Obama Needs To Explain His Belief In Black Liberation Theology

Unless you have been living in a cave, most of you know by now that Barack Obama’s pastor Jeremiah Wright is a 100% devotee to “black libertion theology”.  This fact is supported not only by Wright’s sermons, but by the Trinity Church website.  The core theology of Wright, Trinity Church, and by association Barack Obama is black liberation theology.  As David Limbaugh points out below, Barck Obama needs to address to what extent he embraces black liberation theology and how those beliefs would shape his Presidential administration.  Further, Obama needs to explain why he has raised his children in a church that promotes racism.  How much of Barack Obama’s belief in black liberation theology includes Marxist beliefs?  Hillary, Obama Wreaking Presidential Havoc

By David Limbaugh

Many of us understood from the beginning the unrealism in the promises of this extreme liberal partisan to be a messianic uniter. But little did we know that he attended a church whose pastor, Jeremiah Wright, has distinguished himself through anti-American and racist rants and as a scholar and practitioner of black liberation theology. Former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell warned on “Hannity & Colmes” that what we really need to focus on with this Obama/Wright flap, are the tenets of black liberation theology and to what extent Barack Obama embraces them, assuming his pastor and church truly endorse this theology. Blackwell said he is concerned this theology supports partial-birth abortion, pacifism in foreign policy, and economic socialism. He suggested that responsible voters have a duty to inquire whether Obama subscribes to these views. As it turns out, Blackwell’s observations are just the tip of the iceberg concerning this theology. If half of what I’ve read about it is true, it promotes anything but a unifying message. Instead of centering on God and his relationship to man, it appears to be unduly man-centered, race-oriented and more political than theological. Rather than adopting Martin Luther King’s colorblind approach, it stresses — according to Anthony B. Bradley of Covenant Theological Seminary — “an unqualified commitment to the black community as that community seeks to define its existence in the light of God’s liberating work in the world.” The theology, says Bradley, “laid the foundation for many [black pastors] to embrace Marxism and a distorted self-image of perpetual ‘victim.'” Doesn’t America have a right to know whether the leading Democratic presidential contender buys into the reputed theology of the church he has attended for 20 years? If Wright’s Trinity Church doesn’t teach this theology, Obama should have no problem telling us so. But if it does, he has much explaining to do. It won’t suffice for him to dismiss the inquiry with the same casual indifference by which he attempted to trivialize Wright’s disturbing sermons as just a few remarks over 30 years condensed into a 30-second sound bite. Even a tenuous connection to black liberation theology undermines Barack’s self-description as a unifier.

http://www.newsmax.com/limbaugh/obama_hillary/2008/03/27/83553.html

 

Update: Obama’s Pastor – Jeremiah Wright – Too Hot for Houston Baptist Church!

Upcoming Dallas-area appearances by Rev. Wright have now also been canceled. 

Political Night Train recently reported that Senator Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright was scheduled to preach sermons at a Baptist Church in Houston.  It seems that all the stories about Wright’s racist sermons are causing churches to rethink having him anywhere near there members.

Houston Chronicle — Obama’s former pastor won’t be giving sermons in Houston: “Security concerns have prompted the Rev. Jeremiah Wright to cancel his appearance at Houston’s Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church for the first time in two decades. Wright, who until February was minister of Sen. Barack Obama’s church, Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, was scheduled to preach three guest sermons in Houston on Sunday. … Widely publicized recorded excerpts from Wright’s past sermons, in which he quoted a former Iraq ambassador as saying that U.S. actions prompted the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and that the government created HIV to target people of color and harassed blacks through ‘three strike’ laws, prompted Obama to address race issues in a speech last week. Obama termed Wright’s comments ‘divisive,’ but also suggested that the snippets were not representative of the clergyman he has known for more than two decades.” Yesterday, a long-planned appearance by Wright at a Tampa revival was also canceled.

Obama – All Talk, No Action

There is no denying that Senator Obama gave a very good ‘race’ speech with what Political Night Train calls “surface validity”, that is, it looks good on the surface, its when you dig into the core that you find problems.  Political Night Train is now questioning the basis of Obama’s core values and beliefs and whether they are the values and beliefs we want in a President.  Certainly Senator Obama has plenty of “surface validity” to be President, but does he have the inner values and beliefs we want in a President.  Americans do not deserve another President aka Bill Clinton, with an outer persona that looks good to many people (he was bubba to some, a black man to others), but with an inner core that no one knows.  Apparently Bill Clinton had no inner core of moral values, at least none that we would want to pass on to our children.  One wonders then, what core values are Barack and Michelle Obama passing on to their children?  Are they the beliefs and values you would pass on to your children?  There are many parents in this country who were raised in racist households, black and white.  Yet, at some point, as parents, they made the break, and overtly decided that they would not raise their own children in a hate filled, racist family, and church environment.  This is truly where racism begins to die off, and you can see the effects with the twenty-something’s that are now saying “race does not matter”.  Yet, Obama is not offering them the bridge to a racism free society.  No, he’s offering then explanations as to why people like Jeremiah Wright should get a free pass.  Sorry Barack, but I don’t want my children attending Sunday School with your children, because you’ve passed on the wrong set of values and beliefs. Gil Troy is right when he asserts in his article,(my bold) Here, then, remains the Obama campaign’s great mystery. Many Americans want to believe, to trust that he is what he purports to be, that his gift for words will translate into a genius for governance. But the questions cropping up are not simply about his inexperience but his inaction. He never confronted Jeremiah Wright. He sat silently by as the United Church of Christ to which he belongs passed a resolution advocating divestment from Israel.

Obama’s political rise has been launched on the wings of Americans’ hopes that the healers will defeat the haters. His political progress would be more sure if he could point to actions backing up this rhetoric, to moments when he confronted demagogues and healed rifts. Barack Obama is not too young to have had the opportunity to prove whether he stands by his statements. Americans have the right to ask what he has done when facing the world’s Jeremiah Wrights and Louis Farrakhans. Obama’s worst, and best, moments
By Gil Troy   March 22, 2008

On Tuesday, Senator Barack Obama’s speech on race in America tried to quell the controversy over his America-bashing, race-baiting, Israel-hating pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. For days, video clips of Wright spewing his poison threatened to neutralize Obama’s populist magic. Until Tuesday, the controversy showed Obama at his worst. His response to his pastor’s demagoguery was mealy-mouthed and disingenuous. It was impossible to believe Obama’s Clintonesque claim of ignorance, that he never “sat in the pews” during one of Wright’s wrongheaded riffs. And Obama’s failure over a twenty-year relationship to criticize his mentor’s venom stirred doubts about Obama’s judgment, patriotism, and commitment to the unity he celebrates. Yet once again, Illinois’ rookie Senator hit a grand slam with two strikes against him. Obama’s speech was thoughtful, thought-provoking, rich, complex, effective, poetic, and inspiring. Read the rest of this excellent article at http://web.israelinsider.com/views/12729.htm

How Hillary Wins

Hit Obama where it hurts – his judgment.  Hillary should use her army of shills and surrogates to wage an unrelenting, daily attack on Obama’s judgment.  Cite his close ties to Rezko and how dumb it was to cut a deal with a known influence peddler.  Cite Obama’s father-son relationship with Jeremiah Wright.  Yes, this will piss off black voters, but then that’s something Bill Clinton (aka, First Black President) has managed to do already.  Hillary has lost 90-95% of the black vote anyway, do attacking Wright can’t hurt much.  Include Obama’s relationship with James Meeks as another example of poor judgment.  Hammer Obama’s poor judgment for maintaining a close relationship with Wright and Meeks, ministers that push radical black liberation theology.  Have your third and fourth removed surrogates attack Obama for being a member of a church that espouses liberation theology and socialism vs. the Christian ideals of MLK.  Hammer away at Obama’s poor judgment for exposing his young daughters to Wright’s bigotry, hatred and racist teachings.  Hillary should question Obama’s core beliefs and values, contrast his liberation theology beliefs and values to his public persona and say Obama is living a lie.  Have your shills ask, “Does Senator Obama love America?”, of so, he has some unusual ways of showing it.  Cite the lack of a flag lapel pin, no hand over heart, and ties to a church that promotes racial hatred.  Hillary should begin now to appeal to the Regan Democrats, otherwise, they go to John McCain.  Cede the liberal left to Obama.  Let Obama have those nuts, and the burden of explaining why he accepts the support of such extremists.  Run to the middle.  Defend your war vote.  Say it was the right thing to do at the time, given the information available.  But say it is now time for a new war strategy.  Announce your plan for a phased three year withdrawal, coupled with direct talks with Iran, European allies, and pending Iraq meets specific goals.  Have a bunch of your surrogates who are far removed from your campaign attack Michelle Obama for her values and beliefs.  Hillary, you need to neutralize Michelle in a way that causes Obama’s campaign to stop putting her out front.  After all, isn’t that what your opponents did to you during Bill’s campaigns.  While you’re at it, plan on neutralizing Oprah also.  Use her relationship with Wright as the basis. In giving his “race” speech, Obama has made it okay for everyone, whites included, to talk openly about race, black values, and what goes on in black churches that espouse liberation theology.  What Obama’s speed revealed is his inner core beliefs and values, and the fact that those beliefs and values are at odds with his public persona.  In effect, Obama is living a lie.  One can just imagine Obama and Wright, in a back room at Trinity Church, cracking white jokes and bad mouthing America.

Basis for Obama’s Belief In Liberation Theology and Socialism

 This is a continuation of Political Night Train’s effort to put some light on the basis for Senator Obama’s core values and beliefs.  Kenneth Blackwell, in his article below, helps us to see what values and beliefs are below the surface of Obama’s public persona.

Eloquent Speech, Troubling Worldviewby Kenneth BlackwellPosted: 03/18/2008Barack Obama just gave an eloquent speech, but one that does not address the underlying nature of Senator Obama’s beliefs. Rev. Jeremiah Wright, like Mr. Obama, believes in a state-centered 21st century form of big-government socialism.  This 21st century form of socialism is at the heart of the Liberation Theology Rev. Wright preaches from the pulpit. Today, Mr. Obama again made it clear, with all his eloquence, that he still embraces these beliefs that would require dismantling the free-market system that has made our country’s economy the most prosperous in all of human history. In contrast to Liberation Theology, the Christian orthodoxy teaches about the nature of God, the nature of man, the relationship between the two in this life, and about the hereafter. Liberation Theology, on the other hand, is a belief system about political agendas, socialistic economic policy, and redistribution of wealth. Proponents of Liberation Theology, like Rev. Wright, teach that God commands us to form a government that will supervise our economy to create government-subsidized jobs under central-government planning; guarantee healthcare and education by having government control both; and achieve ‘economic equality’ by redistributing wealth through massive taxes on the affluent and massive government entitlements for the poor. And it advocates replacing governments that do not embrace this socialistic agenda.  Those are the beliefs of Liberation Theology. Those are the offensive root beliefs underlying many of Rev. Wright’s sermons. And though Barack Obama does not embrace Mr. Wright’s offensive language, he does embrace this government-solves-everything-through-socialism worldview.His speech was magnificent in its elegance and rhetoric, but today Mr. Obama reminded me yet again of his worldview that embraces, among other things, partial-birth abortion,
military weakness, and economic socialism.   Thank God for religious liberty, free market, and free elections!http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=25579 

Is Geraldine Ferraro Another Barack Obama “Typical White Person”?

Political Night Train continues to look into the basis for Barack Obama’s core beliefs and values.  It would seem that Obama has lumped Geraldine Ferraro in the “typical white  person” group with his own grandmother.  Ferraro has express outrage at how Obama, during his race speech, made the incredible leap and compared Ferraro with Jeremiah Wright.  Here is what Ferraro had to say:

Former congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro is upset with remarks Sen. Barack Obama made in Tuesday’s speech, linking her with the controversial the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

 Former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro said today that she objected to the comparison Sen. Barack Obama drew between her and his former pastor in his speech on race relations Tuesday.  In the speech, Obama sought to place the inflammatory remarks of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright in a broader context, in part by placing them on a continuum with Ferraro’s recent remark to the Daily Breeze that Obama is “lucky” to be black.  “To equate what I said with what this racist bigot has said from the pulpit is unbelievable,” Ferraro said today. “He gave a very good speech on race relations, but he did not address the fact that this man is up there spewing hatred.”

Ferraro, the only woman to ever run on a major party presidential ticket, sparked a controversy when she told the Breeze that “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position.”  The resulting controversy was quickly superceded by an even greater furor over Wright’s sermons, in which Obama’s longtime pastor denounced America and argued that the 9-11 terrorist attacks were retribution for U.S. foreign policy.  In an effort to stem the damage to his presidential campaign, Obama gave a 37-minute speech Tuesday in which he used Ferraro’s remarks as a rhetorical foil to Wright’s and drew a parallel between black anger and white resentment.

 

“On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wild- and wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap,” Obama said.  “On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation and that rightly offend white and black alike.” Ferraro, who supports Sen. Hillary Clinton, has been unapologetic about her remarks. Clinton has said she disagrees with Ferraro and has accepted Ferraro’s resignation from her finance committee.

Ferraro said she had “no clue” why Obama would include her in his speech, and said Obama’s association with Wright raises serious questions about his judgment.  “What this man is doing is he is spewing that stuff out to young people, and to younger people than Obama, and putting it in their heads that it’s OK to say `Goddamn America’ and it’s OK to beat up on white people,” she said. “You don’t preach that from the pulpit.”

Ferraro also said she could not understand why Obama had called out his own white grandmother for using racial stereotypes that had made him cringe.  “I could not believe that,” she said. “That’s my mother’s generation.”

Obama returned to Ferraro’s remarks later in his speech, again drawing a comparison between her and Wright.  “We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro in the aftermath of her recent statements as harboring some deep-seated bias,” Obama said.  He went on to argue that such dismissals would foreclose a deeper understanding of racial resentments. Obama appeared to allude to Ferraro once more when he said that it would be wrong to “pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card.”  It was Obama’s campaign that drew the most attention to Ferraro’s remark last week, and suggested they fit with an pattern of racial comments by Clinton surrogates.  “That’s exactly what he did,” Ferraro said. “It was their campaign that started this.” In sum, however, Ferraro said she thought the speech was “excellent,” and said she understood why Obama could not renounce his association with Wright. “I think they got as far as they could go politically,” she said. “They’re looking at their base. Their base is African-Americans. They’re looking at that and they’re trying to walk a very thin line. They don’t want to offend the African-Americans, and this is the way he did it.” http://www.dailybreeze.com/ci_8629143

Obama’s Grandmother A “Typical” White Person?

It seems that Senator Obama believes in the “typical white person”, one that harbors deep seated racial beliefs.  Such typical white persons will see a black person and believe the worst, apparently including Obama’s grandmother.  Where do you suppose Senator Obama formed this opinion, that there are “typical” white people, from his grandmother?  Most likely he formed this opinion, not from someone who gave him the kind of unconditional love reserved for one’s children, but from his minister of 20 years, Jeremiah Wright.  When Political Night Train says we must understand the basis of Obama’s core beliefs and values, this is what we are talking about.  We know of no one who would characterize their grandmother, really, in his case, his mother, the way Obama has characterized his grandmother.  If he will characterize his own grandmother as a “typical white person” how does he characterize other white people.  Did he engage in racist dialogues in a back room with Jeremiah Wright at Trinity Church?  Are those his values? 

Sen. Barack Obama called into sports radio 610 WIP this morning, charming the usually rambuctious morning talk show hosts and winning their endorsements.  “The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity. But she is a typical white person. If she sees somebody on the street that she doesn’t know. . .there’s a reaction in her that doesn’t go away and it comes out in the wrong way.

President Obama’s Neoliberal Theocracy – A Must Read!!

Political Night Train believes gaining insight into Senator Obama’s values and beliefs is essential to the 2008 election.  Lee Cary’s article below provides what is probably the most insightful article to date on how Obama would govern, if elected.  This is also the basis for the theology of many black churches.  If Obama has done nothing else related to religion, he has given white American’s a peek inside black churches.  Most white Americans view the black church based on those scenes of James Brown and the Triple Rock in the movie “Blues Brothers”.

March 16, 2008

A President Obama’s Neoliberal Theocracy

By Lee CaryBarack Obama’s first vocational choice was to help people in a poor African-American community. Later, he joined a church founded on black liberation theology. This combination could result in an Obama presidency that embodies something new in American history — a Neoliberal Theocracy.  When we in the West hear the word theocracy, we think of mullahs, fatwas, and human pronouncements issued with the presumptuous authority of divine edicts.  But not all theocracies are so dictatorially dogmatic. They range from the theocratic-lite nature of the United Kingdom’s monarch as Supreme Governor of the Church of England, to the industrial-strength theocracy of Iran where the two top offices, Supreme Leader and head of the Guardian Council, are reserved for Shiite clergy. A new, softer-and-gentler American theocracy may be in our future.   What does “Neoliberal Theocracy” mean? In a Neoliberal Theocracy the principles of political liberalism that guide decisions of statecraft are aligned with beliefs thought to constitute a moral theology. In other words, the federal government, particularly the Executive Branch, acts in accordance with a defined, theological belief system. Neoliberal is to liberal as neoconservative is to conservative.  It represents the evolution of thinking that occurs when a stable ideological platform (contemporary political liberalism) is applied to new circumstances (Barack Obama’s deeply held theological belief system).  The social gospel of an Obama presidency could be traced back to the race-based class dialectic of the black liberation theology movement. That movement emerged as the theological wing of the broader Black Power movement of the late 1960’s – early 1970’s. Among a constellation of groups and personalities representing Black Power were: the 1968 Olympic Black Power salute; the Black Panthers; Malcolm X; Bobby Seale; the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (“snick”), etc.  Far and away the most important expression of Black Power was Dr. Martin Luther King’s historic leadership in the Civil Rights Movement. Black liberation theology forms the core identity of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ (UCC) – Obama’s home church for two decades.  Today, that congregation espouses a Black Value System.  It reflects the movement’s class dialectic that remains unabashedly race-based. The black values concept was first introduced by one of the founders of the black liberation theology movement, Dr. James H. Cone, in Black Theology & Black Power (© 1969, Harper & Row, 1969, p.127).  “To carve out a Black Theology based on black oppression will of necessity mean the creation of new values independent of and alien to the values of white society…They will be alien because white American ‘Christian’ values are based on racism.” While the media didn’t hesitate to probe the religious beliefs of Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, reporters have been reluctant, until recently, to inquire into Obama’s religious principles. Perhaps political correctness has made them hyper-sensitive to giving the appearance of delving into racial issues. Their hesitancy persists, even though Obama has used biblical literary devices in his speeches.  He has copied several of King’s speech patterns and oratorical motifs.  And, he juxtaposes his interpretation of Christianity to those of the religious right who, he claims, have “hijacked” the faith.  It’s as though he has invited religion questions from a media too timid to ask. When addressing a faith-based audience, Obama, quoting largely from his book The Audacity of Hope (p.202), lent an existential spiritual tone to his campaign.   “They [Americans] want a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives.  They’re looking to relieve a chronic loneliness, a feeling supported by a recent study that shows Americans have fewer close friends and confidants than ever before. And so they need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them, is listening to them – that they are not just destined to travel down that long highway towards nothingness.”    Message: Obama, the helper, cares for those who hurt. In that same speech, quoting again from of his book (p. 207), Obama said, “I believed and still believe in the power of the African-American religious tradition to spur social change…Because of its past, the black church understands in an intimate way the Biblical call to feed the hungry and cloth the naked and challenge powers and principalities. And in its historical struggles for freedom and the rights of man, I was able to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death, but rather as an active, palpable agent in the world. As a source of hope.”   Message: The black church truly understands the social gospel. The channel of Christianity that Obama entered at Trinity UCC gave a theological motive to his preexistent passion to be a helper. There he found a social gospel that, today, undergirds his advocacy for an activist federal government more aggressively involved in social programs, both foreign and domestic.    How would this represent a theocracy of any kind? In this way: His presidential social activism would be based on an economic-based class dialectic that is theologically grounded. In language conveying near messianic overtones, the authors of his primary campaign document, The Blueprint For Change, wrote, “He will help the world’s weakest states to build healthy and educated communities, reduce poverty…”   How might a Neoliberal Theocracy influence U.S. foreign relations?   Tyrants test adversaries they perceive as weak. Khrushchev interpreted Kennedy’s failure to provide American air assets at the Bay of Pigs as weakness, and tested him with missiles in Cuba. The November 26, 1979 cover of TIME magazine displayed a small photo of an unsmiling Jimmy Carter against the full page backdrop of a scowling Ayatollah Khomeini. The caption read: THE TEST OF WILLS.  Khomeini and Ronald Reagan won that test.  Our adversaries would test a President Obama if they perceived him as weak.  How? Imagine these ways: 

• A company-sized, elite unit of North Korean commandos infiltrates across the 38^th parallel, decimates a platoon-sized American unit, then hurries back across the border, taking their own casualties and a few captured U.S. soldiers with them.  Democrats in Congress ask: Why are we still in Korea anyway?  The U.S. protests the incursion to the U.N. Security Council. Then, as a condition of our gradual withdrawal from the Korean peninsula, the N. Koreans blandly apologize and blame the incident on a maverick military commander. Tensions between the two Koreas are eased in favor of N. Korean dominance as a formal end to the Korean War is negotiated.  
• Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez denies any involvement when several hundred lightly-armed students, shouting anti-American slogans, spontaneously invade the U.S. Embassy in Caracas and hold the occupants captive.  Obama and Chavez meet face-to-face in Havana to ease tensions.  Subsequent discussions designed to resolve the crisis are assigned to a three-party Crisis Resolution Commission that includes the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC), since they claim involvement in the embassy take-over. Eventually, the future of the Organization of American States is called into question as Nicaragua, Ecuador, and a reluctant Bolivia begin talks to form a new regional alliance.
• Late one morning, several of the new U.S. Consulates that the Obama Administration had recently opened in Africa, fulfilling a specific campaign pledge, are targets of suspected Iranian-sponsored Hezbollah terrorists, leaving hundreds dead.  A few African nations immediately ask the U.S. to downscale its diplomatic presence in order to lessen the danger to their citizens.  Kenya demands an increase in American aid to better fend off the threat from Islamic insurgents. 

 If you discount these as fanciful and impossible, remember: The last president to flirt with conducting foreign policy from a theological perspective was Jimmy Carter.   Here’s the hub of matter.  In his speech to the Democrat convention in 2004, then Candidate for the U.S. Senate Barack Obama said, “It is that fundamental belief — I am my brother’s keep, I am my sister’s keeper — that makes this country work.” That’s not so. While that may express Obama’s theological worldview, and is an ageless, altruistic principle behind countless good works, it is not what makes this country work.  What makes this country work is the fundamental belief that we are born with the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The two beliefs – keepers of each other and inalienable rights – live independent lives.  And that’s why we should be very wary of a Neoliberal Theocracy, or any theocracy for that matter.  

Want To Know More About Black Liberation Theology?

 Want a peek inside the black church?  It’s not that scene from “Blues Brothers” where Jake and Elwood visit the Triple Rock where James Brown is the preacher.  What to know what black ministers are really preaching to their flock?  Look no further than Jeremiah Wright and Trinity United Church of Christ.  If nothing else, Senator Obama has raised the curtain and let us see what goes for religious services in many black churchs, many but not all.  The following articles help shed light on what is known as Black Liberation Theology.  Political Night Train believes you should know more about the basis for Senator Obama’s values and beliefs and why he aligned himself with Jeremiah Wright and Trinity Church 20 years ago. March 19, 2008

The Real Agenda of Black Liberation Theology

By Jeffrey Schmidt

 The sad truth is that neither the Reverend Wright nor black liberation theology is being misunderstood.  Both, thanks to the candidacy of Barack Obama, are being exposed.  God, in fact, works in mysterious ways.  And unless it’s the aforementioned liberals and Democrats who are trying to hush up Wright, Moss and others of their ilk, sensible Americans want to hear more, for knowledge is power, the power to combat hate.    And make no mistake, what Americans are hearing, they don’t like. In the Rasmussen poll, 73% of voters find Wright’s comments to be racially divisive.  That’s a broad cross section of voters, including 58% of black voters.     

Read more at http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/03/the_real_agenda_of_black_liber.html

 What did Obama know, and when did he know it? Brian Fitzpatrick – Guest Columnist – 3/19/2008 7:45:00 AM 

As reported in the March 22 edition of World Magazine, before it was cleansed of some materials, the Trinity U.C.C. website listed this statement by Wright:
 
“The vision statement of Trinity United Church of Christ is based upon the systematized liberation theology that started in 1969 with the publication of Dr. James Cone’s book Black Power and Black Theology.”
 
World continues: “Cone argued in his 1970 work, A Black Theology of Liberation, that ‘the goal of black theology is the destruction of everything white, so that blacks can be liberated from alien gods.'”

 Associations with pastors are voluntary and normally reflect a consonance in worldview. You choose a pastor precisely because you agree with his theology and you want to learn from him. You don’t sit under his teaching for nearly two decades, have him officiate at your wedding, have him baptize your children, call him your “mentor,” sing his praises in your first book, name your second book after one of his sermons, and support his church with tens of thousands of dollars if you don’t generally see eye to eye with him. 

Read more at http://www.onenewsnow.com/Perspectives/Default.aspx?id=72267

 Reverend Jeremy Wright’s Theology Exposed

In a set of “talking points” on the Trinity United Church of Christ web site, Wright proclaims himself an exponent of “black liberation theology.” He cites James Cone, a distinguished professor at New York’s Union Theological Seminary, whom he credits for having “systematized” this strain of Christianity.

 Here is a quote from Cone, explaining black liberation theology:

“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.”

 

Read more at http://www.agoravox.com/article.php3?id_article=7886

   

Shedding Light On Barack Obama’s Values & Beliefs In Liberation Theology

The following article sheds much light on the basis of Barack Obama’s core values and beliefs, which Political Night Train now believes are rooted in “Liberation Theology” and the writings of James Cone, a person who greatly influenced Jeremiah Wright.  If elected and allowed to govern, Barack Obama would govern not just from the liberal left, but from the “neoliberal” left, with a heavy dose of liberation theology thrown in.  The last time we had a President who tried to govern from a set of theological beliefs, we had four years of Jimmy Carter.   The gospel according to Cone revolves around a single dimension of the Christian faith and necessarily interprets the very nature of “oppression” as solely material and of this world.  In effect, black liberation theology reduces the entire Gospel down to a Marxist people’s struggle and hijacks the Christ for political purpose. “What else can the crucifixion mean except that God, the Holy One of Israel, became identified with the victims of oppression?  What else can the resurrection mean except that God’s victory in Christ is the poor person’s victory over poverty?”  (Speaking the Truth; p. 6) This certainly puts an altogether different light on the crucifixion than any to which I’ve ever been exposed. According to this theology, we are not individually saved by grace.  God hasn’t anything at all to do with salvation or sanctification. “…sanctification is liberation.  To be sanctified is to be liberated – that is, politically engaged in the struggle of freedom.  When sanctification is defined as a commitment to the historical struggle for political liberation, then it is possible to connect it with socialism and Marxism the reconstruction of society on the basis of freedom and justice for all.”
(Speaking the Truth; p. 33; emphases mine) March 15, 2008The Great ObamaAmerica, and especially the America of our imagination, is the land of self-making and the self-made. Our presidential politics are far from the exclusive domain of the self-made, but our most interesting presidents (e.g., Johnson, Nixon, Clinton) tend to come from that category.Barack Obama is the quintessential self-made man. He hails from the periphery, not just of our society but of our geographic boundaries. Lacking any relevant connections, he created his own — with the Ivy League, with the legal elite, with community activists in a town where he was stranger, with black nationalists in that same town, and with rich backers there.In literature, the connections the self-made man creates always come back to haunt him, and so it may now be with Obama. When this happens the question becomes: what lies at the core of the self-made man? In literature, the answer often is, nothing other than the compulsion of self-making and the sum total of the connections and deals that this compulsion yielded. Who, at root, was Jay Gatsby?But Obama is not a fictional character, nor does he seem superficial. Most of his connections may say nothing specific about his core, and in theory this could even be true about his church affiliation and his spiritual adviser. However, Obama’s own writing suggests that his relationship with the Trinity Church and with Jeremiah Wright has been a deep one. He says he attended church regularly, except during specific periods such as after his first child was born. He says Rev. Wright had a significant influence on him and, in fact, played a major role in bringing him to Jesus. If we take Obama at his word, his relationship with Wright was not pure opportunism. Rather there was an affinity. What was the nature of that affinity?I think we should stipulate that it was not Wright’s most extreme racist and anti-American pronouncements. But it also seems clear that it was not traditional Christian belief either. Obama was not looking for that — indeed, he had rejected traditional Christianity before encountering Wright. As just noted, Wright brought him to Jesus. More precisely, Wright’s brand of Christianity accomplished this.What is that brand? According to Wright (for example, during his contentious interview with Sean Hannity last year), the brand is liberation theology. Liberation theology sees the Christian mission as bringing justice to oppressed people through political activism. In effect, it is a merger of Christianity with radical left-wing ideology. Black liberation theology, as articulated for example by James Cone who inspired Wright, emphasizes the racial aspect oppression. It’s easy to see why this brand of Christianity, and probably only this brand, could bring a left-wing political activist like Obama to Jesus.How would the statements of Wright that have recently come to light be viewed in the context of liberation theology? In particular, employing the various terms Obama has used to describe Wright’s statements, which ones would be “not particularly controversial,” which would be “controversial” or “provocative,” and which would be deplorable?Comments about crimes against Palestinians would, I submit, fall within the mainstream of liberation theology, just as they do for most hard-leftists who don’t put Christianity into the mix. Palestinians make the “A List” of oppressed victims of virtually every ideology that sees the world as divided into oppressors and the oppressed.Comments about the U.S. treating some of its citizens as less than human, or bringing 9/11 on itself, or inflicting AIDs on black people would, I take it, be controversial and provocative even within the world of black liberation theology. One can believe that oppression is rampant and that the U.S. is heavily implicated, without going as far as Wright did in these remarks. But Wright’s remarks seem no worse than controversial and provocative within this framework. An oppressor will go to great lengths to oppress, and it is an open question just how far that imperative extends. Wright offers one possible answer to that question: there are virtually no limits. If that answer were beyond the pale of the black liberation theology of his congregation, Wright would not have survived and prospered there. Moreover, certain comments of Michelle Obama are surely uncontroversial in the world of black liberation theology. It would, in fact, be most difficult to reconcile pride in America with that theology. The open question for its adherents is how low their estimation of America should be, and how low they think America would stoop. Pride in America would seem out of the question.In sum, Barack Obama’s close and longstanding affiliation with Wright and his church probably does tell us something important about the man. It doesn’t tell us that he agrees with Wright’s most extreme ravings, but it suggests that Obama is enough of a leftist to be attracted to, and comfortable at, a place where Wright’s most extreme views, though controversial and provocative, are not outrageous. Obama’s current attempts to escape that inference likely have more to do self-making than with historical fact.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/03/020045.php

 

Is “Audacity of Hope” Really Marxism?

 “They (religious seekers) want a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives, something that will relieve a chronic loneliness or lift them above the exhausting, relentless toll of daily life.  They need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them, is listening to them – that they are not just destined to travel down a long highway toward nothingness.”  (Audacity of Hope; p. 202) 

Compare what Barack Obama written in his book, above with Karl Marx, below:

 Marxism is summed up in the Encarta Reference Library as “a theory in which class struggle is a central element in the analysis of social change in Western societies.” What are the Marxist views of religion? The worker is miserable and alienated, and this sustains religion.  Religion, according to Marx was the response to the pain of being alive, the response to earthly suffering. In Towards a Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (1844), Marx wrote, “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the feeling of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless circumstances.” Marx indicated in this writing that the worker is a revoluntary and used to suffering at the hands of the capitalist. This suffering, lack of purpose, relentless toil of daily life, with no one who cares about their plight, with no one to listen to their struggle, provides the need for religion. 

Compare this to Obama’s reasons for people to seek religion: no sense of purpose; loneliness (no one to listen to their struggle); relentless toll of daily life; needing assurance that someone cares about them, will listen to them, that they are nothing.

Jeremiah Wright’s Influence, In Obama’s Own Words

Want proof of Jeremiah Wright’s theological influence on Senator Obama, look no further than Obama’s own words.

Obama 12 years ago

Ed Lasky
Barack Obama, the uniter across party lines, across religions, across racial divides, wasn’t always Mr. Sunshine.   He had a different view 12 years ago, when his campaign was more localized.He was 34 years old: a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School — bastions of power and wealth. He was the beneficiary of the best education America had to offer. What were his feelings at age 34? Resentment, hyper-partisan, and accusatory towards whites, Republicans and the so-called Christian right.  As Barack Obama prepared to run for the state Senate he spoke up shortly after the Million Man March lead by Louis Farrakhan — or as Barack Obama honorifically recently titled him, Minister Farrakhan. Via Newsbusters: [empahses added] These are mean, cruel times, exemplified by a ‘lock ’em up, take no prisoners’ mentality that dominates the Republican-led Congress. Historically, African-Americans have turned inward and towards black nationalism whenever they have a sense, as we do now, that the mainstream has rebuffed us, and that white Americans couldn’t care less about the profound problems African-Americans are facing.“ The right wing, the Christian right, has done a good job of building these organizations of accountability, much better than the left or progressive forces have. But it’s always easier to organize around intolerance, narrow-mindedness, and false nostalgia. And they also have hijacked the higher moral ground with this language of family values and moral responsibility. Barack Obama has commented on the value of words to inspire, to bring about change. What kind of change was he talking about in his mid 30’s when most of us had already given up the rebellion we flirted with, and the resentments that beset us,  in college?

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/03/obama_12_years_ago.html

What Did Obama Know About Jeremiah Wright, & When Did He Know It?

Political Night Train finds it unbelievable that Sen Obama and his wife Michelle were, for more than 20 years, unaware of Jeremiah Wright’s hateful racist sermons.  There are persistent rumors of at least one video of Wright preaching hate and racism where the Obama’s are seen in attendance.  How soon before such a video makes it to YouTube?

Just What Did Obama Know About Wright’s Past Sermons?

ABC News Senior National Correspondent Jake Tapper

March 15, 2008 6:15 PM<!–

MichaelJames

–>In his Friday night cable mea culpas on the incendiary comments made by his spiritual adviser Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., repeatedly said, “I wasn’t in church during the time that these statement were made. I did not hear such incendiary language myself, personally. Either in conversations with him or when I was in the pew, he always preached the social gospel. … If I had heard them repeated, I would have quit. … If I thought that was the repeated tenor of the church, then I wouldn’t feel comfortable there.”

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/03/just-what-did-o.html

Obama’s Fellow Trinity Church Members Speak Out On Influence of Rev. Wright

The following statements have been made by Barack Obama’s fellow members of Trinity Church where Jeremiah Wright has been Obama’s pastor for 20 years:

In speaking about what Jeremiah Wright preaches and promotes at Trinity Church, one congregation member said,  

“I wouldn’t call it radical. I call it being black in America,” said one congregation member outside the church last Sunday.

Another Trinity Church members stated, “He (Rev. Wright) has impacted the life of Barack Obama so much so that he (Obama) wants to portray that feeling he got from Rev. Wright onto the country because we all need something positive,” said another member of the congregation.

Hillary Memo: Lay Off Jeremiah Wright

Political Night Train believes the Clintons have seen the light and may stop trying to make race an issue.  It seems Obama’s minister, Jeremiah Wright is doing a good job injecting hate and racism into the campaign.

Clinton campaign: Yes on Rezko, no on Wright

by James Oliphant

The memo has apparently gone around the Hillary Clinton camp this morning: Lay off the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.

On a conference call Saturday to talk about the state of the race, Clinton campaign officials just wouldn’t go there.

“That’s really for Senator Obama to address,” said chief strategist Mark Penn.

It’s interesting, because certainly, the Clinton folks have shown very little reluctance to knock Obama around like a pinata every time they come across as what they perceive to be a vulnerable spot.

Take, for instance, Obama’s mea culpa on his dealings with Antoin “Tony” Rezko. The Clinton campaign has been calling on Obama for months to come clean about the full extent of his relationship with the indicted developer. Friday, they got their wish to some degree, but that only racheted up the Clinton attacks.

Penn said Obama’s disclosures were part of a “troubling pattern,” in which Obama’s words don’t match the facts. He said Obama’s advisers on foreign policy and trade haven’t always been on the same page as the candidate. And with Rezko, Penn said, Obama waited too long to tell the full story. The theme, as the Clinton folks have been pushing for weeks, is that Obama’s words don’t add up to very much.

“We tend to learn more in dribs and drabs rather than the kind of transparent candidate and the transparent campaign he says he has been running,” Penn said.

Transparency, of course, is a two-way street. The campaign was asked again whether it would release Clinton’s tax returns, something Obama has been demanding for months. Penn said the returns would be released “around April 15.” When pressed, he pledged they would be made public before the Pennsylvania primary. The Obama camp has been saying returns will shed light on the various sources of income for both Hillary — and especially Bill — Clinton.

Clinton spokesman Phil Singer also wondered why Obama had said he wasn’t aware of Rezko’s legal problems when Friday Obama said that he had indeed read stories about Rezko’s troubles and why Obama said Rezko had raised $100,000 less for his campaign than the developer actually raised.

“Senator Obama needs to answer some basic questions, including why does this story keep changing?” Singer said. He complained that Obama “claims the high ground while attacking Senator Clinton’s character.”

As for staying away from Rev. Wright, it may be that the campaign didn’t want to invite comparisons to Geraldine Ferraro, whose race-based remarks were made seemingly a thousand news cycles ago. Or maybe that talking about race in any context has become such a landmine that they just thought it wouldn’t be prudent.

It certainly wasn’t because there was nothing to say.

Posted by Jim Oliphant on March 15, 2008 1:15 PM | Permalink

WHAT Does Barack Obama Really Believe?

 Ron Kessler, writing in NewsMax poses the following questions about Sen. Obama’s values and beliefs:

Mr. Obama obviously would not choose to belong to Mr. Wright’s church and seek his advice unless he agreed with at least some of his views. In light of Mr. Wright’s perspective, Michelle Obama’s comment that she feels proud of America for the first time in her adult life makes perfect sense. Much as most of us would appreciate the symbolism of a black man ascending to the presidency, what we have in Barack Obama is a politician whose closeness to Mr. Wright underscores his radical record.

Questions Obama Must Answer About Jeremiah Wright & Trinity Church

 Political Night Train believes there are many questions Sen. Obama must answer regarding Jeremiah Wright, here are a few:

I Don’t Believe Obama
By Aaron Goldstein (03/15/08)

Obama has been a member of Reverend Wright’s congregation for nearly two decades. Reverend Wright married Barack and Michelle Obama. Reverend Wright baptized their daughters.

Does Obama really expect us to believe that in nearly two decades he never attended a service where Reverend Wright uttered an unkind word about America? Did Reverend Wright only go off the deep end on the Sundays when Obama wasn’t around?

Does Obama really expect us to believe that in nearly two decades, the man whose sermon inspired his book The Audacity of Hope, never told him face to face he believed the United States was responsible for spreading HIV against people of color? Or what he really thinks about Israel?

Does Obama really expect us to believe he would not demand a white Republican politician disassociate with a church whose pastor denounced African Americans? Not on your life. Even if that pastor’s retirement was imminent.
http://www.americandaily.com/article/21777

Obama Can Not Explain His Support for Jeremiah Wright

Obama must explain how he and his family were able to tolerate Jeremiah Wright’s racist and hateful sermons over the past 20 years.  How could Barack and Michelle Obama sit, with their two young daugthers, through sermon after sermon, with Jeremiah Wright just feet away, spewing racist epithats and hatred for whites and jews?  How could he do this to his family?  Maybe the answer lies in the core beliefs and values of Barack and Michelle, or maybe the answer is elsewhere.  How could Obama give $20,000+ each year to a church that he now says does not reflect his own beliefs and values.  There is something amiss here and it needs to be explained.  The question is, will Obama get a pass from the media, just as Hillary and Bill got passes on their dealings (cattle futures, Whitewater, Travelgate, Monica, billing records).  At least in the case of Bill Clinton, he was impeached by the US House of Representatives, the equivalent of you or I being tried and convicted in a court of law.  He just didn’t receive any punishment, that is removal from office by the Senate (thanks in no measure to Sen. Strom Thurmond, of all people).

Note in Obama’s quotes below, he does not once mention Jeremiah Wright by name.

Obama decries pastor’s inflammatory statements

12 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama tried to distance himself from a controversial preacher Saturday, denouncing his allegations that the September 11 attacks were brought on by American “terrorism.”

The Illinois senator acted to quell a controversy over remarks by the preacher, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who also argued African-Americans should sing “God Damn America” to protest their treatment.

In a blog post on the Huffington Post website, Obama admitted Friday that Wright had “touched off a firestorm” with “some inflammatory and appalling remarks he made about our country, our politics, and my political opponents.”

“I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy,” Obama wrote, and said such comments flew in the face of his own “profound” love of America.

“I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies.

Appearing on CNN television later that same day, Obama said Wright’s comments “didn’t reflect my values, and didn’t reflect my ideals.”

Michelle Obama’s Princeton Thesis – Her Black Values Revealed?

Michelle Obama’s senior thesis at Princeton was on the attitudes of black Princeton alumni and attempted to examine the following issues:

 

>Extent to which black alumni are comfortable interacting with black and whites

>Extent to which black alumni are motivated to benefit black communities in comparison to other things, such as themselves, their families, etc.

>The ideologies black alumni hold with respect to race relations between blacks and whites

>Feelings black alumni have toward the black lower class, such as feelings of obligation that they should help improve the lives of this particular group of blacks.

 

On Page 2 of her thesis, Michelle Obama states that regardless of her education, integration, assimilation into white culture, she will always be on the periphery of society, never becoming a full participant.

 

Michelle goes on to say she has acquired some white conservative values, namely getting accepted at a prestigious graduate school and getting a high paying corporate job.

 

Further along in her thesis, Michelle Obama argues for the Stokely Carmichael, or Black Power position that black must first close ranks, take pride in their blackness and black value system, before entering society as a whole. 

 Carmichael, Malcolm X and the Black Power Movement espoused a black first doctrine.  They wanted nothing less than a black nation within a nation.  This was seen as the means to gain political and economic power equal to that of whites. 

Michelle Obama then goes on to bemoan the separation of black studies from white studies.

 The way black studies were handled by Princeton in the mid-80’s may well have been a function of how the liberal Princeton professors and administrators buying into, and promoting the values of Carmichael and the Black Power Movement. 

On Page 26, Michelle Obama draws the conclusion that the more blacks interact with whites on an intellectual level, the less likely those blacks will value helping poor blacks.

 

Does this mean white values corrupt black values?

 

Michelle goes on in her thesis to say that the more blacks become integrated or assimilated into society as a whole, the less motivated those blacks are to benefit the black community and the less positive their attitudes toward lower class blacks.  She goes on to state that as blacks have become more integrated into white society, the more blacks have lost touch with black culture, with some blacks becoming so removed from their culture that they feel ashamed of that culture.

 

Michelle Obama had hoped that her findings would conclude that as a result of black’s time at Princeton, and despite a high degree of identification with white society, black Princeton alumni would maintain a level of identification with the black community and values.  Her findings did not support this possibility.

 Michelle Obama’s senior thesis would have come at a time in her life when her attitudes, values and view of the world would mostly be fixed.  Is her thesis a reflection of why she was attracted to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Trinity Church.  Does her thesis reflect deep seated feelings about whites and society as a whole.  And is this the basis for Michelle Obama not being proud of her country, until now?

How Hillary Wins – Open Advice from Political Night Train

How Hillary Wins Hillary Clinton is down, but not out.  Can she be the next Clinton “Come Back Kid”?  And how does she do it.  Many weeks ago, before the Iowa caucus, Political Night Train set out a strategy whereby Hillary would go negative on John Edwards, rather than Obama.  The strategy was designed to draw off much of Edwards support.  Seems no one in the Clinton campaign took our open advice, and now they long for those delegates that are pledged to Edwards.  Had Clinton gone extremely negative on Edwards, she would now be ahead, may have won a few additional states, could have avoided having Bill Clinton inject the “race” issue in South Carolina.  As a side thought, Bill Clinton’s injection of racism probably did more to damage Hillary personally than any other single event.  Although the Clinton’s are most likely not out-and-out racists, they are perfectly capable of using racism to win an election.  This willingness to use racism went down bad with black leaders, and blacks in general, not to mention whites.  Just when a young generation of whites were willing to go to the polls and say race doesn’t matter, along comes an old fart like Bill Clinton to say race does matter. So how does Hillary win in Texas and Ohio?  Hillary’s last chance, and Political Night Train’s open advice to her campaign is to go negative not on Barack Obama, but on Michelle Obama.  What you say?  Yes, go very negative on Michelle.  Hillary should use herself as an example and say that Michelle would be overly influencing on a Barack Obama administration.  Point out the statements that Michelle has made about whites, especially those ignored by the main stream media during the days in Iowa.  Point out the significant influence the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Trinity Church has had on Michelle.  Point out that Michelle’s agenda is blacks only, blacks first, at the expense of other minority groups. Hammer over and over again how Michelle would overly influence Barack to put a black agenda ahead of all other issues.  Everything in an Obama administration would be tinged with black overtones.  All as the expense of other minorities.  This strategy would work since Bill Clinton has already introduced the racism issue.  Hillary would have to use her shills, people like James Carville to promote these stories while she stays above the fray.  In other words, Hillary needs to Swift Boat Michelle Obama.  Hillary could even use Michelle’s senior thesis at Princeton against her.