Wednesday 25 June 2008

I mean, seriously? Seriously?

So, apparently religion plays a biggish part in American politics. This has come to the fore most recently when an apparently well-respected and influential preacher, one James Dobson, took it upon himself to criticise Obama's understanding of the Bible.

(Specifically, Dobson was criticising a speech Obama made two years ago. It's here. What's astonishing is that this is namby-pamby watered down quasi-atheism in the US, but sounds to me like it came from the Daily Mail:

"But what I am suggesting is this - secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square...So to say that men and women should not inject their "personal morality" into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.")

Shuggy covers the story here, and makes some insightful theological points about the extent to which Christianity can ever claim to have a political role - points far more intelligent and civilised than what you're about to read here. He also summarises Dobson's politico-theology:

smack your weans whilst condemning homosexuality and other abominations and think to yourself you wouldn't be having half of these goddam discipline problems if we could have prayer in schools.

On the off-chance that anybody might believe this foul canard, I thought I should put the record straight with a few choice quotes from the man himself:

On Homosexuality
"Homosexuals are not monogamous. They want to destroy the institution of marriage. It will destroy marriage. It will destroy the Earth."

On 9/11
However, rather than trying to forge a direct cause-and-effect relationship between the terrorist attacks and America’s abandonment of biblical principles, which I think is wrong, we need to accept the truth that this nation will suffer in many ways for departing from the principles of righteousness. "The wages of sin is death," as it says in Romans 6, both for individuals and for entire cultures.

On bringing up your son to be a real man

"[T]he boy's father has to do his part. He needs to mirror and affirm his son's maleness. He can play rough-and-tumble games with his son, in ways that are decidedly different from the games he would play with a little girl. He can help his son learn to throw and catch a ball. He can teach him to pound a square wooden peg into a square hole in a pegboard. He can even take his son with him into the shower, where the boy cannot help but notice that Dad has a penis, just like his, only bigger."




The words. In my hour of greatest need, they have failed me.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

"just like his, only bigger."

Or, in exceptional cases, smaller.

Andrew R said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Andrew R said...

Either way, I can think of no finer way to ensure that a young boy grows up to be a rugged all-American manly man than to regularly put him eye-to-eye with his father's soaped-up love-muscle.