Dobson picks a fight with Obama

After a long silence politically, James Dobson just recently decided it was worth fighting over how Barack Obama interpreted the Bible and the U.S. Constitution in his Call to Renewal speech back in 2006.

That prompted my son-in-law to write a response to my analysis of Obama’s speech, and I am publishing a specially edited version of his response for this blog entry as follows –

It is unfortunate that James Dobson has started a quarrel with Barrack Obama over his accusation that Obama does not know how to interpret the Bible and has a "fruitcake" interpretation of the constitution.

There are two points that you make about Obama's Call to Renewal speech of 2006 that I think are important for Christians to consider as Obama will now be the Democratic candidate for President.

1. Obama is sharing a personal testimony of how he has come to a saving faith in Jesus Christ and how he has processed (and I assume he continues to reflect on) his understanding of how to reconcile faith and politics.

2. The temptation is for us to usurp the authority of God rather than to speak humbly as fellow citizens and as believers in the New Testament, which says,

Don't have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord's servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will. (2 Timothy 2:23-26)

Dobson’s accusations do not represent a reading or interpretation of the entire Bible. What exactly is a biblical world view? Is it absolute and concrete? It seems that a lot of interpretation has to go into determining a biblical worldview -- and then comes the real tough part of applying the worldview.

Almost immediately, Obama responded to Dobson by acknowledging Dobson, disagreeing on the key point of contention, and then he moved on. Obama took the high ground and applied the dictum in Proverbs: "Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself."

As a believer in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I will be voting for Obama this November because he is a reflective fellow believer who wrestles with his faith and how he should apply the calling God has given him.

Obama's life in the political arena might be one conservative Christians would do well to learn from. They may do more good for the cause of the kingdom than they are now with a single minded agenda focused only on rolling back Roe v. Wade.

I have only two specific observations to add:

(1) Dobson has apparently driven up readership of Obama’s Call to Renewal speech. The link to it changed since my original blog post, and the new links shown above could not at first be reached, apparently because of the heavy traffic. I think as more people actually read the speech, more will be drawn to Obama’s point of view.

(2) If you listen to the CNN video recording, you will notice indeed that Dobson does grossly distort Obama’s main point since Obama says quite the opposite: Dobson claims that Obama says that “unless everybody agrees, we have no right to fight for what we believe.” But what Obama actually said in the Call to Renewal speech was,

“Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.”

Obama is saying we should translate what we believe into language accessible to everyone and that we should fight for our beliefs. He is advocating a basic principle of communication, akin to learning another person’s language in order to communicate with them.