For a while, it looked as if the right planned to attack Barack Obama for his “hidden Muslim background,” which, as it turned out, didn’t exist. Now, it appears the right may be ready to go after Obama’s actual religion.
During the “Obameter” segment on the February 7 edition of MSNBC’s Tucker, host Tucker Carlson criticized Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), a presumptive candidate for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, for being a member of a church that Carlson claimed “sounds separatist to me” and “contradicts the basic tenets of Christianity,” a subject Carlson said he was “actually qualified to discuss.”
Carlson was referring to the “Black Value System” advocated by the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, of which Obama is a member. A February 6 Chicago Tribune article reported that “conservative critics have seized on Trinity’s 12-point Black Value System, especially the portion relating to ‘middleclassness,’ as evidence that Obama is a divisive candidate who rejects mainstream American values and is primarily focused on the black community.”
Carlson pointed to the “disavowal of the pursuit of ‘middleclassness’ ” in the church’s tenets, calling the church’s mission a “racially exclusive theology” and “a theology that ministers to one group of people, based on race.” Carlson claimed that Trinity’s theology is “racially exclusive” and “wrong,” adding that “it’s hard to call that Christianity.”
Well, I suppose this is, to a degree, progress. At least conservatives like Carlson are targeting Obama’s actual church and actual faith tradition, as opposed to the made-up stories from last month.
But that, I’m afraid, is about the only encouraging angle to this nonsense.
First, what makes Tucker Carlson think he’s qualified as a theologian? He knows what does and does not deserve to be called Christianity? I had no idea being a largely unwatched talk-show host with no theological background at all necessarily makes one such an authority on faith that he can reject an entire congregation as not Christian enough.
Second, Carlson’s characterization of Obama’s church was misleading.
Carlson also stated that Trinity’s “Black Value System” “calls for congregants to be ‘soldiers for black freedom.’ ” In fact, Trinity encourages parishioners to be “soldiers for Black freedom and the dignity of all humankind [emphasis added].” The Tribune said that the church’s “value system” was adopted in 1981 to hold “black Christians accountable for taking care of their own and for continuing to fight oppression.”
Further, the Tribune reported that according to Melissa Harris-Lacewell, a professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton University, “the ‘disavowal of the pursuit of middleclassness’ is simply an argument against materialism and the pursuit of the American standard of wealth. Many white Christian churches also preach against materialism.”
Ironically, the tenets espoused by the church (and disparaged by Carlson) sound pretty conservative, not liberal. The ideas Carlson labeled “wrong” include “Commitment to God,” “Dedication to the Pursuit of Education,” and a “Commitment to Self-Discipline and Self-Respect.” Pretty radical stuff.
It’s an interesting twist, isn’t it? A Democratic candidate is facing criticism for having joined and attended a Christian church.