In Defense of Barack's Choice

It has been a couple of weeks now since the pastorgate scandal has broken relating to Barack Obama's choice to stay in his church. The controversy arises, of course, in light of the numerous videos showing the Rev. Jeremiah Wright preaching a number of what could best be described as hate sermons against the white race and against America in general. At first I was quite outraged by Barack's refusal to stay within the church for twenty years. But then . . . I remembered my own similar history.

Many of my pastor's sermons began to be uncomfortable to me in the early 1970's when I was a young wife and mother. Our pastor often preached that the majority of the world's economic problems were caused by women entering the work force. The rhetoric continued through the latter part of the decade as well, but now the pastor (and other leaders in the conservative Christian movement) were now railing against abortion. Having been educated in a public university during the late 1960's, I believed women's rights were just as important as those for men. The final straw--almost--came for me in 1991 when our daughter confided in us that she was a lesbian. By then the new emphasis from the pulpit was, essentially, to preach hate sermons against homosexuals. Then, and now, many would say the usual mantra, "We love the sinner but hate the sin," however, untrue that statement was.

Why then did it take me years and years to leave the church that had been a vital part of my past? I would have to say it was for sentimental reasons: it was the church that fed my family the Christmas I was three when my father was absent, it was the church where I was baptized at the age of nine, it was the church where I met my husband, it was the church that gave me a special white Bible ceremony when I was engaged, it was the church in which I was married, and it was the church in which both my children were baptized. All of the central events of my life were connected to the church.

While I cannot condone Barack's choice to stay in his Chicago church, I can at least understand why he doesn't want to leave it.