That’s the Pope. That’s different. I’m talking about so-called Christian leaders.

Where do you all stand on the whole Mac vs. PC thing?

Vinnie on March 31, 2007 at 6:38 PM

Just had to bring the discussion back on-topic didn’t you :-)

My vote: In favor of Big Macs (can’t do without the special sauce) and can’t abide political correctness in any form…

Though I’m admittedly not sophisticated enough to appreciate the same level of nuance as Bryan, I believe him and trust his judgment. To someone attuned to the nuts and bolts of institutionalized evangelical Christianity, there are probably enough ways in which the two (it vs. AFL-CIO) differ to make an apples-to-apples comparison seem foolish if not outright dishonest.

But regardless, Allah’s main point still stands: the context of Dobson’s comments transformed them from honest opinion into both political speech and a veiled threat. How many evangelicals had formed an initial opinion of Fred Thompson’s Christianity, unfavorable or otherwise, until Dr. D opened his mouth?

You don’t understand how Christian leadership works or where its limits are. Union bosses can strongarm union members in a variety of ways that are not available to Christian leaders. And I hasten to add, nor should they be available to Christian leaders. Or union bosses, for that matter.

Bryan on March 31, 2007 at 1:18 PM

I disagree with this observation in regards to the churches (and do agree about unions) because it is kind of an apples and oranges comparison. Ministers and congregations have an enormous influence in the local communities, but not in the same manner as unions. It definitely can extend to local politics as to who is supported or into the local schools in regards to which kids get “special treatment” status, scholarships and the like.
Living in the south for much of my life has shown me this from the Baptist church in particular. Having your kids told “they are going to hell” by classmates because they are not of the same faith is strong arming of the unkindest type and is apparently tacitly condoned by all levels of the church leadership. I lived in the midwest for a number of years and this type of thing NEVER happened.
Go back in history and view the church stance on segregation and slavery in this country and it is easy to understand why it took a civil war plus another 100 years to change that mindset.

I am not attacking your personal beliefs but I do believe that the church has strayed very far from what I personally think Christ’s view of what role the church should play. It is not the faith or message that is bad or flawed, but rather the implementation of it by humans.

Now, how about some news about what the World Council of Churches (an organization supported by most of the prominent non-evangelical churches) has been up to lately, not to mention the last several decades.

Where do you all stand on the whole Mac vs. PC thing?

Vinnie

I think the PC is more evangelical, according to their spokesman anyway.

This is really disappointing. When is an apology not really an apology? Well, when it says stuff like this:In conclusion, we would caution friends of our ministry not to believe what they read about Dr. Dobson in the secular media……

(And I see Wytammic is still spouting nonsense about people of whom she obviously knows absolutely nothing! LOL!)

/more Jesus, less Dobson pls

I love the whole idea that if you say something remotely critical about James Dobson, even if it’s about something that he or his spokesman actually said, there are people that are willing to challenge you to duel over his honor.

That’s the problem I still have with this. Either the first spokesman was off the reservation, which has not been alleged, or the spokesman correctly understood what Dobson was saying, reiterated those remarks and is now being contradicted because there was such a firestorm.

ReubenJCogburn on March 31, 2007 at 5:33 PM

I think what bothered some people about the criticism of Dobson was not so much the criticism about what he said but some people calling him a**hole etc. in the other thread….or maybe I am wrong…would not be the first time.

In a follow-up phone conversation, Focus on the Family spokesman Gary Schneeberger stood by Dobson’s claim. He said that, while Dobson didn’t believe Thompson to be a member of a non-Christian faith, Dobson nevertheless “has never known Thompson to be a committed Christian—someone who talks openly about his faith.”

“We use that word—Christian—to refer to people who are evangelical Christians,” Schneeberger added. “Dr. Dobson wasn’t expressing a personal opinion about his reaction to a Thompson candidacy; he was trying to ‘read the tea leaves’ about such a possibility.”

–don’t be surprised if some of us have the audacity to call them on it.

I love the whole idea that if you say something remotely critical about James Dobson, even if it’s about something that he or his spokesman actually said, there are people that are willing to challenge you to duel over his honor. (Note to literalists: I was speaking figuratively about the duel part.) I just love that. News flash, folks: he’s a man. Not God, not even a saint. A man. A man who has accomplished good things in his life, and who I believe is a good person at heart. But he’s flesh and blood just like the rest of us, which means that he can make mistakes. So anybody that expects me to kiss James Dobson’s ring or his ass–or anybody else’s for that matter–is doomed to a life of disappointment. Nobody that steps into the public arena gets a free pass, and anybody that can’t wrap their brain around that concept needs to find a nice comfy echo chamber to hide from the world in.

Do you think that maybe, just maybe, people don’t like having their religion questioned and marginalized by people who don’t know the first thing about them? Can you not see how grating that would be? You were very defensive about our comments about Dobson, and you struck back to defend him…well face it, he struck out at all non-evangelicals first with a bold swipe at Thompson.

Yes, perhaps you don’t like having the people you identify with ridiculed or scorned because of their religious beliefs. Well, duh…neither do we. Dobson’s comments, both as directly quoted and as explained by his several spokespeople, are indefensible to anyone but a fellow evangelical. News flash…he wasn’t at his pulpit or whatever he uses, he was talking publicly and he got no less than a public reaction.

Now if you want to go all Somali taxi driver on us and say that we can’t expect you or Dobson to have a public way of doing things when dealing with people who don’t believe the same way you do, that’s fine…just expect the same reaction that they got.

As someone mentioned before, go take a look around the Conservative blogosphere. Take a look at FR, Dobson’s remarks weren’t received well.

I think Dobson is being too coy in this case. He’s a political operator offering an opinion to a weekly news mag. You can’t do that an then claim it was a “personal” statement in my opinion. If you were overheard whispering something to your mom, maybe. When you talk to Dan Gilgoff, sorry that’s different.

Maybe I read you both wrong, but it sounded like Allah and Bryan were both suggesting that it would be wrong for Dobson to make a judgment about the Christian conviction of a candidate. I’m not sure I see the problem with that.

Last election we had Kerry and Dean talking about their faith. It was pretty clear, to me anyway, that there wasn’t a great deal of sincerity there, especially in Dean’s case. Even in Kerry’s case, I felt the Catholic church (I’m not Catholic btw) was onto something when they suggested that politicians that publicly bill themselves as Catholics need to actually hold to some significant portion of what the church stands for. Sort of an Ambrose and Theodosius moment, in my view.

Hillary has hired a high-profile faith consultant (Burns) to help her burnish her “faith image” in ’08. Now it may well be that Hillary is a Baptist preacher under the skin. David Kuo seems to think so, but having watcher her since ’92, forgive me for being a bit skeptical. Ditto for Bill, who carries a big Bible for the Sunday morning cameras and then heads to the golf course to “talk p*ssy” with Vernon Jordan. We have RINOs and we also have CINOs on the political stage. Christians should be allowed to be just as skeptical of faith claims made by politicians as atheists. More so really, since we think this really matters.

But I do agree with Bryan that Christians regularly get shafted by the media in interviews and profiles, especially when it involves social issues the left holds dear. Sure, sometimes they bring it on themselves (Robertson) but just as often they are targeted by hostile interviewers masquerading as unbiased reporters. I have a blog full of examples of this sort of thing.

Bryan at Hot Air reports that James Dobson’s comments on Fred Thompson’s religion were mischaracterized by the media: “In his conversation with Mr. Gilgoff, Dr. Dobson was attempting to highlight that to the best of his knowledge, Sen. Thompson hadn…

The few times I’ve seen Mr. Dobson in itnerviews he left the impression of a good-natured/benevolent/well-intended man. This kerfuffle is of his and his spokesman’s own doing, and the media’s usual shenanigans.

AP reported, then adjusted; here Bryan reported the latest adjustment, all in good faith and with accurate backing.

The entire ‘issue’ is really a non-issue – completely irrelevant.

however, if Rudy does win the Republican ticket, he’ll win the democrat vote, because he basically is one.

wytammic on March 31, 2007 at 2:31 PM

I’m for Fred! if he runs, and I believe he will. Once the wife is for it…well, it’s almost sure. The left is very nervous about it – I tested it in the last 2 weeks, repeatedly.

However, if he doesn’t run, nothing would scare the terrorists more than having the New York Mayor of 9/11/01 be the U.S. President. This is extremely powerful and the lefties and independents know it too. All other isn’t that important, comparatively.

You sound like an expert at sophism. The subject of this post is James Dobson and Fred Thompson, and Dobson’s questioning whether Thompson is a “Christian.”

You’re the one who put up the false dichotomy about either following a religion with absolute truth or being an absolute relativist, not me. If you can’t handle having your words handed back to you, don’t participate.

The MSM gets very few things right, and treats very few subjects fairly. Christian groups and leaders are perennial MSM targets, usually getting either an anthropological treatment a la the NYT or getting treatment that is outright dishonest and hostile. Treat every MSM report on both with the same skepticism that you treat MSM reports on war and politics, and expect that there is another side to the story that the MSM is leaving out. That’s almost always the case.

You’ve defined the problem. And you’ve admitted that you, as I did, fell for the MSM’s spin and smear.

One of my fellows in my gun club used to be a reporter for the Chicago Tribune. He is now the editor of an independent financial new site. Hey says that liberalism rules the newsrooms and the editorial boards of just about all newspapers. Some editors do a fairly good job of being even handed as editors, others are not.

The Chicago Tribune’s then Public Editor Douglas Kneeland wrote a column on September 8, 1992, he wrote:

The Chicago Tribune, as have most of the big newspapers and a good many smaller ones, has moved steadily over the last decade toward writing stories that give context and perspective to the most important news. Instead of just laying out one purported fact after another, we have increasingly tried to explain and analyze to give your our best understanding of the truth to which those facts add up.

This is not something new. The weekly news magazines have been doing it since their beginnings, often especially in their earlier years, with what, frequently seemed to be transparent points of view. With cable television and other 24-hours sources of immediate news available, the major newspapers have more and more turned to putting out daily something resembling the old weekly news magazines in content, heavy on behind-the-scenes reporting, explanation and analysis, but hopefully without the overtones of partisanship.

. . . Sometimes we are not as shophisticated as we should be and allow gratuitous opinion to substitute for needed context and factual wisdom. We must avoid point of view and polemics. [any typos are mine]

This is now an open secret that just about every MSM organization has adopted. It comes from the elitism of liberals who belived that the great unwashed masses are too stupid to make the “correct” interpretation of events so it is the annointed job of the MSM to make sure that we do.

This is especially true when they cover Christian opinon makers. Their goal (taken from Gramsci’s Notes)is to destroy them and the religion they espouse.

The Dobson article, by misstating his position, not only lied to us, but in doing so, insulted my intelligence in the process.

I have been treating the MSM as my enemy for years (since I read Kneeland’s column, in fact). Occassionally, I forget why — as in this case.

At this moment, my emotional reaction to “being had” by the MSM on this (and others) article is summed up by the following Ann Coulter quote:

My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building.

God help me for feeling this way, but I do.

The irony is that Coulter is persona-non-grata here. So let me use a more politically correct quote, this one from H. L. Mencken:

Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.

Thanks for trying to set the record straight Bryan, but some people are beyond admitting the errors of their ways. wytammic

Before Bryan jumps all over me, let me just say I love you Bryan, love is a little strong for AP, but it was he, not Bryan that set the record straight.

Peace & Love!

I was going to lauch a big ol’ thermobaric rant about James Dobson’s ill-considered remarks today. But there’s no shortage of anger or ranting on the web right now, so perhaps the best thing for me to do is let……

Like my mom said, Dobson’s opinions on this or that doesn’t matter a hill of beans to folks like her and me. I don’t much care what Dobson thinks about candidates. I like what he has to say on certain topics, but his authority on political particulars is vanishingly small.