Anti-Gay Dobson Not Going Away Just Yet
Christian radio host and family values guru Dr James Dobson is not yet ready to give up his campaign against gays. Despite resigning from Focus on the Family last year, he has now announced that he is launching a rival organization and radio show.
Dobson told fans that “the institution of the family continues to be in deplorable condition, and children are growing up in a culture that often twists and warps their young minds.”
He will launch his new ministry, James Dobson on the Family, with his son, Ryan. Religion historian Randall Balmer told the Colorado Springs Gazette he thought Dobson was setting up the parallel organization because he wanted to “pass the mantle on to his son.” A divorce in 2001 reportedly ruled out Ryan from working for Focus on the Family.
“James Dobson on the Family”? Really? Can the man get any more self-aggrandizing than that?
Wait, forget I asked. I don’t want to know. Especially if the answer is “yes.”
In the vein of “Focus on your own family,” I guess we’ll start seeing bumper stickers that read “James Dobson, get OFF my family!”
Wait, I’m confused. So FotF doesn’t hire divorcees? Wouldn’t be a lot easier for Dad to get them to change the rules than wage a war?
Btw, Ryan was remarried after the divorce and that’s the bigger issue than the divorce itself, as far as the Bible is concerned. If you take the Bible literally and strictly, as FotF types do, the Bible adamantly forbids remarriage after divorce (after widowing isn’t specified). Scripture repeats this messages many times. 3 times in the New Testament and twice by Jesus, far more clear than so-called homosexuality references.
Wait a minute, let me make sure I understand this rightly…James Dobson retires from FOTF to start his own rival radio show because he wants his divorce-disqualified son to be on the program with him? Am I reading this right?
I don’t get this thing with passing on ministries & pulpits to one’s children. It seems to be a Baptist/Evangelical thing.
Understandably the Catholic church can’t do it – but this was one of the reasons why celibacy was mandated centuries ago. I don’t see much, if any of it in mainstream Protestant and Jewish congregations either.
Small and medium sized businesses are often passed on to the children of the founders, but a business is (or at least should be) different from a church. It doesn’t send a very good message to the congregation either.
This whole thing makes me think of Kim Jong Il, just wanting to keep it in the family.
That’s it. The whole thing smacks of monarchy, which is antithetical to most Americans’ belief systems. If you want to attain something, earn it.
“I made my money the old fashioned way, I inherited it,” doesn’t doesn’t sit well with American sensibilities.
Actually, I’m willing to be the vast majority of American multi-millionaires inherited their fortune from parents. The American dream of self-made successes is romantic but not typical. Most people give their kids money; Dobson’s giving power.