Beck's 'Obsession' with Black Liberation Theology is Thoroughly Justified

About 35 years ago I read James Cone's book on black liberation theology. I didn't find it too alarming, but I can't remember if I was a Christian then or just a humanist liberal. Liberation theology (the Latin American Catholic variety) has definitely had an impact on modern day Christianity--may even be part of the reason memberships are dropping so drastically. It's a tough sell to call that the gospel. And I don't think I agree with the left that Glenn Beck has an obsession with black liberation theology. He's simply calling it out for the looksee it deserves. It is marxism dressed up for Sunday morning and some gospel singing.

Kyle Anne Shiver writes: "Writing on "Faith," in The Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama went to great lengths to explain that his own "conversion" was enabled not by orthodox Christian awakening, but by the explicitly political nature of the Black Liberation Theology preached by Jeremiah Wright, Jr. And the thrust of Obama's entire chapter on faith in his own book was to show how his own liberation theology should not frighten secular progressives because it bore little to no resemblance to the religion of those Bible Belt "bitter clingers." And as observant Americans know well, Barack Obama was so ardent a follower of Jeremiah Wright's brand of Christianity that he named his book after a Wright sermon, The Audacity of Hope. While it is true that Barack Obama never (that I know of) used the explicit words "Black Liberation Theology" in his speeches or his books, everything about his claims to faith in his writing, his speeches, and his current actions as president is filled with the tenets of this fringe system of beliefs.

And what was that "hope" to which Wright referred? It was not the hope of individual salvation, which is the bedrock of orthodox Christian belief. No, Wright's hope, the same hope where Barack Obama found his "conversion," was in "collective redemption" through a political, material redistribution of power and wealth from the "white oppressors" to the "black oppressed." Quite contrary to Mr. Rutten's assertion that no "evidence" ties Barack Obama to liberation theology, Obama himself has used the phrase "collective redemption" regularly."

So is that your "hope" for America? Are you so loaded with power and wealth that you want the government to redistribute it in the name of Obama's belief in "collective redemption?"

American Thinker: Beck's 'Obsession' with Black Liberation Theology Thoroughly Justified

Some topics for Glenn Beck

We really enjoy sitting down together at 5 p.m. and watching Glenn Beck. Those of you who only get snippets through the George Soros funded Media Matters and other filters (Glenn usually greets their snoops as the "unemployed hippy-dippy dudes sitting in mom's basement" screening and reporting back to the watchdog agency) are missing some great history lessons and reading lists. He's probably done more for libraries and Amazon than any other author/host because he reads so much, and those titles fly to the top of the best seller list, faster than an Oprah Book Club selection. He even suggests going back and reading original sources--marxist, socialist, founding fathers, etc., something dear to this researcher's heart. Beck's film documentaries are stunning. I studied Russian history (19th and 20th century) back in college in the 50s and 60s and saw newsreels of the decimation of the Ukrainian farmers, the forced collectivization and starvation and the millions murdered in China's revolution. Some of the footage in his documentaries certainly ring more true, even with the dramatic voice overs, than watching a Katie Couric or Charlie Rose. That said, there are other topics I'd like to see on his programs.

1. There have been some really fabulous federal government programs that benefited millions of Americans and grew the economy. It would not be a violation of his core values and beliefs to mention

• the national park system
  
  
• the homestead acts and land giveaways
  
  
• the interstate highway system
  
  
• the land giveaways to the railroad barons who opened millions of jobs and opportunities for immigrants and city bound poor
  
  
• various public health advancements like clean water, polio vaccination, meat inspection, flour and milk enrichment, compulsory TB testing
  
  
• the Army Corps of Engineers and flood control
  
  
• mining rights to energy developers which revolutionized our industries
  
  
• compulsory education
  
  
• land grant colleges and universities.

Glenn. Here's a tip from a librarian and history buff. The founders are interesting, but a lot has happened since the American Revolution. Also, you like to talk about your Democrat grandfather. Didn't he tell you not to throw the baby out with the bath water?

2. Glenn has recently stepped on a real hornets nest--he's taken on the liberal church--more specifically the way "liberation theology" has infiltrated the pastors and pulpits, and "social justice" themes have replaced the gospel of Jesus Christ. Glenn is absolutely correct that Jesus not once asked the Roman government to feed the poor or visit the sick or set the slave free. What Glenn is missing in these mini-sermons is that in the United States, the Christian church was at the forefront of social change, long before the federal government got in that game. In fact, the government has usurped and co-opted the churches and made them just another non-profit employee of the government through tax grants for feeding programs, summer camps, pre-schools, prisoner reentry programs and housing renovation in poor neighborhoods while at the same time telling churches they can't preach the gospel or hand out printed material because they are taking government money to do their jobs!

• The great religious awakenings of the 18th and 19th centuries were followed by great fervor for combating sin and a movement toward greater personal responsibility all because of renewed faith in God, not the government
  
  
• Sunday schools were begun by "church ladies" so that children working in factories could get an education--this is the foundation of the public school movement
  
  
• the big three social movements of the 19th century, abolition of slavery, temperance, and woman's rights, were all Christian movements with women doing the heavy lifting; the woman's rights movement of the 19th century was not the feminist movement of today; it was faith-based action
  
  
• the Lyceum and Chautauqua movements of the 18th and 19th centuries were the originators of self-improvement movements and adult education--both were begun and funded by concerned citizens, not the government
  
  
• a less punitive justice system in the form of penitentiaries (penitent) rather than debtor's prison or corporal punishment was pioneered by the Quakers
  
  
• the spread of printed materials to an expanding reading public went viral through church printing presses--Methodists, Lutherans, Baptists, Congregationalists, etc. During war time soldiers were given free reading material and libraries by both the Protestant and Catholic presses
  
  
• medical care for the wounded during the Revolutionary and Civil Wars was led by bands of committed Christian men and women with nuns and priests working all sides of the conflict
  
  
• churches pioneered stewardship of the earth and the humane treatment of animals, long before the government thought to regulate it (19th century agricultural journals--take a look)
  
  
• it was the church groups that met the immigrant ships of their own ethnic groups and helped them resettle and learn the language, customs, and establish businesses
  
  
• after WWII pacifist denominations created a volunteer rebuilding program for Europe, which later the government used as a model for the Peace Corp and Vista.

Glenn. Here's the bigger story--bigger than liberation theology--many church members don't know their own history, let alone the Bible, and they don't realize they were the source, not the result, of these programs.

Marxism, a refresher

All history, according to marxism (named for Karl Marx 1818-1883) is a struggle between the exploiter (in modern times, the capitalist) and the exploited (the worker). The struggle will only cease when capitalism is destroyed and a classless society exists. The golden age arrives when private property, marriage, nationality, and religions are abolished. Religion is a tool of the oppressor, as are conventional or traditional ethics and idealism (including humanism and liberalism). High on the list of marxist ideals are concern for public health, a sense of public duty (even if it has to be required), mutual respect, moral purity, modesty, brotherhood above family, race and class, and a solidarity with working people everywhere. Fraternity with capitalists, of course, is excluded from these principles, and class hatred is permitted for the cause of assuring justice. For Christians, this is most clear in Liberation Theology and Black Liberation Theology, both of which have made great inroads in both conservative and liberal Christian groups, who have become impatient to "bring in the Kingdom" while expelling God and replacing him with "the poor."

Beginning in Latin America, Liberation Theology is based on the belief that the Christian Gospel demands "a preferential option for the poor," and that the church should be involved in the struggle for economic and political justice in the contemporary world—particularly in the Third World. Dating to the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) and the Second Latin American Bishops Conference, held in Medellin, Colombia (1968), the movement brought poor people together in Christian-based communities, to study the Bible and to fight for social justice. However, since the 1980s, the church hierarchy has criticized liberation theology and its advocates, accusing them of wrongly supporting violent revolution and Marxist class struggle” (Columbia University Encyclopedia 2004).

Black Theology developed alongside Latin Liberation Theology and had its roots in the Civil Rights and the Black Power movements of the 1960s. In the process, many “black ministers consciously separated their understanding of the gospel of Jesus from white Christianity and identified it with the struggles of the black poor for justice.” Rev. Wright correctly credits two books written by James Cone, “Black Theology and Black Power” in 1969 and “A Black Theology of Liberation” in 1970, that made liberation the organizing centre of his theological system and subsequently of many Black churches.While Latin Liberation Theology was concerned with classism and Black Theology was concerned with racism, both held a common concern for the poor (Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology 1984). Orthodoxy Today

Liberalism used to mean free from restraint, particularly from a system, like the church or a federal or national government. It eventually came to promote the interests of the middle class which included helping the disadvantaged and minorities, non-violence and environmentalism because in the long run, liberals would benefit. In past years, liberals and marxists were hand shaking enemies because marxists can't tolerate personal freedom. But liberals were much more hostile toward conservatives who see justice as a moral code existing outside their own vested interests (usually but not always, God), so increasingly liberals in the USA have assisted and promoted and been swallowed up by the marxists.

Barack Hussein Obama is not a Muslim, he is a Christian and a marxist as illustrated above--they are not necessarily incompatible. If your "Christian" label pre-dates Liberation Theology, you'll just have to adjust. Get over it. But whatever label you give him, he hates capitalism, which means he is not good for America and your 401-K or your annuities or your health plan (or Europe, or the struggling Third World economies, for that matter). This is clear in the way he has taken advantage of the huge meltdown of capitalism in the past month, almost prematurely dancing on its grave, while rushing in with the claim that he will save us from the jaws of death. He is funded and backed by notorious criminals both here and abroad, progressives and marxists who go by a variety of names--like George Soros, Moveon.org, Hate America First, Daily Kos Kids, and ACORN who are about to dismantle our right to vote, and then will go after our freedom of information. I would add the feminists in that marxist crowd, except they're the only ones who are true to their team and have stayed poor--they haven't been much use to him except to make the coffee like the good old days of the 60s.