Nov 09 2008

Local Church Proclaims “Exiles in an Obama Nation”

I caught this on the local Memphis news but am having difficulty embedding you tube videos suddenly.

A local church created a bit of controversy in South haven Mississippi with a church sign that said, Exiles in Obama Nation

The pastor of the church was quick to indicate that:

“We’re not racist at all and again we’re going to pray for him. He’s our president. But we don’t agree with our platform,” pastor Dr. Barry Baker said.  

Baker said the church does not like Obama’s stand on homosexuality and abortion and that is what he will talk about on Sunday.

Fair enough, but I can’t help but wonder why the sign did not say:

Pray For Obama on Sunday

A church member was quoted as saying she understood the implications of the message clearly.

Probably what the Bible says on how our country may evolve. What does the Bible say about that. Tribulations possible maybe the end of the world is about about to come,”

The sign attracted plenty of attention, folks stopped by and took pictures.

Not all church member were pleased about the sign.

A few church members took pictures of the sign and said they do not like the sign because it is sends the wrong message

My question: if the sign sends the wrong message and it does not have racist overtones, what wrong message are they concerned about.

Ultimately, the sign was removed after the church was with calls and negative comments. The Commercial Appeal also reported the church received threatening phone calls. I thought it was interesting that this was just self reported by the church. Maybe it happened but if I received threatening phone calls, I might want to save the messages, or even play them for the media.

It isn’t often that community members in the Memphis area push back against local churches given that most people are Christian, tend toward being overtly conservative, and generally and unfortunately worship separately. Comments in the Commercial Appeal tended to support the church.

Here is a sample:

Free speech is going out the window under Obama.

During the race the media or anyone else could not say anything negative about Obama, the truth never came out about him and when it did it was covered up quickly. For now on you will not be able to say anything negative about Obama or you will be called a racist, a bigot or down right threatened. we better get ready for some hard times.

Drip. Drip. Drip. The sound of white resentment in my area.

I would like to think those who resent the change are in the minority. But several anecdotal conversations have led me to wonder.

I am not a Christian myself but I see no problem with churches discussing the intent of future sermons.

But the sign did not say:

We Will Pray Because We Disagree

19 comments

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    • Edger on November 9, 2008 at 00:51
    • #

    Junior high students in Pearl are being told by their teachers and at least one school bus driver that they cannot say Obama’s name or they will be punished.

    How sick is this?

    RawStory…

    A controversy has erupted at a Mississippi junior high school over allegations that a bus driver and a coach threatened students with punishment for saying Barack Obama’s name.

    The incidents became public when outraged parents called the studios of WAPT news in Pearl, Miss. Some said their children were threatened by a bus driver with being written up and taken to the principal’s office, others that their children were told by a girls’ basketball coach they would be suspended.

    Reginald Simpson, a student at Pearl Junior High, explained that when students on the bus started saying, “Obama is our president,” the bus driver told them she didn’t want to hear his name. One kid said, “This is history woman,” and according to Simpson, “She pulled over and kicked me and the kid off the bus.” They were left waiting at the high school and later taken to their own school.

  3. … with what buhdy said a while back.  There are social consequences to freedom of speech.  The Church has the freedom of speech to put up that sign, and we have the freedom of speech to condemn them for it.

    The sound of white resentment indeed.  Sadly, I hear that sound at Daily Kos too much, especially in immigration diaries – there’s one poster who says it so often I’m sure he has a cut & paste bookmarked to save his fingers from arthritis!  ;-D

  4. but all of this “fear of the black man taking revenge” psychology either in your story or the one I covered seems to point to an admissions of underlying acknowledgment of guilt….

  5. Where Graceland is.  Great.  Of all the places in the world where I didn’t ever feel “welcomed,” this is it.  

  6. Send the IRS after them, they aren’t a church, no tax exemption, seize their assets and shut them down. Separation of Church and State, and if they don’t like the Constitution they can move to Afghanistan.

  7. yet I keep coming back. The crowds at the McCain/Palin rally’s and the interviews with the supporters outside were alarming. You live in a different land then I. Or do you? if I leave my liberal tolerant neighborhood and go 40 blocks into baseball bat land, as I call it, I enter a land like yours not rural but filled with churches with billboards spewing nastiness in kitschy sayings supposedly divine. Gun stores abound.

    Anecdotal makes up most of our daily lives. It’s easier to look at and dismiss demographics and regions as politically conservative or Red or whatever but when you come face to face with this mindset it hits you hard. Every Thanksgiving I have to listen to redneck in laws telling me how you liberals wrecked the country. This year will they back off or will it fuel their fire? Hard times because ignorance and hate no longer hold sway, politically? Tragic and scary that they were pandered to for this long to begin with.                  

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