Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Progressive Christians Respond to James Dobson's Inaccurate Statements...

James Dobson is starting to attract attention from normal Christians. Note, I define normal Christians as believer who are not trying to establish a theocracy or legislate what I do in the privacy of my own bedroom.  

WASHINGTON, Nov. 29 /U.S. Newswire/ --James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family, made a number of highly inaccurate statements on matters of faith, sexuality, liberalism and the United States Constitution in on CNN's Larry King Live, November 22, 2006.

The Institute for Progressive Christianity, a think tank comprising mainstream liberal Christians is issuing a correction of Dobson's crackpot assertions.

Source: Progressive Christians Respond to James Dobson's Inaccurate Statements...

Dobson says some dumb things:

KING: If the left gets glee, Doctor, does the right get glee over sexual peccadilloes on the left?

DOBSON: That's very possible. We're all inclined to look at other people. But it's interesting to me that those, again, on the more liberal end of the spectrum are often those who have no value system or at least they say there is no moral and immoral, there is no right or wrong. It's moral relativism.

Now I can say that Dobson is nuts - he cannot possibly thing the people on the other end of the political spectrum are without moral grounding.  When I point this out readers like to point out that I'm an atheist and that I can't possibly know the difference between right and wrong. I don't know where they get this inane bullshit idea from, but the love to send me emails telling me so. For a Christian to tell Dobson he is nuts... well, it takes on a whole new level of meaning (for my readers anyway).

"For James Dobson to claim that liberals do not know the difference between right and wrong is new twist on McCarthyism," said Frank L. Cocozzelli, a director of the Institute. American Liberalism, and particularly religious liberals have long been in the forefront in the battle against the greatest evils of our time, and active proponents for justice in the U.S. and around the world."

To offer but one example, the birthday of the liberal Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King is celebrated as a national holiday because he personified the moral center of the liberal Christian social justice tradition that led the nation to equal rights for African Americans after centuries of slavery and oppression.

"James Dobson's preposterous claim that liberals do not know the difference between right and wrong says much more about James Dobson than it does about liberals," said Stephen Rockwell Director of the Institute for Progressive Christianity.

"Dobson claims to be a follower of Jesus, but his calumny and his reckless coarsening and polarization of public discourse sounds much more like the Pharisees than Jesus Christ. Dobson owes liberals and all Americans a heartfelt and public apology," he said.

I love it - much more like the Pharisees. Yep, that James Dobson.

 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not that I am a Dobson fan but if Bob Dylan said the same thing...that the world is losing a sense of right and wrong due to a lack of connection to Judeo-Christian beliefs would you criticize Dylan. Again when a Christian says liberal they mean a more relativistic world view which by definition is more lax on convictions of right and wrong. Dobson's error is to think of liberalism in political terms or think this line of conservative and liberal translates into political beleifs which is indeed wrong headed.

Mojoey said...

Yes - Of course I would critcize anybody dumb enough to make a blanket statement about half the population of the country.

Dobson has his head up his ass.