Media Matters - Tucker Carlson on Obama's church: "[I]t's hard to call that Christianity"

by Fran Eaton

This will be a great discussion.  I'm thrilled to see it being taken on at the national level.  As a matter of fact, its going to be an international issue shortly.  A reporter from the London Telegraph just interviewed me about Obama's church . . . Trinity's Black Value System is a fair discussion. . .

Link: Media Matters - Tucker Carlson on Obama's church: "[I]t's hard to call that Christianity".

nTucker Carlson on Obama's church: "[I]t's hard to call that Christianity" During the "Obameter" segment on the February 7 edition of MSNBC's Tucker, host Tucker Carlson criticized Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), a presumptive candidate for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, for being a member of a church that Carlson claimed "sounds separatist to me" and "contradicts the basic tenets of Christianity," a subject Carlson said he was "actually qualified to discuss."

Carlson was referring to the "Black Value System" advocated by the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, of which Obama is a member. A February 6 Chicago Tribune article reported that "conservative critics have seized on Trinity's 12-point Black Value System, especially the portion relating to 'middleclassness,' as evidence that Obama is a divisive candidate who rejects mainstream American values and is primarily focused on the black community."

Carlson pointed to the "disavowal of the pursuit of 'middleclassness' " in the church's tenets, calling the church's mission a "racially exclusive theology" and "a theology that ministers to one group of people, based on race." Carlson claimed that Trinity's theology is "racially exclusive" and "wrong," adding that "it's hard to call that Christianity."

Comments

[Eric Davis]

I am a middle-class white American, baptized and confirmed in the Presbyterian church. I say this because I personally have attended a service at Trinity UCC (aka Barack's church). Tucker Carlson is once again either ill-informed or deliberately both racist and elitist. Trinity is highly typical of the various mostly-black Christian churches I have attended, as a visitor, over the years.

He should be ashamed and the Illinois Review should be ashamed for publishing such slander. Fran Eaton worked for Alan Keyes and has zero objectivity in this matter.

I hope the Illinois Review will someday try to serve a journalistic function. Because based upon Ms. Eaton's screed, it's little better than the online version of birdcage lining.

[Jerry]

Eric,

Do "the various mostly-black Christian churches that [you] have attended, as a visitor, over the years" all use a racial division system to define the members and visitors, and the manner in which members should conduct their lives outside of the church?

Odd, not one of the hundreds of Christian churches I have attended over the past 48 years does this. Maybe I have been sheltered.

[Joyce Coleman]

Tucker Carlson's comments about the religion of Barack Obama is a perfect example of the divisive political practices that have so paralyzed public discourse in this country. Could we not concentrate on the truly vital issues with the hope that some progress might be made in solving our problems.
Joyce Coleman

[MoneyGuy]

The Christian church I used to go to, didn't allow blacks in their church. I am not sure if you call that racial or not but it was certainly elitist.