This Dobson Accuses Obama of ‘Distorting’ Bible set of headlines is really one of the sickest flailings yet to emerge from the McCain side of the 2008 Presidential campaign.
In a nutshell, James Dobson, a right wing evangelist who has a huge following and a radio show called Focus on the Family, has said of Obama: “I think he’s deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology,” Dobson went on to say: “He is dragging biblical understanding through the gutter.”
So what did Obama do? He simply raised the very important question about how to interpret the Bible, asking what do we want to take literally and what don’t we. Obama preached tolerance and acceptance of our emerging diversity. He said, “Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers. And 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?”
Obama pointed to passages such as the Sermon on the Mount, and sections of Leviticus that refer to Jewish dietary law and asked questions such as whether we accept the slave-owning laws along with the more relevant laws. It was this attempt by Obama to refer to these different sections that most offended Dobson. Dobson essentially said how dare Obama equate these Old and New Testament portions — hence his “gutter” comment.
I think it’s critical at this juncture that the Obama camp hit back hard at what is clearly the most obvious vulnerability of Dobson’s attack. Namely, Lou Dobson is being anti-Semetic by refusing to include Old testament theology in what he deems are valid biblical sources.
As most of the Muslim world knows, I, Uncle Sam, am somewhat Jewish (that’s part of why I get called the “American Satan”), and so I can assure Mr. Dobson that Jewish dietary laws are neither trivial nor archaic. Whether from that book we call the Tree of Life, also known as the Five Books of Moses, what most would acknowledge is the foundation of the religion we call Christianity, it is absolutely valid to use as examples the Sermon on the Mount and the Hebrew laws of the Kashrut. There is nothing distorted about using not just these two, but any two (or more) biblical passages to learn about what teachings to truly take away from the Bible. Indeed, ancient Talmudic scholars would often debate by sticking a pin through the Bible, and then the Rabbis would discuss all the ways a divine thread links all the verses touched by the pin.
As Jews, we find God himself alive in these simple dietary laws Dobson derides. Indeed, we find Him most alive and exhalted when we carry these laws out. By living God’s law in our daily acts we create heaven on earth.
Mr. Dobson, you can keep telling your followers the lie that all they need to do is believe to be saved. The rest of us will continue our focus on the day-to-day things we can do to make a Godly world a reality here on earth. And I think we’re in increasing agreement that one of those things is to come together to elect Barack Obama President of the United States.
