Is Obama a Black Liberation Theologist?

"the least of these" and being your brother's keeper" - isn't that what the Bible says, in particular what Jesus said?

An important point to understand about Obama is how he met Rev Wright. Obama met many pastors in the Chicago area as sources to help with community organizing. Someone suggested he try Rev Wright's church. Wright was immediately very open to helping support the community organizing efforts. Wright had developed an unbelievable large number of community service programs at his church. Another pastor had told Obama that pastors would usually question his motives for his community organizing work. He suggested that Obama might want to attend church services.

In the process of attending church at Wright's church, Obama found God and a church family. Obama had a big hole in his life that was filled by both God and the church family.

Rev Wright has been very misunderstood. While I do not agree with everything Wright has said, he has been an outstanding Christian Pastor that has served God well. Wright is not a racists. A small number of white people that attended his church. Wright's G** D*** sermon was condemning the Bush administration for starting an unjust war in Iraq that would kill innocent people. He was not damming the American people. It was a very good sermon!

A great book to read is Stephan Mansfield's book, "Faith of Barack Obama." The book is educational, easy to read book, and especially good for people unfamiliar with black churches. I learned about Black Liberation Theology, which is much different from what I heard on TV. The author is objective and helps answer why Obama stated in Rev Wright's church for 20 years. He discusses what really shaped Obama's religious views, how they will inform the way he governs and why he may be a compelling leader not just to liberal Democrats but also to some conservative evangelicals.

Mansfield is a conservative Republican; however, he demonstrated a true Christian attitude by not demonizing people with different views. Search for the book and Mansfield on youtube. Mansfield says, "What really disappointments me in the church today is the level of hatred about politics. As a follower of Jesus Christ, I am not allowed to hate someone that kills my wife, steal my property. Hatred in the church about politics is sin and it's got to go."

As Obama said in his speech on race, Wight was probably stuck too much in the past. At the same time, racism still exists. Obama encountered discrimination; however, the magnitude was very small compared to the older Wright going to college in a southern state - Virginia. It was a shock to Wright because he had not encountered the same type of discrimination when he lived in a northern state in a black community.

According to Wright, liberation theology started from the vantage point of the oppressed. Wright used the term "black" to be the oppressed and "white" as the oppressor. Wright said that Jesus was black because he was oppressed.

The basic message was it is OK to be black and you do not have to be like whites. A simple example, women straightening their hair or having plastic surgery on their nose. Another example is the type of music or the type of sermon in church. Protestant missionaries typically went to other countries and pushed their way of worshiping.

Helping the oppressed is one of Obama's top goals; however, it is not race driven. Obama is very big on accountability. In his book, "Dreams of My Father," he talks about African-Americans blaming others too much instead of taking action to improve situations.

I think his childhood experiences helped shape his openness to others. Until Obama moved to Chicago, he lived between many different worlds, but never fit into any of the worlds. He lived a very different life in Indonesia. At the beginning, his stepfather had more money than most others did. Obama observed extreme poverty and oppression of people. Obama was the only black student in school and did not know the language. He studied the Catholic religion for three years and Muslim for one year. His mother was interested in religions, but from a spiritual prospective. She introduced Obama to many religions. She took him to Protestant Churches on Easter when they lived in Hawaii.

The black population of Hawaii was very small, except at the military installations. Obama appears to be the only black in his fifth grade class, which had far more whites than the public schools. In Hawaii, Obama was exposed to many cultures.

Part of a long explanation by Rev Wright at the National Press Club - Wright said a couple stupid things, but he also said some very important things that got lost in the media focusing only on the few stupid things:

I call our faith tradition, however, the prophetic tradition of the black church, because I take its origins back past Jim Cone, past the sermons and songs of Africans in bondage in the transatlantic slave trade. I take it back past the problem of Western ideology and notions of white supremacy.

I take and trace the theology of the black church back to the prophets in the Hebrew Bible and to its last prophet, in my tradition, the one we call Jesus of Nazareth.

The prophetic tradition of the black church has its roots in Isaiah, the 61st chapter, where God says the prophet is to preach the gospel to the poor and to set at liberty those who are held captive. Liberating the captives also liberates who are holding them captive.

It frees the captives and it frees the captors. It frees the oppressed and it frees the oppressors.
The prophetic theology of the black church, during the days of chattel slavery, was a theology of liberation. It was preached to set free those who were held in bondage spiritually, psychologically, and sometimes physically. And it was practiced to set the slaveholders free from the notion that they could define other human beings or confine a soul set free by the power of the gospel.

The prophetic theology of the black church during the days of segregation, Jim Crow, lynching, and the separate-but-equal fantasy was a theology of liberation.

It was preached to set African-Americans free from the notion of second-class citizenship, which was the law of the land. And it was practiced to set free misguided and miseducated Americans from the notion that they were actually superior to other Americans based on the color of their skin.
The prophetic theology of the black church in our day is preached to set African-Americans and all other Americans free from the misconceived notion that different means deficient.

Being different does not mean one is deficient. It simply means one is different, like snowflakes, like the diversity that God loves. Black music is different from European and European music. It is not deficient; it is just different.

Black worship is different from European and European-American worship. It is not deficient; it is just different.

Black preaching is different from European and European-American preaching. It is not deficient; it is just different. It is not bombastic; it is not controversial; it’s different. ...

This principle of “different does not mean deficient” is at the heart of the prophetic theology of the black church. It is a theology of liberation.

The prophetic theology of the black church is not only a theology of liberation; it is also a theology of transformation, which is also rooted in Isaiah 61, the text from which Jesus preached in his inaugural message, as recorded by Luke.

When you read the entire passage from either Isaiah 61 or Luke 4 and do not try to understand the passage or the content of the passage in the context of a sound bite, what you see is God’s desire for a radical change in a social order that has gone sour.

God’s desire is for positive, meaningful and permanent change. God does not want one people seeing themselves as superior to other people. God does not want the powerless masses, the poor, the widows, the marginalized, and those underserved by the powerful few to stay locked into sick systems which treat some in the society as being more equal than others in that same society.
God’s desire is for positive change, transformation, real change, not cosmetic change, transformation, radical change or a change that makes a permanent difference, transformation. God’s desire is for transformation, changed lives, changed minds, changed laws, changed social orders, and changed hearts in a changed world.

"Think About It"

Do you have any idea where James Cone was when he was coming out of it? Or how Black Liberation Theology has its roots in Black Power in the 1960s/1970s?

The idea behind it was to give black people, who were suffering, and had no church to turn to during segregation and violence... and who were in turn "raging" in the streets... some kind of outlet. Even King dabbled in liberation theology (Cone has a book about it) that uses the idea of righteous suffering.

Yes, Black Liberation Theology is extreme but I wish people would stop quoting Wikipedia and actually do some research, or go sit in a James Cone class, or go to Wright's church. Even if you decide you hate it, look at the congregation -- look at the people who frequent and who go. The idea then -- and now -- is to speak for the silent or the voiceless and help "the wretched of the earth." Hence the Church's principles of self-reliance and empowering those who are weak.

I've yet to see the media make a big deal out of Palin's church, or McCain's pastor both of which subscribe to extremism. And I actually think this is part of the reason why McCain won't bring up Rev. Wright. I think he sees it as off-limits and beyond bottom of the barrel to attack someone for their faith.

Oh and this is coming from someone who is Roman Catholic ;-)