The issue is neither Barack Obama nor Jeremiah Wright. As stated in this excellent interview, the issue is a gospel other than the gospel of Jesus Christ. Such a gospel may invoke emotional responses and facilitate a temporal sense of excitement in the Sunday morning experience amidst the local congregation, but it has no effectual power to save souls, change hearts or any of the eternally significance. Our agenda should not be pro-black, pro-political party or even pro-church at the expense of relegating Christ to a secondary or tertiary position. Chirst is all or nothing at all.

The only thing I got out of this piece is that Jeremiah Wright, who I first saw in person when he came to to Fuller Seminary to speak when I was a student there, is on target. The white evangelical church is so captive to the gospel of America that it cannot hear the Bible. What Wright says is what I hear when I read Jeremiah, Amos, John the Baptist and our Lord Jesus Christ. Juat as the false prophets and the people wanted to hear messages that simple upheld national exceptionalism and salvation, white evangelicals tend to have "itching ears." It will take nothing less than the judgment of God to shake them out their idolatry, just as the Exile and destruction of Jerusalem did for the Jewish psyche.

I concur with the general position of Mr. Hansen's article. To the question, is black liberation theology biblical or not? No, it most certainly is not, because the problem of SIN, which permeates the entire human 'race' has no 'color' whatsoever. Jesus did not come to liberate us from political, social, or ethnic prejudice, but, from the UTTER BONDAGE of SIN, which affects all men. To the extent that a man, regardless of color, is truly set free from the bondage of SIN, is the extent to which he/she will relate to his brother/sister, regardless of color. What I believe, is not been dealt with in this age long problem, is the distinct, historic, cultural 'habits' and traditions, which is expressed in very different ways, from culture to culture. I.e., Spanish people, express themselves entirely different to Chinese, so do whites from blacks, this is not necessarily wrong, or bad, but because of 'SIN' it sometimes can have a very negative impact. The Gospel of Christ, must remain!

If you take Mr. Hansen's article on face value and leave out all the political junk tossed in in the comments section, you are left with a fairly interesting critique. Is black liberation theology biblical or not? That's the central question. Mr. Hansen seems to believe it has strayed too far from the Bible. I would tend to think you can make similar arguments about any Christian tradition that tries to put too much of an emphasis on politics.

Rev. Wright preaches out of the bible and prophetic tradition. When he sees the sins of a nation, he condemns it as Rev. Pat Robertson, the late Rev. Jerry Fallwell, and Rev. Hagee do. Do you think his comments are out of line? Read Isaiah 10:5-11 where God uses one of Israel's enemies against Israel. Read the call of Isaiah in ch. 6 where God cals Isaiah to preach "until cities lie waste without ininhabitant . . ." Read Jeremiah 4:16 where Jeremiah preaches judgement against Jerusalem. Hosea chastises Israel in ch. 9:1, equating Israel with a whore. Just as the prophets loved and condemned Israel, Rev. Wright loves and condemns America to get this country to confess its sins to God. Barack should not be villified for having Rev. Wright as his pastor. Barack's call for racial and economic equality, health insurance for all, among others, is a result of being at a church that not only preaches the Word of God, but embodies it. "Faith without works is dead," says James 2:17.