Rev. Wright on Obamas: “Church is not their thing. It never was their thing.”

From The Other News:

(CNS).  In speaking about Barack and Michelle Obama, their longtime pastor, the Rev. Jermiah Wright said, “Church is not their thing. It never was their thing.”President Obama and the first lady were married by Rev. Wright, and their two daughters, Sasha and Malia, were baptized by the controversial pastor. As head of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Ill., Wright sometimes delivered sermons critical of U.S. foreign policy and asked whether God should bless or damn America. (Rev. Wright is now pastor emeritus of the church.)

The issue of the relationship between Rev. Wright and Barack Obama recently resurfaced because of a new Obama biograpny, The Amateur, by former New York Times Magazine Editor Edward Klein. He conducted a nearly three-hour interview with Rev. Wright for the book. The audio of that interview was released by Klein’s publicist.

During the interview, Rev. Wright talked about the first couple’s time in his church, and rejected the premise that they attended because Michelle Obama wanted to attend.“Well, people that go to church, the brides normally have their wedding at their church, which is why I think Michelle joined,” Wright told Klein. “Now that’s been my sneaking suspicion because she didn’t grow up in the church. Where have you heard or read about her family raising her in the church?”

Wright continued, “That’s my point. My point has been – and that’s it, I haven’t said this publicly to anybody -- that, like, you talk about Toni Morrison, or you talk about Maya Angelou, you talk about these black women, they grew up in a church, most of them. She didn’t. She grew up in a Hyde Park kind-of Jack and Jill, links, middle income, who think they’re middle-class, environment. She didn’t go to church.”

“And when she came to the church, both of them came to the church -- their kids weren’t raised in the church like you raise other kids in Sunday school,” Wright said. “No. Because church is not their thing, it never was their thing. We knew it wasn’t his but she was not the kind of black woman whose mamma made her go to church, made her go to Sunday school. … She wasn’t raised in that kind of environment, so the church was not an integral part of their lives.”Barack Obama and Michelle LaVaughn Robinson were married on Oct. 3, 1992 by Rev. Wright at the Trinity United Church of Christ. Their first daughter, Malia, was born in 1998; the second daughter, Natasha (Sasha), was born in 2001.

Newsweek continued: “Around the time Obama was baptized, he says he studied the Bible with gifted teachers who would ‘gently poke me about my faith.’ As young marrieds, Barack and Michelle (who also didn't go to church regularly as a child) went to church fairly often -- two or three times a month. But after their first child, Malia, was born, they found making the effort more difficult.”

Though church was not their thing, according to Wright, the pastor believes that Barack Obama is a Christian. He recalled that when he met Obama, the future president communicated with him as a community organizer. Wright remembered that Obama asked him to help study Christianity.

“I think I convinced him that it was okay for him to make a choice in terms of who he believed Jesus is,” Wright said. “And I told him it was really okay and not a putdown of the Muslim part of his family or his Muslim friends.”

Hmmm.......Was President Obama Baptised or not ? Is he a Christian ? In another account of this event, Manya Brachear, writing in the Chicago Tribune, describes the event thusly: "When Obama sought his own church community, he felt increasingly at home at Trinity. Before leaving for Harvard Law School in 1988, he responded to one of Wright's altar calls and declared a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

In the interview, Obama said, “One of the churches that I became involved in was Trinity United Church of Christ. And the pastor there, Jeremiah Wright, became a good friend. So I joined that church and committed myself to Christ in that church.”Obama began attending the church in 1988 and formally joined Trinity in 1992. (But he left for Harvard in 1988?)

Newsweek continued: “Around the time Obama was baptized, he says he studied the Bible with gifted teachers who would ‘gently poke me about my faith.’

Madeline Brooks cites the research of a pastor, Usama Dakdok, who had called Obama’s church to ask about membership:

“Do I have to be baptized to join the church?” asked Pastor Dakdok. “No, you don’t,” was the answer. “You can be a member without being baptized.”

“And what exactly is required to become a member?” 

The answer: “You attend two Sunday school classes in a row about membership, and then you walk the aisle.”.....Some 'Bible Study' with gifted teachers.

Nobody, except Obama knows if his conversion to Christianity is real or not. Although some reports and even Obama have referred to a "baptism", there doesn't appear to be any record of a baptism.Chicago-based journalist, broadcaster and critic Andy Martin, when asked about Obama's baptism, wrote, "I have never been able to obtain any evidence that he was baptized, although I asked for those records."Read the full story here.