Friday, March 14, 2008

Who's "ignorant"?

Yesterday I blogged about Obama's anti-American pastor. Today Tim Graham at Newsbusters addresses how the media spent months ignoring Jeremiah Wright's rants.

At Inside Charm City, Jeff Quinton quotes one of Wright's defenders, Kesha Boyce Williams:
I was a member of Trinity when I lived in Chicago. People who attack the church without having experienced Trinity are missing the whole point. . . .
Trinity is being attacked because of its belief system.
Williams then links a statement on Trinity's Web site, which asserts that the church's critics "are completely ignorant when it comes to the Black religious tradition." Furthermore:
Black theology is one of the many theologies in the Americas that became popular during the liberation theology movement. They include Hispanic theology, Native American theology, Asian theology and Womanist theology. . . .
To have a church whose theological perspective starts from the vantage point of Black liberation theology being its center, is not to say that African or African American people are superior to any one else.
African-centered thought, unlike Eurocentrism, does not assume superiority and look at everyone else as being inferior. . . .
This hardly qualifies as a defense of Trinity and its minister -- in fact, it seems like more of an indictment. Christianity is Christianity. Christ died for all mankind, and while the practice of Christian faith may vary in some ways from culture to culture, Christian theology requires no modifiers. There is no "Hispanic" or "Asian" theology distinct from mainstream Christianity, nor is there a "Black theology."

What this statement on Trinity's Web site is saying is that Trinity's theology is not strictly Christian, but is diluted or corrupted by ideas that are not part of legitimate Christian faith. In its departure from orthodoxy, of course, Trinity is hardly unique -- some churches now seem more excited about preventing global warming than they are about preaching the gospel and saving the lost. But simply to cite "black theology" as an excuse for Wright's rantings will not suffice.

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