| | The following is from The New York Times #1 Bestseller, The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House by Edward Klein: When Jeremiah Wright and Trinity [United Church of Christ] made headlines during the 2008 presidential race, most white Americans had never heard of Black Liberation Theology. According to Anthony B. Bradley, an associate professor of theology at The King's College in New York City, Black Liberation Theology asserts "life for blacks in America has been in the past and will be in the future a life of being victimized by the oppression of whites. In today's terms, it is the conviction that, forty years after the Civil Rights Act, conditions for blacks have not substantially changed . . . .
"One of the pillars of Obama's home church, Trinity United Church of Christ, is 'economic parity,'" Professor Bradley continues. "On its website, Trinity claims that God is not pleased with 'America's economic mal-distribution.' Among all of the controversial comments by Jeremiah Wright, the idea of massive wealth redistribution is the most alarming. The code language 'economic parity' and references to 'mal-distribution' is nothing more than channeling the twisted economic views of Karl Marx. Black Liberation theologians have explicitly stated a preference for Marxism as an ethical framework for the black church because Marxist thought is predicated on a system of oppressor class (whites) versus victim class (blacks)."
Echoes of Jeremiah Wright's Marxist ideology can be found in many of Obama's remarks. For instance, when Obama says, "I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody," he is channeling Jeremiah Wright. This should come as no surprise, since Wright's influence on Obama was unrivaled for more than twenty years. And those were Obama's formative years when his core beliefs took shape. (pp. 36-37)
This is a very interesting book, one which gives some new insights into Obama's character and beliefs.
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