Now we are hearing Obama make comments at a private fundraiser in Jacksonville, Florida. Listen to his comment here:
A RECENT BLOG ON 2MINUTE VIEW POINTS THAT AS A CHRISTIAN LOOKING TO COMPARE VALUES OBAMA IS OFF THE MARK. PLEASE READ THE POST AND IF YOU ARE DEBATING ON FAITH THINK TWICE ABOUT OBAMA!
Obama linked Minister Leads Attack on Dobson
Dr James Dobson walked into a media maelstrom stoked by the Obama for President Campaign and ironically led by the minister that recently officiated at the wedding of Jenna Bush. In less than 24 hours, the exchange split evangelicals and led to the creation of a new website highlighting Christians attacking Dobson.
It all started earlier in the week when Dr Dobson, a child psychologist and founder of the Christian ministry, Focus on the Family, accused Senator Obama of distorting the Bible saying, "I think he's deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology."
Obama claims to be a Christian despite his denial of basic Christian tenants. For example, Obama does not believe that acceptance of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus are necessary for salvation. Obama has repeatedly said belief in Jesus is only one of many paths to salvation.
At one campaign stop, Obama said that his mother was in heaven despite her atheism and outright rejection of Christ. While speaking at a town hall forum in North Carolina on March 26, 2008 he said his late mother was “not a believer.” He continued, "But she was the kindest, most decent, generous person that I have ever known," Obama said. "I'm sure she is in heaven, even though she may not have subscribed to everything that I subscribe to."
A basic tenant of Christianity is that profession of faith in Jesus Christ is necessary to gain the reward of eternal life in heaven. Christians do not believe the door of heaven is open to every “kind” and “generous person.” Christians do not believe that adherence to Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism or other religions opens the door to eternal life in heaven with God. That is why Christians send missionaries seeking the conversion of these religion’s practitioners to Christian beliefs.
When faced with Dobson’s remarks, the Obama campaign became unglued, going on the attack. They even launched a new website to slam and disparage the psychologist. The anti Dobson website address is http://www.jamesdobsondoesntspeakforme.com/ . Senator Obama himself got into the act saying that Dobson was “making things up.” The website features Methodist pastor, Kirbyjon Caldwell. Caldwell is a spiritual advisor to President Bush and recently endorsed Obama. He is the leading Obama attack dog in the campaign against the more conservative Dobson.
Dobson is concerned that Senator Obama has misled evangelicals about his own theology during his continued aggressive outreach campaign. Early in the campaign Obama’s team hired a former Assembly of God associate minister, Joshua DuBois, to handle the outreach effort to evangelicals. His job is to vouch for the authenticity of the senator’s faith with evangelicals and he maintains a “faith forum” for discussions about the role of faith in politics at the candidate’s website. In addition to that, DuBois posts updates of Obama’s latest media and events related to religion on the website.
Obama’s campaign wants to split the Christian vote. Obama regularly attends mega-evangelical churches, those never before visited by Democratic politicians. Obama is working to convince evangelicals that a liberal agenda is consistent with the Bible. Obama articulates the idea that federally funded abortions, poverty and foreign aid programs are congruent with Biblical mandates to help the less fortunate. He especially likes to quote passages from the teachings of Christ about outreach to the poor.
Two issues of particular concern to Dobson are homosexuality and abortion. Dobson believes that the Bible maintains that both are sinful. Obama has embraced both practices as healthy and safe. Obama advocates civil unions giving government benefits to homosexual couples similar to those of heterosexual married couples. He also believes that abortion should never be limited. He supports abortion until the ninth month of pregnancy. Obama also has supported transporting minors across state lines to receive abortions without their parent’s consent. His abortion advocacy has earned him the endorsement of the National Abortions Rights Action League.
Obama’s efforts courting Christians could easily win him the presidency. Regular church attendees have been an important part of President Bush’s coalition for victory in 2004. Obama only has to split this group to be successful. Dobson’s remarks are sure to get the attention of some Christians, but the success of his efforts to hold Christian voters together remains to be seen. Many Christians seem willing embrace Obama despite his heretical theology and views on homosexuality and abortion.
Posted by Floyd and Mary Beth Brown
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We as Americans need to examine what is Black Liberation Theology is and what kind of President would America have with a man influenced by these teachings for 20 years.
Please read this article from Anthony B. Bradley is a research fellow at the Acton Institute, and assistant professor of apologetics and systematic theology at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis.
The Marxist Roots of Black Liberation Theology
BY ANTHONY B. BRADLEY
What is Black Liberation Theology anyway? Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright catapulted black liberation theology onto a national stage, when America discovered Trinity United Church of Christ. Understanding the background of the movement might give better clarity into Wright's recent vitriolic preaching. A clear definition of black theology was first given formulation in 1969 by the National Committee of Black Church Men in the midst of the civil-rights movement:
Black theology is a theology of black liberation. It seeks to plumb the black condition in the light of God's revelation in Jesus Christ, so that the black community can see that the gospel is commensurate with the achievements of black humanity. Black theology is a theology of 'blackness.' It is the affirmation of black humanity that emancipates black people from White racism, thus providing authentic freedom for both white and black people. It affirms the humanity of white people in that it says 'No' to the encroachment of white oppression.
In the 1960s, black churches began to focus their attention beyond helping blacks cope with national racial discrimination particularly in urban areas.
The notion of "blackness" is not merely a reference to skin color, but rather is a symbol of oppression that can be applied to all persons of color who have a history of oppression (except whites, of course). So in this sense, as Wright notes, "Jesus was a poor black man" because he lived in oppression at the hands of "rich white people." The overall emphasis of Black Liberation Theology is the black struggle for liberation from various forms of "white racism" and oppression.
James Cone, the chief architect of Black Liberation Theology in his book A Black Theology of Liberation (1970), develops black theology as a system. In this new formulation, Christian theology is a theology of liberation -- "a rational study of the being of God in the world in light of the existential situation of an oppressed community, relating the forces of liberation to the essence of the gospel, which is Jesus Christ," writes Cone. Black consciousness and the black experience of oppression orient black liberation theology -- i.e., one of victimization from white oppression.
One of the tasks of black theology, says Cone, is to analyze the nature of the gospel of Jesus Christ in light of the experience of oppressed blacks. For Cone, no theology is Christian theology unless it arises from oppressed communities and interprets Jesus' work as that of liberation. Christian theology is understood in terms of systemic and structural relationships between two main groups: victims (the oppressed) and victimizers (oppressors). In Cone's context, writing in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the great event of Christ's liberation was freeing African Americans from the centuries-old tyranny of white racism and white oppression.
American white theology, which Cone never clearly defines, is charged with having failed to help blacks in the struggle for liberation. Black theology exists because "white religionists" failed to relate the gospel of Jesus to the pain of being black in a white racist society.
For black theologians, white Americans do not have the ability to recognize the humanity in persons of color, blacks need their own theology to affirm their identity in terms of a reality that is anti-black -- “blackness” stands for all victims of white oppression. "White theology," when formed in isolation from the black experience, becomes a theology of white oppressors, serving as divine sanction from criminal acts committed against blacks. Cone argues that even those white theologians who try to connect theology to black suffering rarely utter a word that is relevant to the black experience in America. White theology is not Christian theology at all. There is but one guiding principle of black theology: an unqualified commitment to the black community as that community seeks to define its existence in the light of God's liberating work in the world.
As such, black theology is a survival theology because it helps blacks navigate white dominance in American culture. In Cone's view, whites consider blacks animals, outside of the realm of humanity, and attempted to destroy black identity through racial assimilation and integration programs--as if blacks have no legitimate existence apart from whiteness. Black theology is the theological expression of a people deprived of social and political power. God is not the God of white religion but the God of black existence. In Cone's understanding, truth is not objective but subjective -- a personal experience of the Ultimate in the midst of degradation.
The echoes of Cone's theology bleed through the now infamous, anti-Hilary excerpt by Rev. Wright. Clinton is among the oppressing class ("rich white people") and is incapable of understanding oppression ("ain't never been called a n-gg-r") but Jesus knows what it was like because he was "a poor black man" oppressed by "rich white people." While Black Liberation Theology is not main stream in most black churches, many pastors in Wright's generation are burdened by Cone's categories which laid the foundation for many to embrace Marxism and a distorted self-image of the perpetual "victim."
Black Liberation Theology as Marxist Victimology
Black Liberation Theology actually encourages a victim mentality among blacks. John McWhorters' book Losing the Race, will be helpful here. Victimology, says McWhorter, is the adoption of victimhood as the core of one's identity -- for example, like one who suffers through living in "a country and who lived in a culture controlled by rich white people." It is a subconscious, culturally inherited affirmation that life for blacks in America has been in the past and will be in the future a life of being victimized by the oppression of whites. In today's terms, it is the conviction that, 40 years after the Civil Rights Act, conditions for blacks have not substantially changed. As Wright intimates, for example, scores of black men regularly get passed over by cab drivers.
Reducing black identity to "victimhood" distorts the reality of true progress. For example, was Obama a victim of widespread racial oppression at the hand of "rich white people" before graduating from Columbia University, Harvard Law School magna cum laude, or after he acquired his estimated net worth of $1.3 million? How did "rich white people" keep Obama from succeeding? If Obama is the model of an oppressed black man, I want to be oppressed next! With my graduate school debt my net worth is literally negative $52,659.
The overall result, says McWhorter, is that "the remnants of discrimination hold an obsessive indignant fascination that allows only passing acknowledgement of any signs of progress." Jeremiah Wright, infused with victimology, wielded self-righteous indignation in the service of exposing the inadequacies Hilary Clinton's world of "rich white people." The perpetual creation of a racial identity born out of self-loathing and anxiety often spends more time inventing reasons to cry racism than working toward changing social mores, and often inhibits movement toward reconciliation and positive mobility.
McWhorter articulates three main objections to victimology: First, victimology condones weakness in failure. Victimology tacitly stamps approval on failure, lack of effort, and criminality. Behaviors and patterns that are self-destructive are often approved of as cultural or presented as unpreventable consequences from previous systemic patterns. Black Liberation theologians are clear on this point: "People are poor because they are victims of others," says Dr. Dwight Hopkins, a Black Liberation theologian teaching at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
Second, victimology hampers progress because, from the outset, it focuses attention on obstacles. For example, in Black liberation Theology, the focus is on the impediment of black freedom in light of the Goliath of white racism.
Third, victimology keeps racism alive because many whites are constantly painted as racist with no evidence provided. Racism charges create a context for backlash and resentment fueling new attitudes among whites not previously held or articulated, and creates "separatism" -- a suspension of moral judgment in the name of racial solidarity. Does Jeremiah Wright foster separatism or racial unity and reconciliation?
For Black Liberation theologians, Sunday is uniquely tied to redefining their sense of being human within a context of marginalization. "Black people who have been humiliated and oppressed by the structures of White society six days of the week gather together each Sunday morning in order to experience another definition of their humanity," says James Cone in his book Speaking the Truth (1999).
Many black theologians believe that both racism and socio-economic oppression continue to augment the fragmentation between whites and blacks. Historically speaking, it makes sense that black theologians would struggle with conceptualizing social justice and the problem of evil as it relates to the history of colonialism and slavery in the Americas.
Is Black Liberation Theology helping? Wright's liberation theology has stirred up resentment, backlash, Obama defections, separatism, white guilt, caricature, and offense. Preaching to a congregation of middle-class blacks about their victim identity invites a distorted view of reality, fosters nihilism, and divides rather than unites.
Black Liberation Is Marxist Liberation
One of the pillars of Obama's home church, Trinity United Church of Christ, is "economic parity." On the website, Trinity claims that God is not pleased with "America's economic mal-distribution." Among all of controversial comments by Jeremiah Wright, the idea of massive wealth redistribution is the most alarming. The code language "economic parity" and references to "mal-distribution" is nothing more than channeling the twisted economic views of Karl Marx. Black Liberation theologians have explicitly stated a preference for Marxism as an ethical framework for the black church because Marxist thought is predicated on a system of oppressor class (whites) versus victim class (blacks).
Black Liberation theologians James Cone and Cornel West have worked diligently to embed Marxist thought into the black church since the 1970s. For Cone, Marxism best addressed remedies to the condition of blacks as victims of white oppression. In For My People, Cone explains that "the Christian faith does not possess in its nature the means for analyzing the structure of capitalism. Marxism as a tool of social analysis can disclose the gap between appearance and reality, and thereby help Christians to see how things really are."
In God of the Oppressed, Cone said that Marx's chief contribution is "his disclosure of the ideological character of bourgeois thought, indicating the connections between the 'ruling material force of society' and the 'ruling intellectual' force." Marx's thought is useful and attractive to Cone because it allows black theologians to critique racism in America on the basis of power and revolution.
For Cone, integrating Marx into black theology helps theologians see just how much social perceptions determine theological questions and conclusions. Moreover, these questions and answers are "largely a reflection of the material condition of a given society."
In 1979, Cornel West offered a critical integration of Marxism and black theology in his essay, "Black Theology and Marxist Thought" because of the shared human experience of oppressed peoples as victims. West sees a strong correlation between black theology and Marxist thought because "both focus on the plight of the exploited, oppressed and degraded peoples of the world, their relative powerlessness and possible empowerment." This common focus prompts West to call for "a serious dialogue between Black theologians and Marxist thinkers" -- a dialogue that centers on the possibility of "mutually arrived-at political action."
In his book Prophesy Deliverance, West believes that by working together, Marxists and black theologians can spearhead much-needed social change for those who are victims of oppression. He appreciates Marxism for its "notions of class struggle, social contradictions, historical specificity, and dialectical developments in history" that explain the role of power and wealth in bourgeois capitalist societies. A common perspective among Marxist thinkers is that bourgeois capitalism creates and perpetuates ruling-class domination -- which, for black theologians in America, means the domination and victimization of blacks by whites. America has been over run by "White racism within mainstream establishment churches and religious agencies," writes West.
Perhaps it is the Marxism imbedded in Obama's attendance at Trinity Church that should raise red flags. "Economic parity" and "distribution" language implies things like government-coerced wealth redistribution, perpetual minimum wage increases, government subsidized health care for all, and the like. One of the priorities listed on Obama's campaign website reads, "Obama will protect tax cuts for poor and middle class families, but he will reverse most of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest taxpayers."
Black Liberation Theology, originally intended to help the black community, may have actually hurt many blacks by promoting racial tension, victimology, and Marxism which ultimately leads to more oppression. As the failed "War on Poverty" has exposed, the best way to keep the blacks perpetually enslaved to government as "daddy" is to preach victimology, Marxism, and to seduce blacks into thinking that upward mobility is someone else's responsibility in a free society.
Obama is courting the Evangelical Christian Vote. Dr. James Dobson has a lot to say on this matter. The News Report On this Subject:
Reported on Newsmax:
Dobson appeared on Sean Hannity’s radio show Tuesday.
During the show, Hannity commented that he found Obama to be dishonest overall, noting that “I think he was dishonest to the American people” when speaking of his former pastor and spiritual adviser the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Obama said that Wright had never expressed his vitriol to Obama stating "this is not the man I knew" though he had sat in a pew and listened to him for 20 years.
Said Hannity, “I think he’s fundamentally dishonest and has been on a variety of issues, the most recent is his flipping and flopping on public financing, etc. I think he’s got some character issues as relates to honesty.”
Dobson then unleashed this broadside against Obama: “What terrifies me is the thought that he might be our president . . . might be in the Oval Office . . . might be the leader of the free world . . . might be the commander in chief — because as I said a minute ago, the man is dangerous, especially in regard to this issue of morality. I can’t tell you how strongly I feel about this.
“He’s saying that my morality has to conform to his because we all have to agree or else it’s not democratic. Do you remember the position that he’s taken on the Born Alive Protection Act that was passed in Congress in 2002? It kept medical people who were unsuccessful in killing an unborn baby — they took their best shot at [the baby] and [the baby] managed to limp into the world — and so Congress said if he comes out alive you can’t murder him.
From Alexander Mooney
CNN
(CNN) -- A top U.S. evangelical leader is accusing Sen. Barack Obama of deliberately distorting the Bible and taking a "fruitcake interpretation" of the U.S. Constitution.
James Dobson says Barack Obama is distorting bibical teachings to fit "his own confused theology."
In comments aired on his radio show Tuesday, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson criticized the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee for comments he made in a June 2006 speech to the liberal Christian group Call to Renewal.
In the speech, Obama suggested that it would be impractical to govern based solely on the word of the Bible, noting that some passages suggest slavery is permissible and eating shellfish is disgraceful.
"Which passages of scripture should guide our public policy?" Obama asked in the speech. "Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is OK and that eating shellfish is an abomination? Or we could go with Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount?
"So before we get carried away, let's read our Bible now," Obama said, to cheers. "Folks haven't been reading their Bible."
He also called Jesus' Sermon on the Mount "a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our Defense Department would survive its application."
In the comments aired Tuesday, Dobson said Obama should not be referencing antiquated dietary codes and passages from the Old Testament that are no longer relevant to the teachings of the New Testament.
"I think he's deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own world view, his own confused theology," Dobson said, adding that Obama is "dragging biblical understanding through the gutter."
Responding to Dobson's comments Tuesday evening, Obama sharply disputed the suggestion he was distorting the Bible.
Dobson also takes aim at Obama for suggesting in the speech that those motivated by religion should attempt to appeal to broader segments of the population by not just framing their arguments around religious precepts.
"Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal rather than religion-specific values," Obama said. "It requires their proposals be subject to argument and amenable to reason."
Dobson said the suggestion is an attempt to lead by the "lowest common denominator of morality."
"Am I required in a democracy to conform my efforts in the political arena to his bloody notion of what is right with regard to the lives of tiny babies?" he asked. "What he's trying to say here is, unless everybody agrees, we have no right to fight for what we believe.
"What the senator is saying there, in essence, is that 'I can't seek to pass legislation, for example, that bans partial-birth abortion, because there are people in the culture who don't see that as a moral issue,' " Dobson said. "And if I can't get everyone to agree with me, than it is undemocratic to try to pass legislation that I find offensive to the Scripture. Now, that is a fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution."
According to Minnery, Dobson was particularly offended by a portion of the speech in which Obama mentioned evangelical leader and the Rev. Al Sharpton.
In the speech, Obama said, "Even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson's or Al Sharpton's?"
In response, Minnery said, "Many people have called [Sharpton] a black racist, and [Obama] is somehow equating [Dobson] with that and racial bigotry."
Dobson's comments follow the Obama campaign's recent efforts to increase its appeal among evangelicals, many of whom have expressed reservations about supporting Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee.
Minnery said he doesn't expect Obama to make inroads into the reliably Republican voting bloc.
"Evangelicals are people who take Bible interpretation very seriously, and the sort of speech he gave shows that he is worlds away in the views of evangelicals," he said.
Minnery also said Dobson will probably continue his criticism of Obama.
"Given our fact that religion seems to be such a relevant topic in this election again, we will defend the evangelical view vigorously," he said.
We must also consider that 2 Supreme Court members will retire during the next Presidents term. We are having split decisions coming down 5/4 following along conservative liberal lines. Which direction is best for our America? Research my website discussing terrorist’s connections to Obama. Learn what Liberal, Socialist, Marxist and Communist influences have on Obama.
Now having put forth all parts of this topic I will ask you two questions:
1) Do you think it would be better for our country to have Senator John McCain for our 44th President?
2) Will you allow Obama to use the race card and label you a racist to influence your decision on whom to vote for or will you base your vote on which man is truly the best person to run our country?