But it is sad that a person must disown a church or such.

I am not much of a religious person, yet from what I’ve seen and heard of Rev Wright and now this last Preist. at Trinity in Chicago.

If ever I have time when in Chicago, I would like to stop in for a sermon or two.

I’ve been missing some great entertainment. Has Trinity ever thought of broadcasting their sunday sermons?

BAC

Holy cow. If I ever get lost with you in the forest, I’m going to walk in the opposite direction you choose, ’cause that statement is SO patently bizarre.

of COURSE it’s for political reasons. Obama was part of that church for DECADES. He’s ditching it for political gain. Duh.

I think that the relationship between pastor and parishioner is a sacred one filled with ambiguity and ups and downs. It’s centered in a shared God experience and, in the United Church of Christ, it’s about unity, not uniformity. In other words, we love each other through the things that are rough or disagreeable, even. No one outside the church can understand that. The church, even Trinity, is not primarily a series of preaching events. Trinity UCC has done incredible things in that community to build up people and revitalize the area, especially with young people.

On the other hand, McCain went looking for, and accepted, the endorsements of Hagee and Parsley. Their relationship was primarily political, and deliberately so, unlike the pastor-parishioner relationship of Wright-Obamas, which only became political when it was made to be so.

The hypothetical example of McCain in a white racist church was a good one. I would probably answer that by saying that I would imagine that McCain’s actual preacher could, even now, could be caught in some difficult-to-explain moments, if he were YouTubed the way Wright was.

In a church like Trinity, there will be edgy and controversial preachers, and they will go over someone’s line.

Maybe it’s just harder to look more closely at the candidates’ actual positions and records instead of judging them by their preachers, former teachers, etc.

Just my two cents …

There would be–there is almost no–media covering the turned tables, McCain’s pastors and their anti-Semitic scary hate-filled rhetoric.

Just curious… do you not even KNOW that Hagee is not “McCain’s pastor”, or do you not see the distinction between the relationship between a person who endorses McCain who happens to be a preacher, and the relationship between a parishioner and his/her pastor?

Really, I’m curious. I don’t want to argue about it, I’m just want to know if you KNOW what you are saying?

then why did the MI Dem. Party sign off on it?

because they were looking for a political solution to a political problem — they don’t care about the Democratic Party Rules at this point– their position was that the RBC had selectively enforced its own rules, and that selective enforcement was wrong…and that a purely political compromise that did not take into consideration the Charter of the Democratic Party was recommended.. They are far more concerned with Michigan staying Democratic in the fall.

I supported the MI compromise proposal in principle — but I think they should have tried to accomplish it within a “rules” framework — seat all the delegates as elected at full strength, and pass a resolution addressed to the Credential Committee that the Rules Committee supported the MI compromise.

That isn’t what happened — not even close. This was pure corruption — they all know that they have NO power to steal delegates from one candidate and give them to another — its unprecendented, and for a very good reason. The Credentials Committee is the place where delegations can be “balanced” — the Rules committee can only PENALIZE states (and in certain instances, can penalize candidates for violation of the rules by STRIPPING them of delegates they won. But there has to be a violation of the rules, and you can’t transfer delegates from one candidate to another.)

So, are you saying that people are using the Obamas choice of church, and a few select sound bites of what is being taught there, to judge his fitness for office? In other words, if he would let his children hear that kind of stuff, that says something about him as a president?

other than the soundbites part, yeah.

Its not about “soundbites” — its about the accumulating evidence of the nature of discourse in the church…discourse that Obama first denied ever hearing.

Lets turn this around…lets assume that McCain has two children the same age as the Obama children. And lets say that the same basic sequence of events occurred, except that McCain’s preacher was a white racist.

Would you be treating it as an outrage that the media covered it? would you insist that this was a personal matter. Would you question what John McCain thought about African Americans — or at least what he thought was acceptable discourse in his church about African Americans.

I’m pretty sure if the tables were turned, if this was about John McCain, that there would be absolutely no media critique going on here….

I cannot begin to tell you how disappointed I am in the Democratic Party and its Rules Committee’s decision on how to seat the Florida and Michigan. How can you decide to only seat some of the delegation or to take away their votes? How can you decide to award delegates to people who weren’t even on the ballot in Michigan? What on earth is the party doing? What message does the party send to its members and to other citizens in the United States when it strips away the votes its citizens?

while the question of principle of denying individual democratic voters the same voice as other voters, the real problem here wasn’t just the disenfranchisement of Michigan and Florida voters, it was blatantly political agenda behind what was done. Obama supporters could at least hide behind the fig-leaf of “following the rules”, but this was a power play, because the theft of four Clinton delegates is NOT within the power of the RBC to do. (the credentials committee, yeah — but not the RBC.)

And the rules that were violating in stealing Clinton delegates ar CHARTER rules (i.e. the equilavent of the constitution) as opposed to BY-LAWS (which would be the equivalent of laws). There is simply no rationale for it — it was the essence of political corruption (not to mention the fact that the RBC is supposed to operate in public, and this was OBVIOUSLY decided in private.)