In March of 2007, I wrote an article expressing grave concerns about Obama’s Liberation Theology church and his controversial pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Last year few Americans, other than Theologians or graduates from left-leaning seminaries such as Brite Divinity School, even knew about Liberation Theology.
The following republished article exposed the truth about Jeremiah Wright’s church and quotes from the works of James H. Cone, one of the primary authors of Black Liberation Theology. Additionally provided are some important points about the grave dangers of Liberation Theology written in 1984 by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI).
Following is the text from Obama’s Marxist Liberation Theology Church :
The best lie is a little pig that’s always hidden between several fluffy layers of truth and covered with a lot of lipstick and charisma.
This is a follow-up to yesterday’s article originally posted on Right Truth and here “What Obama’s Church Preaches”
Note: This article isn’t so much about religion as it is about the politics of political revolution as fomented in all Liberation Theology churches.
Read also the post by Church and State: Obama's Pastor Embarrasses Entire Congregation. Be sure to View the video where “Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, Barak Obama's pastor, went on Hannity & Colmes last night to respond to claims that his church is a black separatist congregation.”
Obama’s pastor, Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, continued to evade Hannity while he hammered away asking again and agin if Hannity had ever read James H. Cone, one of the primary authors of Black Liberation Theology.
Oddly enough, I just happen to have several of Cone’s works on hand. Here’s just a little from Cone’s classic book A Black Theology of Liberation (Twentieth Anniversary Edition):
Emphasis added by me:
The definition of Jesus as black is crucial for christology if we truly believer in his continued presence today. Taking our clue from the historical Jesus who is pictured in the New Testament as the Oppressed One, what else, except blackness, could adequately tell us the meaning of his presence today? Any statement about Jesus today that fails to consider blackness as the decisive factor about his person is a denial of the New Testament message. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus reveal that he is the man for others, disclosing to them what is necessary for their liberation from oppression. If this is true, then Jesus Christ must be black so that blacks can know that their liberation is his liberation. . .
The black Christ is he who threatens the structure of evil as seen in white society, rebelling against it, thereby becoming the embodiment of what the black community knows that it must become. . .
To be a disciple of the black Christ is to become black with him. Looting, burning, or the destruction of white property are not primary concerns. Such matters can only be decided by the oppressed themselves who are seeking to develop their images of the black Christ. . .
Whites do not recognize what is happening, and they are thus unable to deal with it. For most whites in power, the black community is a nuisance –something to be considered only when the natives get restless. But what white America fails to realize is the explosive nature of the kingdom. Although its beginning is small, it will have far-reaching effects not only on the black community but on the white community as well. Now is the time to make decisions about loyalties, because soon it will be too late. Shall we or shall we not join the black revolutionary kingdom?
An excellent overview of the grave dangers of Liberation Theology was written in 1984 by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI).
Here are some of the important points Ratzinger makes about Liberation Theology:
1. Liberation Theology has it center of power in Latin America and in African Theology, but is found in many Christian denominations throughout the Third World.
2. Liberation Theology is a new interpretation of Christian reality.
3. Liberation Theology is radically Marxist. “ . . .the world must be interpreted in terms of the class struggle and that the only choice is between capitalism and Marxism.”
4. Liberation Theology thrives on perpetuating class struggle. The only people of the Church are those who participate in class struggle.
5. Liberation Theology is a theology of bloody political revolution. All of Christian reality is reduced to politico-social liberation praxis (action).
6. Liberation Theology rejects traditional scriptural interpretations. “The experience of the "community" determines the understanding and the interpretation of Scripture. . . Ultimately, what is normative for interpretation is not historical research but the hermeneutic of history experienced in the community or the political group.”
7. Liberation Theology makes the Bible subject to a Marxist view of history. “The "historicality" of the Bible must justify its absolute dominance and thus legitimize the' transition to materialist-marxist philosophy, in which history has taken over the role of God. . . historical criticism has loosed Scripture from the traditional interpretation, which now appears to be unscientific.
8. Liberation Theology is a threat to the faith of the Christian Church.
Here Ratzinger analyzes some of the central concepts of Liberation Theology:
Faith: Jesus' experience of God is radically historical. "His faith is transformed into fidelity." Thus faith is fundamentally replaced by "fidelity to history". . .
Hope is interpreted as "confidence in the.future" and as working for the future and thus is subordinated once more to the history of class conflict. . .
Love consists in the "option for the poor"; i.e., it coincides with opting for the class struggle. . .
Kingdom of God: “ . .the Kingdom must not be understood in a spiritualist or universalist manner, not in the sense of an abstract eschatological eventuality. It must be understood in partisan terms and with a view to praxis. The meaning of the Kingdom can only be defined by reference to the praxis of Jesus, not theoretically: it means working at the historical reality that surrounds us in order to transform it into the Kingdom.”
Overcoming Dualism “Here we must mention another basic idea of a particular postconciliar theology which has led in this direction. People said that after the Council every dualism must be overcome: the dualism of body and soul, of natural and supernatural, of this world and the world beyond, of then and now. Once these supposed dualisms had been eliminated, it only remained to work for a kingdom to be realized in present history and in politicoeconomic reality. This meant, however, that one had ceased to work for the benefit of people in this present time and had begun to destroy the present in the interests of a supposed future: thus the real dualism had broken loose.”
Note: The above explanation of overcoming dualism certainly gives us some insight into the suicidal nature of leftist thought!
Death and Resurrection: “ . . . Man has taken over God's gesture — this manifests the whole transformation of the biblical message in an almost tragic way . . .”
Eucharist is interpreted as a celebration of liberation in the sense of politico-messianic hope and praxis.
The word redemption is largely replaced by liberation, which is seen, against the background of history and the class struggle, as a process of progressive liberation.
Action is truth “. . . The only true orthodoxy is therefore orthopraxy.”
Ratzinger’s Summary
In trying to arrive at an overall evaluation it must be said that, if one accepts the fundamental assumptions which underlie liberation theology, it cannot be denied that the whole edifice has an almost irresistible logic. By adopting the position of biblical criticism and of a hermeneutics that grows through experience, on the one hand, and of the marxist analysis of history, on the other, liberation theologians have succeeded in creating a total picture of the Christian reality, and this total view seems to respond fully both to the claims of science and to the moral challenges of our time, urging people to make Christianity an instrument of concrete world transformation; it seems to have united Christianity, in this way, with all the "progressive forces" of our era. One can understand, therefore, that this new interpretation of Christianity should have exercised an increasing fascination over theologians, priests and religious, particularly against the background of Third World problems. To say "no" to it must seem to them to be a flight from reality as well as a denial of reason and morality. On the other hand, if one considers how radical this reinterpretation of Christianity is, it is all the more pressing to find the right answer to the challenge which it presents. We shall only survive this crisis if we succeed in making the logic of faith visible in an equally compelling manner and in presenting it as a logic of reality, i.e., manifesting the concrete force of a better answer attested in lived experience. Since it is so, since thought and experience, interpretation and realization, are equally called for, it is a task for the whole Church. Theology alone is insufficient, Church authority alone is insufficient. Since the phenomenon of liberation theology indicates a lack of conversion in the Church, a lack of radical faith, only an increase in conversion and faith can arouse and elicit those theological insights and those decisions on the part of the shepherds which will give an answer to the magnitude of the question.
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Trackposted to Diary of the Mad Pigeon, third world county, Woman Honor Thyself, McCain Blogs, Pirate's Cove, Wolf Pangloss, A Newt One, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
Showing posts with label Pope Benedict XVI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pope Benedict XVI. Show all posts
Friday, May 02, 2008
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Islamification, Christianity and WWIII: Islam’s Subtle Political Maneuvers
If we are to escape further Islamification, we must take back our churches and all of our cultural institutions. Stand up, speak out, and if you must, walk out and withdraw financial support!!!
NEW YORK (BP)--Much of the church is asleep or in “deep, dark denial” about Islam, Anglican Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi of Uganda said in New York City at the Kairos Journal Award dinner Jan. 26. . . . The inner attack on the church is the shifting of authority away from the Bible toward a “false gospel,” Orombi said. But from without, he said, the church’s most significant threat is Islam. . . . the church is generally ignorant about Islam, its doctrine, its ideology and its expansionist strategy, the Anglican leader said. Most churches have no plan or vision about reaching Muslims and even shy away from evangelism out of fear and the prospect of retaliatory violence. . . . Mark Durie, vicar of St. Mary’s Anglican Church, Caulfield, in Melbourne, Australia, echoed that sentiment. Failure to address Islam with the Gospel will result in falling prey to it. At present, he said, the future of the world is less than certain.
What exactly is Islamification?
The simplest definition is can be found at WorldViews in a 2004 review “The Islamification of Europe.” This was a review of a WSJ article by Johns Hopkins professor Fouad Ajami.
Here’s an excerpt: (Bold highlights added by me)
On the op-ed page of the "Wall Street Journal" (subscription required) is a remarkable article by Johns Hopkins professor Fouad Ajami on how radical Islam has been nurtured specifically in Europe, and why the Europeans feel they must be on the Arabs' side, even as they are threatened by an unassimilated and growing population that owes them no loyalty.
Europeans imported huge numbers of Muslim laborers in the 1960's. Their numbers swelled as refugees fled the wars and tyrannies of their own countries. The mideast regimes were so oppressive that the dissidents fled to Europe, where they took advantage of the freedom they could never have at home to develop their radical Islamic ideologies. And, according to Ajami, as the immigrant population booms and the native Europeans have fewer and fewer children, the radicalized Muslims are gaining more and more power in the European democracies. But while they are willing to take advantage of the opportunities afforded in their new homelands, the Muslims are insisting that they owe allegiance to no nationality; only to Islam.
For a good view of Islamification see the video Islamification of Britain.
January 27, 2007: “We are in the midst of a third World War,’ former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy told weekly newspaper Expresso.”
See “World War III has already begun, says Israeli spy chief”
Former head of Israel's intelligence service tells Portuguese newspaper it would take at least 25 years before battle against fundamentalist terrorism is won; says nuclear strike by Muslim terrorists 'very likely'.
Hat Tip to Mr. Minority
A third World War is already underway between Islamic militancy and the West but most people do not realize it, the former head of Israel’s intelligence service Mossad said in an interview published Saturday in Portugal.
‘We are in the midst of a third World War,’ former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy told weekly newspaper Expresso. . .
Halevy, who was raised in war-time London, predicted it would take at least 25 years before the battle against Islamic fundamentalist terrorism is won and during this time a nuclear strike by Islamic militants was likely.
Hat Tip to Dhimmi Watch
“How the Pope sees Islam” (2/6/07) Here’s an excerpt. (Bold highlights added by me.)
The Egyptian Jesuit priest Fr. Samir Khalil Samir, S.J. here explains the thoughtful, careful, and realistic approach that Pope Benedict XVI has adopted toward the Islamic world. "When Civilizations Meet: How Joseph Ratzinger Sees Islam," from Asia News via Chiesa, with thanks to D.:
Benedict XVI is probably one of the few figures to have profoundly understood the ambiguity in which contemporary Islam is being debated and its struggle to find a place in modern society. At the same time, he is proposing a way for Islam to work toward coexistence globally and with religions, based not on religious dialogue, but on dialogue between cultures and civilizations based on rationality and on a vision of man and human nature which comes before any ideology or religion. This choice to wager on cultural dialogue explains his decision to absorb the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue into the larger Pontifical Council for Culture.
While the pope is asking Islam for dialogue based on culture, human rights, the refusal of violence, he is asking the West, at the same time, to go back to a vision of human nature and rationality in which the religious dimension is not excluded. In this way – and perhaps only in this way – a clash of civilizations can be avoided, transforming it instead into a dialogue between civilizations. . . .
. . .But the key point that he tackles is that of shari’a. He points out that:
“the Koran is a total religious law, which regulates the whole of political and social life and insists that the whole order of life be Islamic. Shari’a shapes society from beginning to end. In this sense, it can exploit such freedoms as our constitutions give, but it cannot be its final goal to say: Yes, now we too are a body with rights, now we are present [in society] just like the Catholics and the Protestants. In such a situation, [Islam] would not achieve a status consistent with its inner nature; it would be in alienation from itself”.
This alienation could be resolved only through the total Islamization of society. When for example an Islamic finds himself in a Western society, he can benefit from or exploit certain elements, but he can never identify himself with the non-Muslim citizen, because he does not find himself in a Muslim society. . . .
With regard to the Jesuit’s statement above concernining Sharia: “it can exploit such freedoms as our constitutions give” please take a look at “Our Vulnerable Religious Freedoms”
Our greatest National strengths can also be our biggest points of vulnerability. I have written earlier that our freedom of expression, freedom of equal protection as citizens, and the “wall of separation” between church and state in the United States, as guaranteed by the Constitution and the 1st, 2nd and 14th amendments, is vulnerable to being undermined for one specific reason. Our nation has never attempted to define what constitutes a religion. . .
Hat Tip to BookWorm Room
At FrontPage Magazine, you can read an interview with Bill Warner, the the director of the Center for the Study of Political Islam. Warner discusses Islam’s dualistic nature, which can hold simultaneously two opposite thoughts (such as the instruction to treat nonbelievers decently and the instruction that they must be destroyed as infidels). Thus, Warner contrasts Islamic beliefs with the Golden Rule, a principle that appears in all of the world’s other than Islam . . .
Here’s a typical response from a moderate Muslim to all this so-called “Islamophobia”. Although I am very glad to hear a “moderate” Muslim’s response against Islamic terrorism, note the dualistic denial. (BOLD highlights added by me).
Britácora Almendrón
Una mirada al mundo artistico, cultural y political
By Zeeshan Hashmion, who served in the British Army between 2000 and 2005. He is now a student at Cambridge (THE TIMES, 06/02/07):
. . .I do feel increasingly impatient when engaged in debates about my faith, its so-called link with extremism and its so-called rejection of democracy. I wish I could shout out loud and say that a majority of Muslims believe in the core message of Islam, which is peace. We are tolerant of others and comfortable coexisting in a multicultural, multi-ethnic environment. Islam does not dictate that one can only be Muslim and not British or Chinese at the same time.
Unfortunately, there are those among us who are ill-educated, misled and are indeed extremists. My message to those who preach extremism and a false concept of jihad is that our Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) not only stood up but asked his companions to do the same when the funeral of a Jew was passing near by. One’s responsibility to the Muslim ummah demands logic and reasoning in achieving long-term, peaceful solutions based upon coexistence. Isolation and extremism is not the answer; initiating a dialogue is.
Those in power should be more responsible and sincere when discussing conflict resolution. Stop using the notion of democracy to justify loss of human life; we need to ensure that we create a more stable and less bloody future for coming generations. This is the least we owe to those who have made sacrifices. Political systems and doctrine can not effectively be imported from one region to another facing a different range of problems.
As individuals, we ought to be more open and receptive in our approach towards fellow humans, in peace time or in conflict. “For those who have had to fight for it, Life has truly a flavour the protected shall never know.”
Trackposted to Right Celebrity, third world county, Maggie's Notebook, basil's blog, The Bullwinkle Blog, Cao's Blog, Jo's Cafe, Pursuing Holiness, Right Voices, and Conservative Thoughts, Outside the Beltway, A Blog For All, The Random Yak, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
NEW YORK (BP)--Much of the church is asleep or in “deep, dark denial” about Islam, Anglican Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi of Uganda said in New York City at the Kairos Journal Award dinner Jan. 26. . . . The inner attack on the church is the shifting of authority away from the Bible toward a “false gospel,” Orombi said. But from without, he said, the church’s most significant threat is Islam. . . . the church is generally ignorant about Islam, its doctrine, its ideology and its expansionist strategy, the Anglican leader said. Most churches have no plan or vision about reaching Muslims and even shy away from evangelism out of fear and the prospect of retaliatory violence. . . . Mark Durie, vicar of St. Mary’s Anglican Church, Caulfield, in Melbourne, Australia, echoed that sentiment. Failure to address Islam with the Gospel will result in falling prey to it. At present, he said, the future of the world is less than certain.
What exactly is Islamification?
The simplest definition is can be found at WorldViews in a 2004 review “The Islamification of Europe.” This was a review of a WSJ article by Johns Hopkins professor Fouad Ajami.
Here’s an excerpt: (Bold highlights added by me)
On the op-ed page of the "Wall Street Journal" (subscription required) is a remarkable article by Johns Hopkins professor Fouad Ajami on how radical Islam has been nurtured specifically in Europe, and why the Europeans feel they must be on the Arabs' side, even as they are threatened by an unassimilated and growing population that owes them no loyalty.
Europeans imported huge numbers of Muslim laborers in the 1960's. Their numbers swelled as refugees fled the wars and tyrannies of their own countries. The mideast regimes were so oppressive that the dissidents fled to Europe, where they took advantage of the freedom they could never have at home to develop their radical Islamic ideologies. And, according to Ajami, as the immigrant population booms and the native Europeans have fewer and fewer children, the radicalized Muslims are gaining more and more power in the European democracies. But while they are willing to take advantage of the opportunities afforded in their new homelands, the Muslims are insisting that they owe allegiance to no nationality; only to Islam.
For a good view of Islamification see the video Islamification of Britain.
January 27, 2007: “We are in the midst of a third World War,’ former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy told weekly newspaper Expresso.”
See “World War III has already begun, says Israeli spy chief”
Former head of Israel's intelligence service tells Portuguese newspaper it would take at least 25 years before battle against fundamentalist terrorism is won; says nuclear strike by Muslim terrorists 'very likely'.
Hat Tip to Mr. Minority
A third World War is already underway between Islamic militancy and the West but most people do not realize it, the former head of Israel’s intelligence service Mossad said in an interview published Saturday in Portugal.
‘We are in the midst of a third World War,’ former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy told weekly newspaper Expresso. . .
Halevy, who was raised in war-time London, predicted it would take at least 25 years before the battle against Islamic fundamentalist terrorism is won and during this time a nuclear strike by Islamic militants was likely.
Hat Tip to Dhimmi Watch
“How the Pope sees Islam” (2/6/07) Here’s an excerpt. (Bold highlights added by me.)
The Egyptian Jesuit priest Fr. Samir Khalil Samir, S.J. here explains the thoughtful, careful, and realistic approach that Pope Benedict XVI has adopted toward the Islamic world. "When Civilizations Meet: How Joseph Ratzinger Sees Islam," from Asia News via Chiesa, with thanks to D.:
Benedict XVI is probably one of the few figures to have profoundly understood the ambiguity in which contemporary Islam is being debated and its struggle to find a place in modern society. At the same time, he is proposing a way for Islam to work toward coexistence globally and with religions, based not on religious dialogue, but on dialogue between cultures and civilizations based on rationality and on a vision of man and human nature which comes before any ideology or religion. This choice to wager on cultural dialogue explains his decision to absorb the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue into the larger Pontifical Council for Culture.
While the pope is asking Islam for dialogue based on culture, human rights, the refusal of violence, he is asking the West, at the same time, to go back to a vision of human nature and rationality in which the religious dimension is not excluded. In this way – and perhaps only in this way – a clash of civilizations can be avoided, transforming it instead into a dialogue between civilizations. . . .
. . .But the key point that he tackles is that of shari’a. He points out that:
“the Koran is a total religious law, which regulates the whole of political and social life and insists that the whole order of life be Islamic. Shari’a shapes society from beginning to end. In this sense, it can exploit such freedoms as our constitutions give, but it cannot be its final goal to say: Yes, now we too are a body with rights, now we are present [in society] just like the Catholics and the Protestants. In such a situation, [Islam] would not achieve a status consistent with its inner nature; it would be in alienation from itself”.
This alienation could be resolved only through the total Islamization of society. When for example an Islamic finds himself in a Western society, he can benefit from or exploit certain elements, but he can never identify himself with the non-Muslim citizen, because he does not find himself in a Muslim society. . . .
With regard to the Jesuit’s statement above concernining Sharia: “it can exploit such freedoms as our constitutions give” please take a look at “Our Vulnerable Religious Freedoms”
Our greatest National strengths can also be our biggest points of vulnerability. I have written earlier that our freedom of expression, freedom of equal protection as citizens, and the “wall of separation” between church and state in the United States, as guaranteed by the Constitution and the 1st, 2nd and 14th amendments, is vulnerable to being undermined for one specific reason. Our nation has never attempted to define what constitutes a religion. . .
Hat Tip to BookWorm Room
At FrontPage Magazine, you can read an interview with Bill Warner, the the director of the Center for the Study of Political Islam. Warner discusses Islam’s dualistic nature, which can hold simultaneously two opposite thoughts (such as the instruction to treat nonbelievers decently and the instruction that they must be destroyed as infidels). Thus, Warner contrasts Islamic beliefs with the Golden Rule, a principle that appears in all of the world’s other than Islam . . .
Here’s a typical response from a moderate Muslim to all this so-called “Islamophobia”. Although I am very glad to hear a “moderate” Muslim’s response against Islamic terrorism, note the dualistic denial. (BOLD highlights added by me).
Britácora Almendrón
Una mirada al mundo artistico, cultural y political
By Zeeshan Hashmion, who served in the British Army between 2000 and 2005. He is now a student at Cambridge (THE TIMES, 06/02/07):
. . .I do feel increasingly impatient when engaged in debates about my faith, its so-called link with extremism and its so-called rejection of democracy. I wish I could shout out loud and say that a majority of Muslims believe in the core message of Islam, which is peace. We are tolerant of others and comfortable coexisting in a multicultural, multi-ethnic environment. Islam does not dictate that one can only be Muslim and not British or Chinese at the same time.
Unfortunately, there are those among us who are ill-educated, misled and are indeed extremists. My message to those who preach extremism and a false concept of jihad is that our Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) not only stood up but asked his companions to do the same when the funeral of a Jew was passing near by. One’s responsibility to the Muslim ummah demands logic and reasoning in achieving long-term, peaceful solutions based upon coexistence. Isolation and extremism is not the answer; initiating a dialogue is.
Those in power should be more responsible and sincere when discussing conflict resolution. Stop using the notion of democracy to justify loss of human life; we need to ensure that we create a more stable and less bloody future for coming generations. This is the least we owe to those who have made sacrifices. Political systems and doctrine can not effectively be imported from one region to another facing a different range of problems.
As individuals, we ought to be more open and receptive in our approach towards fellow humans, in peace time or in conflict. “For those who have had to fight for it, Life has truly a flavour the protected shall never know.”
Trackposted to Right Celebrity, third world county, Maggie's Notebook, basil's blog, The Bullwinkle Blog, Cao's Blog, Jo's Cafe, Pursuing Holiness, Right Voices, and Conservative Thoughts, Outside the Beltway, A Blog For All, The Random Yak, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
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