It's God's Church, Not Obama's, and It Needs Some Peace

Last weekend, the Rev. Cally Rogers-Witte traveled from Cleveland to Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago to sit onstage with the head pastor and one of his newly hired security guards.

Rogers-Witte, one of five executive officers at UCC headquarters, was there for Sunday service to send a message to the beleaguered congregation.

"We want them to know we support them through the bomb threats," she said. "And we want to thank them for the many ways they've supported the wider church. They ordain five to 20 people a year, you know."

Actually, I didn't know. In fact, I knew little beyond what most of America has learned in recent weeks about Trinity.

I knew that it was Barack Obama's church.

I knew that, until recently, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. was its head pastor.

And I knew that it was a church under siege after 30 seconds of videotape showcasing Wright's most inflammatory accusations about America were leaked for all the world to see, over and over.

Since then, the church has had to hire security guards because of bomb and death threats. Reporters were calling sick and homebound members listed on prayer lists in the bulletin and, on a few occasions, reportedly tried to interview guests at funerals.

Deacon Carole Carter, who is undergoing chemotherapy for a second bout of breast cancer, recounted a call from a producer who wanted to talk about "Obama's church."

"First of all, it's not 'Obama's church.' It's God's church," she said in an April 3 Chicago Tribune story. "I fear for my pastor. I fear for my church."

That same day, the Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III, who will replace Wright when he retires in June, called a news conference.

"As a church, we say: No more," he told reporters. "We take back our sacred space. We respect your right to report the news. Please respect our right to worship."

For me, this is personal, and not because I'm a journalist.

I'm a UCCer. I was married in a UCC church four years ago, and it is the denomination I call home.

My friend and pastor, the Rev. Dr. Kate Huey, reminded me that this latest uproar, while difficult, is nothing new for the UCC.

"We're a church of firsts," she said.

The UCC was the first mainline denomination to ordain a woman, an African-American and a gay man. It has a long history of championing civil rights.

"We don't think we're better," Kate said. "We just get there early."

There's a cost to that.

"Sometimes it's harder to be UCC," she said to me last week. "Today we're feeling the hard."

I was drawn to the UCC because of its tradition — its insistence, really — for tolerance and diversity. We're supposed to love everybody every day, and that is a tall order for the best of us, not to mention average people like me. It's so much easier when we're allowed to feel superior to somebody, when we have rules about who's in and who's out, but that's not the UCC way. Everyone has a place at the table, even at communion.

So whenever I go to church, there I am, surrounded by what I put up with all week long: everybody else.

I'm sure they look at me and think the same thing: You again.

Then we get down to the business of celebrating the peace that comes when you realize you don't have to leave the real world behind you to feel God's spirit all around you.

I make no excuses for Wright and his latest public meltdown. He strikes me as a mentor who has had it up to here with his protégé grabbing all the attention. Over the years, he has done immeasurable good in the world. It's heartbreaking to see him reduced to a caricature, especially when recent threats against him and his church suggest there may be fuel for his rage.

Besides, as Rogers-Witte pointed out, there's a nagging question that nobody has answered but everyone should be asking:

"Who paid to have somebody watch hundreds and hundreds of hours of sermons to find that 30 seconds of videotape?"

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and the author of two books from Random House: "Life Happens" and "… and His Lovely Wife." To find out more about Connie Schultz (cschultz@plaind.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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