True believer: Obama was for black-liberation theology before he was against it

National Review, June 30, 2008 by Stanley Kurtz

BY this point, nobody can seriously suggest that Barack Obama was unaware of the hate-filled rhetoric emanating from the pulpit at Trinity United Church of Christ until it was, very recently, pointed out to him. The church's long history of radical-leftist and anti-white sermons by Jeremiah Wright, Michael Pfleger, and others has been made so unmistakably clear that even the mainstream media eventually had to notice, forcing the candidate to offer his half-hearted resignation from the church. With that act, Obama hoped to close the book on his Trinity connection, putting an end to the questions about what he knew and when, and why he waited so long to leave the church.

A more interesting question, though, is why Obama joined Trinity in the first place. Some of his defenders suggest he did so to advance his career as a community organizer: The residents he needed to reach and the contacts he needed to make went to Trinity, so he went there too. In this view, Obama was merely being practical, not radical.

Don't believe it. This was no matter of convenience or expediency. Obama's connections to the radical-left politics espoused by Pfleger and Wright are broad and deep, and he largely approved of their political-theological outlook. Obama shared Wright's rejection of black "assimilation," individual self-improvement, and the pursuit of "middle-classness." His goal was not to repudiate religious radicalism but to channel its fervor into an effective and permanent activist organization. How do we know all this? We know it because Obama himself has told us.

A key source for deciphering his political views is a 1995 background piece on Obama that appeared in the Chicago Reader, a left-leaning "alternative" weekly. Hank De Zutter's "What Makes Obama Run?" gives us an in-depth picture of Obama's worldview on the eve of his career in electoral politics. In it, Obama presents his political hopes for the black community as a third way between two inadequate alternatives.

First he rejects, in De Zutter's words, "the unrealistic politics of integrationist assimilation--which helps a few upwardly mobile blacks to 'move up, get rich, and move out.'" Obama, we are told, "quickly learned that integration was a one-way street, with blacks expected to assimilate into a white world that never gave ground." He also criticizes "the politics of black rage and black nationalism"--although less on substance than on tactics. De Zutter says Obama is "tired of seeing the moral fervor of black folks whipped up--at the speaker's rostrum and from the pulpit--and then allowed to dissipate because there's no agenda, no concrete program for change." The problem is not the fiery rhetoric, but merely the wasted anger.

De Zutter lays out Obama's ties to such radical groups as Chicago ACORN, whose lead organizer at the time, Madeline Talbott, practiced the sort of intimidating and often illegal "direct action" that ACORN remains famous for. Talbott is quoted affirming that "Barack has proven himself among our members ... we accept and respect him as a kindred spirit, a fellow organizer." The article also mentions Obama's early organizing work for the Developing Communities Project, which was "funded by south-side Catholic churches." Clearly, this early work cemented Obama's close ties to Father Pfleger, whose support formed a critical component of Obama's grassroots network. Because of this early link, Pfleger threw his considerable support behind Obama's failed 2000 bid for Congress.

In an article on NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE, I explored the possibility that Obama may also have used his seats on the boards of a couple of liberal Chicago foundations to direct funds to groups that served as his de facto political base. The threads of this political network are pulled tighter as Obama turns to a "favorite topic": "the lack of collective action among black churches." In this year's presidential campaign, Obama has rationalized his ties to Trinity Church by citing its community-service programs. Yet in 1995 he was highly critical of churches that focused exclusively on food pantries and other services while neglecting the sort of politically visionary sermons, local king-making, and political alliance-building favored by Pfleger and Wright.

Obama rejected the strictly community-service approach of apolitical churches as part of America's unfortunate "bias" toward "individual action." He derogated this as "John Wayne" thinking and the old "right wing ... individualistic bootstrap myth," which needs to be replaced: "We have some wonderful preachers in town--preachers who continue to inspire me--preachers who are magnificent at articulating a vision of the world as it should be.... But as soon as church lets out, the energy dissipates. We must find ways to channel all this energy into community building." If anything, Obama wanted to give the political visions of Wright and Pfleger greater weight and substance, by connecting them to secular-leftist political networks like ACORN.