Saint misbehavin'

The Obamas’ church became a campaign issue during the primary season, with the release of fiery, racially tinged clips from sermons by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the family’s pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ, an 8,500-member, predominantly black South Side congregation. Looking for your own congregational culture clash? Here are some other Chicago-area churches that are infamous in their own way.

Church Broadway United Methodist Church (3338 N Broadway, 773-348-2679)
Controversy In 1998, then-pastor Rev. Gregory Dell of Boystown’s gay-friendly BUMC became the first United Methodist minister to be formally charged for performing a same-sex union ceremony. Dell faced a church trial and was suspended for a year. BUMC’s current policy doesn’t violate Methodist rules but makes clear the congregation treats all unions as equal.

Church Willow Creek Community Church (67 E Algonquin Rd, South Barrington, 847-765-5000)
Controversy With a 7,200-seat worship center in South Barrington and services videocast to four other Chicagoland “campuses,” including the 4,000-seat Auditorium Theatre, nondenominational evangelical Willow Creek is the second-largest of the country’s so-called megachurches. Some conservative theologians dismiss Senior Pastor Bill Hybels’s “seeker sensitive” philosophy as New Agey nonsense.

Church St. Sabina (1210 W 78th Pl, 773-483-4300)
Controversy “Father Mike,” the popular white parish priest of a mostly black Catholic congregation, has often clashed with Cardinal Francis George over his social-activism agenda. Whether encouraging his parishioners to buy time from prostitutes to proselytize them, or accusing an elementary-school athletic league of racism for excluding Sabina, Pfleger’s always camera-ready.

Church MissioDei Wrigleyville (1242 W Addison St, 773-244-8269)
Controversy Until a name change a few months ago, this young nondenominational church just west of Wrigley Field was known as the Church of Wrigleyville. It called itself “the unofficial church of the Chicago Cubs” and used Cubbie iconography in its branding (suggesting that not even the power of Christ could compel the Cubs to a World Series).

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