Earlier this week, we took a look at Sarah Palin’s religious background and discussed how she’s somehow managed to pack up her Pentecostalist past and ties to controversial faith leaders and, for the most part, escape public scrutiny. This is quite a contrast, compared to the full-frontal Obama had to suffer through when footage of Rev. Jeremiah Wright leaked onto the scene. The media was all up in his business.

Partly because no one really understood what was coming out of his pastor’s mouth.

Obama’s former church, Trinity United Church of Christ, describes itself as “unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian.” Black liberation theology is the name of its game. The church is politically liberal and very active in its outreach efforts on behalf of the disadvantaged.  It advances a “Black Value System” that promotes commitment to God, the black family, the black community, education, work ethic, and so forth.

Many critics attack Obama for his 20-year affiliation with a church that promotes a value system—solely for blacks. Some have wondered how Obama can campaign for unity when his church of choice seemed to instill a separatist ideology in its congregants. Nobel Peace Prize winner and human rights advocate Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu addresses this miconception on the “Truth About Trinity United Church of Christ” website:

Black theology and religion seek the liberation of all, oppressor and oppressed, black and white together—as we accomplished it in South Africa for freedom is indivisible. Whites won’t be truly free until blacks are free . . . America will not find peace with itself until you really deal with your history.

When examining Trinity United’s value system, it is also important to consider the social context within which the 8,000-strong church first developed. Ange-Marie Hancock, an associate professor of political science at USC, explains that the south-side Chicago neighborhood surrounding Trinity United is a central location for the practice of Islam. When black Muslim groups first started to migrate to the area in the 1950s and ’60s, Trinity embraced the tenants of black liberation theology as a means to advance its Christian mission in an environment where blackness and Christianity were likened to oil and water—that is, no mixing allowed.

Austin Dragon, the president of the Southern California Republican Club, recently told me that “religion impacts the politics of Republicans, whereas politics impact the religion of Democrats.” Considering the circumstances mentioned above and the way they shaped the tenants of Obama’s Trinity United, perhaps Dragon has a point. Perhaps politics do impact the religion of Democrats.

The question is: Is this such a bad thing? (more…)