Focus on the Family Trashes James Dobson: Enthroning the Embarrassed Believer
An embarrassed believer is someone who feels about Christianity in the way that Barack Obama feels about America – an amalgam of self-righteousness and self-loathing, often expressed in apology, derision and self-mutilation.
Jim Daly of FOCUS ON THE FAMILY, still marinating in oedipal bitterness, has just shanked its founder. With the help of The Huffington Post, Daly portrays James Dobson as a venomous, archaic caricature of SNL’s Church Lady, – “If you look at those who were born in the ‘30s: Dobson, Jerry Falwell, D.J. Kennedy, the self-described culture warriors. I think if I was born in the ‘30s with that Judeo-Christian culture and went through the ‘50s and ‘60s and saw what I perceived to be a dismantling of these things, I think I would have reacted the same way, as in, ‘We’ve got to hunker down and we got to preserve the things that leave the nation right.'”
Mr. Daly, defending the life of the unborn and Biblical marriage is not a fad, it doesn’t go out of style; righteousness doesn’t have an expiration date.
He went on to deride both attitude and motivation by saying, “It would lead you to a venomous mentality. And I understand it. I don’t judge it.” “Judge” is exactly what Jim Daly does, weighing Dobson and his peers and finding them wanting and adding that he has grown up “in a different world.” It is the kind of patronizing that you’d expect from someone dismissing the founding fathers for being slave owners. According to the new FOCUS ON THE FAMILY, what is a “venomous mentality”? In the interview, Daly implies that it’s the defense of the unborn and standing for righteousness in the war between sexual purity and sexual anarchy. He refers to these battles as a distraction.
“It’s fair to say we have concentrated on some things that have distracted from the main thing, which is the Gospel of Christ,” said Daly, “When you are in the culture of doing good deeds, taking care of the poor, taking care of the widow, the orphan, not as a means to something else but because this is what true religion should be doing, even the nonbeliever would say, ‘Look at that … There is a certain respect that comes from that.”
You see, I’ve seen this formula before from those who have shouted Christians down and told us that our opinion is judgmental and should be disqualified because of “separation of church and state.” Just preach “Jeeeesus” and feed the poor; other than that shut the hell up. It’s nice to see that this has been adopted by the new President of FOCUS ON THE FAMILY.
This is à la carte Christianity, take what you want and leave the rest; the Christian Life as an all you can eat buffet, so let’s go right to the “make your own Sundae” table and just leave the vegetables to the venomous. Do you think that any tyrant would be opposed to feeding the poor or helping the widow? Hitler wouldn’t have hanged Bonhoeffer for helping the widow … unless she was a Jew, and Wurmbrand wouldn’t have been tortured by Romanian communists for 14 years just for ladling soup into bowls. Did Jesus Christ tell His disciples that they’d be hated, hunted and killed in His name for reading The Cat in the Hat to a group of orphans? Not hardly. Charity, although it should be a consequence, is not the Gospel of Christ. A clean shirt, a shave, some soup; well Buddhists can do that and atheists too and the world will be impressed; but it’s not the Gospel. So are the ham sandwiches going to be as distracting as standing for the life of the unborn and Biblical marriage?
In his just released book ReFocus: Living a Life that Reflects God’s Heart, Daley tells fellow evangelicals to be “careful to not create a ‘super sin’ out of homosexuality.” Yeah, those sexually twisted homophobes in the family of God, always dwelling on the sodomy thing, as if every evangelical was actually the Chris Cooper character from AMERICAN BEAUTY. Contrary to Daly’s implication, the war between sexual purity and sexual anarchy has Bible believers on the defensive and the anarchists drew first blood.
Let me risk the Ides of March here and channel my inner James Dobson – IT IS THE “SUPER SIN,” Mr. Daly and here’s why:
Do adulterers march in the streets for special rights? Do fornicators pressure television shows and advertisers to include the promiscuous or risk an economic blockade? Have those that are proud of their participation in gossip, pride or envy forced schools into rewriting their curriculum to include the beauty of gossip, pride and envy, even have a pride history month and a day decrying the pain brought on by those who bully the envious? Have drug abusers sued photographers, bakers and the proprietors of Bed and Breakfasts for refusing to offer service in “same drug” ceremonies? Has Catholic Charities had to close its doors in Illinois, costing 58 jobs and leaving thousands of children without their help in foster care and adoption services because of their refusal to submit to a civil union’s ordinance, forcing them to place children in the homes of wife-beaters? Have men, women and children been fired, sued, suspended and ostracized because they express a first amendment right to speak out against polygamists?
Homosexuality is the “super sin” Mr. Daly, not because of two men swapping spit but because homosexuality, as an agenda, will be the instrument that a tyrannical, satanically inspired government uses to bludgeon “people of faith” into the useless fetal position that you have already assumed. First amendment rights of individuals will be annulled, churches, synagogues and religious institutions will be subject to a new fascism and “the gospel” that you want to share – banned as “hate speech.” How’s that for a distraction? Just what kind of families are we going to be focusing on, Mr. Daly?
This New America will have a “Reich church” and a “Confessing church” and we’ve just seen FOCUS ON THE FAMILY under the direction of Jim Daly, apply for Reich status. The capitulation of modern Christianity and its willingness to compromise on principle is no different than Lot offering his daughters to salve the darker appetites of the fetid mob, hoping that they’ll just go away. Our only hope is that men like James Dobson will continue to stand out from these cowards and show the brethren that a Christian can lead in love, care for the poor, share the Gospel, and still “abhor that which is evil and cleave to that which is good.”
History will remember Bonhoeffer, Heaven will celebrate Wurmbrand and if I may be so bold as to paraphrase a curious demon, “Jesus Christ I know and James Dobson I am familiar with; but who is Jim Daly?”
Jim Daly’s book, ReFocus: Living a Life that Reflects God’s Heart is available at your local book retailer for 30 pieces of silver and the full Huffington Post interview can be read here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/16/jim-daly-focus-on-the-family-gay-marriage-abortion_n_1968026.html