Obama is right. "The poor do cling to guns and religion."(lire en français)

Lire en francais
 http://horte.over-blog.fr/article-19468639.html

Obama, immigration and media bias

 Chris Silvera
Secretary-Treasurer,
International Brotherhood of Teamsters,
Local 808
April 25, 2008

Dear America,

Sen. Obama's words regarding a portion of America being "bitter" are  accurate.The Southern Poverty Law Center reports that hate groups grew by 48 percent between the years 2000 to 2007. This is a sign of increased bitterness in our nation. There are 26 recognized hate groups in New York State alone. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols are tips of the iceberg regarding this bitterness that continues to grow as people lose faith in their government.

There are vigilante actions by many on our borders with Mexico with guns in hand against workers trying to find work in America. These actions are being taken by citizens who have lost faith in their government's ability to "secure" the border. This is the anti-immigrant attitude that Sen. Obama describes. The various local municipal ordinances being passed against undocumented workers are occurring mostly in small American communities—not in the big cities.

The borders were secure until President William Jefferson Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement and subsequently Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) with China. These trade bills destroyed good union jobs with health benefits and pensions here in America. The NAFTA destroyed Mexican jobs and forced this mass migration north. The New York Times reported that during the Kerry-Bush election of 2004, working-class people were knowingly voting against their economic interests because of their religious beliefs. The "Hot Button" item at that time was gay marriage.

The media has given a pass to Sen. Clinton regarding her lying about her arrival in Bosnia. You do not forget being shot at and certainly not when you are being shot at with an AK-47 with your only child in tow. This is not a little white lie or the result of sleep deprivation. Her statement is a bold and clear lie. Like her husband before her, she is against trade bills until elected. Your key strategist is working to get a trade bill passed while you are opposed to said bill. Why is the journalist community giving her a pass while continuing to attack Barack Obama for what other people have said or done?

It is important to note that after the [1995] Million Man March, crime went down significantly. Minister Louis Farrakhan was seated at the White House with Ronald Reagan and recognized for using his influence in the Muslim world to secure the release of Lt. Robert O. Goodman on Jan., 4, 1984. He was invited to Philadelphia by then Mayor Ed Rendell to speak and help heal the racial divide: holding hands, singing and lavishing praise on April 15, 1997. On May 5, 2005, former President Bill Clinton praised Minister Farrakhan and the Millions More Movement, describing it as a positive idea.

The media have become bottom feeders and have not helped to elevate the dialogue between the candidates. The American people's issues: jobs, healthcare, social security, education and the war are more important than the mistakes made by all after speaking

 List of the more than 2000 active hate groups in the USA

http://www.unitedstatesaction.com/list-us-hate-groups.htm

Prophets of the Apocalypse: White Supremacy and the Theology of Christian Identity
http://www.rickross.com/reference/christian_identity/christianidentity19.html


Holy Lock Down: Does The Church Limit Black Progress? 

Trailer for Holy Lockdown  http://twelvehp.com/

 By Jeremiah Camara

 REVIEWS OF THE BOOK

http://www.tbwt.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=689&Itemid=40

 Review 1

Don't run from this book, its not there to hurt you. This guy leaves no stone unturned as he points to religion as a prime factor preventing Blacks from moving ahead as a group. He infers that many Blacks have a "baby" complex, instilled by single mothers, reinforced by popular music, and enabled by the Black church: "The condescending redundant and counterrevolutionary sermonic language within the church helps to perpetuate our childlike nature... a common argument to this is that God is our father and we are his children, and should communicate with our father as a child would to its father. How have these helpless pleas with pitiful victim overtones benefited us when it comes to Black productivity?... it is not an accident our songs are saturated with the word 'baby,' and our young adults wear their pants down to their knees (like children). Also, like children, we have a limited knowledge of money, and as a consequence, we irresponsibly consume beyond our means... our men refer to their friends as home-boys, their houses are cribs, and we litter where we live."

 Camara takes a shot at a popular personality who made a name for himself with the religious audience by being a standout in the production of what I call Blaxploitation plays: "Recent years have brought a number of these plays, which contain some of the most non-creative and non-productive writing imaginable. They are reminiscent of the old coon shows of the past... 'The Diary of a Mad Black Woman; ' 'What a Woman Needs, What a Man Wants,' 'A Fool in Love'; 'Lord All Men can't be Dogs' and 'If These Hips Could Talk' are only a few of these childishly written mama who ate the last piece of cornbread minstrels." Take it from this reviewer, Black Emperors don't just wear new cloths, they wear new dresses. Food for thought as the leading dress-wearing playwright has bootlegged our culture all the way to Hollywood, and White industry execs now have him taking aim at something very important; the black family reunion. Its our job to expose these deceptive kings (or queens). Spend that  box office money on a few copies of "Holy Lockdown" instead.

 

Review 2

http://www.blacknews.com/pr/blackprogress101.html

 Stone Mountain, GA (BlackNews.com) - More than half of all Black people in the United States attend church on a regular basis and nearly 82% are members of churches. Currently, there are approximately 85,000 predominantly Black churches in the United States. Blacks could have 1,700 churches in every state. The Black church is a 50 billion-dollar asset business and rakes in over 3 billion dollars annually.

 
Why is it that Blacks are amongst the most Jesus-praising people on earth, yet the most fragmented and economically dependent? Is there a correlation between high praising and low productivity? Why are there many churches yet major problems in Black communities?

 

"The church is the leader of the Black community by default" says Jeremiah Camara, author of the new book Holy Lockdown: Does the Church Limit Black Progress? Camara contends that many Black preachers are routinely delivering sermons that keep the Black collective in a state of powerlessness and that Holy Lockdown is an interpretation of what many Blacks are feeling toward the church but don't quite know how to express their frustrations. Holy Lockdown takes a critical look at the collective impact the church has made on the Black psyche, and it explores the possibility of the church as being a contributing factor to the many social problems facing Blacks.

 Here is an excerpt from the book:

 "Expressive displays of emotion are good and can be therapeutic, but must lead to a practical place over time. We have to have religion with reason and emotion with a purpose."

About the Author

Jeremiah Camara has studied the idioms, language, and culture of predominately Black churches of various denominations for over a decade. His diligent research and insightful perceptions are thoroughly presented throughout this timely and much anticipated work. Holy Lockdown: Does the Church Limit Black Progress? is catching fire in many parts of the country. It is a topic worthy of discussion. For more information, please visit www.twelvehp.com

 

White Jesus, White lies and Black Liberation

by Min. Paul Scott

I remember walking out of church thinking that I should reverence every white woman that I saw because she might be an angel in disguise. But as they say, in the church, "When I was a child, I thought as a child."

 

I cannot help but wonder, how my life, as well as the lives of countless other Black boys and girls, would have been changed if someone had told me that Judaism was one of the many religions originally practiced by African people. If someone had only told me that what is called "Christianity" was the recorded history of a Black Revolutionary named Yeshua (Jesus is derived from a Greek word, Yeshua was not Greek) who rebelled against the Roman Empire and tried to teach the Black Hebrews a clearer understanding of the word of God.

 

But no one took time to tell me that the picture of the blue-eyed, blond-haired "Jesus" hanging from the wall in my parents living room was actually the family member of some European artist from the 16th century who was commissioned by the leaders of the white church to paint the Son of God in the image of a white man in order to enslave and dominate the original people of the scriptures. So I grew up thinking that I was God’s little nappy headed stepchild.

 

When our African ancestors were enslaved and brought to America, they were taught a slave theology that made most of them docile and submissive, however a chosen few of them saw through the lies of the white man and embraced a  Liberation Theology and shouted, "Before I be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave."

 

Because it was forbidden for the enslaved Africans to read, if "massa" sent a preacher to tell them that God was white and they were a cursed people who had no soul, or if he told them that they were blessed to have been enslaved because if it wasn’t for slavery, they would still be "heathens" who never would have gotten to know "tha lawd"—they believed it. Most damaging was the teaching that to rebel against slavery was to rebel against God.

 

What is most tragic is that this mentality is still in the hearts and minds of Black people today. Instead of seeing the Bible as a book to be read and understood, many see it as a magical good luck charm and if we place it under our pillows at night, we would learn "the word" by osmosis.

 

Because many of us use the King James version of the Bible, written in Old English, many feel that if "Jesus" talked like that surely he must have looked like one of those Shakespearean actors from TV. Hollywood has also pushed this lie that the people of the Bible were European, by allowing white actors to play Moses and Jesus but making Black actors play muggers and junkies.

 

As we look at the condition of Afrikan people today, we can attribute the drugs, the Black on Black violence and poverty to our being brainwashed by European "nationalism" under the guise of religion. How else can you account for our perpetual misery? How else can you account for the state of mind of our young Black boys who think that they are thugs and gangbangers. Or our Black girls who think that they are "Ho's", unworthy of respect. No one has told them that they are the people of God. No one has told them that the "Jesus" that they hear about in church was the same color as the one that they see staring back at them in the mirror.

 

Can we really expect to reach out for the Hip Hop generation with one hand while clutching a figurine of a lily white "Jesus" with the other?

 

How else can you explain our inability to respond effectively to the problems that have faced our people for the last 400 years. Why do we accept racism, economic exploitation and racial profiling? With all our fancy jobs and college degrees, we still cannot find a way to stop crack from coming into our communities or AIDS from spreading at an alarming rate.

 

The reason that we tolerate such injustice is that we are looking for a white man to come down from heaven and save us and if we can’t have "Jesus" right now, any white man will do.

 

What we need is Afrikan Liberation Theology; a theology that reveals the TRUTH that will make us free. Afrikan Liberation Theology gives us a theological foundation to fight the battle for the upliftment of Afrikan people. This theology teaches that the fight for Justice is not against God, as the white man has taught us, but is your religious duty if you are truly a follower of Yeshua, the Black Revolutionary Messiah.

 

Afrikan Liberation Theology recaptures the scriptures from the white supremacist system and brings it back home to the African people upon which they were based. Most importantly Afrikan Liberation Theology challenges us to finally confront the question, "Can a white Jesus save Black people?" Our current condition answers that question loudly and clearly.

 

Min. Paul Scott represents the Messianic Afrikan Nation in Durham NC. He can be reached at (919)451-8283 minpaulscott@yahoo.com website: http://www.messianicafrikannation.com

Related articles on this site
http://horte.over-blog.fr/article-19491937.html

Further reading

Africans obsession with other people's religion
http://theblacklistpub.ning.com/group/theblacklistview/forum/topic/show?id=2055350%3ATopic%3A3884

 Growth in the number of churches in Africa
 http://www.blackrefer.com/religion2.html

African churches have obsession for evangelism, scholar says
http://www.umc.org/site/c.gjJTJbMUIuE/b.2242437/k.C095/African_churches_have_obsession_for_evangelism_scholar_says.htm

http://eternalpurpose.org.uk/node/2093

Links between Religion, Poverty and Prosperity

 

There is an area of the world, between the latitudes 10o and 40o north of the equator and between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, described as the “10/40 Window.” This region, Patrick Johnstone informs us, represents “35% of the world's surface area, but 65% of its population.” Moreover, it contains “over 90% of the world's poorest and most deprived, the children that are most abused and most of the world's illiterate.” 1

Coincidentally, this extraordinary region forms a stronghold of the religions of Buddhism, Islam and Hinduism. This apparently straightforward correlation suggests a vital relevancy to studying the contribution made by religion to multitudes of people oppressed by pervasive poverty. Is Religion contributing to or extenuating poverty? Can religion be harnessed for practical, just, economic transformation?

A typical application for this question might be the Hindu worldview and culture, which embraces a comprehensive caste system dictating the place—and accompanying privileges—of each individual within Hindu society; the out-caste or “untouchables” being the lowest caste or strata, people practically denied every social and religious privilege. Hindu worldview posits that each individual occupies their social status because of the action of Karma and insists that there is no injustice in being in any caste. The links between this worldview and the resistance it inculcates towards practical social injustices makes it an inviting target for study. 2

Philip Jenkins provides an apparently adverse example, suggesting that religion can contribute to social and economic transformation, when notes that not only has “Pentecostalism in Latin America... appealed to the very poorest groups,” but it has done so by its “churches providing a social network that would otherwise be lacking, and help(ing) teach members the skills they need to survive in a rapidly developing society.” 3

TIME magazine recently strap-lined a “How to End Poverty” edition with the stark revelation that “eight million people die each year because they are too poor to stay alive.” The World Bank estimates 1.1 billion people live in extreme poverty, primarily in East and South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. 4 However, a brief survey of nine books relating to “World Religions,” uncovered just one indexing “poverty.” Far from implying irrelevancy to the religion-poverty link, considered with the above statistics, it suggests that such a perspective to the study of world religions has perhaps never been more meaningful.

Johnstone, P., The Church is Bigger Than You Think, p.215

Braswell, G., Understanding World Religions, p. 35

Jenkins, P., The Next Christendom, the Coming of Global Christianity, p. 74-5

How to End Poverty, TIME, March 14, 2005 / Vol. 165 No. 11

 

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/article_print.html?id=54544

Study: Conservative Theology Means Smaller Bank Accounts

Duke sociologist says conservative Protestants save less and accumulate fewer assets.

 Britanni Hamm,

 Religion News Service

| posted 4/02/2008

 

Lisa Keister has scanned the Bible and found nearly 2,000 verses in the New Testament that touch on the topic of money. It's those very verses that may be keeping many conservative Protestants from building up long-term wealth, she says.Jesus warned his followers not to "store up for yourselves treasures on Earth," and later cautioned that it will be "hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven." Perhaps the best known is the admonition that "the love of money is the root of all evil."According to data analyzed by Keister, a Duke University sociologist, the median net worth for conservative Protestants in 2000 was $26,000, compared to the national median of $66,200.

Why the gap? Keister says it may all come down to theology. "The one big difference is the conservative Protestants' assumption that God is the owner of money and people are managers of it," Keister said. "They are doing with their money what God wants them to do with it, so that does mean that it is not sitting in their bank accounts." Keister says a typical "conservative Protestant" might be a member of the Assemblies of God, Churches of Christ, Nazarene and Pentecostal churches.

Keister's new article in the American Journal of Sociology, "Conservative Protestants and Wealth: How Religion Perpetuates Asset Poverty," argues that traditional views of money — it's God's, not ours — keep many Protestants from building a financial safety net. While some struggle to build up their bank accounts, others, like Anne Thompson of Louisville, Ky., choose to give it all away in order to pursue what they see as God's plan for their lives. Thompson, 43, gave up a six-figure salary in 2002 and quit her job to follow God's call to impact popular culture with a Christian message. She said good-bye to plans for an early retirement and an $800,000 house and has not received a paycheck since. To be sure, her above-average means put her in a higher-than-average income bracket, but her motivations aren't much different from many other conservative Protestants. Thompson believes using her money to answer God's call is more important than using it for herself — even if her current financial situation is a "mere shadow" of what it once was.

"Words can hardly describe the life that comes in return for whatever it is that you're sacrificing," said    Thompson, who describes herself as a conservative Protestant. "In my case it happened to be financial." The study also found that conservative Protestants tend to have lower levels of education and begin large families at younger ages, with fewer women working outside the home. These factors make it difficult for many  conservative Protestant families to save money or accumulate wealth, Keister said in the study. "If there is a strong belief in the maternal care of children and that leads to less women in the work force, that's a reason they may be less wealthy," said Mark Noll, an expert on evangelicals at the University of Notre Dame. Keister was surprised that when demographic factors — such as education, age and race — were held as constant, religion still proved to be an influential factor in wealth accumulation. Conservative beliefs had a larger impact among black Protestants, she found, but also remained significant among whites.

Still, there are exceptions. Mormons, for example, also tend to be religiously conservative and have large families at a young age, and yet tend to have more substantial assets. Keister said her findings are "really just one tiny piece of a greater research agenda." Nearly 20 percent of the general population have either little savings or large debts, Keister said. Wealth is a primary indicator of well-being because it endures, unlike income, which can come and go.

But theology may be the biggest factor, especially conservative views on the inerrancy of the Bible. Steve Diggs, a stewardship minister at the Antioch Church of Christ in Nashville, Tenn., said many Christians have misunderstood what the Bible says about accumulating money. "Christians sometimes are, rightfully, less focused on this world and sometimes we do that to a fault," said Diggs. "I am diametrically opposed to the health-and-wealth prosperity teachings, but that isn't to say that God doesn't bless people financially."

 

Obama: “Small town voters are bitter, cling to guns and god” http://www.youdecide2008.com/2008/04/12/obama-says-small-town-voters-are-bitter-cling-to-guns-god/