Letter From Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. Pastor Emeritus, Trinity United Church of Christ

April 11, 2008

Rev. Dr. Ruby Wilson
President, Board of Directors
Metropolitan Association
New York Conference
United Church of Christ

Rev. Michael W. Caine
Southeastern Regional Conference Minister
New York Conference
United Church of Christ

Dear Ruby and Michael:

Grace and peace be unto you from God, our Father and from Jesus Christ, our Savior. Thank you so very much for your beautiful letter of April 3 rd .

Thank you for your words of support. Thank you for your affirmation of ministry. Thank you for standing with us in this media storm and thank you especially for your prayers.

We have had bomb scares at the church. I have had death threats on my life. We have police watching my daughters' homes and my home. We have security watching Pastor Moss' home. It has been a nightmare.

The additional costs of security companies and police have put a burden on our already overstretched Church Budget and all of the negative images of Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly make us hated by many of our white brothers and sisters here in the city and throughout the nation.

The amount of hate mail, hate e-mail and incredible blogs have put our family in a high stress situation! I am glad that the “snippets” played, however, prompted Senator Obama to give his “A More Perfect Union” speech and hopefully a much-needed dialogue on race in this nation will now begin.

The statement in The New York Times was very helpful. John Thomas' coming to stand with the President of the National Council of Churches was also helpful.

The News Conference that they gave here at the church got about thirty seconds of airtime and then quickly passed off the scene. It is not as titillating as holding me up as anti-American, racist, separatist, etc., etc. is.

I thank you for your support. Pastor Moss thanks you for your support. Our congregation thanks you for your support and we pray that the dialogues around this nation and UCC congregations on “Trinity Sunday” will start a healing process that just might redeem the soul of this nation!

Sincerely and respectfully yours,

Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright., Jr.
Pastor Emeritus
Trinity United Church of Christ

CC: Pastor Otis Moss III

Jorge Morales
Illinois Conference Interim Conference Minister

Reverend Edward Goode
Association Co-Minister
Chicago Metropolitan Association
Illinois Conference – United Church of Christ