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.”
You wrote:
“Anyone who trashes a candidate for not requesting a meeting, bowing at his feet, and kissing his ring is both. He has NO AUTHORITY to demand that anyone view every issue his way. What makes his opinion so special?”
Your characterization of this situation as a “trashing” betrays your predisposition against Dobson. How has he “trashed” Thompson? Specifically, what were his words?
And to say that Dobson requires people to “bow” and “kiss his ring” is another betrayal of your prejudice against this high-profile Christian man.
Your disposition is anti-Christian.
Thank you for revealing your unfounded hatred for a man who follows Christ. You may return to DU now.
My sincere regret that you are of a different opinion.
I imagine your love for the purity of Christ is blinding you to the reality of this imperfect man’s decidedly unChristian character.
Dobson is truly an egotist taking advantage of and misusing the power and deep belief of people such as yourself, that was never really his.
I think that being against Dobson’s behavior is the same as being against Jesus is pretty blaphemous. You aren’t supposed to worship people, you know.
Where did you get that from? If that's the kind of logic you use, no wonder you're so quick to demonize Dobson.
I called you anti-Christian. Dobson is a Christian man whose done nothing but express his Christian faith and opinion. By denouncing him so harshly for applying his faith to life, and expressing the resulting opinion with friends, we are left with the conclusion that you are "anti-Christian."
Most preachers would be stupid to publicly condone what God himself condemns.
Dobson is a good man, even if he is wrong occasionally. If Fred is nominated, he will support him. Signed---Ward
I respect Dobson, and I will listen to his contribution, but in the end, I will decide who gets my vote.
I think the left foolishly thinks evangelicals march to the beat of the loudest, most noticeable drummers in the movement. They don't. They think for themselves. They aren't liberals.
Spain - 1556-1598 Catholic vs Muslim then Catholic vs Protestant. The Inquisition.
The Thirty Years War, 1618-1648 - Catholic vs Proestant and Calvinism.
Not to mention the Crusades. Or the ethnic cleansing in Europe before WW1 and up to this date.
Fred Thompson is the only candidate that gets it. He makes decisions based on principles. Principles don’t change. You have to stand for something and not change who you are based on the polls. That is what Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani have done and all of the Democrats do it. Give me a leader that will stand by his principals anyday versus someone that stands for everything.
Not true, although that's the party line. And I'm on your side of the question with Dobson! From VoxDay:
"A more systematic review of the 489 wars listed in the Wikipedia's list of military conflicts, ranging from Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars to the 1969 Football War between Honduras and El Salvador, shows that only 53 of these wars - 10.8 percent - can reasonably be described as having a religious nature, even if one counts each of the 10 Crusades separately. If there is a god responsible for this ever-present bloodshed, it is Mars, not Jehovah or Jesus Christ."
Make no mistake about it, these candidates and influential political activist leaders who threaten to not support the Party’s nominee are playing political extortion to gain policy concessions or angle for a key appointment. They know very well that if they succeed in pulling away even a moderate fraction of voters from the Republican presidential candidate (and down-ballot Republican candidates that benefit from straight ticket votes), they likely will had the Democrats the win, since recently the margin of victory in many elections is within a few percent.
A true Republican or conservative would not willingly hand power over to liberal Democrats, who are guaranteed to work against our values. Political suicide is not in our nature, nor condoned in our religious teachings, nor consistent with our Constitution. Leave the futile political statements to those not fortified with a higher purpose.
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