Read more coverage of Wright’s scheduled visit.

Sen. Barack Obama’s former pastor will be honored at a Brite Divinity School banquet March 29, despite recent concerns from the public in response to media reports of the pastor’s harsh past sermons.

A statement released Monday from Brite stated that the school would continue to honor and recognize the Rev. Jeremiah Wright at the fourth annual State of the Black Church Awards Banquet for his 40-year ministry linking divine justice and social justice.

The release also stated that Brite does not endorse all of the statements or views of any of the church leaders recognized by the school.

Newell Williams, president of Brite, said the decision to continue to honor Wright came after careful review of his ministry and conversations with church leaders who worked with Wright in the past.

Williams also said the context of a sermon in print could be viewed differently than if it were heard in person.

Watch the Rev. Jeremiah Wright on YouTube

In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Obama denounced the controversial sermons from Wright in which the just-retired pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago called on blacks to condemn the U.S. and accused U.S. leaders of state-sponsored terrorism that invited the September 11 attacks.

“We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye,” Wright said in a videotaped sermon he gave on the Sunday following Sept. 11, 2001 that was posted on the Internet.

Wright also said in a taped 2003 sermon available online, “The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible, for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.”

Obama said he didn’t attend the controversial Wright sermons that are now circulating on the Internet.

This report contains material from McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.