Fewer Broken Pieces

Dobson on Obama:

“I think he’s deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own world view, his own confused theology,” Dobson said, adding that Obama is “dragging biblical understanding through the gutter.”

Dobson’s spokesman added:

“Evangelicals are people who take Bible interpretation very seriously, and the sort of speech he gave shows that [Obama] is worlds away in the views of evangelicals,” he said.

So, apparently Obama said something outrageous about the Bible, right?  Well, here is what CNN says:

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.

Emphasis mine.  Obama makes a statement about the Bible being an insufficient metric for governing the US and cites some Old Testament laws as an example.  Then Dobson says Obama’s theology is bad because everyone knows that Christians are not responsible for the whole Old Testament.  One man talks about the application of the Bible in politics, the other about the Old Testament’s relevance in Christian theology and practice.  Here we have a manufactured controversy.

I highly doubt that Dobson really thinks that the Bible as a whole, if interpreted properly, can be a sole foundation for government.  Perhaps he does.  Indeed, there are aspects of the Old Testament which are the foundation of a nation.  But as Obama and Dobson note, these are largely no longer applicable.  And the idea of the New Testament as a manual for sound governance is more than a little bizarre to me.

Since I doubt Dobson really holds the opposite view of Obama, I think that he simply seized on some statements which can be construed as non-evangelical to fill the airwaves.  That makes sense to me.  Scandal increases ratings and ratings increase ad revenue.

And here is one last gem from the article:

In the speech, Obama said, “Even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson’s or Al Sharpton’s?”

In response, Minnery said, “Many people have called [Sharpton] a black racist, and [Obama] is somehow equating [Dobson] with that and racial bigotry.”

No, Obama is pointing out that Christianity is not a monolith, even in the American Protestant tradition.  He is not calling Dobson racist.  I think Minnery here invented some sort of new logical fallacy.

What I would like to see in this situation is reconciliation.

I think I have a new, full-orbed political theology thanks to Switchfoot:

I pledge allegiance to a country without borders
Without politicians
I am broken, I am bitter
I’m the problem, I’m the politician