The most talked about church in America
SOUTH SIDE | Parishioners defend embattled minister
On a portentous Easter Day of services at Trinity United Church of Christ on the South Side, the pastor and members rallied to the defense of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. over comments that caused trouble for Sen. Barack Obama and the church.
A focus on isolated comments from a Wright sermon years ago is unfair to him and Trinity, its members said. But they said the attacks could strengthen their congregation if its brings attention to their message and ministry.
(AP)
On the first Sunday since Obama, a Trinity member, gave a lengthy and challenging speech about the racial divide in America, there was talk of God using the controversy for a holy purpose. "For the first time, we are talking in ways that we have never talked as a country," said the pastor, Rev. Otis Moss III.
He did not mention Obama directly, but his candidacy was never far from people's minds as congregants busied themselves in the day's spiritual affairs.
There were 84 baptisms performed at one service and 17 new professions of faith in Jesus Christ recorded at another. Prayers were offered for the departed, the sick and the needy, including one for a serviceman about to ship off to Afghanistan. There were Sunday school lessons taught, meetings of support groups scheduled and hymns sung with rocking devotion.
Pretty much an ordinary high holiday for a church busy with its mission for decades, except for the Fox News truck parked outside and a few reporters alert in vain for signs of anger or insurrection. Members hope critics of Wright, who is retiring, will understand their congregation, "unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian," in their words, before passing judgment.
Theirs is a mainstream Christian theology, but shaped by oppression that they feel yields a connection to the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. It's a church they said most Americans could embrace if they only got beyond media sound bites.
Controversy over Wright's comments have overshadowed his long ministry and created a false image of Trinity as a fringe church, Rev. Moss said. In a message delivered in various forms throughout the day's four services, he said the church would respond not with bitterness or condemnation, but with the example of Christ on the cross.
"His pain could not stop his purpose," Moss said. "Just because he was bleeding, he did not stop blessing."
News stations have rerun clips of a Wright sermon after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. A few comments in it were viewed as anti-American.
To counter that, the church has uploaded onto YouTube the full sermon. Moss said the material resulted in "hundreds of apologies" e-mailed from people around the world who said they initially misunderstood the church.
Neither Wright nor Obama, a member of Trinity, attended the church Sunday. But thousands streamed into the day's four services in the sanctuary at 400 W. 95th St.
Worshippers said Wright has been maligned by right-wing commentators who don't appreciate the African-American church.
"I think people just got sound bites that don't mean nothing," said Virginia Meeks, a Trinity member since 1983. "We all love him."
Linda Thomas, a church spokeswoman and a professor at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago said, "The kind of stress and strain and suffering that has come at the end of Dr. Jeremiah Wright's ministry at this church really does remind people of our own suffering."
EASTER SUNDAY AT ...
