First it was the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and now the Reverend Michael Pfleger. What's with Obama's crackpot preacher pals?
One is white and one is black. And there are probably more of them that the Obama campaign is trying to muzzle as we speak. But does Obama seem peculiarly unfortunate in his choice of mentors and allies, or is there an ideological basis to what these preachers are saying?
Chicago, where Obama is from, is the capital of what may be called the Black Liberation Theology movement in the United States. This movement is a legacy of the 1960s, and has more to do with Malcolm X than Martin Luther King.
Malcolm X, you may recall, denounced Christianity as a racist religion which had created what he called a "blond, blue-eyed Jesus." Malcolm X called on blacks to repudiate this bigoted religion. He himself embraced the Nation of Islam with its own peculiar theology.
Some black activists, notably a theologian named James Cone, agreed with Malcolm X. But their solution was not to abandon Christianity. Rather, they countered what they saw as the white man's Christianity with a kind of black equivalent. In this view, Christ was not blond and blue eyed but rather black and Afrocentric. Picture Christ with an Afro and dashiki leading a revolutionary liberation movement against the white Pharoahs and you'll get the picture.
Cone and others spearheaded a new interpretation of the Bible which is now read as a story of emancipation from white racist oppression. Unfortunately what black liberation theology does is to take all the old racial stereotypes and simply invert them. Consequently the new theology was no less race-conscious and prejudiced than the one it sought to replace.
The Reverend Jeremiah Wright explicitly associates himself with black liberation theology. I don't know about Pfleger, but his rhetoric also reflects the same themes. Ironically there are some whites like Pfleger who are attracted to the doctrine of white oppressors and black martyrs. Presumably these whites hope that by allying themselves with black virtue they can escape the moral stigma of being white.
Obama and his campaign managers have been trying to promote the lie that this bizarre cult of black liberation theology is actually mainstream teaching in the black church. And again there is a strain of condescending white liberalism that is quick to agree. "Yes, of course they say crazy things in the black church, Mildred, but you have to understand the terrible things those people have been through."
In reality you only have to sample black churches across the country to see that this is a calumny against black Christians, who are mostly traditional in their understanding of the Bible and who don't spend their Sundays chanting "God damn America!"
I'm relieved that Obama has finally summoned the good sense to quit the Reverend Wright's Trinity Church. Ultimately what Obama needs to repudiate is not only the odd Reverend who happens to embarrass his campaign but the racist ideology that calls itself black liberation theology.
Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 43)
1. But both you and Reverend Wright agree that our country brought 9/11 on itself, don't you?
America's Most Gangsta at 7:34AM on Jun 2nd 2008
2. America's,
Wright says that God punished America because of sin.
DD says that liberals exporting decadent american values abroad, and imposing them on conservative and traditional cultures have caused a blow back... such as 09/11.
kumar at 7:41AM on Jun 2nd 2008
3. my point exactly! you and wright are in agreement on america and 9/11.
America's Most Gangsta at 7:45AM on Jun 2nd 2008
4. DD writes, "Malcolm X, you may recall, denounced Christianity as a racist religion which had created what he called a "blond, blue-eyed Jesus." Malcolm X called on blacks to repudiate this bigoted religion. He himself embraced the Nation of Islam with its own peculiar theology."
Try listening to Christian dogma, explained to you by a non-Christian, as if hearing it for the first time. There's a lot of stuff in there that's mighty peculiar, only we don't recognize it as such because most Christians have been hearing these wacked-out stories their whole lives. Any religion that existed even two hundred years ago tried to explain natural phenomena beyond human understanding at the time -- and as a result, there are some pretty wild stories out there.
DD, if you want the atheists of the world to take your religion seriously, you'd do well to at least foster an appearance of taking the religions of others seriously as well -- especially a religion that is followed by over 20% of the world's population (as reported by the CIA just last year).
Trixie Schizo at 8:02AM on Jun 2nd 2008
5. I love how every time the Right tries to raise suspicions like this they play it out until it's obvious there's nothing to back it up, and then they move on to another one. But then they keep bringing up the old ones as if they were never disproven.
I can't believe Dinesh hasn't written a book about this yet. There are certainly enough rumors about Barack to write a book.
You won't win. Your fearmongering days are over. The people are officially sick and tired of being told what to think by people like YOU. I can't wait until Election Day.
Strados at 8:08AM on Jun 2nd 2008
6. "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
Mahatma Ghandi-
so was, if you will recall, NOT ALLOWED INTO A CHURCH when he wanted to explore Christianity because HE WAS NOT WHITE.
Strados at 8:09AM on Jun 2nd 2008
7. Americas,
DD is making a secular argument as oppsed to Wright who claims that GOd did it
kumar at 8:15AM on Jun 2nd 2008
8. So Obama is trying new churches, good for him. Seeing what else is out there couldn't be a bad thing, right? Gonna be another hot day today but at least I am working close to home again. I get to go home at lunch to check up on the responses here.
a born atheist at 8:27AM on Jun 2nd 2008
9. Jesus was a Jew. There are not many Jews who are also black, these days; and I think it must have been even more rare 2,000 ago when Jesus lived. But it is sad if people need to make Jesus into their own race, or reject Him based upon race. The same happens with feminism overtaking Christianity when some women reject Jesus because He was male, or they start preaching that God is a woman, (despite that the Bible always refers to God in male terms).
Obama made a smart, shrewd, POLITICAL choice to ditch his pastor and church. This will put an end to most of the trouble he would have campaigned through over Jeremiah Wright. I still won't vote for Obama, though, because in my opinion he is a phony Christian who not only drops his pastor and congregation for political expediency, but Obama does likewise with Bible verses, to suit the wicked will of his followers, such as the homosexual movement (though the Bible condemns homosexual acts), and the abortion crowd, (though the Bible condemns killing your own children).
You cannot be a Christian and a Democrat at the same time, not as long as "Democrat" stands for the homosexual agenda and the abortion lobby.
Rev 3:16 at 8:33AM on Jun 2nd 2008
10. Rev. Hagee, enough said.
Dennis at 8:33AM on Jun 2nd 2008
11. Rev, don't start on what the bible says you can't do. blended fabrics???
Dennis at 8:36AM on Jun 2nd 2008
12. Hey Rev, clear this up for me. Was it Moses or Abraham that GOD commanded that they kill their child???
Dennis at 8:43AM on Jun 2nd 2008
13. gee, "kumar", you really seem to care alot about dd's message. Still, secular or not, the general idea is the same. YOU and wright share the belief that America brought 9/11 on ourselves.
America's Most Gangsta at 9:01AM on Jun 2nd 2008
14. The late Pope John Paul II condemned Liberation Theology. Christianity teaches that we are to care for the poor and oppressed, but the central message of the Gospel is salvation from sin through Jesus Christ. Christianity is not a quasi-Marxist movement. Likewise, Black Liberation Theology misses the root cause of racism; sin. Racism is caused by an incorrect understanding of the role of humanity. We are to love and worship God. We are not to worship ourselves as gods. People that are racist have elevate themselves to the level of God determining what is good and bad. God created everything and called it good. Who are we to turn around and say, "Hey, God these people were made badly"? I might add that worship of skin color, gender, ethnicity, nationality, etc. is idolatrous. We are to have no idols.
janesophie1 at 9:10AM on Jun 2nd 2008
15. See everything that's getting thrown at Obama? THIS is why I don't go to church. Ah, what a better candidate he could have been if he wasn't religious.
Wasn't Black Jesus a valid interpretation, that since he came from a place where there were many dark-skinned people, he COULD have been black? That brutha had SOUL!
Rev,
But it's blessed to dash babies against rocks like flesh piñatas (Psalms 137:9).
Mokele Mbembe at 9:11AM on Jun 2nd 2008