Reflections From a Murky Pond

A lot of people have strong opinions about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Sen. Barack Obama’s former pastor. Many Blacks stick by him and many Whites decry him as bigoted and anti-American. The simple fact is that Rev. Jeremiah Wright is one of the current leaders of the Black Liberation Theology movement along with James Cone and Dwight Hopkins, who are considered the founders of contemporary Black Liberation Theology.

Since Wright is a fully committed and passionate advocate of this system of belief it would be best to define him in the context of that theology.

Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community … Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.

– James Cone
A Black Theology Of Liberation

There you have the distillate of Black Liberation Theology as announced by the movement’s founder in 1970. It’s a angry, exilic theology with a core doctrine centered on fear and hate.

Rev. Jeremiah Wright is a pastor and when he speaks he speaks as such - as he has firmly said. Black Liberation Theology is what he speaks and preaches. His words should be judged on this basis. His actions should be judged on their merits and effects.

It’s things like this video that may explain the existence of Islamaphobics like the Netherlands’ MP Geert Wilder. The words of the British Imam, Anjem Choudary during a recent interview on BBC’s Hard Talk certainly lends a certain creditability to Wilder’s views of Islam.

Listening to Mr. Choudary’s statements defending the terrorist bombing of the London Public Transport System on July 7, 2005, which killed 52 people and injured 700 others, is enough to incite rage and fear in most people.

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Below is the English version of Geert Wilders’ highly controversial film about the Qu’ran. It directly links passages from the Qu’ran to various and sundry heinous acts of savagery, brutality, oppression, and terrorism that have been committed by Islamists in the name of Islam across the globe.

I’m posting it here, not as an attack on Muslims or the religion of Islam, but as a starting point for discussion.

My first thought on this video was that it is a classic example of “cherry picking” individual passages out of a text in order to use those passages out of context to change people’s overall opinion of a text as a whole. This tactic has been used time and time again, yet never seems to fall out favor through overuse.

The English translations of the referenced sura from the Qu’ran are linked to below in their entirety. Read as part of each whole passage they convey a somewhat different meaning.

• Sura 4
• Sura 6
• Sura 8
• Sura 47

My second and sadder thought was that the extremists - a small minority among Muslims, as it is with any religion or ideology - are probably doing the exact same sort of “cherry picking”, down to sura and verse in order to justify their own agendas.

I think that Wilder’s video will appeal to many people who are already afraid of Muslims. I also think it will enrage many Muslims who already hate the West. I doubt this level of bigotry will change anyone’s opinion though; it’s too unsubtle to be good propaganda. I am force to conclude that Geert Wilder is hoping for a violent reaction from Muslims since such would only further support his world view.