"deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit ... his own confused theology,"

Whuh? Evangelicals have been making shit up to justify their prejudices since before the bible came out in paperback.

Nice that there's one evangelical who thinks there's a line that shouldn't be crossed, though. Expect him to be smote. Or is it smitten?

Thank God I'm an Atheist!

Dobson was indeed intemperate and scripturally incoherent. His comments were the abbreviated form, but his style and arguments were those of 95% of fundamentalist Christianity. "If Christian conservatives want to be taken seriously" they need to stop making this stuff the primary face of their religion. Wehner needs to look inward, into his church; Dobson is the staid, establishment of fundamentalist Christianity.

It isn't central to Wehner's OpEd, but he believes evangelicals ought to be concerned that Obama's plans for a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq will result in mass death.

I don't recall Obama advocating a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq. Unless, of course, anything short of McCain's 100 Years of Occupation is deemed precipitous.

And apparently, the mass death that would result would be a different kind of mass death than that caused by the invasion and occupation. Different and worse, I suppose.

The main thing to keep in mind is that Dobson moves voters, Wehner does not. And it doesn't even matter if what Dobson says is true.

"And it doesn't even matter if what Dobson says is true."

Goes without saying.

Which voters does Dobson move?

The problems with the Republican "brand" start with their shaky relationship with a large portions of their traditional evangelical base. A lot of those people are the folks who are hurting most in the current economy. They are the people who have to give up their SUVs because they can't afford gas. They are the folks whose sons and daughters have been sent to Iraq to die for oil. They are offended to find out that their Republican leaders don't share their moral views. They are the folks shocked that the Republicans haven't done much to solve the genocide of Christians in Darfur. They are the folks who are staying home this fall. A lot of them are drifting to Obama.

Dobson and a lot of his cohorts are still trying to get out of hot water with the base for not supporting Mike Huckabee. And the easiest way to do that is to attack Obama.

Although the question of how much trouble Dobson can get in with his followers is a good question. Mike Weisskopf had it right about 15 years ago: they are mostly poor, uneducated and easy to command.

(My favorite part of that latter story is when Dobson took umbrage at that statement, and commanded his followers to call the WaPo and tell them that evangelicals weren't easy to command. And of course they did, in droves.)

"If Christian conservatives want to be taken seriously, they need to make serious arguments and speak with intellectual integrity. In this instance, Dobson didn't."

"In this instance"??

"Dobson didn't"??

How about "They generally don't"?

It's not like the failure of prominent evangelicals of the Falwell/Robertson/Dobson/Wildmon/LaHaye school to speak with intellectual integrity is some sort of exception. Lyin' in the name of the Lord is their stock in trade.

On a message board I hang out at, they're known as Nine-Commandment Christians for their continual disregard of the one that says "thou shalt not bear false witness."

And which side are you on, Kevin? The uncommitted, fence-straddling, wishy-washy side? Sorry to call you out on it, but when you don't ever take a side, there is a more artful way of saying that James Dobson is a bloated gasbag who is a phony, hate-mongering pseudoChristian.

If Christian conservatives want to be taken seriously, they need to make serious arguments and speak with intellectual integrity. In this instance, Dobson didn't. He has set back his cause and made some of us who are evangelicals and conservatives wince.

As others have pointed out, this framing implies that the default condition of Xtian conservatives is that they do "make serious arguments and speak with intellectual integrity." That's an assertion not in evidence.

obama worships the neocon set and will talk about change while answering to the same masters. He has shown that his promises do not mean a thing.

His religion has no more integrity than this promise to filibuster FISA, and he worships AIPAC and corporate media.

If elected, he will be the one to dismantle Social Security.

James Dobson is a remarkable person.

He's a child psychologist.

About 9 years old, in fact.

There is a backlash of sorts against Dobson's staements among Christians:

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1818313,00.html?xid=rss-topstories

http://www.jamesdobsondoesntspeakforme.com

As a general rule, any person who regularly uses the word "fruitcake" as an adjective isn't worth listening to.

"To every thing there is a season. The season of Dobsons peak influence is waning. His stupid intolerance is finally having its logical impact. Now if something can be done about those gold wearing private plane flying tv evangelists and their corrupt organizations.

"A God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell—mouths mercy, and invented hell—mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him!"
—Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger, 1916

Obama's message was that all Americans should have the same rights and opportunities, regardless of their faith or lack thereof. That is anathema to Dobson, whose belief system requires demonization of those that do not subscribe to his version of Christian values.

I am disappointed that Obama is injecting religion at all into the public square. One can be moral without religious affiliation and immoral with it. It feels like he is pandering.

Having grown up as a sugar-coated fundamentalist Christian boy in the South, I think I heard a meaning in Mr Dobson's remarks that has not been mentioned in the media. Recall that Obama had said that even if the U.S. were a completely, 100% Christian country we should still keep religious doctrines separate from Gov't policies unless the doctrines were effectively translated from the language of religion to the language of politics. For an example, he picked several Old Testament commmandments that involved dietary rules and severe punishment for family members who sin. He also pointed out that rigorously applying the morality of the Sermon on the Mount would challenge much of Gov't's policies in ways we're not used to.

Dobson's reply was that this shows poor understanding of Theology and Bible interpretation. What he meant was that those rules from the Old Testament do not apply today because Jesus Christ introduced a new way for God to interact with mankind. And that the Sermon on the Mount gives an ethic that will apply in heaven (or here during the Millenium).

Dobson said all this because he knows that Christians cannot defend the Old Testament laws, that they are remarkably like Sharia Law. And he knows that using the Sermon on the Mount as a standard would show that his movement is as far from the Way of Jesus as every other political movement.

Dobson desperately wants to avoid having his movement compared the the real lessons of Jesus' message and life.

Shouldn't Amy Sullivan be along here any minute to concern-troll us about how we aren't demonstrating sufficient "respect" for faith and morality when we trash James Dobson in this manner?

*

What he meant was that those rules from the Old Testament do not apply today because Jesus Christ introduced a new way for God to interact with mankind.

I'm no fundie, but this sort of thing just sticks in my craw. Fundies are quite happy to throw Leviticus in the face of gays, and don't seem to mind using Old Testament Scriptures to slam others as needed.

But then when others point out the discord between fundie beliefs and conduct and assorted Old Testament scriptures, all of a sudden it's "Jesus took care of all that."

All I can figure is that the Old Testament applies when fundies want it to, and it doesn't apply when fundies don't want it to.

Deuteronomy 25 has something to say about that sort of thing:

13 Thou shalt not have divers weights in thy bag, a greater and a less: 14 Neither shall there be in thy house a greater bushel and a less. 15 Thou shalt have a just and a true weight, and thy bushel shall be equal and true: that thou mayest live a long time upon the land which the Lord thy God shall give thee. 16 For the Lord thy God abhorreth him that doth these things, and he hateth all injustice.

Dobson is no different than all of the countless other fundamentals of whatever stripe. They swallowed the line about the fact the people will make up shit, and incorporate it into their religion, only applies to ALL the other religions, but their own is uniquely free of that defect. One a person wholly incorporates that into his thinking there is no longer hope of rational thought.

Now at that time the Buddha was sitting & exchanging courtesies & conversation with some very senior brahmans (religious authorities). It so happened that a brahman student named Kapadika was seated in the assembly: young, shaven-headed, sixteen years old, a master of the Three Vedas with their vocabularies, liturgy, phonology, & etymologies, and the histories as a fifth; skilled in philology & grammar, well-versed in cosmology & the marks of a great man ... he said to the Buddha, "Master Gotama, with regard to the ancient hymns of the brahmans — passed down through oral transmission & included in their canon — the brahmans have come to the definite conclusion that 'Only this is true; anything else is worthless.' What does Master Gotama have to say to this?"

"Tell me, Bharadvaja, is there among the brahmans even one brahman who says, 'This I know; this I see; only this is true; anything else is worthless?'"

"No, Master Gotama."

"And has there been among the brahmans even one teacher or teacher's teacher back through seven generations who said, 'This I know; this I see; only this is true; anything else is worthless?'"

"No, Master Gotama."

"And among the brahman seers of the past, the creators of the hymns, the composers of the hymns — those ancient hymns, sung, repeated, & collected, which brahmans at present still sing, still chant, repeating what was said, repeating what was spoken ... was there even one of these who said, 'This we know; this we see; only this is true; anything else is worthless?'"

"No, Master Gotama."

"So then, Bharadvaja, it seems that there isn't among the brahmans even one brahman who says, 'This I know; this I see; only this is true; anything else is worthless.' And there hasn't been among the brahmans even one teacher or teacher's teacher back through seven generations who said, 'This I know; this I see; only this is true; anything else is worthless.' And there hasn't been among the brahman seers of the past, the creators of the hymns, the composers of the hymns ... even one who said, 'This we know; this we see; only this is true; anything else is worthless.'

Suppose there were a row of blind men, each holding on to the one in front of him: the first one doesn't see, the middle one doesn't see, the last one doesn't see.

In the same way, the statement of the brahmans turns out to be a row of blind men, as it were: the first one doesn't see, the middle one doesn't see, the last one doesn't see. So what do you think, Bharadvaja: this being the case, doesn't the conviction of the brahmans turn out to be groundless?"

-- Canki Sutra

I think Obama is talking about the many interpretations [denominations] of the bible and that in and of itself would lead to all kinds of religio-political arguments.

a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq will result in mass death.

Unlike say, the mass death that is still ongoing?

All I can figure is that the Old Testament applies when fundies want it to, and it doesn't apply when fundies don't want it to.

Posted by: low-tech cyclist

I am not a theologist but in most cases the New Testament takes precident over the Old Testament. That only applies if there is a conflict between the two. Otherwise they are both accepted.

BHO and the rest of you lefties can ridicule the Evangelicals if you want. That will just energize a lukewarm constituency to vote for McCain. So BHO made a big mistake taking the bait and going after Dobson.

His record on guns and stradling the fence on Heller is going to energize gun owners too.

So we come back to the fact that you lefties cannot keep your mouths shut about religion and guns. This is go to cost BHO the election. I love it!

Mr Cyclist: you are totally correct that fundamentalists find reasons to make the O.T./ShariaLaw passages apply when it suits them. I will add, they find ways to make Jesus mean what they want him to mean and to NOT mean what they don't. Pretty much like human beings everywhere although they will try real hard to show you that their conclusions come straight from God Himself through the Bible (which only they have the inspiration to understand correctly).

As the wonderful quote from the Canki Sutra illustrates this is a failing to which all flesh is heir.

FWIW: I've appreciated many of your comments. And I love my touring bike. Rode coast to coast a few yrs ago.

I respect many people of faith. Dobson is just a bastard who hides behind his version of the Bible. Christians should be more upset about him than I am.

fat white guy: BHO and the rest of you lefties can ridicule the Evangelicals if you want.

"My feeling is we've bowed too far to the idiots." - WSJ Editor Peggy Noonan talking about the GOP and evangelicals Dec. 2007

Our site takes a somewhat more forgiving tone, I think, than many of the comments here. But we join in rejecting the intolerant literalism that our Brother-in-Christ James Dobson projects.