Revisiting Obama’s Liberation Theology Church

Cross-posted from Faultline USA In March of 2007, I wrote an article expressing grave concerns about Obama’s Liberation Theology church and his controversial pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Last year few Americans, other than Theologians or graduates from left-leaning seminaries such as Brite Divinity School, even knew about Liberation Theology. The following republished article exposed the truth about Jeremiah Wright’s church and quotes from the works of James H. Cone, one of the primary authors of Black Liberation Theology. Additionally provided are some important points about the grave dangers of Liberation Theology written in 1984 by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI). Following is the text from Obama’s Marxist Liberation Theology Church : The best lie is a little pig that’s always hidden between several fluffy layers of truth and covered with a lot of lipstick and charisma. This is a follow-up to yesterday’s article originally posted on Right Truth and here “What Obama’s Church Preaches” Note: This article isn’t so much about religion as it is about the politics of political revolution as fomented in all Liberation Theology churches. Read also the post by Church and State: Obama's Pastor Embarrasses Entire Congregation. Be sure to View the video where “Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, Barak Obama's pastor, went on Hannity & Colmes last night to respond to claims that his church is a black separatist congregation.” Obama’s pastor, Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, continued to evade Hannity while he hammered away asking again and agin if Hannity had ever read James H. Cone, one of the primary authors of Black Liberation Theology. Oddly enough, I just happen to have several of Cone’s works on hand. Here’s just a little from Cone’s classic book A Black Theology of Liberation (Twentieth Anniversary Edition): Emphasis added by me: The definition of Jesus as black is crucial for christology if we truly believer in his continued presence today. Taking our clue from the historical Jesus who is pictured in the New Testament as the Oppressed One, what else, except blackness, could adequately tell us the meaning of his presence today? Any statement about Jesus today that fails to consider blackness as the decisive factor about his person is a denial of the New Testament message. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus reveal that he is the man for others, disclosing to them what is necessary for their liberation from oppression. If this is true, then Jesus Christ must be black so that blacks can know that their liberation is his liberation. . . The black Christ is he who threatens the structure of evil as seen in white society, rebelling against it, thereby becoming the embodiment of what the black community knows that it must become. . . To be a disciple of the black Christ is to become black with him. Looting, burning, or the destruction of white property are not primary concerns. Such matters can only be decided by the oppressed themselves who are seeking to develop their images of the black Christ. . . Whites do not recognize what is happening, and they are thus unable to deal with it. For most whites in power, the black community is a nuisance –something to be considered only when the natives get restless. But what white America fails to realize is the explosive nature of the kingdom. Although its beginning is small, it will have far-reaching effects not only on the black community but on the white community as well. Now is the time to make decisions about loyalties, because soon it will be too late. Shall we or shall we not join the black revolutionary kingdom? An excellent overview of the grave dangers of Liberation Theology was written in 1984 by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI). Here are some of the important points Ratzinger makes about Liberation Theology: 1. Liberation Theology has it center of power in Latin America and in African Theology, but is found in many Christian denominations throughout the Third World. 2. Liberation Theology is a new interpretation of Christian reality. 3. Liberation Theology is radically Marxist. “ . . .the world must be interpreted in terms of the class struggle and that the only choice is between capitalism and Marxism.” 4. Liberation Theology thrives on perpetuating class struggle. The only people of the Church are those who participate in class struggle. 5. Liberation Theology is a theology of bloody political revolution. All of Christian reality is reduced to politico-social liberation praxis (action). 6. Liberation Theology rejects traditional scriptural interpretations. “The experience of the "community" determines the understanding and the interpretation of Scripture. . . Ultimately, what is normative for interpretation is not historical research but the hermeneutic of history experienced in the community or the political group.” 7. Liberation Theology makes the Bible subject to a Marxist view of history. “The "historicality" of the Bible must justify its absolute dominance and thus legitimize the' transition to materialist-marxist philosophy, in which history has taken over the role of God. . . historical criticism has loosed Scripture from the traditional interpretation, which now appears to be unscientific. 8. Liberation Theology is a threat to the faith of the Christian Church. Here Ratzinger analyzes some of the central concepts of Liberation Theology: Faith: Jesus' experience of God is radically historical. "His faith is transformed into fidelity." Thus faith is fundamentally replaced by "fidelity to history". . . Hope is interpreted as "confidence in the.future" and as working for the future and thus is subordinated once more to the history of class conflict. . . Love consists in the "option for the poor"; i.e., it coincides with opting for the class struggle. . . Kingdom of God: “ . .the Kingdom must not be understood in a spiritualist or universalist manner, not in the sense of an abstract eschatological eventuality. It must be understood in partisan terms and with a view to praxis. The meaning of the Kingdom can only be defined by reference to the praxis of Jesus, not theoretically: it means working at the historical reality that surrounds us in order to transform it into the Kingdom.” Overcoming Dualism “Here we must mention another basic idea of a particular post­conciliar theology which has led in this direction. People said that after the Council every dualism must be overcome: the dualism of body and soul, of natural and supernatural, of this world and the world beyond, of then and now. Once these supposed dualisms had been eliminated, it only remained to work for a kingdom to be realized in present history and in politico­economic reality. This meant, however, that one had ceased to work for the benefit of people in this present time and had begun to destroy the present in the interests of a supposed future: thus the real dualism had broken loose.” Note: The above explanation of overcoming dualism certainly gives us some insight into the suicidal nature of leftist thought! Death and Resurrection: “ . . . Man has taken over God's gesture — this manifests the whole transformation of the biblical message in an almost tragic way . . .” Eucharist is interpreted as a celebration of liberation in the sense of politico-messianic hope and praxis. The word redemption is largely replaced by liberation, which is seen, against the background of history and the class struggle, as a process of progressive liberation. Action is truth “. . . The only true orthodoxy is therefore orthopraxy.” Ratzinger’s Summary In trying to arrive at an overall evaluation it must be said that, if one accepts the fundamental assumptions which underlie liberation theology, it cannot be denied that the whole edifice has an almost irresistible logic. By adopting the position of biblical criticism and of a hermeneutics that grows through experience, on the one hand, and of the marxist analysis of history, on the other, liberation theologians have succeeded in creating a total picture of the Christian reality, and this total view seems to respond fully both to the claims of science and to the moral challenges of our time, urging people to make Christianity an instrument of concrete world transformation; it seems to have united Christianity, in this way, with all the "progressive forces" of our era. One can understand, therefore, that this new interpretation of Christianity should have exercised an increasing fascination over theologians, priests and religious, particularly against the background of Third World problems. To say "no" to it must seem to them to be a flight from reality as well as a denial of reason and morality. On the other hand, if one considers how radical this reinterpretation of Christianity is, it is all the more pressing to find the right answer to the challenge which it presents. We shall only survive this crisis if we succeed in making the logic of faith visible in an equally compelling manner and in presenting it as a logic of reality, i.e., manifesting the concrete force of a better answer attested in lived experience. Since it is so, since thought and experience, interpretation and realization, are equally called for, it is a task for the whole Church. Theology alone is insufficient, Church authority alone is insufficient. Since the phenomenon of liberation theology indicates a lack of conversion in the Church, a lack of radical faith, only an increase in conversion and faith can arouse and elicit those theological insights and those decisions on the part of the shepherds which will give an answer to the magnitude of the question. 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