On New Year’s Eve 2004, I wrote a letter requesting that Focus on the Family remove my name from their mailing list. Because I had been a pastor at one time, my name had gotten picked up by James Dobson’s organization and over the years I received free issues of their magazine and other mailings. Since I neither paid for them nor read them, I gave them little thought. But one day, after growing unease at lending my name to his data base, I sat down to write the letter.
At first Dr. Dobson and his organization were primarily concerned with family health issues like child rearing and marital relationships. His insightful and practical advice, disseminated through books and a nationally syndicated radio program, won him a large, very devoted audience.
Over the past few years, however, Dobson’s “focus” has become increasingly political and partisan. Using the considerable clout he’s amassed because of his massive constituency, he has unapologetically taken on the role of conservative power broker, weighing in on social issues and at times even muscling congressmen.
In his new book, The Jesus Machine, author Dan Gilgoff argues that Dobson is a political powerhouse precisely because his constituency was built on dispensing no-nonsense family advice to millions of Americans desperate for help, not on any explicit political platform. When he ventures to make political statements, he commands a public trust few policy makers enjoy. This week I happened to catch his interview on Fresh Air with Terry Gross. His analysis of Dobson’s rise as the apostle of the Christian political right is cogent and, I think, quite fair—even for Dobson fans. At the very least, Gilgoff’s book underscores Dobson’s considerable political heft.
As I listened to the interview, I realized once again just how much the Christian message has been submerged into American politics. I was struck by how Golgoff and Gross could talk about Christians without so much as a nod to the Gospel. For them Christianity was no more than a special interest group whose primary expression was a political agenda forwarded over the years by the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, and now by Dobson and his Focus on the Family. If the machinations of the field of 2008 presidential candidates is any indication, the political waters have nearly closed over the head of America’s spiritual hope.
What all this shows me is just how little we American Christians believe in the power of God. We have opted for political power because, deep down and contrary to our creedal protestations, we no longer believe that God will do anything. We no longer really believe in the kingdom of God. We no longer really believe in the Holy Spirit as an active force. We no longer really believe that God will change anything. Our God is an inner comfort, but he is, for all practical and political purposes, dead. We Christians, who once were the hope of our nation, are now merely moral; our apostles, mere politicians.
So here’s the letter to Focus on the Family just as I wrote it over two years ago.
We have received the Focus on the Family magazine for a number of years now, and our children still enjoy recordings of Adventures in Odyssey. However, Dr. Dobson’s recent political positions and strategies have been very distasteful to me and, I think, ultimately hurtful to the cause of Christ in this nation.
Dr. Dobson’s most recent public warning to senators who might oppose President Bush’s judicial nominations has finally moved me to write. He has annexed the saving message of Christianity to a very narrow political agenda and, in the process, brought the way of Christ into disrepute. Contrary to what Dr. Dobson seems to believe, Jesus is not a Republican (but he needn’t overly worry; he’s probably not a Democrat either).
I realize that Dr. Dobson thinks he is championing righteousness, but he seems to have forgotten that we Christians are not supposed to wage war the way the world does. He has traded sacrifice and service for political power. Already nearly all those I talk to about the good news of Jesus assume that I am merely a mouthpiece for a shrill, bigoted special interest group who has nothing to offer but sound, fury—and no little amount of hatred for those not in the club. I notice that I am not alone in my concern. Charles Colson seems troubled by Dr. Dobson’s message these days as well.
I’m under no illusions that my opinion will make much difference there in Colorado Springs. It’s highly unlikely that Dr. Dobson will ever see this letter. But for conscience sake and for the sake of the Gospel, I am compelled to voice my concern.
Please remove us from your mailing list. I’m afraid we are no longer walking the same road.
I received a very gracious letter in return, informing me that Dr. Dobson is doing what he believes is right. They also wanted me to know that it could take a number of weeks before my name would be removed from their list. Apparently it takes time for the machine to accommodate personal requests.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
—Robert Frost
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Good write. More than a couple of times my wife has had endure me turning off the ar radio because I get to irritated listening to the “church” being led into the wrong field of battle. The political position will always keep the evangelical masses in a reactionary, defensive mode rather than the “full on, frontal attack” associated with the “power of proclaimation”, (which most evangelicals seem to be afraid of or to timid to pick up as the weapon of choice). they would tend to believe that sending a letter to a senator via an email is a lot more effective towards changing the course of a nation than say, sharing Christ with someone. We think that by getting the politicians to vote a specific way will some how change things.
“Let your faith rest not upon the wisdom of men, but rather on the power of God (NIV)
Regent College received a phone call from Dobson a couple of years back when some of the theologians were working on some translation issues in the Bible, particularly where gender neutral language had been incorrectly rendered as male. Dobson said their work would destroy the efforts of Focus on the Family and threatened to convince Zondervan as well as some other big publishing houses not to publish the new translation… I have often joked that Dobson is the anti-Christ. Perhaps not appropriate but my irreverant self sometimes gets the better of me.
This was a brilliant post. Thank you. (Most especially for the articulation that Christians no longer truly believe that God does anything.)
Have you read any Jacques Ellul?
Speaking from a human point of view, I do find Jim Dobson a bit scary. He certainly seems to have won over the weak-minded women (2 Tim. 3:6) and their weaker-minded husbands who fear that God isn’t big enough to save us on His own. And, as you expressed, he may well have a form of godliness but by his actions is denying God’s power.
Perhaps. The thing is, I think Dobson may sincerely see it differently. He may see that God has placed him in a position with a voice to speak to the morality of the nation. He may see his political activism not as “waging war against flesh and blood” but as the “works” which prove his “faith.”
And, there’s something to be said for that; the political arena is, and should be, open for Christians. However, as I’ve blogged myself, political clout does not equate to the Kingdom of God. And, Dobson may have the 2 confused.
I’ve not read the late Jacques Ellul, but if Widipedia’s assessment of him as a “Christian anarchist” is somewhat accurate, I bet we could at least have done Starbucks once or twice.
i’d make a recommendation, but i am sure you could find something to meet your broad interests. the online stuff might lead you to believe that his prose is dense… it isn’t. he is highly readable.