Tag Archives: barack Obama

Mormonism vs. Universalism: A Post-Racial Evangelical Dilemma

13 Jan

Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are pictured in this June 2011 file photo. (Jim Cole/AP Photo)

With the Iowa Caucuses a distant past and the New Hampshire primaries fading to black, all eyes are now focused on the South Carolina primaries for the Republican Party nominee.   The Republican field has had its plethora of changes with candidates like Jon Huntsman and Rick Santorum thrust onto center stage as of late, after being nearly absent in the media and debates late last year.  With the likes of Herman Cain and Rep. Michelle Bachmann no longer in contention to occupy the White House, more attention has no been focused on front runner candidates of Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul and I guess we might as well add Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman.

Let’s be honest, Mitt Romney is probably going to get the nomination after all of this is said and done, but can he win South Carolina?

Northern candidates have historically had a tough time in the South Carolina primary due to old hold outs of Confederate tribalism and the like, but this go round, the religious right has to deal with a slightly different factor that contributes to this millieu:  the presumptive nominee and current front runner is Mormon.

Well, to be totally politcally correct, Mitt Romney is a member of the Latter Day Saints church and is a believer in Mormonism.

How’s that?

Without going too deep, Mormonism is one of those religious beliefs that has sparked numerous side-eyes from the rest of the Protestant country.  Not trying to be too sensational, but this a belief that practices polygamy and believes that there are a specific number of persons who are going to heaven–and believe that if Jesus comes back he’ll be coming back to Missouri.   More germane to me, this is a belief that until the second half of the 20th century did not believe blacks were to be counted in the number of the saved.

Whatever the case is, oddly enough, the Church of Latter-Day Saints is uniquely American.

Joseph Smith’s vision to move he and his fellow believers to a place where they were free to practice their faith free from governmental religious persecution could only happen in a place called the United States.  So much so that they launch out as emigrants and settle and even apply for statehood.  Generations later, they’re still going strong.  What more American story do you know of that speaks of rugged individualism, hardwork, self-determination, struggle and progress?

Well, I could think of several, but you get my point.

Nonetheless, what’s not to love about the story of how Mormonism came to be about?  Oh, just discount the part that they don’t believe in the singular authoritative existence of the Holy Bible, but believe in also the Book of Mormon which corrects the inaccuracies that exist.  And just forget the part where the cosmological agents of the universe spoke directly to Joseph Smith and he then recorded the Book of Mormon himself.  So, yeah, if you forget all of that, what’s not to love about the story?

Enter Barack Obama.

In 2004 Obama was first receiving his rise to stardom as a U.S. senatorial candidate that he was interviewed by religion reporter Cathleen Falsani and she point-blank asked him “Who is Jesus to you?” and the first words out of Obama’s mouth were “Jesus is an historical figure for me.”

Prior to the question Falsani asks him, Obama says

I am a Christian.  So, I have a deep faith. So I draw from the Christian faith.  On the other hand, I was born in Hawaii where obviously there are a lot of Eastern influences.  I lived in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, between the ages of six and 10.  My father was from Kenya, and although he was probably most accurately labeled an agnostic, his father was Muslim.

So, I’m rooted in the Christian tradition. I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people. That there are values that transcend race or culture, that move us forward, and there’s an obligation for all of us individually as well as collectively to take responsibility to make those values lived.  And so, part of my project in life was probably to spend the first 40 years of my life figuring out what I did believe – I’m 42 now – and it’s not that I had it all completely worked out, but I’m spending a lot of time now trying to apply what I believe and trying to live up to those values.

Such a quote lands Obama relatively comfortable in the arena of universalist thought.  Universalist thought, succinctly put, is the belief that there are many paths to some universal truths; that there is no one way to one truth.  Now I’m not sure if Obama was aware of his personal beliefs in concert with politics on a national arena, but it makes perfect sense why Obama and his family would have ended up at Trinity United Church of Christ.  The United Church of Christ (UCC) is a denomination with its official inception in 1957 birthed out of the Congregationalist Church that is considered the most liberal Protestant denomination in the country.  The next step toward the left is outside of the realm of socially acceptable American and Protestant beliefs.

So what’s an evangelical Christian  to do?  How is this “born again” demographic supposed to vote in a general election?  One choice is a non-Protestant dispensation of Christianity that holds orthodox and highly non-orthodox views relative to the Christian belief system.  The other is a Christian universalist–where the person believes in Jesus (purposely leaving off Christ) as a great historical figure from which we can draw truths from and the figure acts as a bridge between God and humanity.

What I do think is very interesting is that Mitt Romney is a proud member of the LDS and it is without dispute.  Four years ago, the news media was all up in arms debating Obama’s Christianity.  So much so to the point that people were willing to calling him a Muslim (pronounced Moos-slim).  No mainstream network has called in numerous talking heads to discuss the veracity of the Mormon faith as was the case with Black Liberation Theology.  Four years ago, Obama was forced to give a speech about why he associated with Trinity and how his faith intertwined with his life, race and politics in general.   Will Mitt Romney be forced to do the same?

Frankly, I don’t think so.

To be bold, there’s a double standard that is drawn along racial lines.  Even with the frittering of the Tea Party as a possible force to be reckoned with in this 2012 political season, staunch social conservatives tend to also identify themselves as being evangelical Christians and a part of this “born again” demographic.  For the state of South Carolina, the likes of Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have a better chance in the coming days because of their recent employ of the “Southern strategy.”  The use of fear tactics by Gingrich and Santorum to discuss blacks and food stamps is utterly deplorable.

But this is the same man who said Occupy protesters should got take a shower and get a job.  And in turn, Rick Santorum began to discuss blacks as blah people.

White social conservatives, who have a higher chance of identifying as evangelicals have an easy choice in South Carolina.  But in terms of getting a candidate who can run against Obama sucessfully, they’re probably going to be stuck between the Mormon and the Universalist.

What boggles my mind is that the likes of Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann proudly go around touting that this country was founded on Christian values.  Without running the gamut of Constitutional framers who had decidedly unorthodox Christian beliefs, I was under the impression that “freedom of religion” was one of the major cornerstones of this country.  How pathetically hypocritical can one be to push a myopic and narrow view of Christianity while at the same time arguing for 1st and 2nd Amendment rights?

To be blunt, I think these evangelicals aren’t going to think twice and vote for the white guy.

Granted there’s 10 more months of political wrangling to be had and things change.  What I think helped Obama win some of those swing states last time was that some whites in conservative regions of the country actually thought twice about the state of the economy and about universal health care when they walked into that voting booth.  But unfortunately for Obama, his public image isn’t stellar, though his record may be for all intents and purposes.

What I will think will be interesting to watch is to see these two go head to head.  Personally, I’m not convinced of Romney’s conservatism.  I believe he’s a fiscal conservative beyond the shadow of a doubt.  Even when he ran before he was advocating getting rid of the capital gains tax and that fits right in with concepts of fiscal conservatism.  But a social conservative?  Not by a long stretch.  Somehow I think if Romney gets the nod, there will be a debate where it all comes tumbling down and Romney simply says “Mr. Obama, I’m sorry, you’re right. I can’t do this anymore,” and walks off the stage leaving a stunned GOP party.

Romney hasn’t made any brutal racial statements since he’s been in the spotlight and even questionable quotes concerning his firing practices have gotten totally misconstrued by his opponents.  But Romney isn’t guilty of harping on old bigoted and racist sentiments as a means to further his brand nor his potential presidential politcies.

But none of these are reason enough to vote for Obama.

I think the social conservative base (i.e. Tea Party) is so utterly peeved at the mere existence of Obama, and his wife, living in the White House that people are willing to contrive anything for the sake of their political ideology.  FoxNews cannot go one week, and probably not one day (sorry, I don’t watch it enough to make the latter claim) and not utter the name of Jeremiah Wright.  Even still watching the news in the days leading up to the 2012 Iowa caucuses, social conservatives interviewed were invoking the name of Jeremiah Wright with acute ire.

Post-racial my foot.

Concepts of post-racial theory are rendered null in void if attributes that are deemed to be right and wrong, good and evil, sacred and profane can also be delineated by racial lines as well.  Given Romney’s probably nomination, I think it’s safe to say these two candidates will probably run a clean race, but so much can’t be said for other parts of the country.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

A Requiem for Black Intelligentsia

15 Apr

Mourners file into New Mount St. Nevermind Missionary Baptist Church to funeralize Black Intelligentsia.  The public had endured a long painful and debilitating disease close to twenty years.  Maybe more.  The mourners pack into the church on a hot, sultry day and even with the air conditioning on full blast, it does nothing for the swelling crowd.  Women have produced church fans donning images of Martin Luther King and Beck & Sons Funeral home barely moving the stagnant air that has fallen on the crowd. 

This day has come nearly two years after the actual death date, however.  Through special court injunctions, the body was kept in the morgue for this extended period of time as the estate holders argued incessantly over what to do.  The mourners are in tip toe anticipation wait eagerly as the speaker mounts the pulpit.  The polished attire produces a silence only interrupted by the low drone of the forced air from an inadequate cooling system.

The speaker clears their throat before stepping into the rarefied space behind the microphone, looks up above the horizontal plane and begins to speak.

There was nothing more marvelous in the existence of the Negro culture than the men and women that took part of what came to be known as the Black Intelligentsia.  Although we were told to regard it from a distance, it still had the royal and noble sound of a certain trumpet beckoning one to listen.  This clarion call rang throughout the nation from its genesis until the moment that Death came and rescued it from a body beaten and battered by the winds of change and eroded by the winds of time; from a body located in the Ivory Towers of Academia, yet with a soul longing for the freedom it once had dwelling in the lands of the people.

Black Intelligentsia was preceded in Death by its mother Fannie Barrier Williams and its father W.E.B. DuBois.  You may ask how can such parents gave birth to such a noble institution?  They were able to create such a wondrous offspring because it was shaped in the crucible of the American postbellum apartheid.  Black Intelligentsia was birthed in 1895 when its father DuBois and his contemporary Booker T. Washington engaged in an exchange of words at the Atlanta Exposition displaying that the Negro can indeed produce a fundamental sound that goes far beyond the natural penetrating to the of the metaphysical.

Through its early years, Black Intelligentsia produced the “New Negro” and an Alain Locke being a voice of triumph in the wilderness that ushers in the Harlem Renaissance.  The Harlem Renaissance matches the artistic fervor with a spiritual essence giving forth to a certain sound that emerges from the annals of the soul.  Black Intelligentsia helps produce  Zora Neale Hurston, Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen and Gwendolyn Brooks.   This sound, this noble sound, has the ability to infuse the lives of the Negro in America and provide the foundation of the modern Civil Rights movement.

In the middle years, Black Intelligentsia was able to summon the spirit of freedom by igniting the smoldering embers that had been doused at birth, but still burned eternally.  Under the burgeoning clouds of despair and doubt, the Black Intelligentsia moved forward keeping their eyes on the mount fixed upon them: their goal of equality and striving for a noble freedom for themselves and humanity.

Onward ever moving, a shining star, a prophet among humanity spoke to a people, standing in the tradition and sounding the call of a certain trumpet prophesying deliverance to an oppressed people.   A black shining prince among men was able to articulate the intricacies of existence to a people who had been told about an ignoble heritage; spoke to them when the center could not seem to hold, when things seemed to fall apart.  Through it all the purity that existed, that was birthed out of the Black Intelligentsia, spoke to the Negro telling them they were a proud people, a people who need not be ashamed.

Growing old, the Black Intelligentsia began to suffer from the disease of apathy.  Such a malady first begins to attack the mind and renders it unable to move forward.  Standing near the threshold, waiting to enter into a joy and peace unknown it hears a sound and a voice saying “Behold! I stand at the door and knock!”  However complacency has rendered it unable to answer the knock at midnight.

This spirit of intelligentsia comes from an enduring truth that has been before times was.  It has carried with it notion of a radical truth that knows no bounds and is a source of power to turn the world upside down.  It was there in the beginning when God moved upon the face of the waters.  But it did not stop there.  It was there when the pyramids of Egypt were fashioned from the clay mud from the banks of the mighty Nile River.  But it did not stop there.  It was there when the minds of Aristotle and Plato argued with one another over ontology, epistemology and eschatology and it was there when Paul of Tarsus stood in the Areopagus speaking to the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers of a God in whom we live move and have being.  But it did not stop there.  It traveled through the ages when Martin Luther tacked his 95 theses on the door at the Church at Wittenberg and a Reformation movement began.  But it did not stop there.  It permeated the mind, body and soul of Richard Allen at St. Georges Methodist church when he and other descendants of African slaves found an inner courage to protest an oppressive theology and sociology.  But it did not stop there.

It came to this point, this point here in our time, and was brought down by complacency.

Black Intelligentsia died on January 19, 2009 when it thought it had finally arrived.

It is survived by its children: neutral notions, detached dispositions, disengaged rhetoric, dispassionate appeals, expressionless faces, achromatic feelings, on-the-fence dealings, indistinguishable theologies, go along to get along mentalities, aloof attitudes, uncurious motives, withdrawn reaction, clinical reasonings, impersonal inclinations, poker-faced memories, neutered philosophies, uncommitted beliefs, inert movements, nonsubjective convictions, unreactive chemistries, noncombatant demeanors and uncharged possibilities.

I dare say, however, that the Black intelligentsia was birthed from a noble heritage and produced a certain sound that resonated with the heartstrings of the Negro.

Perhaps it would have survived if the Negro had been able to transform their detached dispositions into connected harmonies; their disengaged rhetoric into an antiphon of communal voices; their dispassionate appeal into a moving polyphony adorned with love; their expressionless faces into a physiognomy filled with grace and mercy.  If the Negro had been able to turn their achromatic feelings into a color palate that represents every color and creed; transform their indistinguishable theologies into insurmountable mercies that endure forever; change their go-along-to-get-along attitude into a pre-eminent embrace of doing what is right even if it costs; transform their aloof attitudes into a wellspring of engaged awareness that requires each other to do better because we know better.  Had the Negro attempted to transform their uncurious motives into indescribable inclinations that take advantage of this day and this moment to do something about it; to change their withdrawn reactions into incomprehensible actions that do something rather than sit around waiting to be asked; to change their clinical reasoning into one that moves beyond the veil into passion and care for one another; to change their impersonal ideals into familial thoughts that fully accepts being in relation to one another.

Black intelligentsia could have survived if the Negro had taken their poker-faced memories and created a new world with new recollections where people cared and had an opinion; if they changed their neutered philosophies into logical thoughts, and ideas that are reattached with the hope of a better day to come; taken their uncommitted beliefs and transformed them into concretized testimonies about effecting positive change in a world that seems not to care; changed their inert movements into tangible actions; their nonsubjective convictions and transmogrified them into a biased witness that declares “let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream”; transform their unreactive chemistries into ions and particles and elements of motion creating reactions and explosions all around.

But alas, here lies Black Intelligentsia, silenced by apathy and complacency.

Undertaker, claim the body.  Choir sing.

As the mourners file passed the casket for the final viewing those in the back of the queue notice many are getting the vapors and requiring assistance as they walk past, buckling at the knees and having to be escorted out of the sanctuary.  Some still have an inured appearance. 

Once the second to the last person prepares to view the body, they look over the edge of the bier and look and stare into a familiar face, produced by a reflection of themselves, looking into a mirror. 

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

Point-Counterpoint Guest Post: Why Obama WILL Be Re-Elected Next Year

24 Feb

Today, The Urban Politico and The Uppity Negro have joined forces to tackle an impending question that has rapidly moved to the forefront of our collective minds in these recent days since we’ve officially arrived in the year 2011: Will President Barack Obama be re-elected next year?  It’s a simple question but it doesn’t necessarily have a simple answer.  Up until now, the answer to this question has been dismissed around the blogosphere as premature since the year “twenty-twelve” sounded like it was so far away.  But now we’re here; 2012 is literally around just around the corner.  So it’s time to ask ourselves – is this man going to actually be re-elected?  Today, the Uppity Negro will make the argument as to why Obama will NOT be re-elected next year, and we will do our best to make the argument as to why Obama WILL be re-elected next year.  The Urban Politico team weighs in after the jump:

(more…)

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 94 other followers