What should we make of Barack Obama as we evaluate him as a potential president of the United States?
In a previous article (Jeremiah Wright As Barack Obama’s Political Albatross), I explained the profound connection between the “black liberation theology” of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the “liberation theology” that emerged from Latin America in the early 1970s. The former is a branch from the tree of the latter, and the roots of liberation theology are Marxist to the core.
When the Marxist Sandinistas wanted to spread revolution to Nicaragua – which was well over 90% Roman Catholic – they realized that they had to enlist the cooperation of the Catholic clergy if they wanted to have any hope of installing a Marxist regime. To this end, a small group of Marxist-Catholic theologians concocted the combination of carefully selected teachings of Jesus with the teachings of Marx as a way of justifying violent revolution to overthrow capitalism and any government that supported it.
These “liberation theologians” saw every biblical criticism of the rich as a mandate to “expropriate from the expropriators” (in Marx’s words), and viewed every expression of compassion for the poor as a call for an uprising by proletariat peasants and workers against capitalist oppression. Rather than viewing Marxism through the lens of Christianity, they viewed Christianity through the lens of Marxism. As early as 1972 (the same year Jeremiah Wright came to the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago), the Catholic Church (at the 1972 Sucre CELAM conference) was officially repudiating this new theology as heresy.
John Paul II criticized liberation theology at the 1979 Puebla CELAM conference, saying, “this conception of Christ as a political figure, a revolutionary, as the subversive of Nazareth, does not tally with the Church’s catechisms.” Former Cardinal Ratzinger – now Pope Benedict XVI – strongly opposed certain elements of liberation theology. Through the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, led by Ratzinger, the Vatican twice condemned the liberationist acceptance of Marxism and violence (first in 1984 and again in 1986).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_theology
Black liberation theology does little more than particularize the Marxist doctrine of class struggle specifically to blacks.
So from the point of view of orthodox Christianity and Roman Catholic teaching, black liberation theology is simply the poisonous fruit from a poisonous tree. Elements of liberation theology are partially true, but as is the case so often, these partial truths amount to complete lies when they are stripped of their context and bundled in a package of Marxist dialectic.
When revelations of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s racist, anti-American remarks first began to surface, Democratic supporters of Barack Obama quickly claimed that these were just a few comments that were taken out of context. But when one considers black liberation theology, and when one listens to the words of numerous other black liberation theology theologians, this defense quickly becomes untenable.
When Jeremiah Wright talked about “white greed” in his now-famous “Audacity of Hope” message, he was perfectly expounding on black liberation thought. When he claimed that white America deliberately created the AIDS virus as a genocide against blacks, he was accurately exegeting black liberation ideology of class based warfare against the oppressed black class. Or, expressed negatively, when he said that anti-crack cocaine penalties were instituted by racist legislators for the purpose of incarcerating as many blacks as possible, how was that in any way contrary to his central theological beliefs? When Wright denounced Israel as a Zionist state that imposed “injustice and … racism” on Palestinians, how was this not in perfect accord with his theology? When Wright railed against “AmeriKKKa” in his sermons, just how was that contrary to black liberation thought? And when Wright lectured American society that it deserved 9/11, was this in any way out of bounds with either the teachings of black liberation theologians or the Marxism from which they derived their message?
John Perazzo put it this way: “When we read the writings, public statements, and sermons of Rev. Wright, we quickly notice his unmistakable conviction that America is a nation infested with racism, prejudice, and injustices that make life very difficult for black people. As he declared in one of his sermons: “Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run!… We [Americans] believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God.””
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=c19d4d91-618e-40d3-a5d9-c07d7a87a5ba
Given Wright’s profound hostility for both the U.S. and Israel, is it in any way surprising that he so very publicly embraced and acclaimed the virulently anti-American, anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan? Jeremiah Wright says, “When Minister Farrakhan speaks, Black America listens.” I point this out to ask this: why on earth would Rev. Wright even make such a statement unless he thought Black America should listen to Farrakhan, a documented anti-American racist?
For his part, the very recently retired Rev. Jeremiah Wright himself laid to rest any claim that he really didn’t mean what the hateful explosions taken from his sermons seemed to mean. The Reverend came back from a visit to Africa that conveniently removed him from the media spotlight (and demonstrated why Barack Obama probably wishes he’d stayed in Africa) and performed a marriage ceremony at Trinity United Church. He could have just conducted a simple wedding ceremony, but he chose not to. He could have acknowledged how wrong and hurtful his words have been, but he chose not to. He could have attempted to claim that what appeared to be such hateful words had been somehow taken out of context, but he chose not to. Rather, at a sacred ceremony celebrating the union of a man and a wife, the same pastor who had similarly joined in matrimony the hands of Barack and Michelle Obama once again used his pulpit as a platform to angrily blast away at those who had exposed his message.
What does any of this have to do with Senator and presidential hopeful Barack Obama? Nothing, if you listen to the spin of Obama supporters. Senator Obama always managed to be consistently and conveniently absent whenever these statements – and however many like them – rang through Trinity United Church, and, besides, you can’t convict Barack Obama with guilt by association. Barack Obama hasn’t said anything like this, after all.
Well, not so fast.
It simply stretches credulity to believe that Barack Obama never heard a hateful word come out of Jeremiah Wright’s mouth during his twenty years in the church.
In his 1993 memoir “Dreams from My Father,” Obama in his own words recalled his first meeting with Wright in 1985 in vivid detail. The pastor warned the young, politically ambitious, up-and-coming community activist that getting involved with Trinity might turn off other black clergy because of the church’s radical reputation. In other words, he was warned from the get-go.
John Perazo writes, “American voters ought to have more than a passing interest in the fact that when Barack Obama formally joined TUCC in 1991, he tacitly accepted this same Jeremiah Wright as a spiritual mentor. Moreover, he pledged allegiance to the church’s race-conscious “Black Value System” that encourages blacks to patronize black-only businesses, support black leaders, and avoid becoming “entrapped” by the pursuit of a “black middle-classness” whose ideals presumably would erode their sense of African identity and render them “captive” to white culture.”
Both the title of Obama’s second book, The Audacity of Hope, and the theme for his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 came right out of Wright’s sermons. “If you want to understand where Barack gets his feeling and rhetoric from,” says the Rev. Jim Wallis, a leader of the religious left who knows both men, “just look at Jeremiah Wright.”
But none of his core theology? None of his ideas or beliefs? Preposterous.
It is frankly impossible not to see the profound impact Jeremiah Wright has had on Barack Obama. Their relationship – and Wright’s influence – goes far deeper than the surface realities that Rev. Wright married Barack and Michelle Obama and baptized their children.
We have already heard Wright’s poison come out of the mouth of Michelle Obama. Her expression of her lack of pride in her country throughout her adult life, and her comment that “America is a mean place in 2008,” could have come right out of her pastor’s mouth. Her feelings are certainly incongruous with her own privileged history as a Princeton University graduate or her high-paying position with a hospital in Chicago, to say the least.
But what about Barack Obama?
A lot of the connections between Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama are carefully camoflaged by Obama’s polished rhetoric to avoid the overt bitterness and racism of his mentor while retaining Wright’s substance. For example, in his “Audacity of Hope” message, Jeremiah Wright railed against “white greed.” Barack Obama’s message is, “The biggest problem facing America is greed.” Now, Senator Obama, are you referring to the greed of poor, oppressed blacks, or to the white greed that your pastor talked about in that sermon that inspired your book? Senator?
But now we’ve got a naked expression of black liberation theology Marxism revealed in all its polished prose.
“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns, or religion, or antipathy to people who aren’t like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment, or anti-trade sentiments as a way to explain their frustrations,” Obama said at an April 6 fundraiser in San Fransisco.
Hillary Clinton immediately pounced on the “elitism and condescension” of Obama’smessage (and c’mon, it’s just not every day someone with $150 million gets to say stuff like this and mean it!). And, yeah, it sure is those things, being that it is a message explaining to wealthy liberal San Fransiscans the uncomprehending stupidity of white working class Pennsylvanians, who can only dully cling to guns and religion the way a frightened child might cling to a teddy bear.
Some analysts picked up on the “bitter” part of the explanation. Others picked up on the “cling” part.
I want to make sure you pick up on the Marxist part.
Karl Marx famously claimed that religion was an opiate of the masses. He was explaining his view that the wealthy bourgeoise cynically used religion as a device to keep the poor, simple proletariat happy in their misery and squalor so they would find it immoral to rise up and overthrow their capitalists oppressors.
Immediatly after the flareup over his remarks, Barack Obama, speaking from Muncie, Indiana on April 12, said, “I said something that everybody knows is true, which is that there are a whole bunch of folks in small towns in Pennsylvania, in towns right here in Indiana, in my hometown in Illinois, who are bitter.
“So I said well you know when you’re bitter you turn to what you can count on. So people they vote about guns, or they take comfort from their faith and their family and their community.”
Well, I would agree that everyone who views the world through the Marxist perception of liberation theology, dialectic materialism, and religion-as-opiate, might know that it’s true. But everyone else should frankly have a lot of problems with Obama’s views.
I also noticed that on this second go-around, Senator Obama didn’t add his “antipathy to people who aren’t like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment, or anti-trade sentiments” remarks to his revised list of “what [working class Pennsylvanians] can count on.” Adding those little items to the security provided by religious belief and the right to bear arms somehow just doesn’t sound as good, does it?
At the CNN “Compassion Forum” on April 13, Obama explained that “Religion is a bulwark, a foundation, when other things aren’t going well.” Okay. Just as long as we don’t think that religion actually reflects simple reality, or that people are religious because there is a Creator God who cares about us and has a plan for our lives. Thank God (well, er, thank the liberal equivalent of God, anyway) that Barack Obama isn’t one of those “fundamentalists,” right, San Fransisco? Otherwise, he might oppose abortion and the homosexual social agenda.
Eventually, the crushing impact of the poll numbers – which now have Senator Hillary Clinton up by 20 points in Pennsylvania – will force Senator Obama to do a better job of distancing himself from his formerly expressed views. Just as with the previous firestorm over the Rev. Wright’s hate-speech, the Obama campaign seems to be progressing from a casual dismissal, to a few casual words of dismissive explanation, to a half-hearted apology, and – if all else fails – to a full-blown speech. Only this time, it will be his very own words that are at issue.
Start Thinking Right 