UCCtruths

Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, President, Chicago Theological Seminary, has identified a conspiracy: Spies in the church! Gasp! From the Washington Post's "On Faith":

A member of Trinity United Church of Christ, the church once led by Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright and where Senator Obama is a member, told me there are “spies” among them in the pews, strangers who take notes during the service and try to record the message.

Check it out for yourself. Go to the Trinity UCC website, select "Why The Black Church Won't Shut Up!", and listen to Rev. Otis Moss politely ask that there be "no recording equipment." He repeats over and over, "We are in worship. We are in worship." When visitors are asked to stand, you can see those with paper and pencil in hand. Are these folks members of the press or political operatives? Impossible to know if they don't, as Rev. Moss requests, sign in.

Stop laughing, she's serious.

Nevermind the media storm that was created by videos of Jeremiah Wright's rants which came from DVD's sold by Trinity UCC... no, according to Thistlethwaite... it could be political operatives! Spies!

According to Thistlethwaite, "this is what happens when politics intrudes into the sanctuary of the church, a sacred space."

Hmmmm.... ya think?

Thistlethwaite didn't seem to mind the political intrusion when it was Barack Obama that spoke at the UCC's General Synod last June at a time when Obama was desperately trying to prove to the voting public that he was in fact a Christian. She also didn't seem to mind when Obama used his UCC speech in his campaign literature in South Carolina later in the year.

Yet Thistlethwaite now says "our churches and our faith commitments are out of bounds in the tumult of political contests."

If this were a genuine statement, she would have objected to Obama speaking at the UCC's General Synod. Clearly Thistlethwaite isn't worried about church and politics mixing so long as the church can control the message. In the case of Obama's speech, which was heavily promoted by his campaign people, the United Church of Christ was all too eager to ride on Obama's coat tails. Throw in an an angry cussing pastor from a bygone generation and now the media attention isn't quite as welcome. The same media people at Obama's speech now show up at Trinity UCC with the same "paper and pencil in hand" and now she suspects they might be "spies".

For the United church of Christ, politics intruded into the sanctuary a long, long time ago. While I share Thistlethwaite's sudden concern about politics mixing in the sanctuary, we only have ourselves to blame.