Wary of media spin, Naperville man visits Obama church

It seems like only yesterday that the people working frantically to derail Barack Obama were telling us his membership at Trinity United Church of Christ was just a guise.

The fear then was that the mixed-race presidential candidate with the middle name of Hussein was really a radical Muslim who would reveal himself as the Manchurian Muslim to destroy America from within as soon as he took the president's oath.

Those silly days are gone.

In a world where war and the economy take backseats in the media, the most important issue in America seems to be comments made by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's former pastor at that Christian church.

The story won't die, and pundits speculate that one old preacher really does have the power to damage Obama to the point where Hillary Clinton becomes the Democratic candidate, and splinter Democrats so that Republican John McCain wins the White House.

Talk-radio hosts, bloggers, cable news shows and even newspaper columnists tell us what to make of it all. But one suburban man wanted to check things out for himself.

"I guess I'm calling because I'm a Naperville, 47-year-old white male who went to Trinity United Church of Christ for the first time on Sunday," says the man on the other end of the phone.

The path from mostly white suburbia to the predominately black church on Chicago's South Side is more direct than you might think. Start on 95th Street in Naperville, a few blocks south of a recent fatal shooting, drive east for about 35 miles, and you'll arrive at Trinity United Church of Christ, 400 W. 95th St. in Chicago.

"You're a brave guy," a friend said when he announced his plans.

"Everyone is afraid of that church," he explains, adding that he was invited by a friend who is a member there. "With all this going on, I felt the need to try it."

A Lutheran who rarely attends services, this guy doesn't want his name used, because he says "the sin of vanity" -- specifically the ego of the preacher Wright -- has been feeding this story.

"It's not about me," he says, sitting in a comfy Starbucks in Warrenville.

Sunday's sermon was about the Old Testament story of Nehemiah, a passionate man who inspired people to rebuild the broken wall around a devastated Jerusalem. It was given by the Rev. Otis Moss III, who replaced the retired Wright as pastor at the church. A Yale Divinity School graduate, Moss is the son of religious parents prominent enough to have had Martin Luther King Jr. officiate at their wedding.

"It was a wonderful, positive experience, and I think what is happening to this church in the national media is unfair," the Naperville man says. "That poor church is under attack."

Aware that he was one of only a couple dozen white faces in the overwhelmingly black crowd, the Naperville man says he "was a bit nervous" when visitors were asked to stand.

"When I stood up as a visitor, they walked through the aisle and gave me this T-shirt," he says. The shirt reads: "We are Trinity. Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian" and includes a line about "celebrating Christ, community and culture" for "Unity Day."

He slipped it on after church.

"You can be proud of your heritage without being racist," adds the Naperville man, who notes other churches show support for the ethnic makeup (think Irish or Polish) of their congregation. "That church was filled with love and good people."

While Trinity members have been told not to talk with the media, the church's Web site at www.tucc.org answers a lot of questions.

"In my humble opinion, they are all being lumped together in a negative light," the Naperville guest says, adding that he didn't feel at all negative on the drive back to Naperville.

"I'm still hoping and praying that positive things can come from this. What can I do -- a single, white dad in Naperville -- to spread that message?" he says, explaining that this interview is the start of that for him. "You walk out of there feeling like you could walk through a brick wall."

That might help those whose response to this story so far has been to bang their heads against a brick wall.