{"id":638,"date":"2008-04-25T14:35:13","date_gmt":"2008-04-25T14:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2008\/04\/top-ucc-leaders-defend-obamas.php"},"modified":"2008-04-25T14:35:13","modified_gmt":"2008-04-25T14:35:13","slug":"top-ucc-leaders-defend-obamas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/04\/top-ucc-leaders-defend-obamas","title":{"rendered":"Top UCC Leaders Defend Obama&#8217;s Church"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Daniel Burke<br \/>\nReligion News Service<\/strong><br \/>\n(RNS) Top leaders of the United Church of Christ are supporting Chicago&#8217;s Trinity United Church of Christ, which has been under fire for sermons delivered there by Sen. Barack Obama&#8217;s former pastor.<br \/>\nThe Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who led Trinity for 36 years, has been heavily criticized for preaching sometimes inflammatory sermons that denounce the U.S. government. Small clips from sermons have been widely circulated on the Internet.<br \/>\nObama credits Wright with bringing him to Christianity and has attended Trinity for nearly two decades.<br \/>\nAt a meeting this month, the UCC&#8217;s 90-member executive council defended Wright, saying the media had &#8220;taken out of context and repeatedly broadcast certain controversial and prophetic statements&#8221; by Wright, who is now retired.<br \/>\nThe council also said that each UCC church is &#8220;free to interpret God&#8217;s message,&#8221; affirmed the longstanding &#8220;prophetic role&#8221; of its pastors and asked members to pray for Trinity Chicago.<br \/>\n<em>Copyright 2008 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Daniel Burke Religion News Service (RNS) Top leaders of the United Church of Christ are supporting Chicago&#8217;s Trinity United Church of Christ, which has been under fire for sermons delivered there by Sen. Barack Obama&#8217;s former pastor. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who led Trinity for 36 years, has been heavily criticized for preaching sometimes&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Top UCC Leaders Defend Obama&#039;s Church<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/04\/top-ucc-leaders-defend-obamas\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Top UCC Leaders Defend Obama&#039;s Church\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Daniel Burke Religion News Service (RNS) Top leaders of the United Church of Christ are supporting Chicago&#8217;s Trinity United Church of Christ, which has been under fire for sermons delivered there by Sen. Barack Obama&#8217;s former pastor. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who led Trinity for 36 years, has been heavily criticized for preaching sometimes&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/04\/top-ucc-leaders-defend-obamas\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-04-25T14:35:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"nsymmonds\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Top UCC Leaders Defend Obama's Church","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/04\/top-ucc-leaders-defend-obamas","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Top UCC Leaders Defend Obama's Church","og_description":"By Daniel Burke Religion News Service (RNS) Top leaders of the United Church of Christ are supporting Chicago&#8217;s Trinity United Church of Christ, which has been under fire for sermons delivered there by Sen. Barack Obama&#8217;s former pastor. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who led Trinity for 36 years, has been heavily criticized for preaching sometimes&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/04\/top-ucc-leaders-defend-obamas","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2008-04-25T14:35:13+00:00","author":"nsymmonds","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/04\/top-ucc-leaders-defend-obamas","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/04\/top-ucc-leaders-defend-obamas","name":"Top UCC Leaders Defend Obama's Church","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-04-25T14:35:13+00:00","dateModified":"2008-04-25T14:35:13+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/04\/top-ucc-leaders-defend-obamas#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/04\/top-ucc-leaders-defend-obamas"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/04\/top-ucc-leaders-defend-obamas#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Top UCC Leaders Defend Obama&#8217;s Church"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2","name":"nsymmonds","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","caption":"nsymmonds"},"description":"Nicole Symmonds is Beliefnet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Prayer editor and also covers Christianity. A New Yorker by birth but a Floridian by tenure, Nicole graduated from Florida A&M University with a B.S. in Public Relations and a minor in Sociology. She moved to NY to pursue a career in journalism which started at In Style magazine. There she learned the ropes of magazine reporting, researching, and writing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand became exponentially more stylish. But what seemed like a deep interest in fashion and entertainment would soon be revealed as merely the vehicle that moved her closer to discovering her purpose, writing and covering matters of the Christian faith. While in her purpose-driven vehicle she can be found traveling between Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens for life, work and worship, respectively. From fashion to faith and the journey isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t over yet\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/nsymmonds"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}