Pundits were left scratching their heads as to what exactly James Dobson was aiming for in his excoriation of Barack Obama. My sources inform me that folks in both the Obama and McCain campaigns don't know what to make of his comments either.
Nor do I. Lest our fingernails dig down to our skulls, permit me a few random observations in an effort to make some sense of it all:
To begin with, there was an awful lot of table setting in that Focus on the Family broadcast. The show opened with a long (and belated, no?) tribute to Tim Russert. I wouldn’t have doubted its sincerity, had the hosts not decided to take a trip down memory lane. For not only were Mr. Russert’s praises sung but a clip of Dr. Dobson’s May 3, 1998 appearance on Meet the Press was also played. (This was Dobson's sole stint on the show. How much affection could he have mustered for the late journalist?).
There, Dobson told Russert that the Republicans of 1998 had “insulted the base” and had “run from all the issues that they campaigned on.” Russert asked if he would consider “bolting the party.” The leader of Focus on the Family seemed to indicate that this option was, regrettably, on the table. This provided a nice segue to the present where Dobson could point out that little has changed in the intervening years.
Having burned bridges with the Republicans, the next logical step, apparently, was to antagonize Barack Obama. This leads me to opine that there is a certain integrity about Dr. Dobson. He is so singularly committed to advancing his “pro-family” agenda that he doesn’t give a hoot if he loses all semblance of political clout with two major political parties in the process.
The subsequent attack on Obama was so frontal (and as far as I can tell, so completely unprovoked) that I must wonder if some conservative Evangelical leaders are hearing Obama’s footsteps. Many in their flocks are telling me, and others, that they respect the Democratic nominee. This doesn’t mean they’ll vote for the Senator from Illinois. But maybe they won’t vote against him. Or go door-to-door persuading their neighbors to support McCain.
For a movement that made its political fortune by lamenting the bogeyman of godless secularism, Obama is a singularly troubling phenomenon. In certain respects he is the Christian Right’s worst nightmare: he rejects its pro-family agenda all the while being a committed, credible, enthusiastic and easily recognizable servant of Jesus Christ.
Perhaps this is why so many of Dobson’s criticisms centered on delegitimizing Obama’s opinions on the Bible.
I discuss Obama’s views on Scriptural interpretation--his “hermeneutics of doubt”-- at length in my Thumpin’ It: The Use and Abuse of the Bible in Today’s Presidential Politics. All I will add here is that the distance between Dobson and Obama on biblical interpretation is precisely the distance between the most theologically conservative wing of American Evangelicalism and the rest of Protestant and Catholic America.
For Obama, the Bible is ambiguous, multi-faceted, difficult to interpret, subject to many readings. It is so complex, so multivalent that it demands humility. A believer--especially one who is a politician-- should never arrogantly presume to have identified God’s inscrutable message.
Many conservative Evangelicals tend, by contrast, to believe that there is a right interpretation of the Bible. This proper reading may be attained through faith, intense biblical study (“Scripture interprets itself”), and guidance from the Holy Spirit.
The more demagogic ones, however, raise the ante. They assume that they have actually discovered the right interpretation. Equating their interpretation with divine truth, they try to impose God's word on the social body writ large. Their focus is not hermeneutics, but politics.
My own experience, however, indicates that most Evangelicals are rarely this confident about their biblical readings and even less inclined to impose them on other Americans. I don’t presume to know what Dr. Dobson was up to yesterday. But when he spoke of Obama “dragging biblical understanding through the gutter” it is possible that he clearly recognized the dangers presented by a politician who holds the Good Book in high esteem.
For If the rank-and-file finds his hermeneutics of doubt compelling, then The Movement's public policy wing is out of business.
Jacques Berlinerblau is the Rabbi Harold White Chair in Jewish Civilization in Georgetown's Walsh School of Foreign Service and senior advisor to the Center for Jewish Civilization, where he was director from 2006 to June 2020. Berlinerblau has published on a wide variety of issues ranging from the sociology of heresy and modern Jewish intellectuals to African-American and Jewish-American relations.
