Obama says he's tired of answering questions about his religion. At a rally in rural Ohio, he was asked again about rumors that he's a Muslim, which have only obscured from public view his real faith, which is no less troubling.
"Here are the simple facts," he half-pleaded with the crowd. "I am a Christian. I am a devout Christian. I have been a member of the same church for 20 years. I pray to Jesus every night. I try to go to church as much as I can."
While impressive, it's where he goes to church that should give American voters pause.
Obama embraced more than Christ when he answered the altar call two decades ago at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Southside Chicago. The 8,000-member church describes itself as "unashamedly black" and holds classes in "African-centered Bible study."
He also pledged to honor something called the "Black Value System," a cultlike code of nonbiblical ethics written by blacks for blacks. It preaches a radically exclusive theology that contradicts the tenets of Christianity.
Since we first drew attention to the Afrocentric system more than a year ago ("Obama's Real Faith," Jan. 22, 2007), the church has removed it from the "About Us" page of its Web site, replacing the entire section with a glowing video testimonial from a white official with its parent United Church of Christ.
But according to the original Web page, Trinity puts the "black community" first.
Black members are encouraged to pursue education and skills exclusively to advance their community, and allocate their money exclusively to support "black institutions" and black leaders who "embrace the Black Value System."
In short, it preaches from the gospel of blackness and black power. There's little room for white Christians at Obama's church. It attacks the pursuit of "middleclassness" (code for whiteness), arguing that middleclassness is a conspiracy by white leaders to keep talented African-Americans "captives."
Trinity warns them not to be seduced by it, even though millions of blacks have benefited from homeownership and crime-free suburban living.
Obama, meanwhile, has been getting in touch with his African roots. He recently visited relatives in Kenya for the first time, and dropped the nickname Barry for the more African-sounding Barack.
"I believe in the power of the African-American religious tradition to spur social change," he recently asserted. He said his faith has also led him to question the idolatry of the free market. This reflects Trinity church doctrine that no African-American can really rise to the top echelons of a "racist, competitive" white society on merit.
Obama, in turn, calls the dashiki-wearing pastor of this militantly black church his "spiritual adviser" and mentor. "It was the best education I ever had," he has said of his indoctrination by Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
He sought Wright's counsel before running for president. Wright married him and baptized his daughters.
Obama borrowed the title of his memoir "Audacity of Hope" from a Wright sermon. (Trinity hawks that book and another book by Obama on its Web site, and has sponsored book-signing events for Obama at the church, which happens to be the largest recipient of the Obamas' charitable donations.)
Their close relationship is especially disturbing. By any objective measure, Wright is an America-hating race-monger. He blames practically every ill on "white America," including 9/11. Just this past November, he honored bigoted Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan with a "lifetime achievement" award presented in Wright's name.
Wright gushed in a cover profile of Farrakhan in his church's magazine that his old pal Farrakhan â?????? who has bashed whites as "blue-eyed devils" and Jews as "bloodsuckers" â?????? should be a model for blacks because he "truly epitomized greatness."
In the '80s, the two traveled to Libya together to pay homage to terrorist Muammar Qaddafi.
Farrakhan last month endorsed Obama. While the Democratic front-runner distanced himself from Farrakhan, albeit belatedly and under media pressure, he still has not distanced himself from Wright.
Obama says he respects his preacher and is "proud" of their friendship, as well as his church, which proclaims: "We are an African people, and remain true to our native land, the mother continent." In a 2006 interview with BeliefNet.com, Obama called Wright "one of the greatest preachers in the country."
The Trinity Web site greets visitors with an image of the African continent and the sound of congo drums. Trinitarians, it explains, have a "nonnegotiable commitment to Africa." What about America? It gets no mention.
Do such beliefs translate into a political agenda tailored to African-Americans? Would fellow Trinitarian Obama, despite his agreeably race-neutral and nonthreatening public persona, govern and petition on behalf of one group and not necessarily for the greater good of this country?
Obama recently promised a black newspaper in Michigan that Africa will be "my priority" as president. "I think that the U.S. has to see its long-term interest wrapped up in the success of Africa," he said.
Hillary Clinton calculates that Obama's childhood brushes with Islam will make Americans nervous. But it's his adult conversion to black nationalism and socialism that makes this otherwise attractive minority candidate unfortunately so unattractive.
