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.”
Read "Other Faiths" as being another item in a list.
We've had fundies run the country before and they didn't do as bad a job as the secularists.
However, Dr. Dobson should keep his nose out of the Christian Church Movement type of theology to which Thompson adheres (reaching back to Campbell, Stone, and the Primitive Baptists). He's well within OUR tradition if not his own ~ which is another way of saying Dr. Dobson is theologically in error from at least one other major point of view.
You are a historical revisionist.
What you see below is only an extract of an eight-page length list posted not too long ago citing presidents all the way to FDR. Since the 1960s, especially, the humanists have tried to re-write the history of the late 18th century to exclude the undeniable influence of biblicist (fundamentalist, if you will) Christianity on the founding and life of our nation and its leaders.
“It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible” —George Washington
“So great is my veneration for the Bible that the earlier my children begin to read it the more confident will be my hope that they will prove useful citizens of their country and respectable members of society...” —John Quincy Adams
“That book, sir, is the rock on which our republic rests” —Andrew Jackson
“I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given man. All the good from the Savior of the world is communicated to us through this book. But for it we could not know right from wrong” —Abraham Lincoln
Pretty much my view on this as well.
dumb move by Dobson. I’d say he’s in too big a hurry to be a ‘political player’.
Well stated. Amen.
This is an exhibition of the Library of Congress. It is shocking:
Religion and the Founding of the American Republic
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/
Dobson is no political analyst or seer, but I see that he is a very flawed and dangerous man for entering that arena with dumbed-down sheep.
Now, are you trying to tell me George Washington wasn't a "fundie"? Guy even paid rent on a box in a church in Alexandria!
Even the greater part of our Bill of Rights reflects the religious thinking of people whose parents, grandparents, great grandparents, et al, were oppressed by the King of France or his running dog lackeys on account of religious positions they might take. Every element of that document points directly to a tyrant's abuse of fundamental rights.
They asked Fred about this at a stop in Texas about the time it came out. Fred said he had never spoken to Dobson.
Out of respect for James Dobson, I wish he had talked to Fred, asked some questions.
I agree, I wish Fred had taken the time to talk to Dobson. I know we all like to look for the candidate who doesn’t “pander”, but it’s good to touch base with the leaders and movers in the major groups you need to win the republican primary.
Whether you agree with Dobson or not, it is not smart to ignore him.
The site is packed full of information - I just assumed it would be shocking to some.
Did you mean King George? I understood that France’s revolution didn’t work as well as ours because they tossed the Christian beliefs like the baby with the bath water.
I wish I knew the truth about this. I called Focus on the Family and couldn’t get an answer from them, they supposedly can’t get involved in politics, but he can as a private citizen.
The website tries to make it sound like it was media bias, spinning something that wasn’t true. This is about the earlier statement he made about whether Fred was a Christian or not.
http://www.citizenlink.org/content/A000004681.cfm
This one claims the reporters have lied about Dobson and his comments.
http://www.focusaction.org/press/A000000236.cfm
Some of the information is that Dr. Dobson thinks highly of Fred.
They don’t have anything on the website about the most recent item, the email. They mention Glenn Beck repeating the false information [?] then apologizing for believing it.
If anyone has more information, I’d love to hear it.
Without the religious right, it is hard to fathom how Reagan was elected.
Focus on the Family admitted he wrote the email when I called, only after I repeatedly asked the first person I spoke to whether it was a “hoax” as she insinuated.
The tone of the email was pretty vitriolic. I don’t think Fred
deserves to be singled out in such a way, and it sounds like personal animus to me, which is odd, since they have never actually met.
I think the whole thing is horrid. I removed myself from the mailing list after supporting them for over 20 years.
I think Dobson looks stupid after berating Glenn Beck. (I had forgotten about that episode until you reminded me.)
I have written and erased several posts.
The fact that you think that Fred is REQUIRED to hunt Dobson down and “seek an audience” with him is really scary. If Dobson wanted to talk to Fred, HE should have contacted him.
I guess Dobson is getting revenge for being “ignored”.
I think DOBSON is in the wrong for gossiping about someone he has never even met. (Referring to the first incident, not the recent one.)
The big tyrant of the age was Louis XIV. The Founding Fathers insulted George (presumably to make him and his friends in Parliament angry, and to make sure they knew they were being insulted) by comparing George to Louis.
Every now and then I post the analysis of the Third, Second and First amendments to show how they were directed toward providing a safe home for Protestantism in America ~ and to do that I have to refer to Huguenot history and experience in France. The Founders knew that history quite well, particularly George Mason who prepared the Bill of Rights.
He was one of the neighbors here in Fairfax County.
You seem very proud of yourself.
In my last post I stated that there has been (especially since the 1960s) and is an effort to rewrite the history of the period of our War for Independence to exclude or marginalize information on the influence of biblicist Christianity on the founding generation of the United States.
Revisionism is very difficult to get away with, however, since there are also well-established organizations that have also, for the past 30 or more years, been compiling whole libraries clearly revealing Christianity’s influence on that period. One such organization is THE FOUNDATION FOR AMERICAN CHRISTIAN EDUCATION (F.A.C.E.) in Chesapeake, Virginia. Anyone can check their web site.
www.face.net
I feel certain that there are many who read and contribute to FR who have already spent some time with F.A.C.E. sources.
There is also another very good source (among dozens), PRAIRIE FIRE PRESS (Stearns-Marshall Publications). There you can order AMERICA IN CRIMSON RED, which covers much of the late 18th Century. There is also a 60 minute, well-documented CD on the relationship between John Leland (with the Virgina Baptists) and James Madison. This is a major factor in the passing of the Bill of Rights. Of course, no government school curriculum is going to present this, and I doubt that most college history courses pay much attention to this anymore. That web site is —
www.21tnt.com/pfp
Thank you for posting the link. It should be instructive to those that missed this in high school history.
For me it is not shocking at all. Much of it I learned in similar history lessons in grade school.
I grew up within walking distance of Mount Vernon during a time when American history was taught by serious teachers with didactic style. Lucky for me but for many years I had thought my instruction was normal and widespread. Hearing of today’s instuction, yes, it is indeed shocking.
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