I just happened to have caught Rush Limbaugh flogging The Wall Street Journal piece by Lanny Davis on Barack Obama’s response to the sermons and writings of his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, as well as Ryan Lizza’s March 19, 2007 TNR profile of Barack Obama, recently revived by Infidels are Cool for the “Was the Rev. Wright a former Muslim and black nationalist?” angle. Limbaugh’s take was that such was relevant insofar as it plays into the armchair psychology of Obama looking for father figures like his absentee Muslim father.
I find the TNR piece more useful as another look at how Obama came to be a member of the Rev. Wright’s Black Liberation Theology-based church, particularly as it concerns the oft-floated theory that Obama did so purely as a matter of political expediency. The reality seems to be more complex. Regarding Obama’s stint as a Saul Alinsky-style community organizer, Lizza wrote:
From Wright and others, Obama learned that part of his problem as an organizer was that he was trying to build a confederation of churches but wasn’t showing up in the pews on Sunday. When pastors asked him the inevitable questions about his own spiritual life, Obama would duck them uncomfortably. A Reverend Philips put the problem to him squarely when he learned that Obama didn’t attend services. “It might help your mission if you had a church home,” he told Obama. “It doesn’t matter where, really. What you’re asking from pastors requires us to set aside some of our more priestly concerns in favor of prophesy. That requires a good deal of faith on our part. It makes us want to know just where you’re getting yours from.”
After many lectures like this, Obama decided to take a second look at Wright’s church. Older pastors warned him that Trinity was for “Buppies”–black urban professionals–and didn’t have enough street cred. But Wright was a former Muslim and black nationalist who had studied at Howard and Chicago, and Trinity’s guiding principles–what the church calls the “Black Value System”–included a “Disavowal of the Pursuit of ‘Middleclassness.'”
The cross currents appealed to Obama. He came to believe that the church could not only compensate for the limitations of Alinsky-style organizing but could help answer the nagging identity problem he had come to Chicago to solve. “It was a powerful program, this cultural community,” he wrote, “one more pliant than simple nationalism, more sustaining than my own brand of organizing. ”
As a result, over the years, Wright became not only Obama’s pastor, but his mentor….
Thus, what initially began as a practical political move by Obama took on a greater meaning. It is entirely consistent with what Obama has said and written since about his coming to Christ at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. As Obama wrote in TIME magazine:
I was drawn to the power of the African American religious tradition to spur social change. Out of necessity, the black church had to minister to the whole person. Out of necessity, the black church rarely had the luxury of separating individual salvation from collective salvation. It had to serve as the center of the community’s political, economic, and social as well as spiritual life; it understood in an intimate way the biblical call to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and challenge powers and principalities…
Obama initially sought to join a church to further his Alinsky-esque community activism, but came to see the church — and TUCC in particular — as a fusion of left-wing politics and religion that is the hallmark of liberation theology generally and Black Liberation Theology in particular. Had it been simply a matter of political expediency, Obama could have picked another church with more “street cred” in the local black community.
As such, quite apart from the issue of the Rev. Wright’s biography, Lizza’s piece adds further support to the conclusion that Obama is far more a candidate of the Religious Left than most realize, and far moreso than any GOP candidate has identified with the Religious Right.
(h/t Memeorandum.)
Update: Andrew Sullivan links in, writing that he doesn’t hear Obama’s speeches making religious arguments for public policy. Apparently, he has missed Obama’s faith-based appeals, including his speech in Ohio claiming that the Sermon on the Mount justifies his support for legal recognition of same-sex unions. Given Sullivan’s interest in that issue, consider me gobsmacked.
No doubt. Thus the even greater disinclination of the press to dig any deeper into this, Karl. But I, again, offer praise for your assiduous effort here at PW. Nice job. (Any chance you could work some bawdy sexual entendre into your posts? That would be great. Thanks.)
kelly,
I’ll work on the double-entenres, though with a piece like this it would earn me the knee-jerk “RACIST!!!” tag. Even though it’s really about religion.
Don’t worry, Karl, you’ll get the knee-jerk RACIST!!! tag no matter what. That happens if you even talk about Him (with apologies to The Big Guy Upstairs) in anything other than worshipful tones.
It is racist of you to even make that observation.
It fit with what he wanted to do. It gave him a community tie, its positions were ones he didn’t oppose, and it allowed him to network within a particular power base and meet people.
JD,
Nah, I’ll plead that one has to be sensitized to those ugly stereotypes to avoid falling into them and to combat them. Much like when Jesse Helms used to prowl the Senate floor: “LOOK AT THIS PR0N!!! JUST LOOK AT IT!!! ISN’T IT TERRIBLE!? LOOK!!!”
Just a little sumthin’ for kelly, there.
“Out of necessity, the black church had to minister to the whole person. Out of necessity, the black church rarely had the luxury of separating individual salvation from collective salvation.”
You know, this is one of those insights into the psychology of the Left that occasionally come along, stunning in its succinctness. Of course the Left believes “collective salvation” is a duty, and individual matters a luxury.
Lazy classical liberals, libertarians, and conservatives have it so easy!
Mikey,
That may have been BO’s intent at the outset, but I think the post shows the opposite to be more true at the end.
All in all, I’d feel better if he WAS a Muslim.
Racists!
(Jerking my knees)
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=60441
The Secret Life of Barak Obama by WHISTLEBLOWER MAGAZINE. A Must Read!!!!
I’m pretty sure it’s racist not to have the jiggy feeling crawling up your leg.
Thanks, Karl. You’re the best.
I don’t disagree, Karl. The positions were ones he didn’t oppose, and in fact were positions that he was angling towards while in undergrad. It was useful and it was congenial.
White ministers ignoring the evils of segregation and Jim Crow created guys like Wright. And since the government couldn’t, you know, stand up for the Constitutional prinicples we where supposedly founded on, the black church had to step in… step in they did, and then it got turned into something else.
But I guess if you have already decided than anything “liberal” is bad…
Better armchair psychologist question is why Obama was drawn to marry such a bitter scold….
That is what people said about MLK when he opposed the war in Vietnam.
Far left is not accurate. and Far Left is not unpatriotic.
White ministers ignoring the evils of segregation and Jim Crow created guys like Wright. And since the government couldn’t, you know, stand up for the Constitutional prinicples we where supposedly founded on, the black church had to step in…
Uh, some of us were around back then, dude. Might want to try that schtick somewhere else.
Uh, no. Wright grew up in Philly.
Mr. Van Winkle, it’s 2008. Things are very different now, and have been for a long time.
Wright is not representative of black churches.
You don’t come around here much, do you?
Hah, Pablo! Both Blue Moon and Nolawi come buzzing in talking 50 year old crap. Of course it doen’t matter because the stain, the original sin stain will always be there in oppressive amerikkka and just because it’s 2008 doen’t mean that you and I are stained with the sin of segregation and Jim Crow and slavery and poverty and crack and in no position to criticize someone, although he grew up in Philly and had very little first hand knowledge of segregation and Jim Crow, who has every right to spew his indignation, shout his anger and, um, make up shit like the AIDS thing.
You and I and the rest of the caucasians are just TWP’s, Typical White People like Obama’s grandmother, struck over a sink like Macbeth washing our hands over and over and over chanting “Out, Out, Damned Stain!”
but, that’s OK, because the University of Delaware is going to make sure, with a few minor modifications, that their students are indoctrinated into a clearer understanding of their inherited and self realised racism.
Blue Moon: There is nothing ‘liberal’ about what Wright preached. It was rather fascistic, but not in the ‘make the trains run on time’ fascism; more like ‘these are our enemies – destroy them’ fascism.
Far left is not unpatriotic.
But it seems to make common cause with so many who are. Odd, what?
I’ve just finished slogging through “Dreams From My Father” and, though Obama isn’t blatant about it, it is very apparent that his disaffection and frustration with his personal alienation, and inability to effect change with organizing found illumination with Jeremiah Wright and BLT. On to “The Audacity…” next.
Karl, can you send me your email address? I’ve got something viral coming.
[…] go on. Stop being such a lesbian about it: Amazingly, Protein Wisdom’s Karl gives a fair account of Obama’s evolution as a Christian, and presents the mixed motives that […]
MC,
You’ve Got Mail.
Had it been simply a matter of political expediency, Obama could have picked another church with more “street cred†in the local black community.
Great insight, Karl. Well done.
Every day, Mr. Smooth looks more like one of those See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil m*nkees.
RACIST!
But he chose what he did; at least he’s a fuckin’ christian. Why does this matter? Why are you so askeered of the black folk? For christ sake, get down offa this ride and get on another one.
Cynn, I think we’ll stop talking about this when you can stop asking things like, “Why does this matter?” Obviously we haven’t spelled it out plainly enough yet.
We promise, we won’t leave you behind.
Perhaps the words haven’t quite penetrated your bone yet, cynn. Try an exercise where you change the groups about and see and hear what was said again.
McGehee: No; spell it out plainly. If you are concerned that Obama has not adequately (to you) cast aside his church and beliefs, that is on you. Let’s hear your points, and bear in mind that I could just as capriciously judge you. I’m not interested in a spiritual leader for a president. That hasn’t worked out so well with George “the believer” Bush. What a fake. I’d rather have a hardcore Africanist than a squishy Zealot.
Baracky’s religion is a Marxist cooptation of Christianity, cynn, for political purposes. That’s not something you want near the White House. It’s a lot scary and also his skeezey wife. She’s an angry little thing.
Well, that’s an attracive way to win me over. Moron.
Darn. It was the skeezey thing wasn’t it?
Far Left is not unpatriotic.
“If you repeat it enough it is true” – Progressive proverb.
It’s my current m.o. to start with the position that everything Progressives say is at best false – until proven otherwise.
But, as a compromise let’s just say that the “Far Left is unrational.”
Cynn, the thing is: we don’t believe that any variant of Liberation Theology makes a good philosophical basis for a President of the United States, and we think that Black Liberation Theology is a particularly nasty variant. That being the case, it’s important to find out whether or not a Presidential candidate believes in it.
As against Obama believing in it, we have a few denials and repudiations… which, if examined closely, prove to be variants on what used to be called “Jesuitry”, the very careful use of language to give listeners the impression of saying one thing, while reserving the right to point out the interpretation that reverses that meaning when the crunch comes; or are analogous to the “non-apology” (“I’m sorry you’re so stupid and sensitive as to be offended”).
As for it, we have, inter alia:
–Twenty years of attendance, with substantial contributions, at a church where the pastor preaches BLT, when other churches, equally convenient as to location and equally or better politically, were available;
–Repeated designation, over long periods of time, of Jeremiah Wright and the founders of BLT as “trusted advisors”, including specifically hiring Wright in that capacity for his campaign team;
–A book and numerous articles written by the candidate which, in the most favorable possible interpretation, at least look at BLT with a friendly eye;
–A spouse whose unguarded public pronouncements are directly in line with the arguments of BLT;
This concerns us. Understand, I wouldn’t want John Hagee as President either. It’s not a case of whether or not the candidate has religious beliefs. Anybody, regardless of belief or atheism, makes decisions and initiates policy based on his orr her philosophical underpinnings, and religious belief is one of the strongest forms of philosophical base. If Obama’s basic philosophy accepts any significant part of Black Liberation Theology, he will naturally make decisions and initiate policy based on that — and that, IMO, would be a disaster for the country as a whole and for its black citizens more than for the non-black ones.
So no, we’re not going to drop it, because we think it’s important — and we absolutely refuse to accept the MoveOn.org premise of “well, we disagree, and we’re not gonna agree, so let’s just assume the Left is correct and move on to the next thing.” If you want it dropped, you’ve got to convince me of one of two things: (1) Obama doesn’t believe in any part of Black Liberation Theology, or (2) decisions and policies based on Black Liberation Theology will be good for the United States of America, its citizens, and its Constitution. So far nobody has come anywhere close to convincing me of either one, and demands that we drop it and move on sound a lot like you can’t and don’t intend to try.
Regards,
Ric
There are believers and then there are believers. Bush is widely cartooned as a “fundie” despite being a lifelong Methodist and coming from a family of multi-generational Methodists.
The difference is that if Bush were to choose a church to give an appearance of being a believer, rather than because he actually believed, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have attended Westboro Baptist for 20 years, nodding along with Phelps’ tirades. The church he believes? It’s not Westboro either. There’s no reason to wonder about him either way.
Obama, not so much.
Darn. It was the skeezey thing wasn’t it?
I think it was more because you called her little. I mean, she seems to be a pretty full grown gal, you ask me.
“Let’s hear your points, and bear in mind that I could just as capriciously judge you.”
Oh, I think we already knew that has happened.
Your preference in boyfriends is a personal matter, cynn. For POTUS, the conversation is wide open, as it should be.
You say that Obama is the candidate of the Religious Left, which I think is half right.
“Older pastors warned him that Trinity was for “Buppiesâ€Â–black urban professionals–and didn’t have enough street cred.”
I’m sorry, but that distorts what Obama wrote in 1995 on pp. 274-295 of Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. He was warned by other black ministers that Wright’s church was “radical.” Obama’s own concern, however, was that Wright wasn’t radical enough for Obama’s political taste, that it might be too “middleclass.” But, Wright’s sermon “The Audacity of Hope,” which denounced how “white folks’ greed runs a world in need” satisfied Obama’s demand for political radicalism in a minister.
There is virtually no evidence in Dreams from My Father of Obama having any kind of spiritual faith. Instead, his emotional climax on p. 295 during Wright’s sermon is one of racial solidarity. By joining Wright’s church, the preppie from paradise finally feels “black enough.”
Tellingly, there is zero religious aspect to pp. 296-442 of Obama’s autobiography, suggesting that Obama’s celebrated “conversion” was non-religious.
More with the icky bama climaxes. I’ll get a tissue.
Karl – if you revisit this you might want to check out Mr. Sailer’s blog. I’d missed a lot of his stuff and it was a lot interesting. Also media whore Andrew Kohut is involved.
I have read much of Sailer’s stuff. It is interesting, and there’s even some related stuff percolating “backstage” over here.
Sailer’s comment above about distorting what Obama wrote is interesting, though I’ll have to re-read the book and TNR to examine whether we may be talking about varying comments from different preachers. There is no monolitic “black church community” in Chicago, which is one of the things the MSM gets wrong here. And different preachers may have had different points to make against TUCC when Obama was church-shopping.
As for Sailer’s assertion that Obama’s conversion is essentially non-religious, I think the evidence is open to more than one interpretation. There are many people (and I do not include Sailer here specifically without reviewing all of his stuff) who do not appreciate the degree to which Black Liberation Theology fuses left-wing politics with religion. Liberation theology generally consumes like a cancer what most people think of as spiritual failth, regardless of the denomination it infects.
Obama’s experience is thus arguably more of what I would call an epiphany that his left-wing politics can be his religion and vice-versa, with all of the political advantage that accrues therefrom. The lack of religion in the latter portion of his first book may be intended to mask that radical notion. An absence of evidence there is not evidence of absence, because looking for what most people would associate with religious faith can be completely missing from someone immersed in (black) liberation theology. Indeed, when Sailer writes that Obama’s epiphany is about feeling “black enough,” one should keep in mind that “blackness” and identifying with same is the core religious experience in black liberation theology.
I don’t think Baracky is very into Jesus or anything, I just thinks he thinks the ones that are can be useful in helping everyone get their socialism on. It’s a lot how crack dealers never sample their own product.
If you’re interested in a detailed consideration of Obama’s religious leanings (if any), based on the evidence in his 1995 autobiography, my January 20, 2008 article may be of use:
http://www.vdare.com/sailer/080120_obama.htm
The more general issue in thinking about Obama is which Obama book do you trust: his 1995 autobiography or his 2006 campaign tract? The 2006 book seems focus-grouped to perfection, while the 1995 book seems, to me, much more revealing … if you can work your way through his evasive prose style. Granted, Obama’s leftism isn’t so much articulated in “Dreams” as it’s simply assumed. It would seem plausible that Obama moved far toward the center between 1995 and 2006, except that Obama specifically rejects that idea in the preface he wrote in 2004 for the re-issue of his 1995 book.
To question of what other ministers were saying about Wright’s church to Obama in the 1980s is a subtle one: the distinction is that Wright’s church draws a more upscale congregation than the average South Side average black church, so it lacks “street cred” in terms of class. Wright attempts to make up for appealing more to the more well-to-do by being much more politically leftist than the typical South Side church. So, out of the dozens of black churches he was in contact with as a “community organizer,” Wright’s Trinity was perfect for Obama, the preppie from paradise who spent most of his life trying to be “black enough” by being left enough.
[…] Moreover, even assuming for the sake of argument that some voters do vote values over economics, Obama may want to explain to such voters why they should do otherwise, given that he has spent the last 20 years in a church known for disavowing “the pursuit of middleclassness.” […]
WOW!America the great melting pot!LOL
[…] about the importance of worship.  He lacked a religious upbringing, but began shopping for a church to further his political organizing. He ended up joining the noxious Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s […]
I wasn’t planning on commenting, but Jeff’s later post made me want to point out what I see as flaws in Karl’s piece.
“”This disclosure by Moyers (who it turns out had met Wright, while working for LBJ) is perhaps the only moment of journalistic integrity in the program as this bias turns out to be relevant at the end of the “interview.â€Â The program went entirely downhill from there, either because Moyers failed to do much research beforehand, or did the research and decided to hide it from his viewers.””
I think several characterizations here are disingenuous. First, to say Moyers had “met” Wright is a bit of an overstatement. He was an assistant working on LBJ’s heart, of which there were many. Unless you think Moyers knows them all by name, saying they’ve “met” is overreaching in a big way.
Second, I don’t think Moyers joined UCC after the Wright ordeal, so I imagine the disclosure is designed to show his motive to understand how someone in his own denomination could say such things. If anything, I think it would give him a motive to genuinely get to the heart of what Wright sees over anything else.
“”Thus, Moyers allowed Wright to deny that the “unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian†TUCC embraces a race-based theology
Unless you can point to me where he denied a race-based theology, I think you may have overreached for that assertion. I think agreeing the liberation theology being about “people who have been oppressed” allows for an interpretation through blackness, and he didn’t deny that. However, acknowledging race shouldn’t be equated with being a race based church, as might be evidenced in the members of several other races in Trinity.””
All of which nicely sets up Wright’s spin on his “G-d Damn America†sermon following the 9/11 attacks
What? A dangling assertion without any evidence as to why his 9-11 attacks weren’t spin? And why is an out of context snippet considered truth and putting it in context equals spin? Unless you’ve seen preachers preach full sermons ninety seconds at a time, I’d be wary of arguing for the veracity of the snippets.
“”If Moyers had any journalistic integrity he might have gone beyond a bumper-sticker understanding of Black Liberation Theology and asked about the underlying Marxist frame work of liberation theologies in general. Given Wright’s denial of a race based-theology, he might have confronted him with material from the man whom Wright acknowledges as the person who systematized it:””
You’re mixing what you’re trying to prove in the quote: leftism and race-based theology. As far as I can see, the subsequent quote has no reference to leftism though it does have race-based elements.
“”That Moyers equates Black Liberation Theology with the Jewish story also reveals his shallowness or duplicity. As I have previously noted:””
Unless you have acquired the sole ability to interpret the Bible for all, that you have a different interpretation of what should be emphasized in the Bible does not make Moyers or Wright “shallow and duplicitous.” There is no single, correct interpretation of any scripture, and to imply that people are evil who interpret it differently has been a key theme in human violence for centuries.
I should note, you make a good point citing Landes argument. However, that one scholar argues against the identical-ness of the present African American prophetic tradition and the traditional prophetic tradition isn’t to say that the former didn’t emerge from the latter and show several similar qualities. Additionally, Wright’s sermons do emphasize the changing of its own congregation, as Jeff criticizes later with the Black Value System and other programs. In fact, I would question whether or not Landes has even heard the whole sermon in context, because Wright constantly, through ministry and rhetoric, attempts to change his own congregation. That’s why he talks about education of the members and getting kids into more hopeful positions and out of gang banger positions.
“”The two then segue into the bogus claim that Wright was being quoted out of context in the video clips on TV and the Internet. This was what PBS rolled out as the teaser, so I will only add that this part of the “interview,†is all the more shameless in context, given that the two have just been ripping the Exodus and the prophetic tradition completely out of context.””
I don’t think that it follows that the snippets of Rev. Wright’s sermons should be considered truth while the context of his sermon be considered backpedaling. That’s a pretty dubious claim to make.
I would concede that Liberation theology does take a disproportional view on Liberation, but no one is defaming the Bible based on the out of context Liberation theology, as would be analogous in your argument with Wright’s clips and his personality here.
“”Next, Moyers tries to generate some sympathy for Wright by asking about alleged threats made against Wright and TUCC, followed by questions about the blues. Great questions. Compelling, and rich.””
This is where I think you start to show your bias, working from the conclusion of making a soft interview and then finding support to justify it. Unless you believe that the threats and the blues aren’t part of what makes Jeremiah Wright who he is, than I would be wary of discounting discussion on it.
“”I would add that Wright’s characterization is essentially false, given that Black Liberation Theology  and liberation theology generally  is at its core a religious casting of Leftist political activism, and that this is precisely what appealed to Obama about Wright and TUCC.””
My problem with this is the following: community organizing instead of individual attainment and helping the poor instead of helping yourself, are leftist values… thus by definition that majority of churches in America are leftist. At the very least they are in majority altruistic, which puts in to place far more programs that favor the ideology of the left than the individual responsibility doctrine of the right. Thus, I think your point may be correct, but I find its significance disputable.
“”[T]his has nothing to do with Wright saying anything at all but just an opportunity for Moyers and Wright to speak in calm really quite reasonable and respectful tones and generate some clips for fellow travelers to disseminate. Duh.”””
This is another example of bias in the piece (since it wholeheartedly agrees with this quotation), because the subtext of the quotation says “yeah, the media’s just trying to show us Rev. Wright exists as a human being outside the 30 seconds worth of clips we’ve seen of him. What kinda magic show are they trying to pull? We know he’s a crazy lunatic. Why else would he speak calmly unless it was staged?” Quite frankly, I think it’s insulting to Rev. Wright to imply that he can’t speak reasonably and respectfully.
Sorry, I’m new as Jeff pointed out, that was supposed to be on Karl’s post….
[…] already addressed this question — based in part on a March 19, 2007 TNR profile of Obama — I […]
[…] I seem to recall writing about it for months and having Sullivan disagree with […]