Published: March 27, 2008 10:27 am            

At Obama event, prayer and patriotism make appearance

GREENSBORO, N.C — Before Sen. Barack Obama took the stage here Wednesday, the crowd was led in prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance. And as the Illinois Democrat ended his speech, he offered a “God bless America.”

As Obama returned to the campaign trail after a brief respite, news and questions about his controversial former Chicago pastor continued to circulate, while the activities before his appearance seemed to try to reinforce that he is a Christian and a patriot.

An audience in Indiana had also been led in prayer on the Saturday after the flap over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. first spread on the Internet. But such overt religious showings have been relatively rare during the 13 months Obama has campaigned for the presidency.

Wright, meanwhile, had been scheduled this week to make his first public appearances since the debate over his remarks erupted in mid-March. But citing security concerns, those stops in Florida and Texas were canceled.

The controversy began when videos of Wright’s sermons surfaced, including one in which the pastor shouts, “God damn America” for its treatment of minorities. Earlier this week, Sen. Hillary Clinton, Obama’s rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, weighed in, saying: “I think that given all we have heard and seen, he would not have been my pastor.”

On his new campaign plane, Obama said he has spoken with Wright in recent days and disputed any suggestion that he or his campaign have asked him to stay out of the limelight.

“I have talked to him,” he said. “I haven’t asked him to do anything.”

Robert Gibbs, Obama’s communications director, said he was not aware of efforts to bring more prayer and patriotism into events. He said recent occurrences might simply be a matter of helping showcase a local minister who is helping the campaign.

As he returned from a three-day vacation in the Virgin Islands, Obama had sought to turn the campaign conversation toward Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican he hopes to take on in the general election.

But as a question-and-answer session in an auditorium here was about to end, a student from a Christian college asked him, “What role does Jesus Christ play in your life?”

Obama explained what Christianity means to him and that he believes in a gospel of both words and deeds. He talked about how his deceased mother was “not a believer,” but that he is “sure she is in heaven” because she lived a life of kindness.

“Everybody is welcome to come to Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street” in Chicago, he said. “If you were there on any given Sunday, folks would be doing the same things in church at Trinity as they do everywhere else. They’re praising Jesus. ... And the pastor is trying to teach a lesson to connect scripture to our everyday lives.”

Obama said Wright had said some “very objectionable things when I wasn’t in church on those particular days.”

But he also stressed that Wright has given three sermons a week for 30 years and that those opposed to his candidacy had found “five or six of his most offensive statements” and “boiled” them down to play over and over.

“I hope people don’t get distracted by that,” he said during his second stop in North Carolina in a week, in advance of the state’s May 6 primary.

Brite Divinity School, where Wright was scheduled to receive an award on Saturday, confirmed the cancellation but referred all inquiries to Trinity. A spokeswoman for the church said only that Wright’s schedule is “pending.”

At Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church in Houston, a spokesman said Wright canceled his three Sunday sermons there, saying he and his family had received threats.

Eddie Glaude, a professor of religion and African-American studies at Princeton University, said Wright’s absence from the pulpit speaks volumes about the nation’s conversation on race.

“We’ve been telling ourselves we’ve gotten beyond the problems of racism,” he said. “The bargain has been we must hide and conceal those aspects in our society that reflect we haven’t gotten beyond them. The effect has been corrosion of the nature’s soul — so much so (that) people want to harm Rev. Wright.”

Glaude said he hoped Wright would return to the pulpit soon and would not stay silent for the remainder of the election cycle.

“To be a prophetic voice, is not to be beholden to the possibility of a first black presidential nominee,” he said. “You speak truth to power no matter what.”

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