The wife John McCain left behind

[autigeremt 6,717]

Titan,

True history shows that slavery was not a "white" creation. It dates back well before the colonial period here in the U.S. and is shown to have existed around the globe. To hang the tag of slavery on whites alone isn't accurate. It's been a part of civilization for centuries. Jews, Africans, Slavs.......on and on.

It's time for people to look at today and tomorrow, and turn away from the past. The Black Liberation Theology plays off the past with emotion and uses it to increase a stronghold for the future! It's a SPECIAL INTEREST THEOLOGY.

[TitanTiger 20,511]

Titan,

True history shows that slavery was not a "white" creation. It dates back well before the colonial period here in the U.S. and is shown to have existed around the globe. To hang the tag of slavery on whites alone isn't accurate. It's been a part of civilization for centuries. Jews, Africans, Slavs.......on and on.

It's time for people to look at today and tomorrow, and turn away from the past. The Black Liberation Theology plays off the past with emotion and uses it to increase a stronghold for the future! It's a SPECIAL INTEREST THEOLOGY.

Again, I'm not advocating it. I'm just explaining the terms. One of the reasons I dislike the framework is that it produces such confusion as to what it's really driving at by adopting these blanket terms.

[autigeremt 6,717]

I got ya. It's a good illustration. It is very confusing to most, and that's an issue in of itself. Much like the IRS Tax codes

[TexasTiger 13,029]

This thread is getting a little close to the fence line. Let's keep it civil.

In all fairness, it doesn't matter if Jesus was ORANGE (orange and blue, maybe). The vial nature of Trinity and the garbage that spills out of that place is enough to warrant judgement of Barrack Obama (20 years, people). He had his chances to walk away from that theology, yet he embraced it. You can dance around this fire all you want, but the man has a poor sense of judgement.

You're hilarious. "Let's keep it civil", which is apparently autigeremtese for "don't ask for specifics to prove my assertions and don't scrutinize my judgements of folks I oppose politically." The fact that you oppose critical thought doesn't mean the rest of us have to.

[TexasTiger 13,029]

Let me first say that I don't adhere to Black Liberation Theology. I think it tries too hard to shoehorn the Scriptures through a far too narrow framework.

That said, it's a complicated theology and it's not what it appears to be on the surface. The definition Tex gave above is a good example. All the words used tend of mean something slightly different in that they are representative rather than literal. It comes from the perspective that, historically, white Europeans (all the way back to the Romans and Greeks) were the dominant group that enslaved others while "people of color" (particularly Africans) were on the receiving end of that enslavement and oppression. So when they use the terms "white" and "black", they aren't meant to literally mean "all white people or Caucasians" and "all dark-skinned people." They are representative terms for "the oppressor" and "the oppressed." So anyone of any literal skin color can be lumped in the "oppressor" group (labeled "white") if they participate in ways of thinking, living or governing that perpetuates the oppression, disenfranchisement or keeping down of "the oppressed" (represented by the term "black"). In other words, when reading Cone or some others of his ilk, the idea he's driving at will make more sense if you mentally substitute the word "oppressor" for white and "the oppressed" for black.

Now, I'm not excusing it and I'm not even agreeing with him even with the explanation I just gave. I don't think it's very helpful or responsible to take terms like "white" or "black" that already have well-established (and emotionally charged) meanings and toss them around like he does to represent opposing groups (the oppressors vs the oppressed). It would be akin to me looking at society for the last 30-40 years and the trends that have happened there and discussing blacks intimidating and stealing from whites as long as I "contextualize" it to say that by "black" I mean "young thugs" and by "white" I mean "responsible working folks"? I mean as long as I carefully contextualize it, no one ought to be offended by that, should they? I don't literally mean "African American" when I say "black" and I don't literally mean "Caucasian" when I say "white." The problem is, that's unnecessarily inflammatory and confusing and people would be justified in taking offense if I did that.

So in one sense I get what some BLT folks are saying. The Scriptures show that God does hold a special affection for the poor and oppressed. He takes up their cause in a preferential way because they are often powerless to do so themselves. But where they get off track is when they force everything through that paradigm (Scripture is much, much broader than that) and unnecessarily using emotionally and politically charged terminology to make their case which results in it sounding like blanket stereotyping of entire groups of people.

You make some excellent points. What I think many people fail, or don't even try, to understand, however, is the context in which Cone developed "Black Liberation Theology" and Wright embraced it. Why do we have "Black churches?" Because Blacks weren't always welcome in "White Churches". Black Christians in the 60s were struggling to find a message that had relevance to potential followers who looked historically at a Christian Church in America that had, in the South anyway, largely been on the side of slavery and that often rejected Blacks as members. And during the Civil Rights struggle, the Christian Church had a very mixed record. Read King's Letter from a Birmingham City Jail-- he is responding to several ministers who had encouraged him to not push the issue of civil rights, but rather to give it "more time." Christian leaders like King were competing with Muslim leaders like Malcolm X that struck a more defiant chord in the face of injustice. Cone and Wright looked for a way to make Christianity meaningful to folks who were struggling economically and as human beings who were not treated as first class citizens. Cone's answer was to focus on the fact that Christ was much like them and struggled for others like them-- the dispossessed. His message was that Christ's experience was like the Black experience. He understood their struggles. He was on their side-- not against Whites, per se, but against the forces that served to oppress them. Christ loved them and died for them.

This was a theology that grew out of an era and it seems outdated and out of place today, but it was very relevant during Wrights formative years. What rang true for Wright, didn't necessarily have the same resonance for Obama, but the reality is that, to varying degrees, for many leaders of Wright's generation, such a world view is still common. Obama respects those who fought battles and endured racism that made his path easier. This isn't really so hard to understand.

We know a handful-- seconds really-- of comments from Wright over the course of his lifetime and what has been said has been largely mischaracterized-- seeing racism that might not exist to the degree one sees it is not necessarily "preaching racist hatred."

Obama, and many from his generation, see the world differently, but don't necessarily cast aside or disrespect their elders who see it in a different way. Obama recognized this more than a year ago:

“Reverend Wright is a child of the 60s, and he often expresses himself in that language of concern with institutional racism and the struggles the African-American community has gone through,” Mr. Obama said.

“He analyzes public events in the context of race. I tend to look at them through the context of social justice and inequality.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/us/polit...nyt&emc=rss

I really don't think that for those who genuinely try to be fair and objective-- which are likely few in number-- that understanding Obama's being a member in this church is that difficult.