The pastor was into visual sermons. So shortly after 9/11, he flashed images of Saddam Hussein, Adolph Hitler, Bill Clinton and I think Rock Hudson on the sanctuary screen. With red laser damnation he pointed out each image.

“These are the people who are or will be burning in hell,” he told the congregation.

My wife and I got up and walked out.

A few other times, when the sermon wasn’t fitting, we walked out, too. The last time we didn’t look back. But for five years we attended a church where we didn’t always share the same views as the pastor or even some of the congregation. And over the years I’ve attended other churches where I disagreed with the pastor’s message.

Heck, one time I even sat and listened to a preacher preach on how God didn’t want mixing of the races. If he did, the pastor reasoned, he wouldn’t have put us on different continents.

No joke.

Another church, another time I watched a pastor take the Sunday newspaper into the pulpit along with his Bible. He then proceeded to give everybody his version of what God thinks about the news. What I gathered from his sermon was that God hated gays, Democrats and Saturday nights.

I always left these churches wondering if these guys had ever received the New Testament version of the Bible. You know, the part that has stuff in it about not casting stones and hating the sin but loving the sinner?

Now at any given time someone could have seen me walking out the doors of these churches. And if they did, they could very well assume I believed the same way.

Of course not everything these pastors preached was off course. After all, it was still the Bible they used and not Mad magazine.

And these pastors were all human. Humans make mistakes. That’s why we have the Bible in the first place and ... well, you get my meaning.

Now presidential candidate Barack Obama is being held accountable for remarks made by his former minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

The Rev. Wright has at times preached fiery messages of condemnation. He’s reportedly said that God condemned America and that we brought the 9/11 attacks upon ourselves as a result of our racist policies. He also condemned the government for past and present transgressions against blacks.

“Shall I not bring retribution on a nation such as this?” Jeremiah said, according to several news reports, supposedly on behalf of God. “They shall become as dung on the face of the earth. And death will be preferable to life for all that are left of this wicked folk.”

The good reverend also reportedly said that the U.S. government was responsible for placing illegal drugs in the black community and creating HIV.

Now some camps are condemning Obama for not leaving the church soon after his pastor preached such condemnation. How many churches would be empty if we all did?

I left people still sitting in the pews when I walked out the door of those aforementioned churches. I even sat there myself for a while.

TAX REBATE STIMULUS

City councilwoman Joyce Starr called last week concerned that many seniors didn’t know that they too might be eligible to receive money from the government’s tax rebate stimulus package.

But they have to file a 2008 tax return.

Seniors should call their tax preparers to see if they qualify.

Alonzo Weston can be reached

at alonzow@npgco.com.