The AP, in its coverage of Easter Sunday at Obama’s church:
But at the church itself, the “unashamedly black” identity can be seen in the African and African-American art on the walls and windows, as well as in the traditional African clothing of the choir. It can be heard in references to rapper Tupac Shakur in [Rev. Otis] Moss’ [III] Easter Sunday sermon, which was titled “Gangster’s Paradise.”
The guys at Newsbusters have more eyebrow-raising comments from Moss’ sermon, including references to “Roman News Network”, “National Publican Radio” “The Jerusalem Post” and the “Palestine Times.”
Senator Obama did not attend the services yesterday.
UPDATE: I wrote the headline sarcastically, but Obama says that on Easter Sundays, his church is like everybody else’s:
The ones that are most offensive are ones that I never knew about until they were reported on. I had had conversations with him in the past – in fact from the day I first met him — about some of his views. Understand this, something else that has not been reported on enough is despite these very offensive views, this guy has built one of the finest churches in Chicago. This is not a crackpot church. Witness the fact that Bill Clinton invited him to the White House when he was having his personal crises. This is a pillar of the community and if you go there on Easter on this Easter Sunday and you sat down there in the pew you would think this is just like any other church. … So I don’t want to suggest that somehow, the loops you have been seeing typifies the services all the time. That is the danger of the YouTube era. It doesn’t excuse what he said. But it gives it some perspective.
I missed Mass yesterday, as our little guy was under the weather. Did anybody else get a homily entitled “Gangster’s Paradise?”