{"id":416,"date":"2008-03-19T13:04:11","date_gmt":"2008-03-19T17:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/godandculture.wordpress.com\/?p=416"},"modified":"2008-03-19T13:04:11","modified_gmt":"2008-03-19T17:04:11","slug":"its-the-philosophy-not-the-rhetoric-senator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/its-the-philosophy-not-the-rhetoric-senator","title":{"rendered":"It’s the philosophy, not the rhetoric, Senator"},"content":{"rendered":"

Senator Obama\u2019s \u201cA More Perfect Union\u201d speech<\/a> was political rhetoric at its finest. While skillfully denouncing the words of his pastor and spiritual mentor, Barack Obama left intact a tacit endorsement of the philosophical worldview that fuels the incendiary rhetoric of Rev. Jeremiah Wright.<\/p>\n

When Rev. Wright says things like,<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government gives them (black people) the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three strike law, and then wants us to sing \u2018God Bless America?\u2019 No, no, no! Not \u2018God BLESS America,\u2019 \u2018God DAMN America.\u2019 That\u2019s in the Bible. For killing innocent people. God Damn America for treating her citizens as less than human,\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

it\u2019s not mere ranting. Those words betray a commitment to a political philosophy which is an amalgam of Marxist socialism and a truncated view of the gospel of Jesus Christ which has as its chief goal the obliteration of Anglo\/European influence on American life, culture, and politics. You don\u2019t even have to listen very carefully to Rev. Jeremiah Wright to hear this philosophy loud and clear:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026[Jesus] cares about what a poor black man has to face every day in a country and a culture controlled by rich white people\u2026Jesus was a poor, black man who lived in a country, and who lived in a culture that was controlled by rich, white people. The Romans were rich. The Romans were Italian, which means they were European, which means they were white. And the Romans ran everything in Jesus\u2019s country.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Senator Obama has a two decades long association with Rev. Wright and his church, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Trinity\u2019s commitment to Black Liberation Theology is clearly outlined in its mission statement on its website<\/a>. In an interview with Sean Hannity<\/a> on Fox News Channel\u2019s Hannity and Colmes television program on March 2, Rev. Wright confirmed that the work which informs his worldview is the writings of James Hal Cone<\/a>, widely considered to be the founder of Black Liberation Theology. Joe Carter cites Cone in a recent post<\/a>, as having written:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The media, both conservative and main stream, is focused on the incendiary rhetoric of Jeremiah Wright while totally ignoring the political\/religious philosophy fueling the words. Obama skillfully (and successfully) convinced us that he repudiates the words of his mentor and spiritual advisor, but what politician wouldn\u2019t? The real question we should be asking the Senator to answer is this: do you repudiate the philosophy of Black Liberation Theology espoused by your church? He can distance himself from Rev. Wright, referring to him twice in his speech as his \u201cformer pastor\u201d (the Rev. Wright retires at the end of March), but the fact remains that Obama remains a member of a church whose mission is rooted in Black Liberation Theology.<\/p>\n

Christian Apologist Robert A. Morey characterizes the goals of Black Liberation theology<\/a> as \u201c\u2026to turn religion into sociology, Christianity into a political agenda, Jesus into a black Marxist rebel, and the gospel into violent revolution. They are more interested in politics than preaching the gospel.\u201d Morey points out that ministers like Jeremiah Wright who espouse this worldview seek to \u201c\u2026manipulate embittered young blacks by turning their feelings of inferiority, alienation, jealousy, hopelessness and self-hate, into racist rage against whites, Orientals and affluent blacks who are conveniently blamed for their lack of personal initiative to better their lot in life.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you are bewildered as to why an up and coming politician would remain a member of a church whose pastor preaches hate against whites and Europeans, the answer is NOT because he agrees with the rhetoric. He rightly condemns the rhetoric. The only logical answer has to be because he agrees with the church\u2019s philosophical worldview. Senator Obama has yet to publicly denounce the political philosophy that inspires the rhetoric, and in fact Obama\u2019s \u201cA More Perfect Union Speech\u201d bears the marks of Black Liberation Theology in at least two parts.<\/p>\n

First, the call for a merging of spirituality and political philosophy:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world\u2019s great religions demand: that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother\u2019s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister\u2019s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

By the way, nowhere does Scripture command us to \u201cbe our brother\u2019s keeper.\u201d On the contrary, it was Cain who, after killing his brother, justified the killing on the grounds that he WASN\u2019T his brother\u2019s keeper. It is this kind of scripture twisting that is used to justify wealth redistribution and to condemn the capitalist system in which our democracy is rooted.<\/p>\n

Second, his veiled assertion that the private creation of wealth is \u201cthe culprit\u201d in racial tension in America:<\/p>\n

\u201cJust as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze \u2013 a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is no question Senator Obama repudiates his pastor\u2019s hate speech. The question that remains unanswered, however, is does he repudiate a political philosophy that calls for the suppression of more than half of the American population and is fundamentally at odds with American democracy?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senator Obama\u2019s \u201cA More Perfect Union\u201d speech was political rhetoric at its finest. While skillfully denouncing the words of his pastor and spiritual mentor, Barack Obama left intact a tacit endorsement of the philosophical worldview that fuels the incendiary rhetoric … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}