Phonies
Posted on 09/23/2007 7:18:21 AM PDT by Doofer
About the only thing worse than painting yourself in a corner is doing it when the floor doesn’t need painting in the first place.
So I was doubly disappointed a couple of days ago when Dr. James Dobson, a one-time child psychologist who has become a leading Christian activist, absolutely skewered presidential candidate Fred Thompson in what was to me a dazzling display of dumb.
I’ve long admired and adored Dr. Dobson’s “Focus on the Family” and believe he’s a genius when it comes to kids. This week, in what was called “a private e-mail to friends,” the doctor proved to me he’s got a long way to go when it comes to working the same magic with adults.
Apparently Thompson’s history regarding some marriage amendments and the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform deal got Dr. Dobson all wild-eyed and fiery-hearted and he wrote his buddies this puzzling paragraph:
“(Thompson) has no passion, no zeal, and no apparent ‘want to.’ And yet he is apparently the Great Hope that burns in the breasts of many conservative Christians? Well, not for me, my brothers, not for me!”
Wow, if Dr. Dobson discounts Fred Thompson that fast and this early, it would follow he’s got a bigger ace to play, but if this thing works out like I suspect it will in the year to come, Dr. Dobson is going to make quite a mess walking across all that wet paint just before the election.
Understand, I’m not a big Thompson fan, but isn’t it too early to pick a horse? All I know is what I read, but in watching the various political aspirants I don’t think if I were Dr. Dobson I’d start slinging a whole lot of mud at anybody just yet.
There are some others still in the race who are a “little bit left” of Fred, so to speak, and to slap down the former senator was a needless act that got Dr. Dobson a good amount of the kind of coverage he doesn’t want and that his ministry sure doesn’t need..
I have long held the opinion that “the Christian right,” as it is called, should stay out of politics. There are many who disagree with me, but I don’t think God should be sullied by those who claim He is a Republican or a Democrat. The same drought that hits the red states hits the blue ones.
Further, I know some fine Christians who happen to be rather liberal. There are also some crooks, as we’ve seen lately, who espouse each party, so I wish the churches would stick to salvation and the politicians would handle the marriage amendments and campaign finance questions.
I think Christianity, as I know it and as I believe it, can be summed up in just one word: Hope. I don’t care what happens to me – car wrecks, friends committing suicide, brothers dying, divorce, whatever – I am assured by Jesus Christ the end of my life will include the words, “happily ever after.”
Why should a Christian activist, whose goal is to teach about that same “hope” and enable anyone from a mass murderer to a tainted politician to have the same promise of “happily ever after,” get all jumpy over Fred Thompson at this stage of the game?
The better question is a harder one for me. Is that what being a Christian is about? Is that the way you convince a non-believer to enter the Kingdom?
Dr. Dobson presents himself on a pretty high plain with slick magazines and TV shows and radio broadcasts, but when he pops Fred Thompson for “no passion, no zeal, no ‘want to’,” what part of that glorifies God? I don’t get it, not at all.
Finally, there are the pious who’ll discount the whole thing, pointing out a “private e-mail” should have never been disclosed, but somebody once said, “As a man thinketh, so he is.”
In a nutshell what evangelism should be about, not politics. In what is supposed to be a secular type of country, where no one religion controls the government, we have the some in the religious right believing they can control politics.
From the little I've seen of Dobson I know that I wouldn't look to him for political advice. Probably not for any other kind of advice either.
I guess he should stay out of politics and let Ted Kennedy run things.
It’s very glib to say “God is neither a Republican nor a Democrate” and to conclude that “God”—i.e., Christians—should keep aloof from politics. Well, I don’t think God is a Republican, but he sure as hell is not a member of the party of sodomy, abortion, treason, and neo-communism.
Those pesky Christians should just keep quiet. You’d like that, I think. It’s not going to happen.
“In a nutshell what evangelism should be about, not politics. In what is supposed to be a secular type of country, where no one religion controls the government, we have the some in the religious right believing they can control politics”
And we have some on the anti-religious left believing they can abolish Christians to the dust bins of history.
Boy Dobson musta got under the skin of the anti-religion zealots to have a hit piece like this. GO DOBSON!!!
I was responding to the article, not you personally.
“(Thompson) has no passion, no zeal, and no apparent ‘want to.’ And yet he is apparently the Great Hope that burns in the breasts of many conservative Christians? Well, not for me, my brothers, not for me!”
Dobson will have to change his position, have a conversion to Thompson or live with a Democrat for the next several years. I can’t believe he or his follows want that but then it takes all kinds to make the totallity of mankind.
Isn't being a witness more to the glorification of God and not the imposition of that belief on all?
Roy Exum: Dr. Dobson’s Dumb Mistake
About the only thing worse than painting yourself in a corner is doing it when the floor doesn’t need painting in the first place.
So I was doubly disappointed a couple of days ago when Dr. James Dobson, a one-time child psychologist who has become a leading Christian activist, absolutely skewered presidential candidate Fred Thompson in what was to me a dazzling display of dumb.
It was and remains a dumb mistake by a man that I agree with on about 98% of other issues.
Not "stay out" of politics, but concern themselves with the fundamental qualities that made the United States a safe haven for religious belief.
Somebody had to say it. Why keep on pretending the Emporer is fully dressed. Thompson is a big loser to Hillary if he gets the nod. I will vote for the guy and send cash to his campaign if he gets the nod, but he is not looking like a winner to me.
Well, there is a big difference between voting on the basis of your beliefs, and getting involved in politics. Once you get involved in politics, you’re obliged to compromise, log-roll, fib, and generally do all kinds of things that are not exactly what you intended when you started out to reform the world.
“Why should a Christian activist, whose goal is to teach about that same “hope” and enable anyone from a mass murderer to a tainted politician to have the same promise of “happily ever after,” get all jumpy over Fred Thompson at this stage of the game?”
LMAO...what’s Dobson suppose to do at this stage of the game, “hope” that Thompson “comes around”?
“I have long held the opinion that “the Christian right,” as it is called, should stay out of politics.... “I wish the churches would stick to salvation and the politicians would handle the marriage amendments and campaign finance questions. “
I’ll bet you do.
What does being an evangelist have to do with religion controlling government? On the contrary, the First Amendment guarantees outright religious freedom. No citizen of the U.S. should be stifled from giving his/her religious views. Religious control would occur if the Congress, e.g., passed a bill requiring citizens to acknowledge a particular church/religion.
AMEN!
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