happy with the reason why you left which doesn’t it appear as though you’re denouncing the church? How do you …
BO: I am not denouncing the church. I am not interested in people who want me to denounce the church because it’s not a church worthy of denouncing. And so if they’ve seen caricatures of the church and accept those caricatures despite my insistence that’s not what the church is about, then there’s not much I can do about it.
Definitely not a Sister Souljah move. The entire transcript, http://thepage.time.com/obama-addresses-church-decision , is quite interesting, with Obama delivering his usual thoughtfulness.
One thing that's been said here is that "his usual thoughtfulness" is a little late in the game.
It's sad but we can only hope that it does more than just lessen the "ridicule and harassment" but the death threats that came from said "ridicule."
I strongly feel that Obama should have stuck it out, but I understand his leaving. Obama has been playing far too much defense on UCC, IMHO. He should have said flatly that it doesn't matter WHAT my pastor says, so long as its not connected with my political programme. He should have defied his critics to name any specific remarks of Wright which were connected to any item in his political programme. You would have heard a deafening silence.
Frankly, this move smacks too much of political calculation, and will not silence his critics, who will continue to ask why Obama joined this racist, black supremacist, crypto Muslim church in the first place and will continue to loop Wright's sermons. I guess Obama should next join an all white church whose pastor doesn't say anything but America- boosting pablum. Good grief.
The problem is that the leadership of the church was pretty unconcerned with any effects their leadership's behavior might have on the candidacy of a [former] congregant to the highest office in the land.
You know, a lot of churches would probably be proud to go on extra-careful duty if one of their parishioners stood a very high chance of getting elected president -- you know, being careful not to say too many boneheaded or exaggerated or bad-PR-spinnable things from the pulpit.
Yeah, if this were a saner country, none of that would be necessary.
But given how unremittingly stupid most of our election campaign press coverage tends to be (he said "bitter"! AAAAAAAGH!), such steps are still necessary.
And Obama's church just flat-out didn't care.
Obama wasn't running for president in 2001, El Cid. Neither was Black Leberation Theology or Trinity created upon Obama's announcing his candidacy.
As for the "lots of churches"... Well, frankly, we don't know hardly anything about "a lot of churches" former presidential candidates belong to, don't even know much (of anything) about the church other Election 2008 candidates belong to. So you premise is awfully flawed.
We simply don't know the thoughts that lurk in the churches of White candidates. And that "still necessary" stuff is beyond the pale. Accept racism much??
I'll use Stonetools term: "GOOD GRIEF!!!"
Sad and angry is how I feel about this.
The media got a free pass on the Wright controversy to begin. NO ONE called them out to say they were being irresponsible about how they portrayed Jeremiah Wright. Or the damage that they were doing to not only a minister, but an entire congregation of Christians who were minding their business. Trinity got hate mail and threats and NO ONE said "this is a terrible injustice to this church."
Everyone only cared about how Barack Obama would respond and handle, because this is infotainment.
But why was it Obama's job in the first place to contextualize Jeremiah Wright into context? Isn't that the media's job? To mention that Wright is a former Marine, to interview white people from Trinity, etc?
I don't think Obama should have left, because now his house of worship has to be vetted. Ridiculous. A person's spirituality is a private matter. Obama and his family are entitled to the same religious freedom and privacy that those empty heads at the MSM want for themselves.
Breukelyne-
I co-sign.
So many people in the media are saying this was laborious for Obama (poor Obama) and his family because it finally lets them off the hook for being the orchestrators and facilitators to the mechanitions at hand.
1) Barack and Michelle wanted to leave long ago. Barack got what he needed and hence, that constituency was going to be the monkey on his back/conscious. The constituency's voice of that church is populist in theory and it was the only connection of Black Consciousness and populist politics to him at this point of the campaign.
I have no proof but intuition tells me that since The Obamas had not been done wrong by the church or Pastor Wright or had any just cause to leave until their hand was tipped in the recent months, they were trapped and just went along because they were de facto support that could drive other suspecting Blacks (of The Obamas' Blackness) to trust them. And hence, The Obamas get to blame the media and hope us pathetic Blacks would believe it and also make their White Liberal constituency feel absolved of being White and guilty by proxy of skintone in this incident. So The Obamas scapegoat the media to look like victims.
The media blames the church and the church is universally indicted as the root problem and written in history as un-American. Citizens will learn that Blacks like those Blacks are bad and they were not good for The Obamas.
Now The Obamas have been beat enough to know their place and all of their connections to maybe still be trusted by us is rather untenable now.
For the gatekeepers and the media drivers, it was all part of hazing The Blackness out of Barack and Michelle. Since Barack and Michelle would not offer to change, they beat them into submission and coaxed several characters along to make this happen by engineering the script of who was going to play each part (right down to Rev. Wright having to defend himself and possibly going off, as he did). And the media knew The Obamas wanted it both ways and was trying to trick them in having themselves in both worlds. But the thirst for power was too great and it showed their weakness. The Obamas would not be able to resist because they always wanted that power since they matriculated Harvard to know that it does exist and was "so close yet so far" from them. Something had to give.
They wanted to do it their way but someone was going to lose: us...not them.
They told themselves that we would win and they would never betray us...yada, yada, yada. But they are still telling themselves that bullshit as they bemoan that the devil made them do it.
They wanted to leave Trinity because the battle in balancing double-consciousness is even too great for them --- 2 liars who have tried so hard to make their lies mean authentic truths.
2) Obama and Michelle are elitists now no matter how much they justify how down they are because of proxy to childhood hardships. Do you know how many "bourgie people" I and we know that came from being dirt poor but can't identify with us anymore? People choose to not identify because the labor in balancing and making it make sense and making it easy to swallow is exhaustive and mental torture. People choose to lose the connection...yet they know they must advertise that they are still there with us. Throw us a few scraps. Parade. Look like us. It's rather easy because we expect so very little.
The goal that is the tenet of the American Dream is to improve and grow as the anecdote. It becomes a conflict of interest in balancing to strive for the American Dream in prospering without completely balancing a connection to both classes. The guilt can guide you to help balance your decisions but poverty is not your guiding force. Prosperity motivates and taints perspective, immunity, and incites affinities to comforting addictions.
So no...I saw it all along and did not want to see it play out as my premonition told me it would. This was in the plans. Trinity and Rev. Wright...they were a means to an ends --- even for Michelle. She wanted that connection. Being poor and angry did not mean she was cultivated in her soul to be down for us. That shit ain't automatic 'cause you struggle. The Struggle is part commitment and not just de facto membership because of brown-skin and working class.
I can't blame him for leaving. Reverend Wright's speech in response to the whole kerfluffle seemed almost designed to promote Wright at the expense of Senator Obama. It probably wasn't intended that way... probably... but if I were Obama I'd have been angry at Wright for it on a very personal level.
I'm white and have very little knowledge of the black church but what Andrea said sounded right to me. And it's not just Wright as Scary Black Man and Trinity as Scary Black Church which drives the hysteria--it's also any connection with people who tell unpleasant truths about America. Martin Luther King has been embraced by mainstream America now, but that's only because he's not alive and giving the kind of radical sermons he was giving in the late 60's. If he were alive today and still preaching and had been Obama's mentor, Obama would have to distance himself from him if he wanted to be President. And that'd be true even if King had been white.
I wonder what Obama could have been thinking. Did he really think he could run for President of this absurdly narcissistic country without having to run away from some of his "radical" friends in the process? Some of what Obama's critics say about him is, in a perverse way, on target. I mean, who is Obama? The fact that he went to Trinity and had these radical friends was what I liked about him the most, but that's the part of his life he has to run away from if he wants to be President.
Hello there! {waves}
Thank you for covering this issue!
I wrote a post, "The Glitter of Counterfeit Loyalty" to expose the backdrop of Obama's decision to leave Trinity.
Obama wants to be seen as a "good black" and that means he MUST denounce anyone that white people are afraid of or anyone that white people choose to slander. He accepts this as part of the cost of being "mainstream".
Hmmmmph!
Thanks for letting me blow my trumpet!
Lisa
Perhaps I'm naive but I'm inclined to believe Obama when he says that he didn't want his church subjected to the scrutiny. I also think it's sad, and clearly in some ways it helps him to not have to deal with this going forward, but I do believe him when he says weighing what was best for the church was a large part of this decision. If he's no longer affiliated with them they can go back to doing their own thing without outsiders butting in. And hopefully the media will feel enough shame over this whole incident (okay, maybe I am naive) that any new church the Obamas choose will not be subjected to this madness.
By the way, I hadn't read the transcript of that press conference before but I was moved. I find I'm most impressed by Obama in such forums, even more than with the big speeches. His thoughtfulness and the sincerity it projects is so striking.