Posted on 03/07/2007 12:54:44 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
James Dobson is the Godzilla of the religious right. Other leaders have blazed for a while and then guttered out—Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson because they were incapable of buttoning their lips, Ralph Reed and Bill Bennett because, in different ways, they fell prey to the temptations of casinos. But until now Mr Dobson has gone from strength to strength.
Mr Dobson has long enjoyed unrivalled clout with Christian conservatives. Who else could have derailed a bankruptcy bill that was beloved by business (in 2002) or ejected Tom Daschle from his South Dakota Senate seat (in 2004)? The Dobson-inspired House Values Action Team includes some 70 Republican congressmen. Several leading Republicans, including one former senator, Jim Talent, have Mr Dobson to thank for their conversion to Christianity. Mr Talent, who was raised in a Jewish household, pulled into the side of the road and gave his life to Christ after listening to one of Mr Dobson’s broadcasts.
Mr Dobson also has an unmatched power-base. Focus on the Family, which he founded in the late 1970s, employs 1,300 people; gets 10,000 e-mails, 50,000 phone calls and 173,000 letters a month, justifying its own zip code; maintains a mailing list of 6m names; and enjoys an annual budget of $150m. Mr Dobson has also spawned a Washington-based think-tank, the Family Research Council, and dozens of Family Policy Councils across the country. All of which adds up to what Dan Gilgoff calls a “Jesus Machine” in his excellent new book of the same name.
Mr Dobson remains as active as ever in politics. He has fulminated against Rudy Giuliani and John McCain. Another presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, recently travelled to Focus’s headquarters in Colorado Springs to try to curry favour. Mike Huckabee has been a frequent guest on his radio programme. But there is mounting evidence that Mr Dobson’s version of the Jesus machine may not be winning the culture wars after all.
The religious right is in a dismal state at the moment. In 2004 social conservatives marched in lockstep behind a triumphant Republican Party. But two years later they lost a succession of high-profile races and ballot initiatives. And today they are desperately casting about for a like-minded presidential candidate. Mr Giuliani is too liberal, Mr Romney is too much of a flip-flopper, Mr McCain is too independent-minded, particularly on stem-cell research and a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. A recent meeting of the Council for National Policy, a secretive group of social conservatives, was reportedly a study in despair.
Mr Dobson is at the heart of his movement’s difficulties, just as he used to epitomise its success. He owed much of his unique influence to the idea that he was a reluctant politician. He built his career offering advice on family problems (his radio show still gets over 6m listeners a week). He refused to run for political office—unlike Messrs Reed and Robertson—and even refused to endorse a presidential candidate until 2004. His insistence on saving America’s problems one soul at a time had the paradoxical effect of giving his rare ventures into politics great force.
Twilight of the evangelical pope
But since stepping down as head of Focus on the Family in 2003, he has been spendthrift with the political capital he took so long accumulating. He stomped the country for social conservatives in 2004—and devoted a fearsome amount of effort to unseating Mr Daschle. He repeatedly threatened the Republican establishment with severe punishment if it failed to “deliver” for the people who put the party back in power in 2004. Why was George Bush spending so much time trying to reform Social Security, he thundered, when he should have been trying to repair the country’s morals?
The problem is that Mr Dobson is not all that good at politics. He displays all the characteristic weaknesses of evangelical politicos—overreaching hopelessly and then blaming failure on want of political courage. He was the prime force behind both the fight to keep Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube in place and the push for a gay-marriage ban. But a majority of evangelicals disapproved of the first and a large number of his fellow social conservatives warned, rightly, that the second was a waste of effort.
There have been other miscalculations. He wasted political capital supporting Harriet Miers’s doomed nomination to the Supreme Court. He strongly opposed the 2006 Evangelical Climate Initiative. He accused SpongeBob SquarePants of participating in a “pro-homosexual video”. He argued that “The Da Vinci Code” “has all the evidence of something cooked up in the fires of hell” (wouldn’t it have been better written if it had been?). He compared Bill Frist’s call for increased federal funding for stem-cell research to Nazi experiments.
The 70-year-old Mr Dobson (who has already suffered a heart attack and a stroke) is increasingly looking like a relic of an ancien régime rather than a harbinger of a new order. The average age of people on Focus’s mailing list is 52. Mr Dobson and his acolytes are rapidly being displaced by what Mr Gilgoff calls a New New Right—people who are concerned about international justice and climate change as well as abortion and gay marriage, and people who are willing to work with liberal pressure groups over issues such as Sudan and sex slavery.
All this suggests that the battle for the “values voters” will be more complicated than it was in 2004—and certainly will involve a lot more than kissing Mr Dobson’s ring. In the Republican “evangelical primary” rising stars like Rick Warren, another reluctant politician, may count for as much as the old war horses. And Democrats such as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama—who both like to stress their religious credentials—have a chance of picking up disillusioned evangelicals. The Jesus machine is changing fast.
I hadn't realized he was behind unseating DeLay.
He was?
"looking like a relic of an ancient regime"? Now if this had been used to describe Helen Thomas this would be the end to this writers columns.
Huh?
Dobson is neither clergy nor politician. Rick Warren is . both.
God bless Dr. Dobson.
The first several paragraphs build him up and tell of all the good things that he has done and then the last paragraph or two tell the real intention of the writer. It reminded me of the old compliment "you don't sweat much for a fat girl".
I've heard Tom DeLay is setting up the Coalition for a Conservative Majority - to encourage conservative groups to work together.
Not political, but rather on a purely Christian note, he needs to be sure he is keeping his doctrine in check.
The author correctly points out that change is occurring within the Christian community, but the author incorrectly concludes the reasons for that change. If you look at your Bible you will find that Jesus lived during a time when a despised foreign country occupied his homeland. In all of his recorded life Jesus only reference to that political situation was the statement of paying Caesar what Caesar is due. His disciples, his followers, and others begged him to say and do things contrary to the hated Roman government and political system, and Jesus said...nothing, not one thing.
The change in the Christian perspective just may be that in this world you will have troubles. Christians who believe that they can and should work toward creating a more moral society are off on the wrong track. Perhaps this realization is the change the author refers to but does not understand.
It's an article from The Economist. The Financial Express (based in India) merely reprinted it. That explains the slam. Wonder why India would be interested in this.
They're interested in a lot about the U.S.
That's what it says in the article.
Ditto.
We can't mandate godliness from above using the power of the state and hope to succeed. The only way our nation will change for the better morally is to spread the gospel to our countrymen one-by-one.
I am privileged to have listened to his radio ministry, read his books and heard him speak.
He was and still is... a voice in the wilderness.
btw, well said!
Daschle not Delay.
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