Word: pastoral
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Barack Obama's March 18 speech in Philadelphia was billed as being about "race, politics and unifying our country." But it was also about religion, as Obama was forced to address calls for him to further distance himself from Jeremiah Wright, the incendiary former pastor of his home church. Still, the Illinois Senator demurred. "As imperfect as he may be," Obama said, "he has been like family to me." Obama's attempt to address the racial issues Wright raised could backfire if opponents hammer away on Obama's refusal to condemn him. If John Kerry suffered for appearing disconnected from...
...cable news channels, Barack Obama knew he had a preacher problem. On the eve of launching his campaign for the White House in February 2007, Obama abruptly withdrew an invitation to Wright to deliver the invocation at his announcement speech in Springfield, Ill. Wright had been Obama's pastor for nearly 20 years. He had brought Obama into the church, helped him find his faith in God, officiated at Obama's wedding and baptized both his children. But Wright had also said a lot of incendiary things from his pulpit about America over the years, things that would be awkward...
...Preacher and the Pol When Obama joined Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ in 1988, the Afrocentric church and its pastor held particular appeal to a 27-year-old son of an African father he barely knew and a white mother from Kansas. Obama was searching for an identity and a community, and he found both at Trinity. And he found a spiritual guide in Wright...
...grandmother good for at least two jaw-droppers every Thanksgiving. Yes, the Senator was comparing apples and freight trains: Wright's hate speech was as public and consequential as the grandmother's stereotypes were private, but Obama came to this comparison only after he had unequivocally condemned his pastor for having "a profoundly distorted view of this country...
...should. It was delivered in the morning, to a minuscule television audience. It deserved a full hearing, but most Americans heard it in sound bites and from headlines-and I imagine that for more than a few, the headline will be 'Obama Refuses to Disown His Anti-American Pastor.' This is where inexperience really hurts-not Obama's inexperience but the public's inexperience with him. For many Americans, the Wright flap is the third thing they've learned about Obama. The first two were that he is black and has a "funny" name. All too many voters...