Jim Dobson and Imus

James Dobson has had a real influence on our efforts towards making a Christian family. When our first child was an infant, around 1986, we began to discover the challenges of teaching and disciplining children. ...How? ....When? ...Why? ...Where? We didn't have a clue and we knew we didn't have a clue.

Then Carolyn's sister Margo recommended a little book called Dare to Discipline. We read it and agreed immediately that it was exactly what we needed. By no means did we do it all perfectly (we're still learning), but Dobson's book was exactly what we needed and I still recommend it to friends.

In those days, Dr. Dobson's mission was to help us be better parents and have stronger marriages and he has done (and is doing) that very well. But these days, he has added another mission- finding and trying to implement political solutions to the moral challenges of the 21st century. I've no doubt that he is sincere and wants to obey what he feels that God is calling him to do. I've no doubt that he is not seeking personal power, but is only seeking to do good and I respect him for it.

But I also feel that he's dead wrong to pursue political solutions to spiritual problems (at root, all "moral" failures are spiritual problems, whether one is a Christian or not). That would be like trying to chop celery with a file. The media is having a field day with him and doing their best to make him look like an idiot, or worse. This morning on the way to work I heard a radio clip of Imus (the radio personality from WFAN in NY) slamming Dobson. (It was the ad hominem approach to debating- a cheap rhetorical trick- to ridicule the man instead of countering the man's argument.)

I feel bad for the man. I wish he hadn't made himself (and Christians in general) a target. When Christians do the wrong thing for the right reasons it discredits Christ. Better to simply be Salt and Light and communicate the love of Christ to those around us. To try to be Elijah or John and attempt to make the unbelieving world conform to Christian ethics will always be a losing battle.

The gospel certainly changes lives- but one life at a time.