Sunday, March 30, 2008

Black Liberation Theology


Since the dinosaur media was finally forced to acknowledge the issue of Jeremiah Wright and the UCC Trinity Church,the phrase `black liberation theology' has surfaced. Obama himself referred to this obliquely, talking about the sort of conversations he claims routinely occur in black churches -a stereotyped generalization if ever I've heard one.

But what exactly is meant by the phrase 'black liberation theology'? Where did it come from? And what does it reveal about who Barack Obama is?

Black liberation theology is an ethnocentric outgrowth - some would call it a tumor - of 'liberation theology', which was essentially a highly selective interpretation of the Gospels in an attempt to co-opt Christianity to promote communism and marxism. Liberation theology began with the Catholic Church in Latin America and elsewhere, and was used by radical priests and nuns who supported Fidel, Che Guevara, the Shining Path terrorists in Peru and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Later, it spread to some of the mainstream Protestant denominations in other areas.

Black liberation theology mixes this ideology with racist rhetoric derived from the black power movement back in the 1970's.

Jeremiah Wright himself was originally a member of the Nation of Islam, but later returned to Christianity as he latched onto the views of two race based theologists who became his mentors, Dwight Hopkins and James Cone.

Wright himself acknowledged this in a bizarre interview with Fox News on March 15th with Sean Hannity.

Both Hopkins and Cone are now tenured radicals in academia. Hopkins is a professor at the University of Chicago's Divinity School; Cone works out of New York's Union Theological Seminary.

Back in the late 1960's and the early 1970's theologians like Hopkins and Cole essentially decided that blacks were the Chosen People. James Cone, the dean of the 'black liberation' theological school of thought, teaches that Jesus Christ himself is black, rather than a Jew:

"Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community ... Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love. "

(from William R Jones, "Divine Racism: The Unacknowledged Threshold Issue for Black Theology, in African-American Religious Thought: An Anthology")
Or, to put it more simply, unless G-d hates whitey, black people have no use for him!

Movements like black liberation theology reject the idea of G-d's universal nature in favor of race based superiority. The largely secular Nazis used a similar logic to co-opt the German churches with the "Aryan Christianity" movement in Nazi Germany, which claimed that Jesus was not a Jew but an Aryan Galilean, and that the Aryan race was the "chosen people".

Substitute `black' or `Afro-American' for Aryan and that is exactly where the UCC Trinity Church and Jeremiah Wright are coming from.

And this is what Obama was referring to in his March 14 speech when he said: "I knew Reverend Wright as someone who served this nation with honor as a United States Marine, as a respected biblical scholar, and as someone who taught or lectured at seminaries across the country, from Union Theological Seminary to the University of Chicago."

Interesting the way the dots connect, isn't it?

Unfortunately for Barack Obama, leftist academia is by its very nature a lot more tolerant of racism and anti-Semitism when it comes from people like Cone, Hopkins and Wright than America as a whole.

So the question remains...does Barack Obama actually believe this claptrap?

Impossible to say.

Political life in black America is centered around churches, and Obama had political ambitions. Trinity United happens to be Chicago's largest and most politically active black church, and as a black man in that part of Chicago with political ambitions, it may be that he merely used the Trinity United Church of Christ as a political stepping-stone for his election to the Illinois State Senate.

On the other hand, he and his wife have been active members for two decades, and have a long standing close personal relationship with Jeremiah Wright..or as Obama himself put it, this racist and anti-Semite is `like family.' Even more damning as far as I'm personally concerned is that he allowed his children to listen to and be indoctrinated by Wright during their formative years. One customarily doesn't do that with one's children unless one agrees with what is being taught on a deep level.

I think the answer lies in the conflicted nature of Barack Obama himself.

Growing up almost entirely outside of the perspective of an American black, by his own admission Obama deliberately sought that kind of militant black street cred back in his college years, almost as if he were trying to fill a hole within himself by pretending.

It would be ironic, but quite fitting if Obama, the great pretender now gets bitch slapped because of what he may have been pretending to be for years.....selah.

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13 comments:

GW said...

Great post.

Freedom Fighter said...

High praise indeed coming from you, my friend..

Ymarsakar said...

Unfortunately for Barack Obama, leftist academia is by its very nature a lot more tolerant of racism and anti-Semitism when it comes from people like Cone, Hopkins and Wright than America as a whole.

They have never been intolerant of racism in America. Remember Reconstruction, the Redemption Democrats, the copperheads, the fall of the Republican state governments after federal troops were pulled post Civil War?

There's been a long history of tolerance of racism by the Democrat party. There's can be no justified denial of that.

Anonymous said...

If you dig further into Cone's teachings, you find that he specifically identifies black in this context as anyone who experiences oppression, with African Americans as the archetype of the oppressed. I do not agree with the theology, but it is a gross misrepresentation to simply say that Crone advocates whitey=evil, black people (ie specifically and only people of african decent)=good. If you want to critisize what someone has to say, at least take the time to make sure you're actually representing what they have to say in a reasonably accurate way, which this post does not.

Freedom Fighter said...

Hi Rebakkat, thanks for dropping by.

As far as what you've written here goes however, I unfortunately have two words - horse manure.

Actually, I 'delved' into this quite enough to stand by what I've written.

If a white theologian used the same terminology but switched the words black and white,you'd have no trouble denouncing him as a bigot.

Cone specifically uses those terms...are you channeling him, since you claim to know what he meant?

One can also impute much from the bigotry, anti-Semitism and racism evidenced by those who have been influenced by Cone and his ilk - like Jeremiah Wright.

Did they all get the message wrong as well? Cause and effect do count for something, do they not?

Sorry. I refuse to indulge in what amounts to apologetics and rationalization for racism just because it comes from a black man.

Nor do I think that 'oppression' is a justification for racism.

Regards,
ff

Anonymous said...

ff, stop being an arse. I didn't say I agreed with the guy or thought his teachings were justifiable. I said that you are misrepresenting what he actually said. Which is factually true. The day that I then turn around and say that black liberation theology is great stuff and you're just being a poopy head, you would be quite justified in coming back with your own poopy head nonsense. But I didn't do that, so take the burr out of your hindquarters, grab a drink and see if you can get your knee to stop jerking so hard your foot winds up in your mouth. You misrepresented Cone's message. Simple fact. That doesn't make Cone right, it just means that if you want to be taken seriously, you need to be intellectually honest enough to represent what they guy actually teaches. Besides, there are MUCH bigger problems with black liberation theology than any racism which may be present in it. If you want to write something which is actually interesting rather than rely on sloppy thinking to say the same thing a kagillion other people have already said (using the same misrepresentation you used here), you could dig into that. The intellectual dissonance required for someone like Obama to buy into this stuff is staggering. And that's completely outside of any actual issues of race. But that would require thinking and research (as in reading something other than what other commentators have written about it), and it's so much easier to bitch and moan under the weight of your negro overlords, isn't it?

Freedom Fighter said...

Hello, Rebeccat, and welcome back.

I apologize for intimating from your original post that you were indulging in the quaint science of apologetics and rationalization for Obama and the good reverend. It certainly did seem so, given the language you used...but I will certainly take your word for it that I was mistaken.

If we accept that, it seems to me then that we have one major difference, if I understand you.You claim that I devoted insufficient research into the likes of David Cone and his ideas and overemphasized the racial aspect thereof. I, on the other hand,feel I presented a good outline of his twisted beliefs,including their marxist roots. And I don't feel I overemphasized the racial aspect at all. Why else do you think Obama tried to defend Wright (Cone and Hopkins' disciple) by emphasizing the racial aspect in The Speech and claiming that this sort of language is common in black churches? (It isn't by the way, as I can personally testify).

Was Jesus II mistaken and misrepresenting as well?

After all, Hitler had a lot to say about economics,vegetarianism and other issues in Mein Kampf, but the racial element was paramount - the handle of the cup, as it were, just as it is with Cone and his ilk. So I feel totally justified in using it to present an overview of what these people believe, and don't feel I misrepresented him in the least.

If one finds a rotten piece of meat in the kitchen, most rational people will simply toss the whole thing into the garbage, even if part of it looks like it might not be green and stinking.

Quod et demonstradum, Rebeccat.

Now, I normally try to write with a certain amount of brevity and get to the heart of the matter without messing about.Nothing bores me more than pages of bloviation.

However Rebeccat, I respect your spunk and issue the following invitation.

You appear to have ambitions in the area of writing. If you think that what I've written is uninteresting and insufficiently detailed, write something you think is better on the subject.

You may e-mail it to me at Rmill2k@msn.com and I will be happy to look it over and publish it onsite if it's decent.

It might be interesting to see how our cousins across the pond view this matter.

Cordially,
ff

Anonymous said...

This is just trash writing, no research, no historical context, complete opinion and inaccurate at that. Josh, your writing is full of lies and why is that? If you really want to know about black liberation theology take a look at both
Bishop henry Mcniel Turner (methodist minister)
and
Henry Highland Garnet (presbyterian)
And dont be so dismissive or ignorant of the the facts.

Freedom Fighter said...

Whaddup Cedric -
Yeah, and Black Liberation Theology is full of marxism bigotry and victimology!

Glad you enjoyed the article.

Cordially,
ff

Anonymous said...

Hee hee hee! This guy Cedric's a riot! Let's call him Cedric The Entertainer!

Whoo ff, you sure attracted a live one here!

Freedom Fighter said...

Monkey...haven't I warned you before about abusing the commenters? And weren't you supposed to be finishing up that interview with you-know -who?

Hmmm?

Where is it?

Anonymous said...

Almost done ff..honest.

I think I'll go work on it some more now.

Anonymous said...

Linked on Conservapedia to Black Liberation Theology. For how long is anyones guess because blog to encyclopedia is a no-no.