The Book of Esther-Black Liberation Theology and Anti-Semitism

Today, I was reading the book of Esther, and then I found this article on line.

http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/American-Israeli-Rabbi-compares-Obama-to-Haman-395457

We sin because we are selfish. Selfishness in little people, who are in lowly places, causes small ripples of consequences. But, selfishness in big people, who are in positions of power, causes tidal waves.

Haman hated the Jews with a racist fury. Of course, few people realize that in our country there has been a long hatred of those who follow black liberation theology for Jews.

POTUS sat for umpteen years in the front row of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's black liberation theology "church". Many of the articles which described this false ahistorical view, which holds that the Black People are the Chosen People of God and not the Jews, and that Christ is a political Messiah have been erased from the Net.

In 2007 to 2009 on my first blog, I explained black liberation theology in detail. I discovered by studying blt that it was rife with anti-semitism.

Supplanting the Jews as the real tribes set aside by God is a seminal idea therein.

I have read parts of blt books and can assure you these are bogus attempts to deny the history and revelation of the Old Testament.

Small wonder our leader hates Israel.

Read more here http://www.acton.org/pub/commentary/2008/04/02/marxist-roots-black-liberation-theology  with a snippet below.....and

April 2, 2008

by Anthony B. Bradley

What is Black Liberation Theology anyway? Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright catapulted black liberation theology onto a national stage, when America discovered Trinity United Church of Christ. Understanding the background of the movement might give better clarity into Wright's recent vitriolic preaching. A clear definition of black theology was first given formulation in 1969 by the National Committee of Black Church Men in the midst of the civil-rights movement:

Black theology is a theology of black liberation. It seeks to plumb the black condition in the light of God's revelation in Jesus Christ, so that the black community can see that the gospel is commensurate with the achievements of black humanity. Black theology is a theology of 'blackness.' It is the affirmation of black humanity that emancipates black people from White racism, thus providing authentic freedom for both white and black people. It affirms the humanity of white people in that it says 'No' to the encroachment of white oppression.

In the 1960s, black churches began to focus their attention beyond helping blacks cope with national racial discrimination particularly in urban areas.

The notion of "blackness" is not merely a reference to skin color, but rather is a symbol of oppression that can be applied to all persons of color who have a history of oppression (except whites, of course). So in this sense, as Wright notes, "Jesus was a poor black man" because he lived in oppression at the hands of "rich white people." The overall emphasis of Black Liberation Theology is the black struggle for liberation from various forms of "white racism" and oppression.

James Cone, the chief architect of Black Liberation Theology in his book A Black Theology of Liberation (1970), develops black theology as a system. In this new formulation, Christian theology is a theology of liberation -- "a rational study of the being of God in the world in light of the existential situation of an oppressed community, relating the forces of liberation to the essence of the gospel, which is Jesus Christ," writes Cone. Black consciousness and the black experience of oppression orient black liberation theology -- i.e., one of victimization from white oppression.

and more here with another snippet

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2008/06/obama_black_liberation_theolog_2.html

Until I started following the threads of Obama's Chicago history, his church, his other associations, especially the religious ones, I honestly didn't think anyone but the scantiest few fringe neo-Nazis or throngs of Middle-Eastern Muslims still harbored Jew hatred. 

I assumed Farrakhan got his antisemitism from the Koran.  The Koran, after all, is pretty explicit about Mohammed's hatred of the Jews, most likely because the Jews stubbornly clung to the wisdom of their own prophets and refused to convert.

But when I read the Black Liberation Theology books of James H. Cone, I saw a subtly disguised, resentful kind of antisemitism which I had never encountered before. 

The Gospel of Envy

Perhaps Winston Churchill was absolutely correct when he called socialism the "gospel of envy."  It has always struck me as odd when populist politicians, posing as Christians, perpetually tempt people to envy, driving home the notion that some are poor only because others are rich. 

It somehow never seems to dawn on either the politicians or those they are tempting that this flies directly in the face of the Tenth Commandment, "Thou shalt not covet..."  Nor do these so-called Christians seem to remember that Jesus condemned the tempting of others to sin as far worse than the sin itself.  "Woe be unto the tempters," Jesus admonished. 

Nevertheless, black power preachers who ascribe to Black Liberation Theology seem to be masters at provoking envy in the name of Christianity.

One of Cone's earliest books, Black Theology & Black Power, was first published in 1969, only 24 years after the end of WWII.  At the War's end, photographic and cinematic evidence of the Holocaust was spread worldwide and was met with horrific incredulity at what the Nazis had done to the Jews.  Yet, Cone embeds within his call to black liberation a diabolical resentment that Jews, not blacks, could lay claim to the Holocaust.  When I first read his words, they caught in my throat and I could barely believe they were on the page before me.

Cone is writing of "negro hatred of white people" not being in the least "pathological," but a "healthy human reaction to oppression, insult, and terror."  He remarks that white people seem surprised by this hatred, but that they shouldn't be, because it's just a natural response to the horrors black people face.

This audacious vindication of hatred within a theology which claims Christian roots is absurd. But then Cone actually seems to express an inverted diabolical envy of Jews, precisely because of the Holocaust:

More from Garrigou-Lagrange: Signs of The Unitive State

In The Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena, the Lord says: "This true and holy hope is more or less perfect, according to the degree of love which the soul has for Me, and it is in the same measure that it tastes My Providence." (19) This spiritual taste is greatly superior to sensible consolations. In fact, not only does the perfect soul believe in Providence, but more and more discovers its manifestations where it least expected them. It tastes Providence by the gift of wisdom which shows it all things in God, even painful and unforeseen events, making it foresee the higher good for which He permits them. In the same chapter of The Dialogue we read: "Those who serve Me disinterestedly, with the sole hope of pleasing Me, taste My Providence more than those who expect a recompense for their service in the joy which they find in Me. . . . Perfect and imperfect are the object of My attentions; I shall not fail any, provided they have not the presumption to hope in themselves." (20) The more disinterested we are, the more we taste Providence see it in the course of our life, abandon ourselves to it and to the direction of our two great Mediators, who do not cease to watch over us. With trust in our Lord grows that in Mary, universal Mediatrix. She, who at the foot of the cross made the greatest act of hope when all seemed lost, merited to be called Mary Help of Christians, Our Lady of Perpetual Help. We know that frequent recourse to her is a special sign of predestination. THE HEROIC CONFIDENCE OF THE SAINTS RESTORES HOPE IN THEIR COMPANIONS That the heroic confidence of the saints revives the hope of their companions is particularly evident in the lives of the founders of religious orders. When they had neither money nor human support, when vocations were lacking or slow in coming, when they met with scarcely anything but mistrust and contradiction, they placed their confidence in God and lifted up the hope of their first sons, who remained faithful. (21) On more than one occasion miracles have rewarded their trust. When there was only a loaf of bread for the brethren of the convent of Bologna, St. Dominic gave the loaf to a poor man asking for alms. The saint put his trust in God, and angels came from heaven to bring the necessary bread to the religious. Blessed Raymond of Capua relates that St. Catherine of Siena "was accustomed to say to us when some one of my brethren and I feared some peril: 'Why do you concern yourselves? Let divine Providence act. When your fears are greatest, it is always watching over you and will not cease to provide for your salvation.'" (22) Such is perfect, entirely trustful abandonment, united to sustained fidelity to daily duty. The Lord Himself said to St. Catherine of Siena during very trying times: "My daughter, think of Me; if thou dost so, I shall unceasingly think of thee." (23) This trust in God enabled the saint to restore the courage of her companions during the exceptional mission entrusted to her of bringing the pope from Avignon to Rome, a mission which she accomplished in the midst of the greatest difficulties. The Sovereign Pontiff's entourage did everything possible to discredit the saint; in spite of this almost incredible opposition, the daughter of the dyer of Siena, trusting implicitly in our Lord, succeeded perfectly in her task.

Are You Doing Your Job?

⁶ They therefore who were come together, asked him, saying: Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?

It is almost unbelievable that in this first chapter of The Acts of the Apostles, that the followers of Jesus, Whom the have seen raised from the dead, are still asking about the restoration of the Kingdom of the Jews.

Did they not listen? "My kingdom is not of this world..." 

Some people are still holding on to ideas of the restoration of Christendom. No offense, but I think this is not only a waste of time, but a misunderstanding of Christ's entire mission to think about prophecies which may or may not be true.

As I noted in a post recently, Liberation Theology was condemned, partly, for making Jesus into a political Messiah, an earthly king.

The Kingdom of God is within. Baptism gives us the Indwelling of the Trinity. We cooperate or we do not cooperate with God in the building up of virtues in our lives.

The Church is the physical manifestation of Christ's Kingdom on earth.

Here is the answer to the above question.

⁷ But he said to them: It is not for you to know the times or moments, which the Father hath put in his own power:

⁸ But you shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth.

We are not to speculate on prophecies regarding the restoration of any kingdom or when Christ will return.

This type of speculation can actually lead to sins.

The sins of presumption and pride...

Too many lay people have wasted time on prophecies and are simply ignoring the real ministry which Christ gave to us.

Jesus did not say, "Sit around and figure out arcane prophecies". 

He said this, in today's Gospel.

Matthew 28:16-20

Douay-Rheims (as is the above)

¹⁶ And the eleven disciples went into Galilee, unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed them.

¹⁷ And seeing him they adored: but some doubted.

¹⁸ And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth.

¹⁹ Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

²⁰ Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.

http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-church-is-not-utopia.html

The laity must evangelize, teach, baptize and the priests must give us the sacraments. We do all this in love.

Period.

The Church Is Not Utopia

Oh to be in Oleanna,
That's where I'd like to be
Than to be in Norway
And bear the chains of slavery.

Little roasted piggies
Rush around the city streets
Inquiring so politely
If a slice of ham you'd like to eat.

Beer as sweet as Muncheners
Springs from the ground and flows away
The cows all like to milk themselves
And the hens lay eggs ten times a day.

In 1852, a famous violist Ole Bull decided to set up a utopia in Pennsylvania by buying 11,000 acres and offering it free to pioneers.  The entire project failed because the violinist knew nothing of farming and the land was totally unsuitable. The project failed. More can be read here. http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/places/4278/ole_bull%27s_new_norway/472266

Too many Catholics see the Church as some sort of experiment of utopia. It is not a millennialist dream of another time of Christendom or a time of triumphant in a material manner. 

The Church is an institution created by Christ to impart grace to the members and guide them to heaven. Heaven is the real goal, not any type of utopia on earth. A Catholic needs to be concentrating on becoming a saint and not on becoming involved in utopian, or other theories of neo-triumphalism.

Liberation Theology was condemned for making Christ into a militant, materialistic Messiah, in the mode of Marxist utopian theories. This theology departed from the idea of the Kingdom of God as within each one of the baptized Catholics, and not something without, not something physically set-up as a utopia.

Do not waste time dreaming of greater days to come. Pray for those who are persecuted and pray to persevere until the end.

We shall not see the return to an Catholic utopias.

Perfection Series II: xxxviii

More from Garrigou-Lagrange on reason and faith.

The certitude of prudence, as explained by Aquinas, [1387] following Aristotle, contains that which is true in limited pragmatism. Prudence is a virtue, even an intellectual virtue, in the moral order, a virtue which transcends opinion, and reaches a practical certitude on the goodness of the act in question. The truth of the practical intellect, Aristotle [1388] has said, differs from that of the speculative intellect. Speculative truth means conformity with objective reality. But since the intellect is limited to the necessary truths of reality, it cannot attain infallible conformity with the contingent and variable elements of reality. The contingent, as such, cannot be the subject matter of a speculative science. Truth in the practical intellect, on the contrary, means conformity with good will, with good intention. When for instance, presented with an unsuspected poisoned drink, a man proceeds to partake, his speculative error does not prevent his having a true prudential judgment based on his intention to obey charity and politeness. Practical truth can coexist with speculative error. Pragmatism can claim this partial truth.

Pragmatism Must Return to Tradition

One chief difficulty, proposed by the philosophy of action, appears in St. Thomas [1389] in the form of an objection. The thesis is: Goodness in the will depends on reason. The objection runs thus: The reverse is true, because as the Philosopher [1390] says, truth conformed to right appetite is the goodness of the practical intellect, and right appetite means good will In other words, each man's judgment follows his fundamental inclination, bad or good. If this fundamental inclination is bad, the judgment will be wrong. But if the inclination is good, the judgment too will be right and true, just as spiritual pragmatism maintains.

The saint's answer runs thus: The Philosopher is speaking here of the practical intellect, as engaged in the order of means, to find the best road to a presupposed goal, for this is the work of prudence. Now it is true that in the order of means the goodness of the reason consists in its conformity with the will's inclination to the right end and goal. But, he adds, this very inclination of the will presupposes the right knowledge of the end, and this knowledge comes from reason. [1391].

Prudential certitude, then, does presuppose right intention in the will, but this right intention itself derives its rectitude from those higher principles of reason which are true by their conformity with objective reality, with our nature and our last end. To reduce all truth to prudential certitude means to destroy prudential certitude itself.

To this extreme we seem to be led by those who, abandoning the eternal notion of truth as conformity with objective reality, propose rather to define truth as conformity of spirit with the exigencies of human life, a conformity known by a constantly developing experience, moral and religious. Here we are surely near the following modernistic proposition: Truth is not more immutable than is man himself, since it evolves with him, in him, and through him. [1392].

The pragmatism we are here dealing with is not, we must acknowledge, the grovelling pragmatism of social climbers or politicians, who utilize mendacity as practical truth, as sure road to success. It is rather the pragmatism of good and honest men who claim to have a high level of religious experience. But they forget that man's will, man's intention, can be right and good only by dependence on the objective and self-supporting principles of man's nature and man's destination, as known by reason and revelation, principles which impose on him the duty of loving God, above all things, man himself included. This truth, the source of man's good will and intention, rests on its conformity with the highest levels of reality, on the nature of our soul and our will, on the nature of God and God's sovereign goodness, on the nature of infused grace and charity, which are proportioned to God's own inner and objective life.

The consequences, then, even of this higher pragmatism, are ruinous, though unforeseen by those who meddle with the traditional definition of truth. We noted above [1393] the remark of M. Maurice Blondel that the abstract and chimerical definition of truth as "conformity of intellect to reality" should be abandoned in favor of "conformity of mind with life." That was in 1906. Though he later attempted to draw near to St. Thomas, he still wrote: [1394] "No intellectual evidence, even that of ah solute and ontologically valid principles, is imposed on us with a certitude that is spontaneous and infallibly compelling; not more than our objective idea of the absolute Good acts on our will as it would if we already had the intuitive vision of perfect goodness."

To admit parity here would be a grave error, because our adherence to first principles is necessary, [1395] whereas our choice to prefer God to all else is, in this life, free. Here below God is not known as a good which draws us invincibly, whereas the truth of the principle, say of contradiction, can simply not be denied. He who knows the meaning of the two words "circle" and "square" has necessary and compelling evidence of the objective impossibility of a square circle.

The higher pragmatism does not, it is true, sacrifice truth to utility. But to abandon the traditional definition of truth is to unsettle all foundations, in science, in metaphysics, in faith, in theology. Prudential truth rests on an order higher than itself. The enthusiasm of hope and charity, if it is not to remain a beautiful dream of religious emotion, must rest on a faith which is in conformity with reality, not merely with the exigencies of our inner life, or even with our best intentions Nothing can be intended except as known. Unless the intellect is right in its judgment on the end to be attained, there can be no rectitude in the will. The good, says St. Thomas, [1396] belongs first to reason under the form of truth, before it can belong to the will as desirable, because the will cannot desire good unless that good is first apprehended by the reason.

Long but Worth Watching for An Explanation on All The New Theologies

Gets better as it goes along.....

Santorum (Finally) Criticizes the "Christianity" of POTUS

Brietbart.tv  has a clip of Santorum attacking Obama's connections to the Black Liberation Church in Chicago, which I have written about several times in 2008 and here on this blog. This hit the media before the last election.  Thank God that one of the major politicians in the race is paying attention to the anti-Semitism and angry, hateful language which comes out of that movement. Check here on the "church" website for a view. This movement makes up Jesus in its own image and likeness, which has nothing to do with Revelation and the Incarnation. If people did not pay attention to all the media hype about this in 2008, they should now.

Among new friends in Dublin...

archived photo of St. Kevin's

I spent a lovely morning at the Tridentine Mass at St. Kevin's in Dublin and then had coffee and such with some of the regular traddies. What a warm and friendly group this is, and I would recommend anyone in the area to check out the beautiful Mass and community there. The conversation over coffee at the hotel coffee shop shifted from politics (and as an Iowan I can match any Dubliner talking politics), to the Latin Mass, to Modernist heresies, to Freemasonry, to the lack of catechesis among adults, to the beauty of Shakespeare. I was in traddie heaven. Sadly, I shall not be able to go for a long time, as the buses do not connect from my village that early and my ride was a one-off. However, one is comforted by the fact that there are wonderful, educated (mostly self-educated), happy, traditional Catholics scattered throughout Europe. I also was "in" a much smaller, but equally good-willed, happy, educated and dedicated group in Malta, but there, without the regular Mass, which here is offered at this exquisite church daily. Plus, the choir was "heavenly". And, the sermon superb (about real marriage, the brave priest mentioning that same-sex unions were not marriages-yippie) and the congregation well-trained in responses and customary rubrics. Sigh, wish I could go every day to such a Mass, or even a low TLM. Join me in prayer, please, that I could be part of a parish like this for the rest of my life...traddie heaven.