The hobgoblin of little minds

It is my understanding that some of those who think Obama is a Muslim think he’s a secret Muslim. And of course a secret Muslim would attend a Christian church—the better to keep the secret—so knowledge that he attended a Christian church would, for those people, count as evidence that he’s a Muslim.

After all, “God damn America” could be a perfectly Muslim sentiment, and Wright was wearing a dashiki at the time he said it. I wonder how many of the poll’s respondents think Reverend Wright is Muslim.

(BTW, I love seeing my little Gravatar in the preview window)

Since to the people thinking these odd simple thoughts being a Muslim doesn’t really mean being a Muslim, but being a “dark foreigner that wants to hurt us”, it’s not contradictory at all for them to see him as a member of the UCoC, and simultaneously a Muslim. Especially with Wright in a dashiki loudly condemning “America”.
No one’s overtly said Obama’s a Muslim anyway, at least no one that might be held accountable for it.
The brainwash is a lot like the one that was used about Saddam Hussein. “This man wants to hurt you, just like those 9/11 guys did.” Repeated often enough with enough innuendo and variety it becomes “This man is those 9/11 guys”.
The people doing the erroneous believing aren’t the problem. It’s the people doing the repeating.

But if you think about it more deeply, it’s not that hard to reconcile the concepts. Lots of people, especially politicians, make shows of religious pierty they don’t really believe in. Someone who said Obama’s a Muslim in his heart but makes a show of Christian piety because it’s good politics, is being unfalsifiable, but not strictly contradictory.

Putting aside for the moment the fact that this story has nothing to do with reality, it also doesn’t entirely make internal sense.

If Obama were really a Muslim whose Christian piety was just for show, then details about his purported Christian church wouldn’t tell us anything about Obama’s actual beliefs. In this scenario, what Wright says would be irrelevant to evaluating (the secretly Muslim) Obama.

Whenever did a piece of political black propaganda have to have logic on its side?

In any case, you’re wrong, because “clearly” any kind of “christian” who can say “God damn America” is as close to being a “Muslim” as makes no difference, for a certain kind of audience.

as for #8, hush, or that one’ll be all over the interwebs by next week…

Just keep on fightin’ against the black man keeping you down, Brett.

I live among these people in a Red State. This doesn’t surprise me one bit. Depress me, yes. Surprise, no.

These folks think that the violence in Kenya was about Muslims trying to take over. And Obama “is” a secret Muslim Kenyan who is the terrorists’ candidate for president. Facts do not matter; there is a pre-scripted narrative in which everything fits. Muslims = Communists = Jacobins, the all-purose enemy.

Did I mention it depresses me?

Well, no, that doesn’t follow. It would, under that scenario, demonstrate what he thinks of Christianity, by the sort of church membership he thought would help him blend in.

To be fair to this ridiculous scenario (though I don’t usually let the word “fair” and Brett B. anywhere in the same neighborhood), it would demonstrate not what Obama thinks of Christianity, but what he thinks of voters who care about Christianity.

And if we make the assumption (entirely unfair, though Brett makes it in his own actual view of the matter) that Rev. Wright’s brand of Christianity can best be understood by extrapolating from two soundbites, the problem with Secret Muslim Obama®’s embracing of Wright is not that this disses Christians (by suggesting, as Brett would have it, that Obama believes that Christians are, in general, attracted to anti-white rants (?!?)), but rather that Secret Muslim Obama® is not only a latter-day Manchurian Candidate, poised to sell us all into dhimmitude (or whatever it is that Secret Muslimsâ„¢ are supposed to do), but also has Poor Judgment in selecting a Controversial Black Man as his pastor/beard, thus making him fall doubly short of the Commander-in-Chief Threshold. Remember, people, we’re electing someone who is Constitutionally allowed to break any law he feels like!

While the “Muslim” business is dispiriting — and Obama can’t even wax indignant about it because there’s nothing wrong with being a Muslim — I doubt its political significance. I haven’t seen any polling that separates this out, but I’d bet a large sum of money that the set of potential voters who: (a) inaccurately believe he’s a Muslim and (b) don’t like it, is almost entirely subsumed under the class of people who (a) accurately believe he’s a Negro and (b) don’t like it.

What cjcolucci said!

One of the things that this campaign highlights is that while pretty open misogyny is seen as permissible by our nation’s political class, racism needs to be carefully disguised and dog-whistled. What links the Obama-is-a-Muslim meme to the Obama’s-minister-is-a-dangerous-America-hating-racist meme is the (largely unspoken but ever present) Obama-is-a-scary-Negro meme.

I thought this was a good angle on the pastor controversy:

How people hear something depends on their own experience and worldview, says Teresa Fry Brown, who teaches the art of preaching at Emory University in Atlanta. “I listen to 60 sermons a week by black and white pastors, and you could find something in almost any one that is offensive to somebody.”

The key as to whether language is hate speech lies in a preacher’s overall message, according to Martin Marty, professor emeritus of the University of Chicago Divinity School and renowned historian of religion. Dr. Marty, who has visited Trinity many times, says, “If Wright only had whites in his searchlight, you might call it [hate speech]. But he goes after the men in his church” about fatherhood, he puts himself and his people under the prophetic spotlight.

Prophetic preaching has been fundamental to the black church since the days of slavery. The Bible and its thundering prophets modeled a way forward that enabled black preachers to speak the hard truths while simultaneously envisioning a better future. […]

As Dr. King once wrote, there can only be deep disappointment where there is deep love, Braxton says. That’s the way he sees Wright’s deep disappointment and anger, too – not as hateful speech, but simply “radical,” from someone who expects so much more.

Some say it may also be the style of preaching that puts people off, especially those used to a tamer message.

“Prophetic preaching involves critique and social analysis,” says Dr. Fry Brown. “One has to be able to assess the needs and issues of a people and then, using language the people understand, say, ‘This is what’s happening. God is not pleased. We need to do something about it.'”

This brings to mind last week’s survey in the Economist wherein 80% of Americans surveyed professed a belief in god, but only 55% in hell.

educated in a radical Muslim school
Is that what they’re calling Harvard now? I guess with every president since Reagan going to Yale it’s hardly surprising.

Right. He should promise those people candy.

they mistakenly forgot to poll americans as to whether they believe Rev. Wright is a muslim.

…dark baddies who don’t like us…

Actually, I noticed in many cases it’s even worse than that; one doesn’t even have to be dark. Any association will do: the name, clothes, accent, facial features, anything. It really is exactly identical to standard 20th century antisemitism, and I believe it really is the same phenomenon.

Both are about equally imaginary evils, Brett.

People who blow up people in public (and other) places are Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists and atheists. In fact I suspect Jews and Christians in the last 50-60 years probably have been far ahead in the ‘blowing up people’ game. I’m sure you feel that they for the most part had good excuses to blow up people, but that’s just your opinion.

I don’t understand what you’re getting at, Brett; I don’t see the logic. I see that you want to talk about the blood libel and contrast it with some real atrocities perpetrated by some Muslims.

Now, look, you could, as well, pick some libelous anti-Muslim stuff (shouldn’t be too difficult, a day’s worth of the LGF should have plenty) and contrast it with, say, Murder, Inc., or, for that matter, any number of ‘Jewish’ atrocities perpetrated by Israeli Zionists (here, read this, for example). And now what? What does it prove, what does it mean to you?