When the Reverend
Otis Moss III takes to the pulpit before a congregation
that includes Barack Obama, he's as likely to preach about
Tupac Shakur or one of his favorite authors as he is
the Apostle Paul.
The 37-year-old
''hip-hop pastor,'' as he's called by congregants, will
become the head of Trinity United Church of Christ in June,
taking over at a time of turmoil for the 8,000-member
church, the nation's largest United Church of Christ
congregation,
Moss's ascent
follows the retirement of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright,
whom Obama angrily denounced Tuesday for his ''divisive and
destructive'' remarks.
It's a shift from
more than three decades under Wright, a preacher born
of the civil rights era whose fiery comments about September
11, HIV/AIDS, and other issues have placed the church
under a media microscope.
''Pastor Moss has
inherited the repercussions of an attack he had nothing
to do with,'' said Brenda Salter McNeil, president of an Oak
Park, Ill.-based company that works on
diversity issues in Christian organizations. ''He has
to pastor a people through it.''
Moss, an
assistant pastor at Trinity for two years, is a Yale
Divinity School graduate whose father also is a
prominent preacher and former adviser to Martin Luther
King Jr. His sermons often feature quotes and stories
of the late civil rights leader, who officiated at his
parents' wedding.
At the same time,
the married father of two is a popular leader known for
his contemporary style and ability to draw youths to church
events.
''He understands
that he is ministering to what he calls a 'post-soul
generation,' a generation that has grown up outside of a
context of the traditional church,'' said Moss's
father, the Reverend Otis Moss Jr. ''He speaks to a
generation struggling with all these realities.''
The younger Moss
declined requests for interviews with the Associated
Press but answered several questions by e-mail. He wrote
that his father ''continues to be a major influence''
in his life and that his main message is ''love and
transformation.''
He declined to
answer questions about Wright or Obama. Obama's campaign
declined a request for comment on Moss.
''We have
received unprecedented scrutiny that has taken its toll on
our members, staff, and our senior pastor,'' Moss
recently said of his church. ''Lately our sacred space
has been seized upon and compromised. All of us are
standing with Trinity during this challenging time.''
Trinity has long
stood out among churches nationwide for its social work
on problems including HIV/AIDS, domestic violence, cancer,
and drug abuse. The church calls itself ''unashamedly
black and unapologetically Christian.''
Like Wright, Moss
espouses 1960s black liberation theology, which applies
the Gospel to contemporary struggles against racial
oppression.
Moss ''represents
the tradition of orators in the black church that uses
the pulpit in a way to speak clearly and compellingly in a
way that causes people to be energized, inspired, but
also mobilized,'' Salter McNeil said.
Born and raised
in and around Cincinnati and Cleveland, Moss came to
Chicago from the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Augusta, Ga.,
where he spent seven years as pastor.
''He was like a
magnet; he drew people,'' said Brenda Morton, an
assistant pastor at Tabernacle.
Moss played
basketball with young people and checked report cards. An
avid reader, he was so well-liked that congregants wanted to
know what caught his attention. So Morton started
printing the titles, such as works by Harlem
Renaissance novelist Zora Neale Hurston and civil rights
leader Howard Thurman, in church bulletins.
In 2002, Moss won
the Harrington Prize for promising young pastors,
awarded annually by Presbyterian College in Clinton, S.C.
''He's an
outstanding preacher,'' said Presbyterian's president, John
Griffith. ''The way he exegetes Scripture, it's done
extremely well. His diction, his presentation, it's
dignified, yet powerful.''
In his Easter
sermon at Trinity, Moss stood in front of the choir and
talked of ''ghetto prophets.''
He recited lyrics
from Shakur's ''Thugz Mansion,'' calling the late
rapper ''neither a saint nor demon, but all human.''
He mocked those
who dismiss rap music, saying it isn't ''neatly packaged
for our middle-class digestion'' and rappers shouldn't be
overlooked because of ''coarse language and ragged
subject-verb agreement'' or a ''proclivity for
ghetto-istic conduct.''
Over the next
hour, he weaved in the Gospel of Luke and current events,
his smooth, deep voice erupting twice with shouting in the
stadium-like church.
Despite his ease
at the pulpit, Moss didn't always want to be a pastor.
His childhood
ambition, influenced by Spike Lee, was to become a
filmmaker, said his father, pastor at Olivet Institutional
Baptist Church in Cleveland.
''He used to come
in my study and browse and ask questions about various
books and sometimes thumb through them,'' the elder Moss
said. ''He grew up with a special attachment to books
and writing.''
It wasn't until
one day during track practice at Morehouse College in
Atlanta that he felt a calling to the church.
''An inner voice
spoke so loudly to him that it was obvious that this was
it, an authentic experience,'' the elder Moss said.
While Wright
remains in the spotlight, Moss III and congregants are
focused on preparations for Wright's official retirement on
May 31, said the Reverend Joan Harrell, a Trinity
spokeswoman.
''Pastor Moss is
focusing on the pastoral duties of his members during
this time of heightened interest on Trinity,'' she said.
''He's engaging the congregation to be prayerful and
continue to have their faith in God.'' (AP)
