Wow

Wow:

An alternative vision of the proper view of enemies in religion, courtesy of Obama's preacher of 20 years' service.

Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community ... Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.

The law that Jesus set out to correct taught that the Israelites were a specially chosen people, and God might favor them so highly as to wish that they annihilate other nations, root and branch, woman and child. Some have said that the Book of Joshua made them stop believing in God:

Joshua took Makkedah on that day, and struck it and its king with the edge of the sword; he utterly destroyed every person in it; he left no one remaining … Then Joshua passed on … to Libnah … He struck it with the edge of the sword, and every person in it; he left no one remaining in it … To Lacshish … He took it on the second day, and struck it with the edge of the sword, and every person in it … Gezer … Joshua struck him and his people, leaving him no survivors …To Eglon … [They] struck it with the edge of the sword, and every person in it he utterly destroyed that day....

It has not made me stop believing in God, but it has made me stop believing that the ancient Jewish priestly class was honest with their worshippers about what God wanted. I think I'm right to say that this was a large part of Jesus' message: that the priests as a class appear to have used their position for their own good, and for the good of the rich and powerful, rather than being honest with their flock about what the faith required or implied. I leave aside that there were doubtless individual good priests as well; and that the bulk of Israel were people not of that class, as good or bad as any people. Nevertheless, the priestly class of Israel was -- I cannot help but believe -- faithless with their charge.

Obama's preacher apparently has adopted the "kill 'em all" aspect of the Book of Joshua -- again, "Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy." But he has made it one degree worse than the falsest of the false keepers of the Old Testament were ready to do: for they at least believed that God might righteously punish the nation for failure to hold to the bargain that made them the Chosen. If they taught that God wanted Israel to wipe out even the children of the Ammonites, they at least also taught that God could hold the nation accountable for some sort of sin (even if it was only the sin of making graven images to worship -- i.e., the sort of thing that might imperil the power of the priests).

Mr. Wright appears to believe that the deal works the other way around: that it is the business of men to "kill Gods" who will not abide by the bargain that the men prefer.

Frankly, this is more atheism than religion -- it takes as its roots Nietzsche's doctrine that men create Gods and may kill them, rather than any belief that a Creator exists who ordered the world in a particular way, for a particular reason. It is a cynical use of the part of the soul that exists to be filled with the search for religious truth, a conscious and willful bending of it to fill a selfish desire.