Well I guess I should say a few words about the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. This is the minister that Barack Obama called pastor and mentor for twenty (20) years while he attended the Trinity Church of Christ near Chicago.
When I first heard or actually “saw” snippets of Wright’s sermons on TV I recognized a political hatchet job as professional as they come. Out of context, vitriolic blasts against white America are what people heard and that was enough for some.
At the time, I called these remarks absolutely racist and was happy to see Obama start distancing himself from his pastor and his remarks BUT he did not disown him. After all, he attended his church and listened to his sermons for 20 years, was married by him and had his kids baptized by him.
I wanted to know more about the man and not just what the political manipulators wanted me to know. I learned that he was a medical corpsman in the United States like I was. He spent six (6) years in the military and eventually advanced to the position of “cardiology technician”.
He was not uneducated; getting degrees all over the place. He is very articulate, notwithstanding the screaming sermons in “black talk”. I wanted to know more.
He did an interview with Bill Moyers (great guy) on PBS and sounded really good defending himself, his church and his people. He mentioned that a big problem is that whites do not understand “Black Christian Liberation Theology” – interesting!
I have heard of “Catholic Central & South American Liberation Theology” in my studies but never the black brand. The priests in South America basically espoused Marxist philosophy in a Christian covering. This was the only way they could see to help the hopelessly poor and downtrodden in their parishes.
Jesus wanted to overturn the reigning order and bring in a new kingdom where justice and fairness would prevail and so they preached revolution and overthrow of the oppressors and bringing in a new kingdom albeit Communistic – wasn’t Jesus the first Communist? The Vatican told them to shut up!
I have never, though, heard of a black variety of this theology. You probably will not believe me but one of my white colleagues; who is very smart and very religious, attends a black religious seminary with mainly black ministers to be, women and men, so he is in a perfect position to learn more about this black type Christianity. Do not ask me why a white ministerial student is attending a black seminary – maybe its really close to his house?
So, as you may have guessed, we have some pretty good discussions (on company time no less).
The black theology works in the same fashion as the South American one; Jesus (Christianity) tries to lift people out of oppression and into a kingdom where there is no oppression. The blacks as slaves were most definitely oppressed big time and even after slavery was outlawed, racist whites kept up the oppression, some say, to this very day.
So what is the premise of this theology as it applies to the black Christian church? Well, let me first state that this theology does not apply or is practiced by ALL black Christian churches. Actually the Trinity Church of Christ belongs to the national, mainly white and oh so liberal and progressive “United Church of Christ” (UCC) Protestant denomination as opposed to, lets say, the “Baptist” Protestant denomination.
More to come…
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