Dobson: Political Puppet...

I'm not blind enough to pretend the Democrats don't have their own religious puppets (they just have far fewer than the Republicans) but here is another gross example of religio-political attack dogs imposing a narrow (and uninformed) fundamentalist biblical view - not for the sake of Christ, but for the edification of the GOP.

I'm reminded of Len Sweet saying, "Focus on the Family? Jesus wouldn't 'Focus on the Family.' He told his disciples to die. To leave everything behind. He said, 'If anyone wants to follow me he must hate his father and mother'!"

But what really gets me is that Dr. James Dobson is not a theologian (admitedly, neither am I... only a student and an amateur), he's a family counselor. Focus on the Family ministries has rapidly deteriorated in the last decade, from a merely conservative counseling and family resource ministry, to a hyper-political, pseudo-theological military arm of the Religious Right.

So here's the scoop...

(CNN)— Sen. Barack Obama said Tuesday night evangelical leader James Dobson was “making stuff up,” when he accused the Illinois senator of distorting the Bible and taking a "fruitcake interpretation" of the U.S. Constitution.

“Any notion that I was distorting the Bible in that speech, I think anyone would be hard pressed to make that argument,” Obama told reporters on board his press plane Tuesday night.
Obama's past comments came front and center Tuesday when Dobson criticized the presumptive Democratic nominee’s June 2006 speech on his Focus on the Family radio show.

In the speech, Obama suggested that it would be impractical to govern based solely on the word of the Bible, noting that some passages suggest slavery is permissible and eating shellfish is disgraceful.

"Which passages of scripture should guide our public policy?" Obama asked in the speech. "Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is OK and that eating shellfish is an abomination? Or we could go with Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount — a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application?"
Obama responded Tuesday saying the speech underscored the notion he is a man of faith and highlighted the importance that people like him who find faith important “try to translate our concerns in a universal language so that we can have open and vigorous debate.”

Responding to the comments, Tom Minnery, senior vice president of Focus Action, said "There is no need to 'make stuff up' as it relates to Sen. Obama's interpretation of Scripture and the role of religion in the public square."

"His statements and record make clear his questionable perception of both. To argue that the Sermon on the Mount invalidates the Defense Department — as if Jesus Himself didn't have anything to say about the existence of good and evil and the need to combat evil — is about as deep as anyone needs to go to understand where the senator is coming from," Minnery also said. "He is editing God's word to fit his liberal worldview, and the more exposure his views on these matters get, the more obvious this will become to American Christians."

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