Dobson said on the radio program he must consider McCain’s record against abortion rights and support for smaller government, and added McCain ‘seems to understand the Muslim threat.’ He also indicated McCain’s choice of a running mate will be a factor.
Of his new position, Dobson said in the statement to the AP, ‘If that is a flip-flop, then so be it.’
Yes it is, Dr. Dobson.
Of course, I always thought of terrorism as something different than faith (PLO, IRA, Provos, FARC, Red Army Faction, Action Direct, and ETA for any worthwhile examples), but who am I to take issue with conflating the two?
UPDATE: Reason and Revelation take similar issue with Dobson:
We have long thought that the likes of Dobson and the political evangelical right an embarrassment to people of Faith who happen to also hold conservative political views. They seem full of self-importance that their political views are the only right views and hence also tie biblical faith into those views. It is an embarrassment because Dobson places politics on the level of theology and then derides all who might disagree with his political position. Dobson seems to raise politics to the level of Biblical belief, and hence salvation. If Dobson and other fundamentalists are concerned for salvation, they should know that politics is not the way to conduct it–evangelizing is the way in the true meaning of the word.
I don’t go as far as R&R in their critique of Dobson. While I certainly agree that Dobson’s rhetoric could stand much improvement, Obama’s question of “who’s Christianity” doesn’t present the same problems one might assume, for two reasons.
First, those of the so-called “religious left” drink their own Kool-Aid, honestly believing that evangelical Christians seek to impose a theocratic mullahcracy in America. That’s rubbish… but again, it is believed for the sake of expediency (i.e. safer than discussing real problems with a society that enforces and upholds the lowest common denominator).
Second, with the bankruptcy of the religious left cast aside, there really is an evangelistic tone that gets continuously lost in the political spectrum of the debate. Ultimately, churches evangelize new members through persuasion, and not government program. Right action can never be subsidized through faith-based programs (as big-government conservatives might have it) or through government program (as their not-too-distant religious left cousins demand).
The frightening thing is that big-government conservativism embraced by the “compassionate conservative” ideal championed by President Bush and crystallized by Mike Huckabee this year share a great deal with the neo-evangelicals of the religious left.
The only difference is in the ends, because in packaging and rhetoric they sadly share a great deal. Dobson will hopefully stick to his guns and not formally endorse, because short of a handful of evangelical and Catholic leaders within the chorus, his voice is one McCain needs to hear.