On His Own

Much has been written about the "Africentrism" of Trinity: the African-American Last Supper that hangs in the church lobby and the kente cloth that drapes its altar. But Wright's ideas about Africa were more than decorative. Wright taught that African- Americans should be proud of their African heritage, of the stories of slavery and freedom handed down by their grandparents and great-grandparents. He also preached that people should feel a financial and social responsibility to their brothers and sisters in Africa, especially those without food and water, those with chronic or incurable disease, those without any education.

There were other churches Obama could have joined when he moved to Chicago after law school. The Rev. James Meeks runs the Salem Baptist Church of Chicago, 10 blocks away from Trinity—another huge African-American church on the South Side where the Rev. Jesse Jackson has made frequent appearances. But no other Chicago church would have given Obama such a strong connection to Africa. "Here's what Meeks can't offer," says Wallis. "Barack has an African father and I'm speculating that the connection to Africa might have appealed to him."

In an interview with NEWSWEEK's Lisa Miller, Obama characterized his relationship with Wright this way: "He was my pastor. And he was a friend." He disputes the characterization of "spiritual adviser": "I cannot recall a time where he and I sat down and talked about theology or we had long discussions about my faith. If I met with him, it was after church to have chicken with the family and we would have talked stories about the family. But he certainly strengthened my faith."

How close were they, really? The Rev. Obery Hendricks, a good friend of Wright's, says the two men were not that intimate. "He wasn't buddies with him," says Hendricks, author of "The Politics of Jesus" and a professor at New York Theological Seminary. "[Wright] has some close people, and Obama wasn't one of them."

The Rev. Stephen Gray is the conference minister of the Indiana-Kentucky conference for the United Church of Christ. In meetings with Wright when Obama was in the Senate, Gray twice recalls Wright's leaving the room to take a call on his cell phone from Obama. "All I can tell you is there was a big smile on Jeremiah's face as he ended those conversations," Gray remembers. " 'That was our senator,' he said. We asked him, 'What kind of a fellow is he?' 'Well, I trained him. He's a pretty good fella'."

That anecdote foreshadowed the grandiosity that led to Wright's fall from grace with Obama during the presidential campaign, when the minister went to the National Press Club in the wake of the release of clips of controversial sermons. At the Washington luncheon, Wright treated the media to a racially charged stemwinder in which he defended some of his most controversial statements. Obama had tried to stand by Wright, initially refusing to repudiate him, but the National Press Club was too much.

The origins of the clash are generational. "Their racial politics are very different," says Hendricks. "Barack, because of his experience, didn't have the same perspective, the same level of resentment as so many in Jeremiah's generation. And so Jeremiah comes from another era, closer to my own, when segregation was still the law of the land. He still carries that, his outrage at those injustices. Barack, of course, is sensitive to that, but he did not experience it."

Wright's friends talk about how difficult things have been since Obama's repudiation. "One of the pains is—remember, Barack grew up without a father," Hendricks adds. "To jettison your pastor, it's like being abandoned all over again." But there is a lesson here for those who underestimate Obama. He tried to save Wright, standing by him until it became untenable. And when he struck, he struck, and the turbulent pastor was cast out.