Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama, the Black Church in America, and the threat of Islam.

By John Marion and Ben Adams
November 2008

In this article, we will explain how Louis Farrakhan’s “Black Islam” ties in with the infamous Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s former pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Rev. Wright made headline news because of his fiery rhetoric from the pulpit.

The connections between Islam, “Black Islam,” and Jeremiah Wright’s brand of Christianity are critically important to the fate of the black Church and to the future history of America. With the ascendancy of President-elect Obama, this topic becomes more relevant by the week.

Many African-American pastors are deeply concerned about the influence of Islam on their congregations. But we must start with one of the key roots of the problem.

Black Liberation Theology

Jeremiah Wright adheres to a doctrine called “liberation theology” – in this case “black liberation theology.” The church’s website (even after many publicity-motivated revisions) makes this very clear.

Before we get to Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, here is a quote from Thabiti Anyabwile defining black liberation theology.

Anyabwile, once a Muslim, later became assistant pastor at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. He’s now the senior pastor of First Baptist Church, Grand Cayman Islands. He’s a well-respected authority on the black church in America.

In a March 20, 2008 interview in Christianity Today magazine, Anyabwile says,

Black liberation theology concerns itself with the political aspirations of African Americans from a fairly radical bent.... It’s an effort to do theology from the vantage point of the marginalized and the oppressed. Its main benefit is that it does raise questions that aren’t often addressed by most theologians. Its main failure is that it either supplants or equates the biblical gospel with a concern for temporal politics, particularly politics viewed from a politically liberal and self-consciously black perspective.

This exaltation of politics over biblical truth is the reason why Rev. Wright’s sermons contain the politically-charged messages which received so much attention in the news during the 2008 Presidential campaign.

But what does all this have to do with Islam?

From Liberation to Slavery

Wright preaches black liberation theology, which is a radical, liberal, Afro-centric ideology. It addresses some legitimate concerns of the black community, and it makes heavy use of Scripture (albeit for its own political ends), but solid biblical theology usually takes a backseat to its harangues against injustice and calls for social change.

If that tune sounds familiar, it should. This same message has been promoted by the black social justice movement since the 1950s. Once again, that movement did some very real good. But it also produced people such as the radical Black Panthers, Elijah Mohammed, Malcolm X, and Louis Farrakhan. These last three individuals were all instrumental in the founding of the so-called “Nation of Islam.”

The Nation of Islam is a radical fringe group - actually an Islamic cult which preaches doctrines that both Christians and mainstream Muslims would consider heretical (for different reasons). Although they’re on the fringe, however, their influence is far bigger than the size of their organization.

You may have already seen Chuck Colson’s reports about Islam’s stranglehold on much of the U.S. prison system, where black Muslims are actively recruiting among the prisoners. John Marion had a few dealings with Nation of Islam members during his street-evangelism days - their confrontationalism and in-your-face Scripture-twisting is stunning.

Farrakhan is an expert at enlisting the help of black Christians to promote his own causes. Worse still, the Nation often functions like a “gateway drug”: it moves African-Americans from liberal Christianity, past the NOI, into Islam itself.

Why does this happen? Here’s why: although black liberation theology draws heavily from the Bible, its primary source isn’t the Bible – it’s the social justice movement.

In other words, black liberation theology was born from the same intellectual womb that spawned the Nation of Islam and the Black Panthers. They all have a common heritage.

That’s why it’s no surprise that when Farrakhan traveled to Libya to meet with the Islamic-socialist military dictator Muammar Gadhafi... Jeremiah Wright went with him.

As a matter of fact, The Trumpet Newsmagazine reported late last year that “The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan is the recipient of this year’s Lifetime Achievement ‘Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. Trumpeter’ Award.”

Black liberation theology is chiefly about an ideology of victimhood which brings together liberals, socialists, Marxists, Muslims, and others. They camp out under the umbrella of struggling against “oppression.” (The “oppressors” vary from group to group, but it’s usually some kind of affluent white Christian Westerners.)

Now, Wright probably disagrees with Farrakhan about theology – but the two can still work together because they have similar core beliefs. Wright sees in Farrakhan a man who shares his same goals for social change in America. And Barack Obama - though he has minimized his ties to both men - shares the same set of goals.

Ultimately, liberation theology is not about theological content or the truth of the Gospel; it’s about emotional words like “hope” and “change.” But while “hope” is a very biblical concept, and while “change” is often needed, a robust belief system must be built on something much more solid than these ideals.

Again, it’s true that a lot of oppression has taken place throughout history, and no group is innocent. But even though it makes good points about these injustices, when it comes to sound biblical teaching, liberation theology doesn’t deliver. It’s weak.

And here, at last, is where Islam comes in: Islam eats weak theologies for breakfast.

Islam was born on the Arabian Peninsula, which was the fringe of the Church at that time – the place where all the heretics exiled themselves. Islam killed or assimilated the heretics, engulfed semi-Christian Africa, then pushed into Europe. It was only stopped by the unified strength of that Christian continent.

But now the Church in Europe has grown impotent. Christendom on the European continent is barely making a squeak as Islam advances where Christianity once flourished.

It’s the same with liberation theology.

The Wright-Farrakhan social doctrine, to which Obama subscribes, is easy prey to the better-developed and historically proven sociology of Islam. This is why the black congregations of America are being ravaged by Farrakhan and his crowd.

Do you see the evil irony here? Liberation theology and the social justice movement, which are so fixated on release from oppression and bondage, often lead their followers into the very clutches of Islam. But Islam is not a religion of freedom: it is an ideology of submission, domination, and slavery.

Only true, orthodox Christian theology, understood and lived out in the culture, can stand against Islam.

The Response

There are political implications to this issue, but our main concern is the health of the Church in America and its ability to stand for the truth in the public forum.

The job of Truth For Muslims is to respond to Islam in America, and part of that is going to mean confronting “Black Islam” as it makes inroads into the African-American community.

The issue of black Islam needs more attention than we can give it in this one article. Truth For Muslims is offering resources and information about the issue. Go here to see our resources for understanding and responding to Black Islam.

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