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The peculiar theology of black liberation
Asia Times Online ^ | Mar 18, 2008 | Spengler

Posted on 03/17/2008 8:36:50 AM PDT by Ottofire


One of the strangest dialogues in American political history ensued on March 15 when Fox News interviewed Obama's pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, of Chicago's Trinity Church. Wright asserted the authority of the "black liberation" theologians James Cone and Dwight Hopkins:

Wright: How many of Cone's books have you read? How many of Cone's book have you read?

Sean Hannity: Reverend, Reverend?

(crosstalk)

Wright: How many books of Cone's have you head?

Hannity: I'm going to ask you this question ...

Wright: How many books of Dwight Hopkins have you read?

Hannity: You're very angry and defensive. I'm just trying to ask a question here.

Wright: You haven't answered - you haven't answered my question.

hit the link for the complete article...

(Excerpt) Read more at atimes.com ...


TOPICS: General Discusssion; Theology
KEYWORDS: blackchurch; blackliberation; blacktheology; dwighthopkins; jamescone; jeremiahwright; nobama; obama; spengler; trinityucc; wright
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As this is sorta a new thing to me, I figured that others might not be familiar with Black Liberation Theology either.
1 posted on 03/17/2008 8:36:50 AM PDT by Ottofire
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To: Ottofire
From the bit I've studied, “liberation theology” is essentially Marxism under the trappings of misapplied quotations from the Bible.

It's not nice to fool with Father of Natural Law.

2 posted on 03/17/2008 8:44:09 AM PDT by unspun (Mike Huckabee: Government's job is "protect us, not have to provide for us." Duncan Hunter knows.)
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To: Ottofire

... and putting “black” in front of it tends to bring the obvious results, I’d say.


3 posted on 03/17/2008 8:45:08 AM PDT by unspun (Mike Huckabee: Government's job is "protect us, not have to provide for us." Duncan Hunter knows.)
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To: Ottofire

FWIW, Finney’s dead fingers are deep in this abomination.


4 posted on 03/17/2008 9:22:47 AM PDT by Gamecock (Viva La Reformacion!)
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To: unspun
"From the bit I've studied, “liberation theology” is essentially Marxism under the trappings of misapplied quotations from the Bible"

Add in equal parts racism and victimology and you have Rev. Wright's "Black Liberation Theology" which isn't a theology at all but a political manifesto.

5 posted on 03/17/2008 9:35:28 AM PDT by joebuck (Finitum non capax infinitum!)
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To: Gamecock

Thats it Gamecock!
Blaspheming Finney?!? You better go to next weeks altar call!


6 posted on 03/17/2008 9:53:42 AM PDT by Ottofire (Psalm 18:31 For who is God, but the LORD? And who is a rock, except our God?)
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To: Ottofire

Ahhh, the Altar Call.

The Evangelical version of penance.


7 posted on 03/17/2008 10:14:56 AM PDT by Gamecock (Viva La Reformacion!)
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To: Ottofire; Gamecock

Black Liberation Theology is just a poor rip-off of a more scholarly liberation theology that arose out of the Latin American Catholic Church. It started after Vatican II with the seminal work of Paul Gauthier’s “The Poor, Jesus and the Church” (1965) and then to a Brazilian theologian from Princeton, Rubem Alves, “Towards a Theology of Liberation” (1968)and then to Peruvian Catholic priest, Fr. Gustavo Gutiérrez, O.P., “A Theology of Liberation” (1972). These were inspired by Jurgen Moltmann’s “Theology of Hope” (1964). These are scholarly works unlike Cone’s “Black Theology and Black Power”.

Liberation theology uses a Marxist model to interpret Christian faith through the poor’s suffering, their struggle and hope, and it critiques the institutions of society and culture and the Catholic faith and Christianity through the eyes of the poor. It emphasizes “praxis”, the “preferential option for the poor,” is as important as belief, if not more so and “orthopraxis” over “orthodoxy.”

Moltmann’s “Theology of Hope” is a very interesting study. Don’t write it off because of the extremes that came from it.


8 posted on 03/17/2008 10:37:54 AM PDT by blue-duncan
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To: blue-duncan; Ottofire

I have no doubt that it came from Latin America. But the pragmatism of Finney (the ends justifies the means) kicked the door open for the former to creep in...


9 posted on 03/17/2008 11:50:01 AM PDT by Gamecock (Viva La Reformacion!)
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To: Gamecock
Believe me, none of the Liberationists from Moltmann to Fr. Gustavo Gutiérrez ever heard of Finney nor would they deign to use his poor theology.
10 posted on 03/17/2008 11:56:04 AM PDT by blue-duncan
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To: blue-duncan
Does Moltmann have a Scriptural understanding God, man, angels, Jesus, sin, Heaven, Hell, sacrificial death and resurrection unto righteousness, sanctification, and glorification -- with all the suitable "sola" (onlys) of course)?

And does he properly attribute what is of the Kingdom of Jesus and what is of the kingdoms of this world?

11 posted on 03/17/2008 12:15:43 PM PDT by unspun (Mike Huckabee: Government's job is "protect us, not have to provide for us." Duncan Hunter knows.)
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To: blue-duncan
Does Moltmann have a Scriptural understanding God, man, angels, Jesus, sin, Heaven, Hell, sacrificial death and resurrection unto righteousness, sanctification, and glorification -- with all the suitable "sola" (onlys) of course)?

And does he properly attribute what is of the Kingdom of Jesus and what is of the kingdoms of this world?

12 posted on 03/17/2008 12:15:43 PM PDT by unspun (Mike Huckabee: Government's job is "protect us, not have to provide for us." Duncan Hunter knows.)
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To: narses; Pyro7480; NYer; Salvation

ping to Spengler on Obama/Wright


13 posted on 03/17/2008 1:43:44 PM PDT by Dajjal
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To: unspun

“Moltmann sees the entire story of Israel as a unique historic pilgrimage as Israel is confronted by the God of promise. Israel’s entire identity is in light of the promises of God. In Jesus Christ the future kingdom is present, but as future kingdom. His resurrection is the firstfruits of the resurrection and can have meaning only within that universal horizon of meaning. Christian life and salvation are firstfruits, living in the promise of the future of God in Christ.”


14 posted on 03/17/2008 1:57:04 PM PDT by blue-duncan
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To: blue-duncan
Okay, thanks for the quotation. This being the case, what does Moultmann have to do with any foundation for liberation theology?

BTW, I find an old alert, akin to seeing blinders put on, when someone would say that Israel's "entire" identity is in light of the promises of God as a prima facaie statement.

This would imply that God is not "living and active," engaged and critically interested in the past and the present causes and effects, not only "in light of" what is promised in the future. I sense a likely observer's self-contradiction, there. Seeing God in light of Hosea is not seeing God in light of only His promises. (Just ask any good husband.)

IOW, when one chooses to see something only "in light of" an aspect of God, he ceases to dwell in all of the light of God. When speaking of the ultimate, one can only speak of God, Himself.

15 posted on 03/17/2008 2:09:15 PM PDT by unspun (Mike Huckabee: Government's job is "protect us, not have to provide for us." Duncan Hunter knows.)
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To: blue-duncan
And pardon the misspelling; my grade in Latin went from A to D in two years (Baptist PK not intending to become a lawyer nor physician). ;-)
16 posted on 03/17/2008 2:11:47 PM PDT by unspun (Mike Huckabee: Government's job is "protect us, not have to provide for us." Duncan Hunter knows.)
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To: unspun

(Baptist PK not intending to become a lawyer nor physician).

Hey, don’t knock this, I’m a Baptist PK who became one of them while being told in seminary that I didn’t have the personality or patience to be a Pastor.


17 posted on 03/17/2008 2:15:42 PM PDT by blue-duncan
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To: unspun
“what does Moultmann have to do with any foundation for liberation theology”

The “Theology of Hope” is built around the concept of the coming Kingdom and the church is the vehicle. It is a theology of the gates of hell not prevailing against the church. Liberationists have taken that concept and applied it to the oppressed and using the church as the vehicle for liberation, have created the model of the church militant, revolutionary, freeing the oppressed using the Exodus as the example; more than an example, the design. The problem they have is reconciling the tyranny of the Sandanistas which the liberationists supported in Nicaragua during the revolution. Rather than liberation there was more enslavement.

18 posted on 03/17/2008 2:24:49 PM PDT by blue-duncan
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To: blue-duncan

Thanks.

I for one, don’t quite get “the gates of Hell will not prevail against it,” as referring to an assault upon Hell (which can refer to either God’s holding place now, or the eventual Lake of Fire — don’t see what is for us to do, there). I tend to think that the commonly used application of “gate” in the Bible here is the concept that demons come out of “gates” into this world (and perhaps back out of it). Haven’t studied it much, but I think that somewhere in prophesy, the Bible speaks of a gate in Babylon, for instance (Iraq, of course ;-) Kind of a negative counterpart to Jacob’s ladder.

I see the Bible speaking of preparing for Harvest. Moultmann seems an odd cousin of Rushdoony as well as some kind of uncle of the bad boy reds.


19 posted on 03/17/2008 2:36:04 PM PDT by unspun (Mike Huckabee: Government's job is "protect us, not have to provide for us." Duncan Hunter knows.)
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To: Ottofire

New to me too. Will read it later.


20 posted on 03/17/2008 2:55:15 PM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
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