The Callous Theology of James Dobson

Yes, you read that correctly. Jim Dobson and Jesse Jackson serve similar roles within their respective political parties. During Clinton’s rule I heard Jim Dobson claim, “I have five million listeners and they vote.” His message was, “If I don’t get what I want from the Party, I’m telling my listeners to stay home and not vote. Then Bill Clinton wins.” Tell me, how was that different than a Jesse Jackson shakedown? It is the same thing. Thankfully both men have faded from the political scene, but every once in a while they do something to remind the public that they are still around.

If you keep yourself out of politics and social causes as a Christian leader, you will be accused by other Christians as not being salt and light. If you get involved in politics and social causes, you will be accused by other Christians as being too unspiritual, too political, power-hungry, money-loving, etc. James Dobson and his organization have done lots of good for Christians and for the US for decades, even if Dobson hasn’t always been right. His passion is the family, and he has never wavered from what he has felt is his purpose in life.

If Wehner listened to the comments of Dobson, he doesn’t give much hint of it. He condemns Dobson for leaving out sins that he earlier talked about in the recording. He condemns Dobson for being insensitive, but Dobson stated clearly one cannot determine what was the motivating factor at Newtown. Instead, Wehner gives every indication of having used the clipped text which first came out on Right Wing Watch. To me, it appears that Wehner waxed eloquent on a sound bite.

Not the guy on here but the Bible one.

Job goes through terrible situations one right after another. His buddies say the sorrows have come his way because he has sinned…but he had not. God was just allowing it to happen so that down the road God would be glorified. Some how or another God will get glory we may never know how. Apply that to Newtown.

I also believe that ones who believe in the secession of gifts should not delve into giving prophesy. Drawing lines to connect these events to sin where there are no obvious connections would have to be prophetic or a leap to a baseless conclusion.

Ken,

I wonder if you have listened to the recording? What you write about Job is similar to what Dobson said himself at the beginning of the program. Dobson did not attempt to connect any dots. He said that the shooting was indicative of a major problem in American society. That is where the text of the sound bite begins. I would imagine that 90% of Americans agree with him. They all simply have different versions of what the problem is. Dobson grew up in a time when the greatest fear about school was that your parents would hear about your disobedience from the principal, or perhaps you would have a bad episode with the school bully. Can you blame him for thinking society now surely looks like it is getting unhinged? The controversial part of his statement is that the negative trend in society is a result of a general turning away from the Bible.

Perhaps Dobson’s statement was poorly timed. But I wonder if it would ever be rightly timed for people like Right Wing Watch.

So what we have is this: Dobson made a controversial statement as part of his program. Right Wing Watch took it out of its sensitive context and made it into an awful looking sound bite-text on the internet. Wehner (evidently) picked the text up from Right Wing Watch, and as an evangelical flailed away on Dobson (having castigated Mike Huckabee a few days earlier for something similar). Evangelicals read Wehner and pile on.

I do not know any of the parents or the children who lost their lives in Newtown. I have not read Dobson in context. I have not read Wehner’s remarks. I wonder how many parents in the Newtown tragedy are aggressive secularists. Perhaps none, perhaps some. We don’t know. What we do know is that moral law in the human conscience is a reflection of the divine law, having been placed there by God Himself for His glory and for our good. It will help protect even fallen humans if it is not suppressed or destroyed by clever philosophies of wicked and stupid men. The message to any parent these days must be direct and it must be when they are feeling the pain (consequences) of the stupid idea that I can instill morality in adults even though I spent 16 years educating them that evolutionary theory is true and that human behavior is really the product of biological processes in the brain. The more we shout these kind of nonsensical statements in school, on TV, in the media, in the public square, the more we are going to witness these wicked behaviors.

Where are the atheist cowards in times like these? Shouldn’t they spend most of their time teaching humans how not to be so emotionally attached to others so that when things like this happen, it won’t be so painful? Why spend your time attacking religion? If they really want to help the species, then run a campaign now teaching humans how to better manage emotional attachment.

We all know that God is holy and sovereign. The real reason this is such a tragedy and the reason that humans know it is such a tragedy is because God exists and humans are created in His image with value. Life has meaning. Life has dignity. Right and wrong actually do exist. Science and naturalistic philosophy have nothing to say at times like these. But Christianity does. Christians do. And we should be saying a lot about it. We should be giving the gospel, not talking about politics. We should say that you hurt so much when you see tragedies like this because God made life incredibly valuable. We point people to Christ, to the good news, and to a place in eternity when evil will no longer be free to move about as it does today. There is a Redeemer, One who came to rescue us not only from the power of sin, but from its presence as well.