{"id":15989,"date":"2008-06-25T09:15:32","date_gmt":"2008-06-25T13:15:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/15989.html"},"modified":"2008-06-25T09:15:32","modified_gmt":"2008-06-25T13:15:32","slug":"obama-2-dobson-0","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/obama-2-dobson-0\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama 2, Dobson 0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following up on an item<\/a> from yesterday, Focus on the Family’s James Dobson launched a fairly aggressive offensive against Barack Obama on the religious right leader’s radio show, accusing the senator of “dragging biblical understanding through the gutter.” Yesterday afternoon, Obama responded<\/a> to the criticism.<\/p>\n

Barack Obama said Tuesday that evangelical leader James Dobson was “making stuff up” when he accused the presumed Democratic presidential nominee of distorting the Bible.<\/p>\n

Dobson used his Focus on the Family radio program to highlight excerpts of a speech Obama gave in June 2006 to the liberal Christian group Call to Renewal.<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters on his campaign plane before landing in Los Angeles, Obama said the speech made the argument that people of faith, like himself, “try to translate some of our concerns in a universal language so that we can have an open and vigorous debate rather than having religion divide us.”<\/p>\n

Obama added, “I think you’ll see that he was just making stuff up, maybe for his own purposes.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dobson was worked up, in large part because Obama, in his 2006 speech, criticized the notion of basing public policy on a literal interpretation of one religion’s sacred text — in Dobson’s case, the Christian Bible. Obama explained why this would be a mistake, pointing to specific Old Testament passages, including rules in Leviticus on approving slavery and condemning the eating of stonefish. “So before we get carried away, let’s read our Bible now,” Obama said in the speech. “Folks haven’t been reading their Bible.”<\/p>\n

Dobson’s response is that Obama is “deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible,” because Old Testament texts and dietary codes no longer apply<\/a> to Jesus’ teachings in the New Testament.<\/p>\n

As a theological issue, Dobson’s on thin ice. As a political issue, Dobson probably doesn’t realize what a mistake he’s made.
\n
\nFirst, the theology. Dobson believes in a literal interpretation of every word in the Christian Bible. Obama, in his ’06 speech, pointed to specific passages from the Christian Bible. As such, as far as Dobson is concerned, Obama was “distorting” the “traditional understanding” of the Bible? Something doesn’t add up here — if every word of Scripture is literally true, how can anyone distort the Bible by pointing to specific passages?<\/p>\n

“Traditional understanding” sounds like some kind of liberal, mamby-pamby, after-the-fact interpretation of the Bible’s plain text, when Dobson is supposed to be, to borrow an expression, a strict constructionist<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Indeed, there’s a bunch of great examples from the Old Testament. Parents can stone a misbehaving child; fathers can sell daughters into slavery; garments made of two different kinds of threads are a real no-no; the list goes on and on. Dobson, on the one hand, believes every word of the Bible is literally true. Dobson, on the other hand, also argues we shouldn’t believe every word of the Bible is literally true but should instead accept a “traditional understanding” of the Bible. To do otherwise, is to “distort” Scripture.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Dobson apparently wants the focus to remain on the New Testament. Note to Dr. Jim: Christians are supposed to embrace both<\/i> Testaments.<\/p>\n

As for the politics, Dobson is inadvertently reinforcing Obama’s “turn the page” theme. The senator is talking about a new approach; Dobson wants an old approach. Obama believes the religious right movement need not speak for people of faith; Dobson says the religious right movement has to<\/i> speak for people of faith. Obama sees religion as inclusive; Dobson sees it as exclusive.<\/p>\n

It creates the dynamic Obama wants. In fact, the AP noted that the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, a Methodist pastor from Texas and longtime supporter of President Bush who has endorsed Obama, said Tuesday he belongs to a group of religious leaders who, working independently of Obama’s campaign, launched James Dobson Doesn’t Speak For Me.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I don’t think Dobson thought this one through.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following up on an item from yesterday, Focus on the Family’s James Dobson launched a fairly aggressive offensive against Barack Obama on the religious right leader’s radio show, accusing the senator of “dragging biblical understanding through the gutter.” Yesterday afternoon, Obama responded to the criticism. Barack Obama said Tuesday that evangelical leader James Dobson was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15989\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}