Obamas go to church
Posted: Sunday, January 18, 2009 6:29 PM by Domenico Montanaro
From NBC's Athena Jones
WASHINGTON -- The
Obama family, accompanied by Michelle Obama's
mother Marian Robinson, spent part of Sunday morning at the majority
black 19th Street Baptist Church.
It was the first time the family has attended a church service here in
the capital in this new year and it was the first time the
president-elect attended a church service since Aug. 31st in Lima, Ohio.
"The Obamas are honored to worship this Sunday at Nineteenth Street and
look forward to learning more about many churches in the District,"
Joshua DuBois, Obama's director of Religious Affairs said in a
statement put out by the transition team. "They will choose a church
home at a time that is best for their family."
Obama's membership in Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ under
the leadership of then-pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright, sparked controversy
during the primaries when video clips from Wright's racially charged
sermons surfaced and aired seemingly on a loop on cable television.
Obama eventually denounced Wright, whose message was seen as divisive
and unpatriotic, and the family left the church.
According to the transition team, 19th Street Baptist -- organized in 1839 -- is the oldest and among the most historic African-American churches in the city and has been "at the center of Washington’s community and social life for more than a century."
Obama met with the pastor, Dr. Derrick Harkins, and his wife and the Harkins' two children, before coming into the sanctuary, which was nearly full and which gave the Obamas a standing ovation as they walked down the center aisle.
One church member said attendance today was about three times the usual.
Much of the service was geared toward Obama. After a reading from Psalms, a female associate pastor led a prayer, which she ended with: "Yes we can, in the name of Jesus we pray, Amen." Obama then sang along to the well-known hymn "Blessed Assurance."
A children's choir sang and several of the children took part in a reading about Martin Luther King Jr., ending with a very young boy who said "Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty we are free at last" to rousing applause. After another song, three children recited several lines of Obama-centered prose, linking him to King.
"Martin Luther King walked so that Barack Obama could run," 10-year-old Nigel Sanders began. Two other children followed that with "Barack Obama ran so that all children could fly" and "Yes we can. Yes I can."
Pastor Harkins, who called Marian Robinson the "first grandmother to be", preached a sermon based on the book of Esther, entitled "For Such a Time as This"
"God prepares us for his purposes," Harkins began. He spoke about King, Rosa Parks and others -- including Barack Obama -- who ended up doing things that might not have been expected, before directing several lines to Obama directly.
"How could it be that the first black president of the Harvard Law Review would do anything other than dwell in the lofty heights of the best corporate law firms," he said.
"While I am tasked with preaching to everyone who is here let me step to the side with you Mr. President-elect, for just a moment and borrow Mordechai's conjecture," Harkins continued. "Perhaps, just perhaps, you are where you are for such a time as this.
The pastor said that while voters put Obama in office, it was God's strength that would sustain him.
Though Obama visited several churches during the primaries and the general election, it is rare that such a service should include so many direct references to him during one of these visits.
Harkins spoke of "the unfolding legacy" of Obama and said the president-elect's wife, family and spiritual foundation would help him "even if the bright light of acclaim sometimes shifts to the harsh glare of criticism" and that God would not forsake him.
As the family exited, shaking a few hands, as the organ play a few notes of "We Shall Overcome" an old spiritual that was an anthem of the civil rights movement.
The Obamas did not speak at the service, but the president-elect waved at the crowd that had gathered outside the building when he departed with his family.
