CHICAGO — This was supposed to be a day of celebration and new beginnings.
A day for the faithful at Trinity United Church of Christ to end a 10-week fast for spiritual power and unity. A celebration of the retirement of their fiery longtime leader, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. A fresh start for the South Side parish, which has been embroiled for months in controversy over incendiary comments from the pulpit and has become a distraction to the presidential campaign of one of its own -- Barack Obama.
But Sunday's services at one of the country's largest and most influential African American churches were overshadowed by another poignant first: In the church where Obama married and where his children were baptized, this was the first Sunday in 20 years that the presidential hopeful did not call the sanctuary home.
In a letter to the church's leaders, Obama said he and his wife, Michelle, had sadly decided to resign their membership, saying their relations with Trinity "had been strained by the divisive statements" of the retiring pastor, "which sharply conflict with our own views."
The news came as a shock to many parishioners.
It was less than two months ago when Obama told the nation that, despite video snippets of Wright's sermons criticizing the U.S. government -- and exclaiming "God damn America" -- he could not "disown" either the man or the church that helped shape his faith.
As thousands of churchgoers gathered on a warm spring morning Sunday, some directed their anger toward those they blamed for the loss of a favored son: the media.
"Why won't they leave?" Melissa Dwight-Washington asked.
Block after block, along West 95th Street and the side streets leading up to Trinity, reporters peppered her and other anxious churchgoers with questions about Obama's departure. Glaring at the satellite trucks and clusters of news camera crews, she shook her head in disgust.
"Leave us alone," she mumbled. "They've already driven one of our best away."
For months, church members -- a mix of the working class and well-to-do -- have insisted that the media's portrayal of Trinity and Wright, a former Marine, is unrecognizable.
They've prayed for guidance and exchanged knowing nods inside the spiritual home that Wright spent more than three decades building into an empire -- in an area that is about 95% African American.
