The Chicago Tribune has run its take on “What led Obama to Wright’s church,” a topic addressed here at pw once or twice before. Given that some have questioned the notion that the Black Liberation Theology of the Trinity United Church of Christ is not typical of black churches in America (despite a ten-year statistical study showing this to be the case), one notable quote in the Tribune piece comes from Dwight Hopkins.
A member of Trinity and a professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School, Hopkins was cited by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright in an interview with Sean Hannity as one of his influences. Accordingly, this passage from the Tribune stands out:
Theologically, Trinity has always stood apart from the constellation of black churches in Chicago, many of which offer a more socially conservative message. Wright questions the common sense of Scripture, ordains women, defends gay rights and preaches a theology of black liberation, which seeks to make the gospel relevant to the black experience.
Rev. Dwight Hopkins, a professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School and a longtime member of Trinity, said Wright has always defied boundaries by cultivating an array of black religious traditions. Visitors on a typical Sunday morning might see and hear flavors of Pentecostal worship, prophetic preaching, political activism, self-empowerment and individual salvation and healing.
“Rarely historically and rarely today in church circles does one get a combination of all those things,” Hopkins said. “You can see someone doing the holy dance in that church and talking about the war in Iraq. Those usually don’t go on together under the same roof.”
Before Obama’s most recent public disagreement with Wright, Hopkins was claiming that TUCC is within the mainstream of black churches, socially conservative, and not strongly activist. That previously useful fiction is apparently no longer operative.
Update: The New York Times “Week In Review” has a piece of Black Liberation Theology, which notes, “probably no more than a quarter of black pastors today describe their theology as liberationist, say many theologians who have studied the movement.”
Karl, since when was/is your parasitic political fiction operative? Nekogda is how you say never in Russian. Maybe you relish the bray and screaming fills your head all day. Who can really say.
I recommend certain measures for your animus. The first being the often touted conjoined measure of shutting and growing the fuck up. Don’t allow yourself to be Tawana Brawley of a different stripe, all covered in dog shit and struggling to breath inside a plastic trash bag. Stop here. Just shake your banana at people and try to convince them it’s making funny sounds. Don’t go artificial racial divide on the world, Tawana.
O!
Wow, the Obama Irrational Worship Syndrome is deep and profound with this one.
thor, nekogda(emph. on the e) is -(i have ) no time( to do smth)
nikogda(emph. on a)- is never.
I would also like to ask Karl, knowing his objectivity to be an equal opportuinity basher, and may be today’s column by Rich in NYT will help his perspecrtive…
Yeah, Karl, how come we never talk about McCain and Hagee on here? Huh?
I honestly think that Liberation Theology in its Latin American variety always had something going for it. People like to say that it combined Marxism with Christianity, when all it really did was take Jesus’ concerns for the poor and the Catholic Church’s age old doctrines on social justice much more seriously. Black Liberation Theology seems to be much more angry and is boderline racist, and I wish that it didn’t use the phrase “Liberation Theology” in its title. It gives LT in its original form a bad name.
I can’t imagine Gustavo Gutiérrez or Óscar Romero ever saying “God Damn America” or making up bizarre conspiracy theories about HIV/AIDS. They were critical of the US, but they were not raving nutcases either.
AJB,
I think it’s funny when people want to deny the Marxist elements of LT when Gutierrez is pretty open about it.
sashal,
I’ll read FRich today, but rarely find him illuminating.
Further to sashal’s comment, the link to Rich’s article is this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/opinion/04rich.html?ref=opinion
Rich raises a fair question that I’d like flushed out. In fact, he omits mention of another pastor (Rob or Rod Parsons from Columbus, Ohio) who has supposedly been connected to McCain. But Rich’s article so garbles his points that I’m at a loss as to what he was trying to accomplish.
Rich spends the first nine paragraphs discussing a McCain-Hagee connection. As a McCain supporter, I find some of this troubling. I want an independent analysis of the timeline and the comments because Rich’s analysis doesn’t suffice. That said, this connection is a thimble compared to the 55-gallon drum of Obama’s relationship with Wright.
Rich’s tenth paragraph discusses Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. They said some disgraceful things after 9/11, but I thought they later apologized after they were thoroughly rebuked from all sides. In contrast, we won’t be observing an apology from Wright any time soon. Beyond that, Falwell’s dead and Robertson’s doing ads with Al Sharpton. Does discussing them advance the discussion?
Rich’s eleventh paragraph offers some concessions about Wright’s remarks and Obama’s response to them. He concludes the paragraph as follows:
“If we’re to judge black candidates on their most controversial associates  and how quickly, sternly and completely they disown them  we must judge white politicians by the same yardstick.”
Without further information about McCain-Hagee, I still find the double-standard argument unconvincing. Again, Falwell and Robertson were rebuked from all quarters immediately after their remarks. I’m still unclear about the way McCain has handled Hagee. My impression is that he’s renounced the views in some regard. The fact remains that he wasn’t sitting in Hagee’s pews for 20 years and didn’t have the daily-weekly-periodic intimate opportunity to confront Hagee. Ultimately, agree with me or not, the subject is largely about the degree of connection and the Obama-Wight connection is overwhelming and clear while the McCain-Hagee connection is tangential and still unclear.
Rich then spends a paragraph on a Rudy Guilliani-Robertson connection. At this point, Guillian has long been out of the race, so who cares? This point garbles the debate.
Finally, Rich concludes his editorial with eight paragraphs addressing a GOP-Democratic party double standard, which, again, seems to garble the debate.
In the end, I’m not sure what Rich accomplishes skipping from (1) an Obama-Wright vs. McCain-Hagee theme to (2) a white associates vs. black associates theme to (3) a GOP associates vs. Democratic party associates theme. I tend to feel that Rich used the latter two themes to strengthen his first theme when all three require a much more thorough exposition BEFORE joining the three in an overall analysis.
For me, until I see more, because of Obama’s INTIMATE connection with Wright, I cannot get past that Obama didn’t have the courage to stand up to Wright years ago to tell him he was wrong about many factual matters. In matters of opinion, disagreement is fine. I find, however, too many of Wright’s assertions to be factually indefensible under any circumstances. And that Obama sat in the pews picking his nose for so many years while Wright poisoned the hearts and minds of his other congregant renders him an unacceptable candidate for any national office.
McCain, when asked about Hagee’s comments about Hurricane Katrina:
I think McCain is right about that. If we extend scrutiny to all endorsers, Obama would have to get questioned about Farrakhan, and I don’t see that happening.
McCain’s Hagee problem, imho, is more that it shows that the guy who decried “agents of intolerance” back in 2000 seems more comfy with their endorsements in 2008. It goes to a flip-flop on a moral issue and willing to go the George W. Bush route (which is how the Dems could work this).
“It gives LT in its original form a bad name.” You mean it’s worse than that coke-snorting Giants linebacker? I’d argue that point.
I’m glad our country has progressed past a point where bizarre conspiracy theories about HIV/AIDS are seen as bizarre conspiracy theories. After all, that Tuskegee crap ended like thirty-six years ago. So, I must ask, why would blacks be bitter? There’s just no place in a minority–with so many years of equal voting, housing, educational, and employment rights and opportunities–for any suggestion that the American government hasn’t always been on their side, looking for ways to help. Look at just one example of the progress: urban renewal. Taking out all those buildings with businesses and homes was great for urban economic growth.
In other words: some of them crazy black fuckers are America’s chickens coming home to roost. Their memories and experiences are of a shittier time, their reactions to things can certainly come across as overblown, but it’s fucking easy for me or others to say their anger is unseemly. Is it unseemly for a concentration camp survivor to always be bringing up Nazis? Is it unseemly for a Vietnam vet to be hating Jane Fonda/Nixon/McNamara/Hanoi Hilton waitstaff after all these years? To deny a man his anger is not going to make the cause go away.
To compare/contrast Obama and McCain:
Obama: went to a church for twenty years, heard a lot of bullshit, turns out to be a pretty decent guy by all accounts, rejects the radical notions of his long-time preacher, doesn’t throw what he considers a longtime friend under the bus until said friend jumps in front of it in some grandstanding move. Seems sad about it.
McCain: doesn’t seem to have any church, mostly hangs out in DC or Arizona offices of land barons. He denounces preachers, then needs their endorsement. So he seeks out guys who include those who denounce Catholics and Jews, consider gays scarier than terrorists, and all sorts of radical nonsense. And he dismisses their nonsense.
I still think that McCain has more to lose if Campaign 2008 turns into surrogate lunacy clip time: he has more preachers who have been on television much longer than Obama’s one guy with a side of Farrakhan. This could turn into an election of YouTube versions of Christianity, and I have to say that if McCain can be connected (just to think of one kind of weird Christian video I’ve seen there) to those flamers who preach about how not gay they are, he’s toast.
If we extend scrutiny to all endorsers, Obama would have to get questioned about Farrakhan, and I don’t see that happening.
There was supposed to be a link to Hamas endorsing Obama with comment 11, then me pointing out that McCain has caught more flak about Hagee than Obama about Hamas, and another reminder that Frank Rich is an idiot.
Bill Moyers just canNOT believe this double standard. (youtube)
what I did not like about McCain-Hagee story is that McCain knew what the other guy stood for, knew his position and character before and nevertheless seeked and enjoyed the endorsement, same with Giuliani.
I think that is also one of the main points in F.Rich’s column.
BTW, Karl, have you seen MTP with Obama this morning? Whatever suspicions I had about rev.Wright and his connections to Obama that is not going to be decisive factor in my voting
To deny a man his anger is not going to make the cause go away.
I agree with that 100%. The question is, what does Obama have to be angry about? What should his daughters be angry about? If the anger is justified in an old man who has seen shittier times, it is not justified in younger people who have seen nothing but a government bending over backwards to make amends.
“In other words: some of them crazy black fuckers are America’s chickens coming home to roost.”
In other words: some of them crazy black fuckers are the liberal’s chickens coming home to roost.
There, Jon. Fixed that for you.
But I do agree that way too many blacks have every reason to be pissed off that the government came in, razed their communities, destroyed any sense of family and responsibility, and then replaced all those things with high rise cinder block hell holes.
It is hard to move out of despair when the government is subsidizing it.
I’d be pissed off, too.
what I did not like about McCain-Hagee story is that McCain knew what the other guy stood for, knew his position and character before and nevertheless seeked and enjoyed the endorsement, same with Giuliani.
If all we were talking about with Obama was a political endorsement, this story would be dead by now.
Ardsgaine, Obama isn’t running on anger. His old preacher sure did, maybe even a lot of the time (haven’t having seen the other 99.8% of his sermons, I can’t be too sure.) But Obama? Not working from anger. His political ideals aren’t based on anger, they’re based on the hard work needed to get past it. I want to see someone come up with a montage of Rev. Wright speaking angry statements with accompanying angry statements from Obama. It’s just not going to happen, because they’re two different people with two different outlooks on the world, of two different generations, goals, jobs, wishes, desires, wants, needs, and levels of popularity.
There’s just no fucking way I’d vote for Wright, watch his sermons on teevee, attend his church, or whatever. But I don’t judge Obama on his willingness to sit through some of that crap so his children have a church, his spiritual needs are met, and he gets the sense of community that comes from a church. I’m an atheist so I don’t get that church thing at all, but I see that enough people get something out of it that I’m not going to condemn them for every little or big something that gets said there. When Obama damns America, calls AIDS an evil thing created by mad scientists as an attempt to keep the black man down, and whatnot, this drivel will get important. Until then, show me where Obama is an angry man.
But I don’t judge Obama on his willingness to sit through some of that crap so his children have a church
‘Cause, you know, there’s only one church in Chicago that lets black people in. It was Wright or nothing.
You’d feel the same way about a white candidate from Idaho who attended Christian Identity services so his kids could have a church, I take it?
No?
Funny that.
Comment by jon on 5/4 @ 11:59 am #
You wrote: “But Obama? Not working from anger. His political ideals aren’t based on anger, they’re based on the hard work needed to get past it.”
Perhaps, but Obama’s core political constituency is based on that anger. Agree or not, but I firmly believe the remark attributed (rightly or wrongly) to British statesman Edmund Burke: “Evil happens when good men do nothing.”
Obama is said to be a good man, yet he did nothing in the face of Wright’s lies. I’m not addressing social criticism. I’m not addressing righteous indignation. However, Wright was at the bullseye of Obama’s concentric circles of influence, and he sat in the pews picking his nose. The hearts and minds he allowed Wright to poison can’t be ignored. Feel free to fault any other intelligent member of that church for not confronting Wright about the hateful lying. But they’re not running for president.
Obama says “look at what I’ve done in the past.” I’m looking, and I’m stunned by his cowardice. If you’re a Christian, you’d run, not walk, from Wright’s church. It may have great outreach, but there are healthy doses of hate and victimization floating around there too. It seems to me that it was merely a source for networking for Obama–which shouldn’t be the basis for one’s choice of church.
In all events, as a white person, I don’t look forward to any “discussion about race” with a congregant of TUCC. Knowing the seething resentment they harbor about the government’s introducing HIV and crack, I believe nothing would get accomplished. Obama chose not to battle evil when it stared him in the face in this church. And I won’t vote for him, because he demonstrated such cowardice.
“Obama’s core political constituency is based on that anger?” His core political constituency is people like me who are sick of the Republicans and what they do, have done, and will do. Obama is a Democrat, not a radical black man with a secret Liberation Theology agenda. Try as you might to define him by his blackness, but his core political constituency is people like me who reject this nonsense as trivial.
but his core political constituency is people like me who reject this nonsense as trivial.
I say again: you’d feel the same way about someone who spent 20 years in a Christian Identity “church”?
You know you wouldn’t.
You don’t even believe your own bullshit, jon.
Don’t expect anyone else to believe it.
His core political constituency is people like me who are sick of the Republicans and what they do, have done, and will do…. but his core political constituency is people like me who reject this nonsense as trivial.
This would be compelling, jon, if much of what I’m sure you are sick of in Republicans wasn’t so trivial itself.
Honestly look at the way GWB has been attacked over the last 7 years and compare it to the Wright/BLT stuff. What’s more trivial?
Reverend Wright wasn’t that obnoxious at the National Press Club and I think the Media is ganging up on him for some pretty typical views. He has a great voice and a sense of humor and a less than threatening demeanor. The only questionable thing he said is his far-fetched but popular idea that AIDs was partly a conspiracy against Blacks (and homosexuals as in the USA they were a large contingent of victims). Now that’s unscientific and probably not true….but about 20 to 40 percent of Americans believe in extraterritorial life…and a majority believe in the virgin birth of Christ. So Wright’s ideas weren’t that far out of line.
What Karl is opposed to is the Social Justice portion of Wright’s beliefs in that he attacked the Reagan/Bush era’s support for right-wing death squads in El Salvador and Nicaragua which a lot of American people (the Left) did oppose in the ’80s. Just being opposed to the US’s backing of the Contra terrorists in Nicaragua is labeled “Marxist” in the above (Karl’s) gestalt.
If Karl was President in the 30’s we’d have been helping Franco and Hitler and Mussolini fight the commies every where… and good riddance to the reds. And Wright was right about 9/11 as we’d supported the Muslim extremists in Afghanistan and they came back to bite us in the ass. That’s called “blowback” but Wright didn’t use such academic terms and thus got shafted by the Press (the National Press club questioning was uniformly negative towards him…..He just said the US was partly responsible for it’s own victimhood in 9/11….for it’s victimizing people in the past (like those many Arabs suffering under the Saudi dictatorship for example.. being that ruling family that has a special relationship with the US, not unlike the former Shah of Iran…._) It’s not communists that are the problem, it’s the many Oligarchic dictatorships that the US supports which causes misery amongst their own population.
I think the Media is ganging up on him for some pretty typical views.
I think you are absolutely right. In the pews where you sit, his views are typical. And I think that people on your side of the aisle really are all nodding their heads at what he said, and wondering what the big deal is. And that’s why I think it’s not enough to just connect Obama with Wright’s ideology. Those of us on the other side of the aisle have to spend some time in the election cycle talking about the deeply pathological nature of those ideas, instead of acting like it’s self-evident. It’s only self-evident to the people who were never going to vote for the Democrat anyway.
Thanks for giving me another opportunity to highlight that point.
The only questionable thing he said is his far-fetched but popular idea that AIDs was partly a conspiracy against Blacks (and homosexuals as in the USA they were a large contingent of victims).
This just clicked… you didn’t find his claim that blacks and whites think with different parts of their brains to be questionable? Interesting.
Just being opposed to the US’s backing of the Contra terrorists in Nicaragua is labeled “Marxist†in the above (Karl’s) gestalt.
Damn. Where the hell did that come from?
B Moe, just got around to listening to Reverend Wright (retired), 6 year Vet (maybe Vietnam era), who mentioned Iran/Contra and US backing of Contra terrorists in Central America. That seamy history was a basis for Wright’s church aiding immigrants and so forth who fled the violence of Central America and it’s large landowner backed militias and death squads (and consequant “marxist” opponents). Karl backs the former and I and presumably Wright) back ‘social justice’ that eliminates the fertile ground of Marxism: Oligarchic corruption and racist hereditary domination of the many by a class of privilege– If you know anything about Latin America that is how it is and the US supports that Oligarchic Hereditary leadership (ala Saudi Arabia, El Salvador, Egypt, et al…). In other words: support Social Justice and Marxism never develops (ala Scandinavian “nanny-states” that don’t have marxist terrorists breeding out of misery). Karl seems to support the Oligarchic model that Hugo Chavez quite rightfully rose up to correct (however fitfully and inelegantly).
ardsgain: I think he was entertaining and speaking metaphorically….like many if not all preachers. I enjoyed his ‘sermon’ and thought he wasn’t a ‘threat’ at all.
support Social Justice and Marxism never develops
Fucking hilarious.
ardsgain: I think he was entertaining and speaking metaphorically….like many if not all preachers. I enjoyed his ’sermon’ and thought he wasn’t a ‘threat’ at all.
I didn’t say anything about him being threatening. I asked if you believe that blacks and whites think differently, literally or metaphorically, whatever the latter would mean in this case.
back from a walk before work…..
I think there are cultural differences between blacks and whites but I’ll ceed to the greys between them….thus Obama! Hybred. So he’s particularly adept at understanding other cultures, even ‘-winger’ culture as in his book he identifies even with Republican’s feelings of anger towards the Clintons. (I sure do, they lie so much that I will only barely drag myself to the polls this year if a Clinton is at the top of the ticket…as I don’t see a lot of diff. between her and McCain. Obama seems to understand the middle class plight more than the other two. And that gas tax holiday idea is utter pandering and bad economics. (just one of many examples of bad ideas coming out of the McCain-Hillary camps.)
Spies, Brigands, and Pirates asked if I could support someone who attended a racist church. I answer yes, as long as the policies proposed by the person aren’t racist. And if I trust that politician enough. McCain sought the endorsement of a kooky preacher who preaches hateful stuff, but if he had Obama’s policies I’d consider voting for him this November. It really does come down to politics. And this year, as in a great many past election years, I’d vote for a racist, Asatru-worshipping, face-tattooed dog rapist if he or she was a Democrat, provided the alternative was the standard Republican.
This Rev. Wright issue is in many ways unfair to Obama (yeah, boo hoo, page the waaaaahmbulance: Presidential candidate getting picked on for something) as I still don’t have any location or preacher name associated with McCain or Clinton. It’s pretty funny to me that the Right is attacking the one candidate who does have a history of attending a church, since to so many on the Right that’s a sure sign of goodness, righteousness, trustworthiness, and down-home American values. Heck, it probably suggests truck-ownership.
I see some kookiness in all churches. As an atheist, I see all churches as places where irrationality flourishes and lunacy reigns. (Not that there aren’t atheists who read and rely on horoscopes, which makes me see the irrationality in all.) I can’t be ideologically pure, will always have flawed candidates, and probably wouldn’t even want myself as President (such a shitty job, no breaks, having to have a position of everything? no thanks!) So I’m an evil compromiser, untrue to my complete set of ethics, able to overlook flaws in others, you know: much like everyone else, give or take.
datadave – yeah… nothing like giving regular peeps a break at the pump. now, I know it’ll only be 4 or 7 bags worth of groceries over the summer… oh wait, 4-7 bags of groceries? of course, it’s not as tasty as ethanol, but this family of 7 will be grateful to have some of our money back. fuck the feds.
I answer yes, as long as the policies proposed by the person aren’t racist.
And I say again: you don’t even believe your own bullshit. Don’t expect anyone else to believe it.
I’d vote for a racist, Asatru-worshipping, face-tattooed dog rapist if he or she was a Democrat
This, on the other hand, I believe.
I think there are cultural differences between blacks and whites
That’s not what Wright said. He said the differences are hardwired. You said you found nothing questionable in what he said. Do you agree with him that blacks are hardwired to be emotional and non-analytical?
It really does come down to politics.
Does it come down to politics, or ethics? Aren’t you really voting for the ethical principle underlying the politics? If so, what are the ethical principles that you think are opposing each other in the Democrat vs Republican choice?
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