Saturday, March 22, 2008

The skin of God

Spengler at the Asia Times takes a serious look at the theology of Jeremiah Wright, and indirectly at that of Barack Obama.  The religious ideas taught at Wright's Trinity Church are derived from those of the "black liberation" theologians James Cone and Dwight Hopkins.  During an interview with Sean Hannity, Wright chastised Hannity for his ignorance of the works of these two theologians, who basically argue that since God must take the part of the oppressed, He is essentially "black". And any God who isn't "black" is therefore an agency of the devil.

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.

The McClatchy Newspapers has a comparable piece on Wright's theology by Margaret Talev, who situates the roots of Cone's book, Black Theology and Black Power in the civil rights movement of the 1960s.  "Cone wrote that the United States was a white racist nation and the white church was the Antichrist for having supported slavery and segregation." But even after the 60s the ideas of Black Theology lived on, in Trinity Church most especially.

In an interview, Cone said that when he was asked which church most embodied his message, "I would point to that church (Trinity) first." Cone also said he thought that Wright's successor, the Rev. Otis Moss III, would continue the tradition. Obama, 46, who's biracial, joined Trinity in his late twenties when he worked as a community organizer. He says he'll continue to worship there.

Thus Jeremiah Wright's widely publicized soundbites are not the incoherent 'rants' and ramblings of an "angry old man" or of slightly senile "old uncle" but the deliberate and vigorous exposition of a systematic point of view which the congregants have every intention of acting upon. Wright's words are not just vocalizations, but 'words that have meaning' in social, personal and foreign affairs. And one of those ideas is apparently the implicit recognition of the right of other oppressed races to create Gods in their own shade of blackness.

For example, the 8,000-member congregation embraces the idea that Jesus was black. It's historically supported left-wing social and foreign policies, from South Africa to Latin America to the Middle East. ... Wright, who hasn't been giving interviews since the controversy broke, told conservative TV talk-show host Sean Hannity last year that Trinity's black value system also had parallels to the liberation theology of laypeople in Nicaragua three decades ago. There, liberation theology became associated with Marxist revolution and the Sandinistas, and split the Roman Catholic Church.

I think Spengler is wrong when he says that Jeremiah Wright's racial theology "is as silly as the 'Aryan Christianity' popular in Nazi Germany, which claimed that Jesus was not a Jew at all but an Aryan Galilean".  Aryan Christianity was a mere provincial vanity;  a straightforward claim that a particular race was "chosen". Wright's theology is more subtle. Membership in his elect is defined by which race you don't belong to. The doors to heaven are open to everyone except members of the white race, whose burden, in contrast to Kipling's idea of responsibility, is actually inexpiable guilt. Upon the whites a curse of evil is laid that may not be lifted until the world's end or its change. An indio, Arab and black Jesus are all possible. It is the white Jesus that is inadmissible.

The Cone-Wright view is mirrored in other "liberation" ideologies. For example Edward Said argued in his book Orientalism that whiteness had corrupted knowledge itself. He argued that the West could never know the Arab world because it was conditioned to prejudices of superiority; the white man could never know the truth. The European point of view ipso facto "produced a false description of Arabs and Islamic culture ... The notion that Muslims suffer such a form of arrested development not only is false, he maintains, but also ignores more recent and important influences such as the experience of colonialism, imperialism, and, even, ordinary politics." The recovery of true knowledge required first of all the banishment of the European point of view. But even Said isn't original. His ideas are adaptations of earlier Marxist and Islamist ideas. As Keith Windschuttle wrote:

Said is widely regarded by students of literature and cultural studies as not only one of the founders of the postcolonial movement in criticism and of multiculturalism in politics, but still one of their chief gurus. This is despite the fact that his work was not original, as Said himself acknowledges. It is a synthesis and elaboration of two separate theses. One was an analysis that emerged among a number of Muslim academics working in Europe in the 1960s. ... The other source of Said’s inspiration also derived from Paris in the Sixties. This is the writing of Michel Foucault, especially his notion that academic disciplines do not simply produce knowledge but also generate power. Said uses Foucault to argue that Orientalism helped produce European imperialism.

The relationship between Said's Islam and the West has so many parallels with Cone's world of blacks and whites as to suggest that Wright's admiration for Louis Farrakhan may not be accidental at all; but rooted in an intellectual affinity. While Trinity Church is ostensibly Christian, perhaps its real sister church is the Nation of Islam.  Compare Cone's assertion that "black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy", and Jeremiah Wright's sermon claiming that Jesus was a poor black man crucified by rich white people with Farrakhan's argument that whites are subhumans who through some demonic assistance have enslaved the world.

White people are potential humans…they haven’t evolved yet. ... The Blackman is the original man. From him came all brown, yellow, red, and white people. By using a special method of birth control law, the Blackman was able to produce the white race. This method of birth control was developed by a Black scientist known as Yakub, who envisioned making and teaching a nation of people who would be diametrically opposed to the Original People. ... The Qur'an says that God created Adam out of black mud and fashioned him into shape. So if white people came from the original people, the Black people, what is the process by which you came to life?

If there is anything worse than being white in liberation theology it is being Jewish. While the pulpits of Chicago and Egypt may be thousands of miles apart their themes can be quite similar. "In his weekly sermon the Sheikh of Al-Azhar, Muhammad Sayyid Al-Tantawi, the most senior authority in the Sunni Muslim world, described the Jews as 'the enemies of Allah, sons of pigs and apes.'"

Thirteenth-century Koran commentator Al-Qurtubi explained that two approaches developed among clerics on this matter: The first considers all apes to be the offspring of the sons of Israel. Those of this view base their belief on Hadiths in which the Prophet Muhammad warned against eating particular animals, such as mice and lizards, for fear that they were originally the sons of Israel. The second states that the apes who used to be Jews left no offspring, and that therefore today's apes, pigs, and other animals are the offspring of animals in existence before the divine punishment. Early Islamic commentator Ibn Abbas maintained that anyone whose form was changed lived for no more than three days and did not eat, drink, or propagate. Ibrahim Al-'Ali, writing in Falastin Al-Muslima, states that the Jews who were turned into apes, pigs, lizards, and mice were also punished by not being able to reproduce. However, he claims, "The extinction of the Jews punished with transformation does not mean that their punishment had ended. The punishment left its mark in the souls of the Jews who came after them: their spirit, their opinions, their feelings, and their ways of thought - which are reflected in face and external appearance - became like their nature and like the appearance of apes and pigs, and this profoundly affected their ways of behavior."

Hell is populated with whites and Jews while heaven is thronged with blacks and Muslims. And remarkably this theology is not only allegorical but literal. The idea that God might actually have a skin with pigmentation or a passport was to be found not only in Nazi Germany, Wright's church, Farrakhan's mosque or in the universities of the Middle East. It was also present even a few decades ago in apartheid South Africa. Robert Kennedy's story is perhaps the most famous example of the belief that God is white.

During five days this summer, my wife Ethel and I visited South Africa, talking to all kinds of people representing all viewpoints. Wherever we went–Pretoria, Cape Town, Durban, Stellenbosch, Johannesburg–apartheid was at the heart of the discussion and debate.

Our aim was not simply to criticize but to engage in a dialogue to see if, together, we could elevate reason above prejudice and myth. At the University of Natal in Durban, I was told the church to which most of the white population belongs teaches apartheid as a moral necessity. A questioner declared that few churches allow black Africans to pray with the white because the Bible says that is the way it should be, because God created Negroes to serve.

“But suppose God is black,” I replied. “What if we go to Heaven and we, all our lives, have treated the Negro as an inferior, and God is there, and we look up and He is not white? What then is our response?” There was no answer. Only silence.

Probably the most absurd example of the dogma of a racial God is the Iglesia Watawat ng Lahi (The Church of the Banner of the Race), an ultranationalist sect in the Philippines which proclaims that God is a Filipino. The sect exists even today in and around the town of Calamba, Laguna, a town some 35 miles south of Manila, though they have sacred caves in an extinct volcano called Mount Banahaw -- eerie places lit by candles and inscribed with pig Latin inscriptions -- which I used to occasion out of curiosity back when my world was only bounded by distance and the amount of fare available. And yet it is through the memory of the poor Iglesia Watawat ng Lahi that I understand the Nation of Islam and Trinity Church. The sense of grievance; the delusional doctrines; the genuinely touching hope for the coming of a racial savior is Millenarianism, pure and simple.

Racialist theologies are so absurd that they are probably atheisms or political programs in religious disguise. Ivan in the Brothers Karamazov renounces God out of a love for mankind; he wants to supplant the deity with man. And when Jeremiah Wright puts a black man on the Throne of God we should recognize the obvious: that there is no God left after the transaction, only a man raised as high as human hands can hold. Dostoevky's character Kirilov observed "if you shoot yourself, you'll become God, isn't that right?" Or as Cone put it orbicularly "Hope is the expectation of that which is not. It is the belief that the impossible is possible, the 'not yet' is coming in history." He might have been talking about Obama. Margaret Talev at McClatchy Newspapers writes:

It isn't clear where Obama's beliefs and the church's diverge. Through aides, Obama declined requests for an interview or to respond to written questions about his thoughts on Jesus, Cone or liberation theology. Trinity officials also didn't respond to requests.

Sometimes I wonder whether on some level Barack Obama seriously hopes to become the savior and liberator of his self-chosen people or Peachy Carnehan -- the Man Who Would Be King -- on the largest scale. That would be an ambition larger, almost, than becoming President of the United States.




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37 Comments:

Blogger El Baboso said...

Obama's wife's public utterances seem to show that she's bought into Black Liberation Theology. Obama is rather more coy.

3/22/2008 07:58:00 AM  
Blogger tckurd said...

Imagine a world where we all fight about who's imaginary friend is the greatest, coolest, biggest, deadliest, and now... blackest.

Whatever did I do to awaken in this place?

3/22/2008 08:04:00 AM  
Blogger Fred said...

I think Spengler's closing paragraph puts the controversy in its most accurate light: he may suffer the consequences politically for what he pretended to be, not for who he really is. I agree with Spengler in his previous article, that the women in Obama's life hold the secret to who he really is.

Learned Christians can immediately identify as a heresy ethnocentric soteriology. The amazing statements to the effect that Jesus was a black man fool no one except for those who emotionally pour that wish into the symbolism of the Cross.

I still agree with some aspects of Liberation Theology, just not "black" liberation theology, which I find to be utterly bereft of subtlety or systematic thought. I've read perhaps two dozen books on Liberation Theology many years ago when I was a Jesuit seminarian. I remember in the mid eighties when Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger went on the offensive against it - and distinctly remember being anxious to follow his line of reasoning and to understand it, being, as I was, a Leftist Catholic who favored some of this theology, including some aspects of Marxist analysis, which Ratzinger rejected. I wanted to keep an open mind to how the Vatican's top theologian discerned deviant tendencies within it. Nevertheless, I was still a bit resistant to his viewpoint even while I let his thinking tickle my brain for years going forward.

It was only with more knowledge, life experience, and exposure to books and articles in psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience that I could see the grave errors in the soteriology of Liberation Theology. The human condition is assailed by afflictions that go way beyond the political and socioeconomic and are even cosmic in their implications. If Marxism is wrong - and I believe it is - then any theology that is overly reliant on it is fatally flawed.

The aspects of Liberation Theology which I still agree with, with qualifications, are: God's special, but not exclusive, concern for the poor and oppressed. I agree that there are conditions of oppression that cry out to God for redress, but the solutions will not be found in some kind of collectivization or unwise redistribution of wealth and resources.

A Liberation Theology that is ethnocentric is truly an ignorant reductionism. Within a theology that is beset with the temptations of reductionism, the ethnocentric kind gets the Darwin Award.

3/22/2008 08:52:00 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Put a shinny object in front of them and see which monkey reaches for it first and then which monkey covets it most by killing the others.

3/22/2008 09:17:00 AM  
Blogger Alexis said...

What? Are you telling me those of Pastafarianism are all wrong, that G-d really isn’t a flying spaghetti monster? What is the world coming to?

I think it’s wise to take Isaiah 55:8-9 to heart and not claim our own failings are divine.

3/22/2008 09:19:00 AM  
Blogger John Hawkins said...

The Civil Rights Act was passed two years before I was born. By the time I entered Grade School, Little Rock High had graduated several classes of black seniors who had never spent a day of their lives in a segregated school. Slavery, of course, had ended a century before. Government sanctioned racism was made illegal before I was born.

I am in my forties, and yet I still see large numbers of black people my age or younger embittered by things they never endured. I used to wonder how that could be, but Jeremiah Wright explains it. Even though two generations have grown up since the end of Jim Crow, angry, bitter, hateful and cynical abominations like Jeremiah Wright infect the younger generations with the hatred they carry in their hearts.

Obama's own family is the perfect example of how this disease is transmitted. He takes his little girls to hear Wright tell them to hate whitey. He tells them "Whitey did these things to me, and he'll do them to you if you ever trust him."

His wife is perhaps the ultimate example. She grew up in a middle class home and appears to have made it into college without a great deal of racial animoisity. It was only when she was exposed to the race-baiting environment of her Ivy League schools that she started thinking of herself primarily as a black woman and now has taken the poison into her heart and become embittered and angry. Despite the opportunites and success this country has offered her.

Black Liberation Theology is a major impediment to racial harmony. Perhaps the last remaining obstacle. Were it a White institution, we would have no hesitation in destoying it. Eventually, we'll realize it has to go, but how much more harm will we let it do before we accept that?

3/22/2008 09:59:00 AM  
Blogger NahnCee said...

My father was enamored of the ideas put forth in "Chariots of the Gods" by Erich von Daniken. As I remember it, the hypothesis was that UFO's had impregnated part of the cro-magnon population, which caused a split at that point between homo erectus and a new superior UFO-inspired breed which would go on to develop most of mankind's discoveries.

Incidental to this was that the UFO's also returned to build the Pyramids, to show the Mayans star calendars, and to build both crop circles and huge drawings in the deserts of Peru.

You do have to wonder, though, why it is that one race is primarily responsible for all the forward movement of the human race, and why many of the world's other races can't seem to keep up and are throwing tantrums about their perceived exclusion.

Maybe it's just the same phenomena that we see in America being the sole uber-country in the world, and all the other countries ganging up to try to keep Gulliver tied down.

Is it really *that* hard to more or less get along, to educate yourself in order to build upon what others have already done, and to get up in the morning to go to a job to build something?

3/22/2008 10:04:00 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

"Is it really *that* hard to more or less get along, to educate yourself in order to build upon what others have already done, and to get up in the morning to go to a job to build something?"

Ah, to destroy something is easy, witness the small child, rip apart his world as he learns of his surroundings, it is the most natural of human behaviours, and takes little mental energies.

But to build something, that takes effort, energy, patience and understanding. It may take years of painstaking practice to accomplish the simplest of tasks. Endless hours of study, to learn the how and why. These things are all alien to the mind that seeks its salvation in emotion and easy escape. Life is hard, and made doubly so by the sophists who fool the unwary for no more than mere personal advantage.

3/22/2008 11:13:00 AM  
Blogger Alexis said...

fred:

Whenever a politician refers to “The American Dream”, one can reasonably assume he is a priest from the church of Mammon. The ideological opposite of “The American Dream” isn’t Marxism, nor Islam, nor any other kind of worldly utopia. It is Christianity.

Money is important, yet it is merely a tool. A hammer is a tool. A computer is a tool. Money is a tool. It is a means to create comfort and solve immediate problems, but it does not solve the problems of the heart. Liberation can never come from the amount of possessions one has, for if money were truly liberating, the worship of Mammon would be a good idea. And if money were truly liberating, wouldn’t the side effects of moral short cuts be less horrible than living without the money such short cuts allow?

Yes, it is important to alleviate the suffering caused by material deprivation. Yet, all too often, there is a difference between the material deprivation resulting from a lack of opportunity and the material deprivation that is the result of deep spiritual wounds. One of the problems with creating a material utopia is that once the project is completed, the joy that went into creating it vanishes. Children cannot inherit the personal satisfaction from the achievements of their ancestors; all they can do is seek their own encounter with the divine through their labors.

The church of Jeremiah Wright may look like a house of splendor, yet I see poverty. All the money in the world cannot heal the wounds felt by and inflicted by that church. As an historian, I studied the effect one hate-filled preacher could have on a sleepy Midwestern town in the 1920’s. He filled the pews with parishioners who had never gone to church before as he converted an ordinary church into Klan Central for his entire state. He was responsible for burning a cross in front of the local Catholic church across the street. Sixty years later, there were still tensions between Protestant and Catholic children in that neighborhood.

There is more poverty in such churches of hate than I have ever seen from Sudanese refugees whose travails are all too real. Time and time again, those who feel the most grievance are not those who have suffered the most material abuse.

3/22/2008 11:18:00 AM  
Blogger hdgreene said...

I love our media. If you are running for Governor and they don't like your politics, and if you belonged to the wrong racket ball club five years ago, they will hound you about it until election day.

Sen. Obama belongs to a racist church and makes a nice speech and it's over. He can go to the Easter Services if he wants. I love it.

I almost read an article about the "Political implications" of Obama's speech for the PA primary. The first four hundred words were a swoon for the Senator, so I stopped reading.

Now that the media has told us what to say we can have our conversation on race. I'm thinking most people ain't going to be speaking. I asked a Hillary Clinton voter what she thought of Obama's speech. She shrugged, "He is standing by his pastor." She did not say it like it's a good thing. I ran the "Jesus was black and the white christian church is the antichrist" idea by her. She said, "I know." And not like she agreed.

A problem for the media is that they don't take religion seriously. The Virgin Birth and the Doctrine of Transubstantiation are as absurd to them as the doctrines of Sen. Obama's church (and maybe more so -- his church is at least Marxist). However, if you take the doctrines of your own church seriously, why wouldn't you assume Obama takes his? And if he is fooling people into thinking he believes as they do (while looking down on their religion) just to get ahead politically, why would that recommend him? Maybe he'll fool you, too.

Of course the media is hugely powerful and they will likely turn this around by election day. Certainly they can push this below the surface. People know what they should say in this "conversation on race." And they will say it. And then they will vote.

But I'm reminded of the torpedoes carried on hunter-killer subs. They'll come at their surface quarry at a depth of three hundred feet. And the target could be the biggest, sleekest ship on the ocean. But that torpedo will blow the water out from under it, and the sea will swallow it up in a matter of seconds. And that could come as quite a shock, when and if it happens. But I wouldn't look for it until November.

3/22/2008 11:24:00 AM  
Blogger PeterBoston said...

FWIW Jeremiah Wright drives a new Porsche and lives in a $750,000 house in a predominantly White neighborhood. That would put good ol'Jeremiah probably in the top 10% or so of wealthy otherworldy damned Americans. I suppose he inherited the money and doesn't stick his hand that deeply into the church's cookie jar.

NBC and the NYT et al will try to soften the story but it will not work just as it did not work in 2000 or 2004. About 20% of Americans (and all other populations) are somewhere between deranged and sociopathic. They''ll buy into it but the majority of the rest have already seen through Obama.

3/22/2008 12:10:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

"Obama's own family is the perfect example of how this disease is transmitted.

He takes his little girls to hear Wright tell them to hate whitey.

He tells them
"Whitey did these things to me, and he'll do them to you if you ever trust him."
"
---
Speculate all you want about who or what Obama really is, or is not.

For Barry and his Lovely Wife to expose their two little girls to Wright's hate-filled Hellhole is evil, pure and simple.
---

The American Thinker: Obama's Anger.

---
Sailer's Summation

Man, what a family full of drama queens! And now Obama is equating his own grandma, who was the main breadwinner in this dysfunctional family circus (and who is still alive, living in the Honolulu highrise where this scene took place), with Rev. Dr. God Damn America.

Classy.

The Washington Monthly's liberal blogger Kevin Drum , who voted for Obama, commented about this scene and others:

"Obama routinely describes himself feeling the deepest, most painful emotions imaginable (one event is like a "fist in my stomach," for example, and he "still burned with the memory" a full year after a minor incident in college), but these feelings seem to be all out of proportion to the actual events of his life, which are generally pretty pedestrian."

3/22/2008 12:14:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

The MSM still wields great influence, but no amount of gushing about the greatness of Barry's Teleprompter Aided Emoting can cover up his defensive default:
Recycled Race Hustling.
---
Barry studied Wright's delivery for years, others provide the script for the Teleprompter, and Barry performs.

Absent the script and the Teleprompter, Barry is reduced to uh's, stammers, and you knows.

3/22/2008 12:25:00 PM  
Blogger Alexis said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

3/22/2008 12:49:00 PM  
Blogger Alexis said...

My interest in studying that particular Klan-affiliated church comes from my research into a university president who attended it. For some reason, there were members of the university faculty who thought this particularly divisive president's attendance at Klan Central was an endorsement of Klan activity. Imagine that.

If the mainstream media is correct that Barack Obama's attendance of a racist church doesn't show endorsement of its teachings, I would have been utterly wrong that a university president’s attendance of a Klan-affiliated church would have shown any implicit endorsement of the Ku Klux Klan. It wasn’t as though he was required to attend that church, for the Ku Klux Klan was not particularly strong in that state.

3/22/2008 12:54:00 PM  
Blogger PeterBoston said...

I think most people are sick and tired of the poor-me African-American prima donas like Michelle Obama, in particular. There are just too many stories of other non-WASP immigrant groups making it big in one or two generations.

New Orleans and the Bayou country are heavily populated with first and second generation Vietnamese who have worked their fannies off, primarily in fishing, to push their way into the Obama scorned middleclassedness. If you want to get down and dirty, we killed a million of their relatives not too many years ago, but you don't see the Vietnamese with their hands out.

Caribbean Blacks (not from Haiti) in South Florida work the building trades, establish small businesses, and make their kids go to school. My evidence is empirical but as a group they are economically way ahead of the victimhood Blacks who have been here for many more generations.

The rule of statistical probability is that if you find a constant (Black or non-Wasp) across divergent outcomes then you cannot also use that constant as an independent variable (Blackness) to explain those outcomes.

Obama may be the best thing that's happened about the Conversation on Race, although in a way he never intended. His speech made it quite clear that he was using Race to bootstrap a statist, socialist agenda. Democrats have been perpetuating an underclass for years to keep them voting for the open spigot provided by their Democrat overlords. That's the real crime of racism.

3/22/2008 12:58:00 PM  
Blogger Derek Kite said...

Fascinating discussion.

Thinking seriously about this whole thing the last few days, I came to the realization that I didn't care.

I think Obama has made a major miscalculation. He thought that people actually cared. Oh it would be nice to see a black president of the US. How nice? When it comes down to it, not that much.

The funniest experience I've had was talking to a gentleman about the english/french Quebec issue. I was a young man out of high school, trying to find a job. Doors were closed to me due to my lack of experience. This gentleman was middle class, owned a nice home, had a good job with pension. He said that 'you people', me, had oppressed him. As he said it he stumbled in his words realizing what he was saying.

To create a religious movement based on such nonsense requires faith. I suppose we should all be touched by Mr Wright and Obama's devotion.

But I really don't care.

Obama is offended by women being afraid of black men. I walk my dog on trails outside of town, and commonly meet women walking their dogs, or women jogging. Most of the time the women are visibly afraid. Not of my goofy dog who just wants to play, but of me. A middle aged guy with a bad knee and dicky ticker. I suppose I could be offended. I make sure my body language is unthreatening. But I really don't care.

He was offended by his grandmother being afraid? What world does he live in?

Derek

3/22/2008 01:00:00 PM  
Blogger Zenster said...

Wright chastised Hannity for his ignorance of the works of these two theologians, who basically argue that since God must take the part of the oppressed, He is essentially "black". And any God who isn't "black" is therefore an agency of the devil.

Good grief! Didn't we finally get past killing each other over how many angels could dance on a pin? What now, more slaughter over the color of God's skin? We cannot create a worm yet find time to manufacture gods by the dozen and then argue over their skin color. Pure lunacy.

This actually goes beyond insane. It is the most callous and cynical manipulation of credulous, predatory footsoldiers in what is nothing less than a race war, regardless of whatever terms it is being fought in, by or with.

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.

ISN'T THIS JUST THE USUAL "GET WHITEY" WRITTEN OUT IN LONGHAND?

If this is what Wright's preaching, he belongs behind bars for violating Politically Correct hate speech laws.

"Cone wrote that the United States was a white racist nation and the white church was the Antichrist for having supported slavery and segregation."

So, when will these indignant black theologians bring themselves to declare Islam as the anti-Christ and racist for its propogation of human slavery to this very day?

Don't hold your effing breath, emkay? These are merely black ideologues cloaking themselves in religious robes so as to palliate what is, in reality, reverse racism and violent prejudice. How tragic that there exist black scumbags who actually justify the KKK's abhorrent views.

If it isn't the Liberals, these sorts of race baiting warlord pimps will ignite another civil war in America.

Finally, if it isn't his soft spot for Islam, Obama's campaign needs to be derailed with this Black Theology horseshit. It represents an intolerable level of racism regardless of the skin color of those who preach it. NO ONE OF ANY COLOR should be allowed to spew such crap without being beaten to a pulp. The only comparable white counterpart to Jerimiah Wright that comes to mind is Fred Phelps and his dogma of hate. I'm sure there are other more qualified candidates, I just don't know about them.

Alexis: fred:

Whenever a politician refers to “The American Dream”, one can reasonably assume he is a priest from the church of Mammon. The ideological opposite of “The American Dream” isn’t Marxism, nor Islam, nor any other kind of worldly utopia. It is Christianity.


Your anti-American assessment of our national dream only serves to reveal just how small-minded you are. Please explain in 100 words or less how landing on the moon is the work of "Mammon". Even as a devout agnostic, I still have the decency and honor to respect how Christian values and Mosaic law represent the underpinnings of American constitutional law.

To ignore that simple fact while you paint Christianity as the "ideological opposite of “The American Dream” " is not just offensive but intellectually bankrupt. You belong in a pew of Jerimiah Wright's church. There is no difference between the bilious hate that both of you vomit up.

3/22/2008 01:15:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

But Mr. Richardson, who had sought to become the nation’s first Hispanic president, pointed specifically to the speech that Mr. Obama gave in Philadelphia on Tuesday in explaining why he endorsed him.

“Senator Barack Obama addressed the issue of race with the eloquence and sincerity and decency and optimism we have come to expect of him,” he said. “He did not seek to evade tough issues or to soothe us with comforting half-truths. Rather, he inspired us by reminding us of the awesome potential residing in our own responsibility.”

He added: “Senator Obama could have given a safer speech. He is, after all, well ahead in the delegate count for our party’s nomination.”
---
“I believe the campaign has gotten too negative,” Mr. Richardson said, speaking to reporters in Portland. “I want it to be positive. I think that’s what’s been very good about Senator Obama’s campaign — it’s a positive campaign about hope and opportunity.”
---
Perhaps Hillary should volunteer to be the Nation's First ex First Lady to Have her head wrapped and used as a Polo ball.
Leveling the Playing Field.

3/22/2008 01:41:00 PM  
Blogger PeterBoston said...

The ideological opposite of “The American Dream” isn’t Marxism, nor Islam, nor any other kind of worldly utopia. It is Christianity.

That is such a strange comment that I have to wonder what is spinning around in that cranium of yours. Could you know so little about Christianity, it's philosophical roots that travel from Jerusalem to Athens to Rome?

3/22/2008 02:09:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

"The Obamanal Showman"

kepa poalima said...

" i came away from the obamanal showman's speech with confirmation that barama is a liar, a con man, a racist, maybe a closet racist whose door is cracking open, an arrogant bully trying to intimidate the public to stop looking at his true nature and flaws, calling us racists for investigating him, a demagogue who is scary and dangerous.

i prefer to read him rather than listen to him.
you get to the kernel without the perfume mask of his oratory skills covering up the stink.

but i heard some of it on the radio and he had me yelling back at the radio. i was incensed by his lies, his veiled racist intimidation and his theatric arrogance, an empty arrogance.

Like an actor playing a role, like a weenie, girlie-man tom cruise playing a tough guy. he's only believable if you can overlook the actors true persona.
"

3/22/2008 02:30:00 PM  
Blogger PeterBoston said...

Can Obama be tied to Islamic terrorist groups?

Let's see where this goes, but it would neither be surprising nor inconsistent with what we have learned about this con man.

3/22/2008 02:38:00 PM  
Blogger RWE said...

In the midst of all of this pseudo-religious mumbo jumbo let us not lose sight of a key fact.

Consider the Nazis. They developed a “religion” based around the idea that the Aryans were the descendants of an ancient Master Race that had fled to the polar regions during the Great Flood or something like that. Hitler once described Christianity as being for sissies.

This comic-book-like religion was created not from actual facts but as a necessity for the Nazi philosophy. The religion descended from the philosophy, not vice versa.

And so it is with Black Liberation Theology. There is nothing whatsoever in Christianity that inspires such thought. As in the Nazi religion, the precepts of Black Liberation Theology descend from the desires of Men, not the word of God.

Whether this is true for modern day Islam is debatable. But there can be no doubt about Black Liberation Theology. It represents the concepts behind Black Power distilled down to their essence. It’s beliefs represent a window into the soul of such people.

3/22/2008 02:55:00 PM  
Blogger PeterBoston said...

It is but a very short leap from "defending" the oppressed descendents of slaves to defending the oppressed descendents of Muhammed. Just a thought, but I think Obama picked Wright's church to give him Christian cover for what is as a practical matter not much different from Islamic jihad. Obama is the perfect bridegroom for the marriage between the Left and Islam.

3/22/2008 03:05:00 PM  
Blogger RKV said...

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Genesis 1:27 KJV

So man created God in his own image, in the image of man he created Him; black skinned they created Him.

Rev. J. Wrong WTF?

3/22/2008 03:28:00 PM  
Blogger TonyGuitar said...

I admire the profusion of words and the energy expended, but simply put, the preacher rants exactly as any scowling hate monger and so if a Spade is a Spade, then he is simply a Black Mark against Obama.

Oooops? . . . Not funny! = TG

3/22/2008 04:16:00 PM  
Blogger Alexis said...

zenster, peterboston, et al:

When you hear about “The American Dream” on the New York Times, NBC, Fox News, the History Channel, CNN, ABC, CBS, or NPR, what do you think they are talking about? When Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, or George W. Bush talk about “The American Dream”, what do you think they are referring to? M-O-N-E-Y. It’s about having money, a nice house, a nice car, a nice lawn, good schools for the kids, and all the trappings of affluence. According to our mass media and our political establishment, “The American Dream” is about becoming “The Man”.

Do we ever hear about “The American Dream” meaning one should take a vow of Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience? Do we ever hear about “The American Dream” meaning one should become a hippy? Do we ever hear about “The American Dream” meaning a man can work as a local police officer because that’s what he wants to do? Do we ever hear about the “American Dream” meaning someone wants to be a janitor or a zookeeper? When narrators on the History Channel refer to gangsters using crime to get “their share in the American Dream”, they are talking about money and affluence.

I fervently believe in America as a land of opportunity and as a land of freedom. That means if you want to mope around, feel sorry for yourself, blame somebody else for your own problems, and stew in your own grievances, you have the liberty to do that and also reap a harvest of poverty, misery, and resentment. Or for that matter, reap a harvest of prosperity, misery, and resentment.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is very clear – one cannot worship money (Mammon) and God at the same time. And it is no less a worship of Mammon to worship a materialistic utopia based upon Huey Long’s mantra of “Every Man a King” than it is to worship the power of rich men. As it is, the commonplace equation of “The American Dream” with Mammon has become a curse for America, as it horribly distorts what our Constitution stands for and the principles upon which our nation was founded.

It is pro-American to advocate the freedoms of our Constitution. It is pro-American to promote America as a land of liberty and opportunity where people can achieve their dreams. Yet, there is something inherently totalitarian about talking of “The American Dream”, as if there were only one legitimate dream in America. When Barack Obama talks about “The American Dream”, this is something I utterly oppose, as it infringes upon my liberty to dream anything other than his ideal that we must all walk together in lockstep.

There are those who say it’s anti-American to question “The American Dream”. Nonsense. Ours is a land of liberty and it would be un-American to deny me or anyone else the freedom to dream of a reality where we are not shackled to something merely because it is called “The American Dream”.

So, you are welcome to say that “The American Dream” can be something other than the worship of Mammon. Perhaps it is. Yet, if that is the case, you need to reclaim our language from politicians such as Barack Obama who would assume that achieving “The American Dream” means becoming rich and powerful like them.

3/22/2008 04:29:00 PM  
Blogger 3Case said...

Ignorance.

Do we want a man 20 years steeped in ignorance to be President?

3/22/2008 05:00:00 PM  
Blogger Whiskey said...

God God Alexis.

Since when did Jesus preach that one MUST be poor and remain poor? That no one deserved to better themselves?

The American Dream is not about being "the Man" (which is stupid sixties stuff from immature boomer idiots). It's about being able to be one's own man. Not having to bow and scrape. To have one's own little bit of property, no matter how humble.

3/22/2008 07:59:00 PM  
Blogger Alexis said...

whiskey_199:

Since when did Jesus preach that one MUST be poor and remain poor? That no one deserved to better themselves?

You tell me. I didn’t find the interpretation you refer to in the Gospel. While people deserve to better themselves, people also deserve the liberty to choose whether they better themselves or not. I like to watch some programs on cable television, but other people don’t want television at all. That is their choice. Some people don’t want to be on the internet. That is also their choice.

The American Dream is not about being "the Man" (which is stupid sixties stuff from immature boomer idiots). It's about being able to be one's own man. Not having to bow and scrape.

That is your version of “The American Dream”. I wholeheartedly agree that one should be able to be one’s own man, and not need to bow and scrape. This includes not bowing and scraping to someone else’s idea of what affluence ought to be.

To have one's own little bit of property, no matter how humble.

One of the great things about America is that poor people can at least ideally have their property rights respected. Sadly, property taxes are an effective means for rich people to force poor people out of their homes. Moreover, property taxes create incentives for poor neighborhoods to resist improving themselves by raising taxes on anyone who raises property values by making the neighborhood look better. The existence of property taxes creates economic incentives for the grievance culture of Jeremiah Wright.

For those who want to own property, they should have that liberty. Yet, liberty also means people should not be expected to own real property if they don’t want to. What if someone prefers to live in an apartment and doesn’t want the illusion of owning his own house? And yes I say illusion -- one does not truly own property until one has entirely paid for it. It is sad to note how our government subsidizes loans to those who want to live in mortgaged houses, as if there were something wrong with choosing to live in an apartment.

“The American Dream”, at least how the mainstream media portrays it, attempts to dictate to Americans what we are supposed to want in life. American liberty means I have the right to reject someone else’s idea of “The American Dream”. As a land of liberty, we all have our own dreams. There is no one dream for America, and that is good. I’m reminded of the old man who once said, “If everybody wanted the same thing, they would all want my wife.”

3/22/2008 09:03:00 PM  
Blogger kepa poalima said...

doug,

thanks for the replay

3/23/2008 01:39:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

My Pleasure!
---
Grandma's Revenge...
A Black Guy Asks Nation For Change in the Windy City:
---
"I'll be honest, when that black guy said he would 'stop at nothing' to get change, it kind of scared me," local mechanic Phil Nighbert said. "Just leave me alone."

Though many were taken aback by the black man's brazen demands, some, such as Jackson, MS's Holly Moser, sympathized with him. She gave the black man credit for boldly standing up and asking every last person around him for change.

"I told him I'd give him some if I saw him later, even though I probably won't," Moser said. "Very nice man, though."

Most, however, ignored his requests.

"I'm a hardworking American who pays his taxes, and the last thing I need is some guy on the street demanding change from me," said William Overkamp, a Springfield, IL gun-shop owner.

He added, "What he really needs is a job."

3/23/2008 04:39:00 AM  
Blogger davod said...

Alexis:

The American Dream is the ability to do what you want. The references to owning your own home were originally put there because so few people owned a home.

3/23/2008 04:50:00 AM  
Blogger 3Case said...

For the "We're owed" crowd; however you may have come to the grudge life:

'A Man Said to the Universe'

A man said to the universe:
"Sir I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."

-- Stephen Crane


Think that through foe a while and then...Grow up!

3/23/2008 11:27:00 AM  
Blogger Zenster said...

Whiskey_199: Since when did Jesus preach that one MUST be poor and remain poor? That no one deserved to better themselves?

Better yet, why don't we pause for a moment and examine who it is that's actually saying "that one MUST be poor and remain poor". Guess who?

Let's all take a peek beneath Islam's hind leg and see what it really thinks about the "Muslim Dream".

I give you Al-Ayyeri and his perverted notion that Prosperity [is] Bad for Jihad.

What Al-Ayyeri sees now is a "clean battlefield" in which Islam faces a new form of unbelief. This, he labels "secularist democracy." This threat is "far more dangerous to Islam" than all its predecessors combined. The reasons, he explains in a whole chapter, must be sought in democracy's "seductive capacities."

This form of "unbelief" persuades the people that they are in charge of their destiny and that, using their collective reasoning, they can shape policies and pass laws as they see fit. That leads them into ignoring the "unalterable laws" promulgated by God for the whole of mankind, and codified in the Islamic
shariah (jurisprudence) until the end of time.

The goal of democracy, according to Al-Ayyeri, is to "make Muslims love this world, forget the next world and abandon jihad." If established in any Muslim country for a reasonably long time, democracy could lead to economic prosperity, which, in turn, would make Muslims "reluctant to die in martyrdom" in defense of their faith.

[Emphasis Added]

There you have it in black and white. Prosperity is the enemy of Islam. Reviewing the near millennia of cultural and economic stagnation that is Islam, can anyone doubt this?

Ideologically, spiritually and physically, Muslims are starved into submission, the very meaning of the word "Islam". This is barbarous cruelty on a scale that defies imagination. Where invading Vikings burned their boats as a motivational tool, Islam makes sure that Muslims have absolutely nothing to lose. Even a mythical and illusory paradise is more appealing than daily existence in the impoverished Islamic world.

So it stands today. The West, which has created so much and amassed such a wealth of art, music and architectural wonders, is put at risk by a gang of thugs who cannot be "bombed back to the stone age" because they have yet to advance out of it.

All that Islam puts at risk are its populations, which it cheerfully abuses and deprives to begin with. This is why Islam constitutes one vast crime against humanity. At any time, the West is entirely justified in crushing Islam solely for the purpose of liberating Muslims from their diabolical and sadistic master.

3/23/2008 11:29:00 AM  
Blogger watimebeing said...

There is a similarity not only between the sermons in Egypt and Chicago, but the life styles/choices of the faithful. Where an Islamic man living in a non Islamic country is allowed the latitude to behave in ways non Islamic and enter into contracts unenforceable in Islam, Where telling the western journalists a story that is a complete fabrication or 180 degrees opposed to the known truth about a situation is expected behavior. When talking about such stuff on TV, the tenets of BLT are rarely voiced or given as reference. Aloud sigh and a vague referral to the black mans dilemma is the most that can be expected. If you don't understand it, well that is your fault, if you cannot comprehend it, it is a failing on your part. No matter the fact that like Quanza there is today no substantive support for the claims of black misery. Only a lack of reason and treasonous treachery on the part of the pipers, leading their flock perilously close to the cliff edge. Like the Imam's of the orient, they rarely end up the martyr, and they rarely would have their own kith or kin placed in exploding vestments.

I am have grown increasingly impatient with the cries of foul, the use of race as an appeal to more what? I applaud the movement of society that has races and individuals acting in according to individual desires and dreams, not a supposed racial preference for a thing, a meaning or a false memory.

If Obama is someone who can help bridge the gap between ignorance and understanding, I expect to see some in kind action on the part of the black theologians who talk out of both sides of their mouths, or a rejection of these snakes by individuals in their respective
Congregations.

However what I want to hear is not how I am likely to learn of a change of heart on the part of black men of the left. It begins in obscurity and works through a silent network of honest and humble persons. Like the Italian Magdi Allam's whose public conversion "is witness to the quiet of all those which have been made in private. And maybe that message is filtering through to the more thoughtful."

3/23/2008 05:04:00 PM  
Blogger Cobb said...

somebody told me about this thread but i misread the date. sorry for being late to the discussion.

i think spengler has a point which is a bit overstated, but interestingly enough i don't think it matters. his point is that black politics *is* church politics. not even, but so what - nobody here is actually talking about real black politics, we're talking about obama's politics.

-
somebody asked how barack obama can go to a 'racist' church for 20 years and not be a racist himself. i think the answer should be patently obvious, in the same way a white politician can belong to a country club that has never had blacks - and then one day they're surprised to find that there's a truly ugly reason why. he does it for the connections in a very self-centered way - you know, like a politician.

obama seriously misjudged the point of his day in philadelphia. skeptical america (the majority) wanted a litmus test. koolaid america (the minority) wanted a dissertation. he gave the dissertation.

spengler's point about obama looking at the world through the lens of 'social justice' and 'inequality' should not be underestimated. i'm fairly certain that is the proper core of obama, who in his entire life has not self-destructed in front of whitefolks. to me, it's obviously not race for obama, and his association with trinity is narrow and opportunistic and yet authentic as far as that goes.

finally, i am still waiting to hear cone approached on this matter. he's not dead, you know. a lot of people said a lot of stupid things in 1969. i find it difficult to believe that cone is any more racist today than malcolm x would be today, nor do i believe that traffic in 'social justice' and 'inequality' are bearing racial burdens at union theological seminary.

you can certainly go seduce poor blackfolks with a racialized version of liberation theology, and hey, perhaps you can even do so at seminary, but i find it difficult to believe that isn't really a multicultural agenda, not a racial exclusionary one as many have interpreted.

more later...

3/24/2008 11:58:00 AM  

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