Selective Myopia: James Dobson decries "utter evil" Congress

I still can't believe that I almost went to work for this guy...

James Dobson of Focus on the Family is telling his radio listeners that there is now "utter evil" coming out of Congress. What scares Dobson, he claims, is so-called "hate crimes" legislation: the proponents of which want tougher penalties for those convicted of criminal acts committed against others because of "sexual orientation".

Now folks, I'm against "hate crimes" legislation myself. Because in my mind there is no such thing as a "hate" crime. Does the motive honestly matter why somebody chooses to hurt another, if the end result is the same as any other circumstance? I have as much sympathy for a victim of a criminal act as I will for any other... but I'm not gonna consider one victim to be any more "special" than someone else because of alleged precipitating criteria. So as far as that goes, I will say that I have to agree with Dobson.

Where I can not agree with him however, is what is very apparently his underlying motivation for saying such a thing. Indeed, there is little doubting the motivation for much of Focus on the Family's "ministry"...

"I want to tell our listeners something has come up that is so shocking and so outrageous, we must make our friends out there aware of it," he said on his daily radio program.

"I'm going to speak very bluntly today because there's no other word for it: the utter evil that's coming out of Congress," he said. "I've been on the air 32 years and I've never seen a time quite like this.

"The radical left controls the executive branch through the president, and the Congress where the Democrats have control of both the House and the Senate," he said, adding the courts are expected to move even further to the left."

Anytime I hear phrases like "radical left" or "far right", those pop a honkin' big red flag in my head... 'cuz such words scream what this is all about. And his very tired hyperbole like "so shocking and so outrageous" isn't working in Dobson's favor either.

James Dobson is primarily interested in "his side" regaining political control of Congress and the White House.

Except James Dobson apparently fails to realize that "his side" had both for most of the past decade, and accomplished... what, exactly, in that time?

Professing Christians in America like James Dobson still believe - and very foolishly, I will add - that this country can be saved through politics.

They are so much more wrong about that, than I can possibly put into words.

These people have become blinded by might. They have placed more faith in their own understanding than they have placed in the Christ whom they claim to follow.

And as I have said before: people like James Dobson have no sincere interest at all in issues like "gay marriage" and abortion being defeated and going away. Opposition to them brings in a huge amount of money to organizations like Focus on the Family. Why else did the Republicans never make any serious attempt to pass an amendment to the Constitution protecting "traditional marriage" when they controlled Congress? Because so long as they can keep promising to oppose it, there'll always be plenty of well-meaning rubes gullible enough to keep voting for them.

This is all a game, folks. The politicians in both major parties have been playing us like pieces for too damned long. And people like James Dobson and too #@*&-ing many others don't care one whit about what is right: they just want to have a seat at "the king's table".

So if we can't put our faith in politics, what do we put our faith in, then?

Maybe... God?

And not the "God" that people like Dobson would have us believe has decreed that "Thou shalt not vote against any Republican", either.

I mean a serious and sincere turning away from what we want: rejecting any desire for worldly power, and heartfelt repenting of ever having lusted for such a thing.

If there is evil at work in the land, it is because we - all of us, including the professing "conservatives" and "Republicans" - let it happen by trusting in ourselves more than we trusted in God.

Yes, this demands that thing called "humility" which has become inordinately out of fashion among too many of those who claim to follow Christ. But that is what it is going to require.

And until I hear a call for that coming out of the mouth of James Dobson, I see no reason why any of us should consider him to be a real "Christian leader" at all.

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Dobson should "Focus on the Finances" instead!

Focus on the Family is going broke. The ministry ummm... "organization" is being forced to lay off 202 employees, supposedly after campaigning for Proposition 8 (the "gay marriage" ban) in California cleansed its coffers of over half a million dollars. It still has 950 employees though.

(What does any outfit like Focus on the Family need with more than a thousand employees?! I know of a few others who get by with much less overhead.)

Maybe if Focus on the Family was more responsible with its own house, it might have some legitimate clout. That's been pissed-away though, and a lot of it has to do with silly stunts like "boycotting" businesses that don't use the word "Christmas" enough (read Kevin Bussey's thoughts on that, which I agree with him on most things anyway but on this point I especially have to concur.)

I've written about it before here and I'll do it again: I once came very close to going to work for James Dobson at Focus on the Family. It was a long time ago. Now I thank God that He didn't send me off to Colorado to be an employee of that shyster. Focus on the Family has completely lost sight of the things that are supposed to matter most to us as followers of Christ. Dobson? He's prostituted his principles and sold out the soul of his ministry (if not his own as well) to "sit at the king's table" and hope for a little shred of worldly power. Don't believe me? That fool Dobson doesn't have vision enough to see past his fixation with the Republican Party (yeah I called him a "fool": deal with it) and "winning elections", each one he cries out is "historic" and "too important for Christians to miss out on".

Dobson and Focus on the Family are as much part of the problem with this country as an out-of-control Congress and President Bush wasting our money, an incoming President-Elect who is going to be just as bad, and the whole damn complacent "media" that lets them get away with it. I've no sympathy for Dobson or Focus on the Family and if they go down in flames, so much better for the people in this country who are sincerely following after Christ for the right reasons.

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Cal Thomas sez: The Religious Right is dead (AMEN to that!)

A few days ago on this blog I wrote about how conservative Christians bore much of the blame for the election of Barack Obama. That they had let their pursuit of power blind them so much that they failed to see Christ and what He stood for anymore.

And now, writing in Jewish World Review (a very good publication, I might add), Cal Thomas doesn't just echo those same sentiments, he articulates them far better than I could.

From his essay "The Religious Right, R.I.P."...

Thirty years of trying to use government to stop abortion, preserve opposite-sex marriage, improve television and movie content and transform culture into the conservative Evangelical image has failed. The question now becomes: should conservative Christians redouble their efforts, contributing more millions to radio and TV preachers and activists, or would they be wise to try something else?

I opt for trying something else...

Too many conservative Evangelicals have put too much faith in the power of government to transform culture. The futility inherent in such misplaced faith can be demonstrated by asking these activists a simple question: Does the secular left, when it holds power, persuade conservatives to live by their standards? Of course they do not. Why, then, would conservative Evangelicals expect people who do not share their worldview and view of God to accept their beliefs when they control government?

The essence of Thomas's piece is of such brilliance, that I sincerely believe that every self-declared "evangelical"/"conservative" church in America would do well to read it from the pulpit... and take his wisdom to heart. Click here to read the rest of his column.

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Obama won... because conservative Christians prostituted their principles

I originally had much more to say about this, but I'm going to dispense with the flowery rhetoric and cut to the heart of the matter...

The so-called "evangelical conservative Christians" had damned well better look in a mirror if they want to see who is most responsible for Barack Obama winning the race for President on Tuesday.

And now there is no reason to be angry, and no rationale for "blaming God" for Obama's victory, as I have seen too many Christians seriously doing. God had nothing to do with Obama winning. If anything, He let the people of America have what they wanted... and He absolutely played fair with many of those who profess Him as Lord.

"Christian conservatives" paved the way to Obama's historic win because they sold out their values for sake of worldly power.

People like James Dobson and the Focus on the Family crowd: they are the some of the ones most at fault. So too are many of the "preachers" that I have read and found myself listening to on the radio (like WPIP and Ron Baity of Berean Baptist Church out of Winston-Salem). They decided long ago that reaching the lost of this world wasn't their biggest priority. Instead they wanted to "sit at the king's table". Websites like Free Republic (yeah I'm looking at you Jim Robinson, ya first-order hypocrite) became too fixated on obtaining power. They lusted for the power they thought they could have so much, that they didn't bother to ask themselves if they should have had it to begin with. And still others, like Presidential Prayer Team, turned the office of President into a high priesthood of material might: something that would have horrified the Founding Fathers. So it is that in the past eight years George W. Bush - a man of weak character and no sincere Christ-like qualities - became such a paragon of virtue that it became on par with blasphemy to object to his "wisdom".

These and many others became so obsessed with destroying the enemy (like "liberals") that they became the enemy.

They rejected the God of Heaven and instead chose to worship a god of fortresses. They, quite honestly, chose the god of this world and what he was offering them.

They chose against putting their faith in the God of Jesus Christ.

That's not to make a judgment against Obama's spiritual condition at all. But because of the spiritual condition of many of his enemies, Barack Obama is now going to be their President.

They brought this on themselves. And if they have any shred of conscience, the self-proclaimed "Christian leaders" like James Dobson and Pat Roberton and their ilk will stop looking for excuses and already trying to regain power in 2012, and turn their own hearts toward repentance instead. Not for sake of temporal advantage, but purely because they desire God's will... without trying to bend Him to their wishes.

Pastor Chuck Baldwin also has similar sentiments about his fellow Christians...

Across the country, rather than stand on principle, hundreds of thousands of pastors, Christians, and pro-life conservatives capitulated and groveled before John McCain's neocon agenda. In doing so, they forfeited any claim to truth, and they abandoned any and all fidelity to constitutional government. They should rip the stories of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego out of their Bibles. They should never again tell their children, parishioners, and radio audiences the importance of standing for truth and principle. They have made a mockery of Christian virtue. No wonder a majority of the voting electorate laughs at us Christians. No wonder the GOP crashed and burned last Tuesday.

Again, it wasn't Barack Obama who destroyed conservatism; it was George W. Bush, John McCain, and the millions of evangelical Christians who supported them. And until conservatives find their backbone and their convictions, they deserve to remain a burnt-out, has-been political force. They have no one to blame but themselves.

Click here for more of Baldwin's thoughts.

I have said it many times over the past several months: there is no faith to be had in politics. The Christians of this land would do well to understand that, if they want there to be anything of America at all to bestow to their children.

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God and politics and nature

I'll admit, it's so ironic you have to wonder if there's some karma at work here.

A few weeks ago one of James Dobson's cronies made a video and posted it on the Focus on the Family website. In the clip Stuart Shepard, who does a lot of multimedia production for the "ministry", asks Christians to pray for "abundant rain, torrential rain... flood-advisory rain" in the Denver area on the night of Barack Obama's open-air acceptance speech at the Democrat National Convention.

Here's Shepard's video, which he claimed was done for humor (but I can't find anything funny about it at all)...

As anyone who caught his speech will know, Obama enjoyed terrific weather for his address, which aired to what some are saying is one of the record highs for political speeches before a televised audience.

But if Shepard's cry to Heaven was echoed by his fellow evangelicals, they're about to get an answer. Maybe not just the way they'd wanted. With Hurricane Gustav now threatening to wreck more havoc on New Orleans than Katrina did (if that's even conceivable) in 2005, the Republicans are being ominously overshadowed for their own convention by the forces of nature. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have canceled plans to speak there (one Republican friend has told me that a lot in his party are considering this to be a good thing) and now there's mention that John McCain himself may not show up, instead delivering his acceptance via satellite.

(Incidentally, McCain and Sarah Palin have already announced that they're going to be visiting the area that's being threatened by Gustav. Obama is supposedly going there too. I wish they would all steer clear of the place. Those people have enough to worry about right now than to also have some politicians coming in for a photo op, with all the logistics of personnel and security that it entails.)

I've no doubt that many professing evangelicals took Shepard at his word and prayed for rain on the Democrats: a few even told me that they did. What then do we make of Gustav and now Hanna, which one Democrat official and filmmaker Michael Moore are now gloating are proof that God favors the Democrats?

They're wrong. All of them. "Conservative Christians" like Stuart Shepard and "liberal Democrats" like Michael Moore, they are equally in grave error so far as God and politics goes.

God is no more a Republican than He is a Democrat. Things like temporal politics don't interest Him. Yes, we are told many times in scripture that He causes nations to rise and then collapse, and that He brings up rulers and brings them down again. But nowhere are we told that He ever has grace for one political faction and contempt for another concerning their vying for control of a country.

Here's how it is, folks: God doesn't answer our prayers for "divine intervention" against our political enemies. Especially not here in America. And it does no good to pray regarding the outcome of an election, either. Praying about an election violates everything that we know about how God grants us free will in whether or not we choose to follow Him. He can't make us want to seek after Him: we have to want that on our own. So how can He ever make someone else's mind be swayed to our own political proclivity?

Or maybe He does answer those prayers, just as He's now apparently answering the one that many Christians had for rain during a political convention. I am now hearing many among the evangelicals declare that Sarah Palin is a "gift from God". But if that is the case, then the same people had better be prepared to accept that all the damage that George W. Bush has done to this country is also God's will, since they were just as quick to claim that Bush was "anointed", and they darned well were praying for him to get a second term.

Perhaps these same Christians would do better to heed the words of Proverbs 3:5, where we are taught to "Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding." Our ways are not His ways, and we tempt disaster to suggest that they are.

And so far as the weather is concerned...

"...for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."

-- Matthew 5:45

America is in a lot of trouble, and it's time for the Christians of this land to own up to their responsibility in the mess. We have assumed wisdom, when we should have come to God broken and willing to admit that we don't have wisdom at all on our own. We have sinned in our pride, and if Gustav and now Hanna might be the result of appealing to Heaven, I cannot but now believe that it is because God is trying to humble this nation. If we are smart, we will recognize that now is not the time to turn that opportunity into an occasion for arrogance.

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Christian "leaders" considering third-party for President

According to The New York Times:

Alarmed at the chance that the Republican party might pick Rudolph Giuliani as its presidential nominee despite his support for abortion rights, a coalition of influential Christian conservatives is threatening to back a third-party candidate in an attempt to stop him.

The group making the threat, which came together Saturday in Salt Lake City during a break-away gathering during a meeting of the secretive Council for National Policy, includes Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family, who is perhaps the most influential of the group, as well as Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, the direct mail pioneer Richard Viguerie and dozens of other politically-oriented conservative Christians, participants said. Almost everyone present expressed support for a written resolution that "if the Republican Party nominates a pro-abortion candidate we will consider running a third party candidate."

After reading the story, I had the following thoughts...

1. Why are these people considered to be "Christian leaders"? I sure as hell don't follow them. I don't see why any other Christian should be beholden to them, either.

2. There is a candidate for President running on the Republican ticket who is everything that so-called "Christian conservatives" have always claimed to have wanted in a candidate: Ron Paul. None of these "leaders" however, to the best of my knowledge, has ever come out and said that they support Dr. Paul.

3. These Christians should not be looking toward supporting a third party... because these Christians should have never stood behind any political party to begin with, at all. To follow Christ means to defy the patterns of this world, and not adhere to them at the cost of Christ-like principles and character. Do I believe that Christians in America should be politically active? Yes. But only so far as individual candidates go. Hitching our wagon onto the Republican party has led Christianity in this country toward disaster time after time. As it is, it's not enough to talk about going with a "third party": if these "Christian authorities" are going to show serious leadership, then they are going to have to advocate that this country's Christians break away from the party structure and process completely. It must be an absolute divorce, with no turning back as Lot's wife did at Sodom.

4. The previous observations, sadly, can only lead me once again to believe that too many Christians in this country are more fixated on acquiring worldly power than they are with seeking out Christ and serving Him with due humility.

5. It is our failure to do that which is destroying America. Yes, I blame the Christians in America for that. Because we have chosen not to be the salt of the earth any longer.

6. Being that the previous point demonstrates a monstrous lack of skills contributing to criminal negligence in the spiritual sense, I propose that we, the followers of Christ in these United States, kick Dobson, Perkins, and other self-proclaimed "leaders" to the curb. We should then proceed to find and install new "leaders" if we are to insist on having them. Because the current management is, to put it mildly, screwed beyond all hope.

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E-mail sez TRANSFORMERS has morphed me into Satan's agent

A lady named Shirley Skidmore, who is apparently from somewhere in east Texas, sent me the following e-mail. This must be in reference to my recent post about Focus on the Family disapproving of Transformers. Here's Shirley's letter...

Subject: What Are You Transformed By?

Chris, Chris, Chris!

You have to be dead to the things of Christ to approve of this filtly liscensious movie. The teen starlet was dressed as a whore . Every move, every direction, every word on her account was conformed to the gutteral nature of a Godless culture. You areyond believabilty to deny that lust was the drawing card for much of the film. Pornographic techniques were used to the max here. The lanquage in both subject and vanacular was Godless. It transformed eveyone who watched it to a place farther from Christ's standard.

Only blind and naked Christians could possibly support this film . It was a shame to see such a great idea waisted in the dump of filth that it was wrapped around. If you made such a film and showed to your neighborhood children, you would be arrested for child sexual abuse.

Hollywood usesthe law to corporately produce and legally protect artistic work that we know is wrong on every level.

You are still very much a babe in Christ, if you really believe that scripturally this film can past muster. It just can't be done. I come from a family who really love action films and this clearly shamelessly crossed the line of acceptable for those claiming the name of Christ. Take some time to examine if you in fact have been transformed by the world or by the renewing of your mind to things of God.

I am strong believer too. And the more I grow , the more the Lord reveals of His wisdom and the foolish deciept of the world's. This film harms children by exposing them to sexual content in the light of entertainment, writen from a Godless point of view. As far back as the Old Testiment, believers are told to guard our children's hearts. I would guess you have no children, because before I did, I rationalized much like you do. There is no way I could see the real harm until the Lord gave me a life to hand back to Him. I want to be very careful in the servant I raise for His glory.

Blessings,
Shirley

This is one of the most ridiculous things to have ever landed in my in-box... and I was the one who possibly most took the brunt of the silly season that happened during the 'N Sync/Attack of the Clones fiasco, mind ya.

Shirley's letter is rife with the kind of hysteria that Christians are known way too much for. It's the kind of spiritual mentality that supposes that we are to cower in fear of this world. As if it has power over us that we cannot resist.

That's a pretty sad way to cheapen the power of Christ within us, if you ask me.

Here's what I want to know: Did Shirley actually watch Transformers on her own? Or is she only relying on what Focus on the Family and others have told her to think and believe about Transformers? Because unless Frenzy transformed into a vibrator and we missed it, I didn't see anything that qualifies Transformers as "pornographic".

I watched Transformers with two of the people who are closest to me: my wife, and one of my best friends of almost thirty years. However shallow Shirley believes my own spirit is, I can vouch that each of these two have a very deep and profound faith in God. And I can't speak for them, but I do know that they have high standards and that if Transformers was anything remotely like what Shirley is describing here, I believe without a doubt that they would have walked out of the theater. As it so happened, when we left the theater after watching Transformers (read my review here) we were talking about how terrific the effects were and how great it was to finally see a live-action Transformers movie: something Chad and I as kids used to dream of seeing one day.

The charge that Megan Fox's character was "being dressed as" and acted like "a whore" is, not to put too fine a point on it, loony. As for "pornographic techniques were used to the max here" goes: did we get to see Starscream being "serviced" by a Boeing 777? Did Ironhide have a leather-clad dominatrix beating his steering wheel with a whip to "drive faster, drive FASTER!"?

No, we didn't. We saw giant robots hashing it out and beating the snot out of each other. That's what most of us were looking at the screen to see, and not some slight against morality that may or may not even really be there.

All my life, I've seen some Christians act like this. There is a certain variety of my creed that is not happy unless there is some "evil" in the world that must be demonized and stamped-out. Anyone remember the original Dungeons & Dragons game? I actually played that some when I was younger. That was at the same time that some Christians were declaring it to be "Satan's game". Then years after that it was the card game Magic: The Gathering that was "evil". Not long after that it was Pokemon that was the bugaboo to be avoided.

And I can't imagine these same Christians doing anything but salivating at the prospects that are coming with the release of the final Harry Potter novel this week. For ten years now, Harry Potter has been these Christians' favorite whipping-boy. They're actually secretly happy that there is something like Harry Potter out there, that gives them the opportunity to show off how much they can hate something. Trust me: they aren't going to let this final opportunity simply go by without raising a fuss of some kind or another.

And really, that's what all of this is about. This is how groups like Focus on the Family stay so powerful: because they're adept at playing on how eager most people are to hate something, anything, and exploiting that for gain. It's the Two-Minutes Hate from George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four put into active practice. It's only been recently that I've realized how often that process is used in real life. It's quite scary when you think about it, about how easily we let others manipulate our emotions so that we are turned into something pliable for their own means.

If this bothers Shirley Skidmore so much, then I would suggest that she spend more time studying the Bible for her own spiritual edification, instead of trying to tear down others who are stronger than her in the faith. That some of us have already moved on to meat while she's too timid to try anything but milk shouldn't be cause for jealousy among fellow believers.

Other than the use of that one word, there wasn't anything about Transformers that I would be intimidated against watching with an appropriately-aged child. And if he or she asked questions, I wouldn't shy away from talking about what that word means, either. That's what parents are supposed to do with their children, isn't it? It's what they do when they love and care for their children... or I thought so, anyway. We can't be a shield for them against the world for every moment of their young lives, but we can do our darndest to give them the wisdom and insight that they will need to confront it, so that they might change it and it not change them.

And so far as this goes...

"If you made such a film and showed to your neighborhood children, you would be arrested for child sexual abuse"

I've probably spent more than enough time than a person who would make such a statement deserves.

I've seen Transformers twice now, have examined it with the conscience that God gave me, and have yet to find anything about it that would present a threat against that conscience. If some people fear it would be a bane to their spirituality, then they should avoid it if they feel led to do so. But I still like it and I'm going to keep recommending it to others. I hope to see it at least once more in the theaters. When the DVD comes out I will gladly add it to my collection.

And if Shirley Skidmore thinks she can make a better movie, then as a film-maker myself, I gladly invite her to do so. In the meantime, she and other Christians with this mindset should do the rest of us a favor and stop making our faith come across as one full of nothing but busybodies looking for hobgoblins.

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Focus on the Family doesn't like TRANSFORMERS

I've mentioned this once or twice before on this blog. I'll do it again right now: I almost went to work for Focus on the Family.

It was several years ago. And I was a Christian still young in the faith, full of "spice and vinegar" as they say and eager to use whatever talents I have for the service of the Lord.

My my my, the myriad of ways in which we spiritually grow.

People who know me have said that my faith has come a very, very long way. But along the journey I've become a lot more disillusioned with many of the things that we perceive as "properly Christian". If we are going to follow Christ, then let us follow Christ for His sake, and not because we want a measure of political power out of the deal.

The Chris Knight of 1999 would have gladly gone to work at Focus on the Family. But the Christopher Knight of 2007 is a whole different person: one who thinks that Focus on the Family is so big a bunch of hypocrites, that real service for the Lord might be to march to Colorado Springs, set their compound ablaze and sow the ground with salt so that nothing will ever arise from the site again.

This is the kind of Christian you are dealing with here: if we call ourselves Christians, then we'd darn well better be legitimate about it. I don't take kindly to people trying to exploit the faith for their own gain.

(Don't even get me started with those loons who want to ban Harry Potter books. I'm just waiting for the right time to go unload on them.)

Well, lo and behold Focus on the Family is weighing in on Transformers via its Plugged In magazine. And I'm hearing that some parents are banning their kids from seeing the movie just on Focus on the Family's say-so. What's their beef? Among other things...

The President of the United States is depicted in a somewhat demeaning light as he asks a flight attendant, "Could you wrangle up some ding-dongs, darlin'?" In fact, many authority figures are stereotypically portrayed as either incompetent or belligerent. A policeman interrogating Sam sees the youth look at his gun and says, "You eyeballing my piece? Go for it. I will bust you up!" And a government agent holds his badge up to Sam and Mikaela, saying, "This is my do-whatever-I-like-and-get-away-with-it badge."

I must admit, the "masturbating" thing was very... inappropriate for this kind of movie. But that's about the only thing that really bothers me about Transformers. There is much more positive that outweighs the good in this movie. I thought it actually had a pretty strong pro-life message, believe it or not. I also thought that it was a movie that preached a great work ethic, and having some pride in your family's heritage. And there was a wonderful bit about the concept of self-sacrifice, that could even be called Christ-like.

But the people at Focus on the Family aren't willing to see the forest for a few pieces of rotting timber. Just another case of "we can't trust people to think for themselves so we'll think for them... in the name of Our Lord and Savior", my friends.

If you want to see another Christian's take on this movie, click here for my review of Transformers. In the meantime, don't deny yourself the enjoyment of this movie just because some starch-shirts whose sincerest prayers don't go further than for a Republican to be elected to the White House in 2008 tell you that you don't need to see this movie. See it for yourself, and if you think your kids can take it, let them see it to if they wanna.

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From the "Ape Has Killed Ape!" file...

James Dobson is saying that possible presidential candidate Fred Thompson is not a Christian:

Focus on the Family founder James Dobson appeared to throw cold water on a possible presidential bid by former Sen. Fred Thompson while praising former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is also weighing a presidential run, in a phone interview Tuesday.

"Everyone knows he's conservative and has come out strongly for the things that the pro-family movement stands for," Dobson said of Thompson. "[But] I don't think he's a Christian; at least that's my impression," Dobson added, saying that such an impression would make it difficult for Thompson to connect with the Republican Party's conservative Christian base and win the GOP nomination.

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Thompson, took issue with Dobson's characterization of the former Tennessee senator. "Thompson is indeed a Christian," he said. "He was baptized into the Church of Christ."

In a follow-up phone conversation, Focus on the Family spokesman Gary Schneeberger stood by Dobson's claim. He said that, while Dobson didn't believe Thompson to be a member of a non-Christian faith, Dobson nevertheless "has never known Thompson to be a committed Christian—someone who talks openly about his faith."

I've alluded to this before here, and I'll say it again: I'm damn thankful that I didn't wind up working at Focus on the Family a few years ago. It's true: I almost wound up in James Dobson's camp. But the Lord was gracious and started opening my eyes to a lot of things that are being done in His name... but are only about getting earthly power.

James Dobson is one of the worst offenders when it comes to "pimpin' Jesus for votes".

Well, turnaround is fair play I guess. So... I don't believe that James Dobson is a real Christian. George W. Bush has never acted like a real Christian at all. Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell couldn't care less whether a soul is saved through their "ministries", just that their faithful all vote straight Republican.

There aren't that many real Christians in positions of authority in this country anymore. Ron Paul comes to mind as one of them. But he's one of a very few.

The time is coming, my friend, when we who are Christians are going to have to make a choice: seek the kingdom of God, or seek the influence of power. I don't think we're testing the spirits as much as we should be when it comes to figuring out if these "Christian leaders" are the men of God they profess to be...

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