One Hundred And One

He escorted his date with a mephistophelian gait, like a man who wore women like jewelry, but hadn't earned the privilege.  His grey suit fit perfectly, which was no sort of flattery for a man that skinny.  He surveyed the room, deposited his damsel at the door with his coat and his hat, and sat down at the table with the rest of us.
I hated his guts already.  He didn't have his father's austerity - just his baldness.
"Fellas," he said, without introduction - he needed none, "You’re all mine."
His woman left with me. No one wanted his father’s hat anymore.

James Dobson, Barack Obama, and Who to Listen to

James Dobson, having just recently mastered the use of YouTube, discovered a speech that Barack Obama gave on religion in the public square. I saw this speech months ago, and before it, I was vehemently opposed to Obama's views on religion, which I assumed were the standard liberal ACLU views that heavily favor the establishment clause of the First Amendment while allowing no meaningful weight for the free exercise bit. Then I heard this speech [Call to Renewal], which was directed primarily at liberals (with a few comments for conservatives who use religion for political purposes). After this speech, I found it much easier to imagine myself voting for Obama because he had not only clearly thought through this issue more than any candidate that has yet articulated a position on it, but he also had come to conclusions fitting to the office for which he was running. Dobson, upon hearing this speech, issued an audio response on his website whose commentary conditions its listeners to hear Obama as if his intent was to ridicule instead of engaging the issue.

Here are some of the things Dobson and his cohorts Tom Minnery and Bill Maier said:

Minnery argues that because 76% of people call themselves Christians, America is a Christian nation (and by implication ought to subscribe to Christian ideals). Though only half of this number are "committed Christians," that does not matter to Minnery. Obama's characterization of America as pluralistic (which is a fact no matter who is the largest sect or how large that sect is) he says is "diminishing religion," which is, obviously, nonsense. He says that Obama is "diminishing the idea that people of Christian faith have anything to say." No. He doesn't. He says the opposite of that, in fact, rebuking Democrats for acting as if it didn't in the past. That is his topic. Minnery's explicative integrity here is equal to the diversity of his vocabulary. Maybe his repetitious use of the word "diminish" comes from the fact that any stronger mischaracterization of the speech would put large blinking lights around the fatuousness of his point. He then claims that Obama "diminishes" Dobson. Obama asks rhetorically, if we expelled all the non-Christians from America, "...whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would it be James Dobson's or Al Sharpton's?" Minnery makes the transparently idiotic claim that Obama is "equating" Dobson with Sharpton. He says, "Al Sharpton gained his notoriety in the 80s and 90s by engaging in racial bigotry - many people have called him a 'black racist.' And he is somehow equating you [Dobson] with that and racial bigotry." This sort of paranoiac interpretation somehow often gains traction with conservatives who want something bad to say about Democratic candidates. Obama's point was that there is plurality within the Christian faith, and that there is more than one way of looking at the Bible, which serves his further point that America's pluralism makes it necessary to find common moral ground instead of legislating religious particularities. He could just as easily have said, "Whose Christianity? Anabaptist or Pentecostal?" Which, incidentally, is a wider divide than that of Sharpton and Dobson in terms of policy ramifications.

Dobson responds that he doesn't want to be defensive. "Obviously that is offensive to me. I mean, who wants to expel Christians here - expel them from what? From the country? Deprive them of Constitutional rights? Is that what he thinks I want to do? Why did this man jump on me? I haven't said anything anywhere near that. He also equates me with Al Sharpton, who is a reverend. I am not a reverend, I'm not a minister, I'm not a theologian, I'm not an evangelist; I'm a psychologist... and there is no equivalence to us. I don't wanna overreact to it..." You're overreacting, doctor. In fact you're mis-reacting. I hope that Dobson is just playing dumb by deliberately misunderstanding Obama's point.

Then they accuse Obama of disparaging serious understanding of the Bible. Obama compares Old and New Testament laws and teachings, saying neither slavery and the prohibition on shellfish in the Old Testament nor the pacifism of the sermon on the mount in the New Testament are appropriate for public policy. His point is that there are passages that might should be used for public policy, but that it is not clear which ones we should choose or why. Minnery then says that Obama has not correctly parsed out the Levitical law and the law of the church age, and Dobson says Obama is wrong, and that the law does not command you to stone a son that forsakes the faith (Minnery then contradicts him, but in a tone of voice that says they agree...). Incidentally, Obama did get that wrong. He clearly couldn't remember the specifics of Deuteronomy 21. It's just a rebellious son that should be stoned, so I guess we shouldn't vote for him now. Clearly, that's much more amenable to American law. Obama is not disparaging serious understanding of the Bible, but noting that multiple serious understandings conflict with one another.

Obama says in this quote that our Defense Dept. would not survive the application of the Sermon on the Mount. Shane Claiborne has made the same point (anabaptists, anyone?). Minnery scoffs: "It seems that he has taken a direct shot at the Defense Department..." He didnt. "...as if Jesus, as if Paul, as if the New Testament writers had nothing to say about real good and real evil in the world, and we have to know the difference." Jesus' description of real good in the world is exactly what jeopardizes the very idea of war, Tom. In fact, it was His command as to how we ought to respond that takes a very direct shot at our Defense Department - one that must be dealt with in detail if it is to be refuted. It is hard to not resist an evil man and to wage war at the same time. This is supported by an entire tradition of serious biblical scholars, including Yoder, Hauerwas, and the teachings of the early church before 300AD. It's Focus on the Family and their affiliates who have distorted and "diminished" the Bible on this issue. They then speculate as to whether Obama is "distorting" the Bible willfully or accidentally. They of course postulate that it's willful. No reason - that's just their opinion.

Obama asserts, in Minnery's words, that "moral people do not have to be religious people." Minnery says that's not true - that religion is the grounding for morality. Then he sites George Washington, who says religion is essential to a moral American democracy (which is only tangentially related). Paul disagrees with Minnery, saying that Gentiles become a "law unto themselves" when they follow God without knowing His laws.

Dobson characterizes Obama's argument as saying that it's undemocratic to fight for moral biblical principles or to try to get laws passed that are not agreed upon by all faiths. Again, that's not what he said. Obama said that we have to have common terms and common grounds upon which to argue moral points if we are to have democracy at all. This is a very complicated issue, and has been addressed by the greatest minds of the last three centuries to very little fruit. Arguably the closest thing we have to a common ground for moral law is Kant's categorical imperative, and even this has its shortcomings. Dobson has an extremely mixed-up ecclesiology. He doesn't know where the Kingdom of God ends and the kingdom of this world begins. He ought to go read St. Augustine, or rethink Romans 13 in light of Romans 12, or even read a single source that does not advocate a Christian America before he attempts to comment on these issues.

Obama is correct that Dobson is "making stuff up." I thus exhort Christian conservatives not to listen to him. My most recent approach is simply to listen only to primary sources. Our secondary, self-appointed digestors of the news continue to be inadequate guides.