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 43 of 44)
631. preteristvision tries to slam atheism by saying that atheism needs to have a relative moral code as opposed to theists who have their absolute moral code.
This is nonsense.
List some absolute moral codes preteristvision, and don't say the 'Commandments' because neither you nor any other Christian hold yourselves up to those standards.
If you just come back and say, "Well we try!", then atheists have every right to say that their absolute moral code is, "Live and let live!", and we 'try'.
Eating people or raping children is not 'living and letting live', neither is trying to shove your notion that there MUST be an absolute moral code.
God or no God, there is no absolute moral code.
For example, murder, which is to kill another person.
At the very least, one should be allowed to kill your would-be killer FIRST!
Then there is war and capital punishment.
Most abortions are performed on Christian girls, who, no doubt ask forgiveness later. But that is my point, what is so absolute about a moral code which you can 'break' then simply be forgiven for?
The absolute moral of 'Thou shalt not kill' is not even absolute in the the booklet of the Bible where it was written.
We can read hundreds of examples of moral codes in that same booklet where breaking them are capital crimes! In other words someone is supposed to murder you if you work on the Sabbath or 'dis' your mom and dad or eat shrimp or commit adultery and on and on.
Should you kill me because I do not believe that your God exists, preteristvision?
Moses, it is written, had no problems with that!
Or is it not so absolute these days?
not-pboyfloyd at 9:53PM on Jun 6th 2008
632. What's going on?
not-pboyfloyd at 11:30PM on Jun 6th 2008
633. Tim reference to your comment 335 - You are an idiot, you would not have your freedoms if it were not for the Christian Nation that we started out as being. By allowing others to believe or not to believe has brought us to where we are. Not idiots like you want to slap down the ones who gave you your freedom. You are pathetic.
American Soldier at 5:27PM on Jun 7th 2008
634. floyd - most so called Christians are professing in name only. Mainly because they are Americans, which is generally a Christian nation. Most are far from the Biblical Christians.
American Soldier at 5:29PM on Jun 7th 2008
635. Seems like someone who calls him or herself an American Soldier is probably not.
Ryan Anderson at 7:22PM on Jun 7th 2008
636. Not a soldier or un-american? Or both?
a born atheist at 8:13PM on Jun 7th 2008
637. Obama STILL hasn't answered the question why he spent 20 years listening to Rev. Wight. It shows a great lack of universal love and understanding on his part. USA is so multi-cultural and diverse it would be suicide to let such a man represent our country's highest office.
Kathy at 2:32AM on Jun 8th 2008
638. Michelle Obama. She was raised in a two-parent, middle-class family. She applied to one of America's top universities, Princeton, and was admitted. Of this experience, Michelle says on the stump, "All my life I have confronted people who had a certain expectation of me. Every step of the way, there has been people telling me what I couldn't do. When I applied to Princeton, they said: you can't go there, your test scores aren't high enough."
Which is all very moving, except that her test scores weren't high enough. Michelle Obama is part of the affirmative action generation of above-average but far-from-stellar performers who were granted preferential admission to America's most elite institutions.
Michelle notes that she graduated with honors in her major. Again, the problem is that her undergraduate thesis is on the web. You might expect that she wrote about Shakespeare's sonnets or the political evolution of W.E.B. Du Bois. Well, no. Essentially Michelle Obama wrote about the problems of being a black woman at an Ivy League university.
Here is a typical passage: "By actually working with the Black lower class or within their communities as a result of their ideologies, a separationist may better understand the desparation of their situation and feel more hopeless about a resolution as opposed to an integrationist who is ignorant to their plight."
Alas, the grammar is all wrong here. More than once, the tenses are garbled. People are ignorant "of" the plight of the lower class, not ignorant "to" their plight. And"desparation" should be spelled "desperation." To wreak so much havoc on the English language in one sentence, without conveying anything of substance, is perhaps deserving of a prize. Is this what her professors were thinking when they granted her honors? Whatever the Obamorons say, let's remember that that these are not mere typos; they reflect an estranged relationship to the English language. Moreover they appear not in a daily blog but in a thesis that is supposed to reflect the culmination of one's college career.
Subsequently Michelle went on to further appointments and even managed to cash in big time on her skin color and marriage to Barack Obama. She was hired by the University of Chicago hospitals to run "programs for community relations, neighborhood outrecah, volunteer recruitment, staff diversity, and minority contracting." Here her salary was $400,000 a year.
One might expect that the reaction of someone who gets so many privileges to be grateful to a society that makes them possible. But no. Michelle Obama thinks that her very success is an example of white oppression. By a bizarre twist of logic, she converts "you're not good enough, but we'll take you anyway" into a message of "they said I wasn't good enough, but I proved them wrong."
Ordinarily these psychological peculiarities may be of little interest, except perhaps to a therapist. But Michelle now stands next to a man that may be elected president of the United States. Barack Obama wants everyone to "lay off" his wife. He doesn't seem to realize that this is not a reasonable request concerning a woman who clearly influences him and who stands to have public influence in her own right. Moreover, for months the media has been laying off her precisely because she is his wife. Like Michelle, Obama seems to confuse preferential treatment with ill treatment.
Kathy at 2:37AM on Jun 8th 2008
639. "most so called Christians are professing in name only." - American Soldier
But you can't laud the U.S.A as a Christian nation, that is that the majority of the people of the U.S.A. are christian, then turn around and deem most professing Christians to be only 'so called' Christians.
Are you really saying that the U.S.A is largely a nation of hypocrits?
Either way preteristvision is giving us one 'vision' of how the entire nation should be holding itself up to the absolute values of their religion, it therefore being reasonable to denounce the moral relativism of professing atheists, while you are painting most Christians with that same brush.
What is the point of beleiving that you have Godly absolute values if you don't hold yourself up to these standards?
It is not just people today who paint themselves into a corner, as I pointed out the stories in the booklets themselves profess an absolute value, "Thou shalt not kill", then proceed to 'explain' that religious killing is okay, and killing in war-time is okay.
You can't just blame living Christians for not holding themselves up to the absolute values written in a booklet which doesn't hold itself up to those standards.
"Live and let live.", is a standard by which we can all 'get along' and common law is all that is needed to enforce it.
Why not steal... you'll find yourself standing in front of a judge!
Why not commit adultery... you'll find yourself standing in front of a judge!
The carrot of Christianity was that people were essentially good, essentially brothers, essentially that you ARE your 'brother's keeper'.
The stick of Christianity, is that Christians will go out of their way to demonize those with different views. D'Souza's anti-atheist blogs for example. Your 'not true Christians' attitude for another.
Think about it.
not-pboyfloyd at 4:07PM on Jun 8th 2008
640. HAS IT OCCURED TO ANYONE THAT HE OBAMA HAS WHAT THE 3 FACES OF EVE HAD 3 SEPERATE PERSONALITIES.
SO WHEN HE SEZ "THAT WASN'T THE SO AND SO THAT I KNEW HE IS ANOTHER PERSONALITY. Like OJ he din't do it!! We thought we saw smooth..this man has so many hidden agenda's
eileen at 3:55PM on Jun 9th 2008
641. 640. HAS IT OCCURED TO ANYONE THAT HE OBAMA HAS WHAT THE 3 FACES OF EVE HAD 3 SEPERATE PERSONALITIES.
SO WHEN HE SEZ "THAT WASN'T THE SO AND SO THAT I KNEW HE IS ANOTHER PERSONALITY. Like OJ he din't do it!! We thought we saw smooth..this man has so many hidden agenda's
eileen at 3:55PM on Jun 9th 20
xxx
you forgot that he was born with horns and a tail and that he has a 666 birthmark and a tatoo that says death to whitey and the infidel, crack rules and long live krispy kreme. You need to listen to foxnews more and stop all that commie liberal obama's-a-moderate crap!
Clif Kuplen at 4:04PM on Jun 9th 2008
642. ryan and atheist both are dick heads. I am an American Soldier, and even though I think you are idiots i still defend your right to be one. I have zero tolerance for the fools that sit on their stools of do nothing and bash those who do something. As far as being a Christian, I am, but I am not the best example, but I know the one that is. Personally I think we should declare anti Americans as traitors and publically execute them. Or maybe only as mild as the way we treated traitor in WWII. But hey, I am not in charge. So thank God, whether you believe in Him or not, that I am only a soldier defending our country against our enemies foreign and domestic. But you domestic enemies really make me sick. Bunch of pussies crying that you have it so bad, and you do not have a clue, and you do not want to.
American Soldier at 6:36PM on Jun 10th 2008
643. floyd - "But you can't laud the U.S.A as a Christian nation, that is that the majority of the people of the U.S.A. are christian, then turn around and deem most professing Christians to be only 'so called' Christians. Are you really saying that the U.S.A is largely a nation of hypocrits?"
Well now that is true. They are, we are mostly a self serving bunch of individuals. That is why we are so divided. Many of us have Christian values, and ethics in general, but we are far from being like the Christians of the Bible, and following what Jesus has taught us in his Word. There are lots of things that I like to do, that I do not think God wants me to do, that makes me selfish, and hypocritical.
American Soldier at 6:37PM on Jun 10th 2008
644. CK- I knew it. But actually I think he is the false prophet that goes before the anti-Christ.
American Soldier at 6:38PM on Jun 10th 2008
645. I know plenty of real American Soilders, and none of them would stoop to the facist level of the self-proclaimed "American Soilder" posting here. If he is one, he gives both Americans and Soilders a bad name. "Just as an individual cannot grow without knowing their faults and failures, neither can a nation." When we excercise the freedom of speech to point out our faults and failures, facist like "American soilder" stoop to calling us traitors. We're quite the opposite - we want our country to do better and be better, and we can't do that by glorifying everything about this nation. We deserve better, and we certainly deserved better than those who drool over the fatansy of murdering people, as "American soilder" admits to. Sick. No wonder most of the world hates our military prikes like him.
NewYorker20014 at 8:52AM on Jun 14th 2008