I am sure that you have been watching events of the past several weeks concerning Sen. Barak Obama and his membership in the UCC. Once again, the media has chosen to dramatize the comments of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a highly respected UCC clergy and pastor to Obama. As I was thinking how I might respond to these events, Erv Koch, a UCC pastor and member of our church, shared an article with me that he had
written—an article that puts these events in perspective. Rather than re-inventing the wheel, I share his article with you, after first obtaining his permission. Please understand that this is not a political endorsement of Obama, simply an attempt to “set the record straight.” After all, who cares whom I endorse? We all vote from our own personal perspectives

Rev Koch’s article:

Given that one of the presidential candidates is a member of the United Church of Christ, our denomination is popping up in the news lately in a number of ways—video clips of some sermons by the pastor of Trinity UCC in Chicago, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, an interview on CNN with president of the UCC, Rev. John Thomas, on racial issues, and even a full-page ad in the New York Times on what our denomination has stood for over the years (“the first mainline Church to ordain an African-American (1785), a woman (1853) and an openly gay pastor (1972), etc.

As always, headlines, video clips and sound-bites offer at best limited information—sometimes skewed information. I have heard Rev. Wright speak several times, and never heard anything even close to what has played on TV and on-line. The incendiary language we’ve heard on the clips may sound decidedly un-Christlike, (and some of it is, and rightly to be condemned) but they don’t square with the main thrust of his 35-year ministry and preaching at Trinity—a church of some 10,000 members—nor with the motto of one of the branches of the United Church of Christ: “in essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.”

More typical of his character, I think, is a story I read in an e-mail, about a white member of Trinity UCC, William A. Von Hoene Jr., who had become engaged to an African-American woman in the church. Somewhere between the ring and the altar, however, she had second thoughts and broke off the engagement—a decision grounded on race. Her parents had been subjected to unthinkable prejudice over the years, leaving deep scars on her and her parents. How could she marry a white man?

Rev. Wright, an outspoken, passionate “Old Testament prophet” who also felt deeply about the history and reality of racial prejudice, found out about her decision. He called her and asked her to “drop everything” and meet with him at Trinity. He spent four hours explaining his reaction to her decision. Racial divisions were unacceptable, he said, no matter how great or prolonged the pain that caused them. He told her that God would not want her to assess or make decisions about people based on race, and that the world could make progress on issues of race only if people were prepared to break down barriers—barriers that were much easier, of course, to let stand. He must have been persuasive, for a few months later he presided over their wedding. They have been married now for over 26 years.

The couple says that they “have watched in utter awe as Rev. Wright has overseen and constructed a support system for thousands in need on the South Side that is far more impressive and effective than any governmental program possibly could approach.”

Please take the time to read in-depth news about such congregations and clergy in the UCC. There have been some excellent editorials and columns in our newspapers as well as panels on TV, discussing the kind of honest exchange of ideas so necessary in a living, dynamic democracy we call the United States of America. Thanks for taking time to be a more informed Christian.
Erv Koch, a member of Strongsville UCC

Ministering with you in Christ’s name,
Kenneth Morris