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March 28, 2007

Dobson Values Words Over Actions

James Dobson doesn't like Sen. Fred Thompson as a presidential candidate because, he says, Thompson isn't a Christian. Loudly-professed and newly-reborn Christian Newt Gingrich, on the other hand, is clearly Dobson's favorite in the race. I have to admit I just don't get this. I would have thought the family values guy himself, James Dobson, would be far more concerned about a candidate's actual family values, as exhibited through actual behavior, than he would be about a candidate's professed beliefs (it is all too easy for a politician to say the right thing, but one's actions reveal the truth of the words spoken). In the family values category, Thompson outshines Gingrich hands down.

"Everyone knows he's conservative and has come out strongly for the things that the pro-family movement stands for," Dobson said of Thompson. "[But] I don't think he's a Christian; at least that's my impression," Dobson added, saying that such an impression would make it difficult for Thompson to connect with the Republican Party's conservative Christian base and win the GOP nomination.

Well, yeah, now that you've basically told Christians not to support the guy.

Here is the sad part, though. Thompson actually is a Christian – baptized, even. Unlike Gingrich, though, he doesn't wear his religion on his sleeve. He just lives lives it. As Dobson's spokesperson, Gary Schneeberger, says, the problem with Thompson is that he isn't "someone who talks openly about his faith." And, like Mitt Romney, who is Mormon, Thompson isn't the right kind of Christian.

"We use that word—Christian—to refer to people who are evangelical Christians," Schneeberger added.

Thompson is a member of the Church of Christ.

Maybe Dobson has a problem that is, unfortunately, too common amongst Christians: being too ready to succumb to the wiles of a crook who is a smooth talker. Dobson himself characterized Gingrich as "the most articulate politician on the scene today." And it was on Dobson's show a couple of weeks ago that Gingrich confessed about the extra-marital affair he had during the time he was pursuing an impeachment of President Clinton (and talked about spending time on his knees and all that great-sounding stuff). Maybe all that articulate baring of the soul wiped out Dobson's common sense.

Of course, that wouldn't explain Dobson's endorsement of George W. Bush back in 2004, now would it?

Posted by Becky at March 28, 2007 03:48 PM