Black and Tired

It is not liberal to be concerned about racism and about the problems of one particular race. Here is Anthony Bradley's promotional video for his book, Black and Tired (Wipf & Stock, 2011).



Anthony Bradley is associate professor of theology and ethics at The King's College in New Yorki City where I teach.

Race, Tyranny, and Christian Politics

None of these columns made Worldmag's top 20 of the year, but they're pretty darn good, even if I do say so myself. I roll out my schtick on race, I state what tyranny is and apply it to public service unions and Charlie Rangel, and I lay out sources of the Colbert-O'Reilly fisticuffs over whether Jesus would identify with the current politics of the Democratic or Republican Party.

"[W]hat we call “race” is a vague and thus questionable basis for identifying people. A race is, after all, only an extended family that reaches far beyond one’s immediate family, community, or clan. As descendents of Adam, we are all part of the same universal family, and thus one “human race.” The census calls me “white,” but for the Census Bureau that category includes everyone from Swedes to Southern Italians, and even Arabs. But I am a Scot, so I am racially Celtic (as are the Irish, the Welsh, and the Bretons of northern France). We are racially distinct from the English, the French, and the Germans. The same significant distinctions exist among Africans, Asians, and people of other regions."
"Our Puzzling Race Problem," December 29, 2010.



"No one asks about the politics of Muhammad. They are perfectly plain in the Sharia Law of Islam and the autocracies of the Middle East. Nor are the politics of Moses in doubt. The Law he gave Israel contained not only moral and ceremonial elements, but also a complete civil law. But Jesus is remarkably different. While having fundamentally transformed the world—and continuing to transform it—He did not come with a primarily political agenda. But what He did and what He taught (and what His apostles and prophets taught) has profound implications for political life as they do for all of life."
"Would Jesus Register Republican?," December 22, 2010.

After quoting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, David Brooks, and Gov. Tim Pawlenty on the destructive record and nature of government worker unions, I add...

"We political theorists have a technical term for people in government using public authority for private advantage instead of public service. We call it “tyranny.” These unions are organized not to help their members serve the public better but to maximize pay and benefits while minimizing work. Taxpayers want just the opposite (within the bounds of decency, of course). Essentially, government unions are public enemies. Insofar as they control our government (and they do), they have institutionalized tyranny from within our public administration."
"The Tyranny of Government Unions," December 15, 2010.

I applied the same principle to New York Congressman Charles Rangle who has made himself a very wealthy man in time he has been in office (40 years!), though the people he represents are as poor and miserable as they've ever been.

"If most people in a district live in public housing, their representative should also live in public housing. If most people in a district are served by appallingly bad public schools, their representative should have his or her children (if there are any) in those same schools. Finding this unacceptable, congressmen would soon start supporting effective ways for opening up economic opportunities for their neighbors to better themselves. Otherwise, politicians have that much less incentive to do what they legitimately can to improve their people’s overall quality of life. They become, one might say, political farmers instead of political representatives, bilking the people instead of benefiting them, standing on their backs rather than 'having their backs,' as we say."
"Prince Charlie and the People," December 8, 2010.

Happy new year.

Anthony Bradley on Beck

Anthony Bradley, my colleague at The King's College, was on the Glenn Beck Show yesterday explaining black liberation theology.

Beck takes most of the almost 18 minutes to talk about Marxism, BLT, and the gospel (more or less). Well, it's his show, right? Dr. Bradley comes in via satellite at the end.

Anthony Bradley's book is Liberating Black Theology (Crossway, 2010).



This is not Dr. Bradley's first time on Beck. Here he is in March 2008 just after the Jeremiah Wright eruption.




Here is Marvin Olasky interviewing Anthony Bradley when he was a visiting professor at the college.






You should also read Bradley's column today in WORLDmag.com, "Why Black Liberation Theology Fails."

Reason, Political Dissent, and Your Inner Racist

Is it possible to disagree with Barack Obama, even passionately, without becoming the object of McCarthyite slander attacks? Maureen Dowd has started it rolling in full gear: "Some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it" ("Boy, Oh, Boy," New York Times, Sept. 12, 2009).

Seeing his opportunity to say what was on his mind, Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) mused, "I guess we'll probably have folks putting on white hoods and white uniforms again, and riding through the countryside intimidating people." Here is the Congressman's complete statement.



Jimmy Carter is pleased that people are finally agreeing with him, so he gets out front in an interview.



...to which a friend of a friend on Facebook (you understand) commented: "Jimmy Carter is like grandpa. You listen to him and laugh, but you don't really take him seriously, because you never really know if he knows where he is, or if he is wearing pants."

Democrats just don't know how to deal with people who have principled disagreement with them. On the one hand, they spent their college years shouting people into submission with incendiary name-calling. On the other hand, since they are entirely convinced that the progress of moral history culminates in whatever their sentiments happen to be at the time, everyone who stands in opposition to them constitutes an homogenous group of monsters that includes Vlad the Impaler, Adolf Hitler, George W. Bush, and your grandmother.

Black Nationalism Re-emerges As An Issue

At Denver mayor John Hickenlooper's recent State of the City address, it was announced that jazz singer Rene Marie would sing the national anthem. But she stepped forward and sang what is known as "the Black National Anthem." View it here.

As she begins to sing, we hear the familiar tune, but the words are different. They aren't the words of the national anthem at all. Instead, they are the words of a hymn written by the celebrated black poet, James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938).

Lift every voice and sing, till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise, high as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet,
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered;
Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears,
Thou Who hast brought us thus far on the way;
Thou Who hast by Thy might, led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee.
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee.
Shadowed beneath Thy hand, may we forever stand,
True to our God, true to our native land.

The mayor was light on outrage, saying only that, "If anyone has got a right to be angry it's probably me. I guess what I feel most is just deeply disappointed," Fox News reports. He then went on to defend her: "What she said was that she was very sorry, that she meant no disrespect, that she was trying to make a creative expression of her love for the country."

What I find most striking in the video is not this renegade jazz singer substituting an ethnic anthem for the national anthem, implicitly rejecting the nation and declaring her higher allegiance to her social subgroup. Watch the video. As she sings, no one on the stage even bats an eye. There is no puzzlement on anyone's face. No one is looking around the room to see if anyone else is noticing that these are not the words of the national anthem. Then the camera gives us a view from the back of the room. Again, we see no heads turning to neighbors with questions or concerns. We hear no murmurring. We certainingly hear no one shouting, "That's NOT the national anthem!" In fact, when the singer is done, the assembled dignitaries APPLAUD! If I were a Denverite, I would make that an election issue.

But every American should be concerned about this response. Once again, what does it say about the culture that has formed Barack Obama? I would not connect this Denver incident with the Illinois Senator from Chicago were it not for similar attitudes we have observed in the church he has attended and cherished for the last twenty years. But America's concern should also extend to the horse (or donkey) he's riding in on. The man brings his party to office. The party is the well from which he draws his administration. If the well is poisoned, how will the nation fare under an Obama administration?