Political Republican Opinion:

Now that it’s back in the news because the Republican ticket has finally decided to pull the mask off of the robot, Barack Obama, it is time to explore briefly, not the Reverend Wright himself, but the racism of Black Liberation Theology, the religion taught at Trinity United Church of Christ, Obama’s church of twenty years.

Barack Obama was introduced to God by the Reverend Jeremiah Wright; a man the presidential hopeful has at times called a spiritual guide and a mentor. “I could no sooner disown this man than I could the black community … these people are a part of me and they are part of America,” Obama said in a celebrated March ’08 speech, denouncing racism in America. It is an interesting choice of words; not because weeks later Barack Obama would disown Reverend Wright and leave the church, but because he admits how much a part of him that the church is and because of the words “black community” that Obama chose to use.

Sean Hannity interviewed Rev. Wright March 1, 2008, a couple of weeks before the grandiose Obama speech. During the interview, the esteemed Reverend became incensed when Hannity questioned the teachings of the church and how it all centered on only helping blacks. “Do you know black theology?,” Reverend Wright asked Hannity. “How many of Cone’s books have you read? … How many books of Dwight Hopkins’ have you read?,” he continued. The unanswered question, of course, was “none.” Who are these people that Reverend Wright spoke of? They were, in Wrights words, founders of the theology that evolved in the 60’s.

James Cone is a professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York and probably the world’s foremost proponent of black theology. In an article in the Asia Times, James Cone is attributed with quoting from William R. Jones essay entitled “Divine Racism: The Unacknowledged Threshold Issue for Black Theology.” The quote is as follows:

“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.”

In Black Theology and Black Power, David Cone wrote:

“For white people, God’s reconciliation in Jesus Christ means that God has made black people a beautiful people; and if they are going to be in relationship with God, they must enter by means of their black brothers, who are a manifestation of God’s presence on earth.

The assumption that one can know God without knowing blackness is the basic heresy of the white churches. They want God without blackness, Christ without obedience, love without death.

What they fail to realize is that in America, God’s revelation on earth has always been black, red, or some other shocking shade, but never white. Whiteness, as revealed in the history of America, is the expression of what is wrong with man. It is a symbol of man’s depravity.

God cannot be white even though white churches have portrayed him as white. When we look at what whiteness has done to the minds of men in this country, we can see clearly what the New Testament meant when it spoke of the principalities and powers. To speak of Satan and his powers becomes not just a way of speaking but a fact of reality. When we can see a people who are controlled by an ideology of whiteness, then we know what reconciliation must mean. The coming of Christ means a denial of what we thought we were. It means destroying the white devil in us. Reconciliation to God means that white people are prepared to deny themselves (whiteness), take up the cross (blackness) and follow Christ (black ghetto).”

Dwight N. Hopkins is a professor of theology at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School and a member of Trinity United Church of Christ. In Being Human: Race, Culture and Religion, Hopkins wrote:

“The spirituality of white supremacy was crafted out of American history and created into something new in the United States. This spirituality burst forth from materiality but transcends each individual white person and subsequent white generations. It is immanent and immediate and lives on across time and is fed by its own rapacious internal drive from more power, privileges, and perks. Consequently, to be sane in America is to simply agree that white people’s perpetual position at the top of the racial hierarchy is normal. Of course, only the mad would dispute this assertion. . .

Now that U.S. white supremacist spirituality is the sole imperialist superpower across the earth, under the sea, and in space, one can feel immediately its unchecked performance in the Third World and even in its unilateral operations independent of its (supposedly) European allies’ wishes.”

In Barack Obama’s own words, these people are a part of him, a part of who he is. He sat in this racist church for twenty years and never thought about leaving. Barack Obama and his wife Michelle (who incidentally has commented about her disdain for America on numerous occasions) are adults. They may very well be able to separate the racist teachings from whatever spiritual message the church may convey. Their children are young and impressionable, however. To subject them to this kind of separatist rhetoric is irresponsible as parents and as patriots.

If we are to believe that the Obamas do not adhere to the racist teachings of the Black Theology Religion, we can only conclude that the sole reason they continued to attend the church, was to advance their political aspirations in the black community. Either way, they are lying to somebody!

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