Text of Obama's SpeechFollow

But then we're left wondering why he was there if he didn't actually believe what Wright said.

Look at John 7 for a moment; I want you to look, John 7:2. The Jewish festival of the booths was about to begin. The festival of the booths was celebrated every year as a reminder of the way God's people had wandered in the wilderness for 40 years because they wouldn't trust God, and wanted to do things their own way. Does that sound familiar? Is anybody going to get honest with God in the house of God on this Lord's day? Because the people of God would not trust God and wanted to do things their own way, they brought a punishment on themselves, because of their own behavior and their own choices.

Let me ask again, is any of this sounding familiar? We make choices and we engage in behaviors that bring consequences on our own selves, and we need to stop trying to blame God or blame the devil for stuff we did. How many times have you heard someone say, "The devil made me do it"? Flip Wilson made a million dollars telling that lie: The devil made me do it. We make choices and we engage in behaviors--tell your neighbor: Our choices have consequences. [Echo from audience]

Now some of you all don't like talking your neighbor. You feel uncomfortable in this world which idolizes isolation, anonymity, and so-called socially constructed privacy. You don't want to say something to your neighbor and you looked funny when I saw some of you didn't even look that way. If talking to a stranger makes you uncomfortable, throw your head back and say: My behavior has consequences. [Echo] Our choices have consequences, and our behavior has consequences.

I've told you for over three decades now: God will forgive you for sowing wild oats. But God's forgiveness don't stop the crop. Them oats you sowed will bring a crop. You will reap what you [audience chimes in] sow.

But stop calling your crops your cross. [mocking] "Well... that child is just my cross." No, that child is your crop. A cross is a sacrificial vehicle of redemption that you voluntarily pick up; a crop is the result of something you sowed. Our choices have consequences, our behaviors have consequences. The people of God chose not to obey God and they brought on themselves a punishment of 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. For 40 years, they had to live in booths, and after 40 years, when Joshua led them across the Jordan and into the land that God promised Abraham hundreds of years before they were born.

Because as long as less than half of what they say is hateful, its ok.. -_-

You know what's really anti-american?

Blanketly rating down people.

Hateful man, hateful

Blankt rate ups!

Being an ordinary middle-class **** who sings the designated song every morning and wears the right colours on a little pin is not being "american". It's just being a ****.

Not to belabor the obvious, but Trinity was simply the largest and best known church in the district where Obama was working. For someone working as a community organizer in a largely black neighborhood, establishing a relationship with the largest black church in the neighborhood is kind of an obvious plan. It doesn't mean anything else beyond that you're most effective when you're establishing ties with one of the largest pillars of the community you're trying to work with. He didn't actually join the church until three years later (and then was away at Harvard for the next three or four years after that)./quote]


Um.... That's essentially exactly what I was saying. Obama chose this church because it would get him "in" with the local political scene. I don't think it's a huge leap to argue that there was some political motivation in all of this.

[quote]Of course, it sounds much better to make up some grand plan where Obama only met Wright because Obama wanted to be president 23 years later. Well, you have to admire his foresight in that case, I guess.

John Wayne would have worn the pin; but you could never have forced him or shamed him into it.

You wouldn't have had to. That's the point.

No. It really isn't.

That cold and calculating willingness to cast off a supposedly beloved pastor-- if the story is true --is the very description of a narcissist personality, not the warm and altruistic politician his handlers would have us believe.