James Dobson & Christian Pessimism

on September 17, 2016

Recently longtime evangelical leader James Dobson, now venerably age 80, warned of irreversible consequences if Hillary Clinton is elected.

“…We won’t ever recover from it!” Dobson said, “We will go down in flames, maybe literally, if we put the wrong person in power.”

Maybe Dobson, who’s justifiably concerned about growing assaults on religious liberty and conscience rights, is right. Others sound similar warnings about Trump, whose authoritarian rhetoric they fear foreshadows collapsing confidence in democracy and constitutionalism in favor of strong man rule. Maybe they’re right.

There’s nothing new about apocalyptic chatter in American politics. New England Federalists in the 1800 election claimed the allegedly atheist Thomas Jefferson, who was actually privately Unitarian, would as President close churches and burn Bibles, like the French revolutionaries with whom he initially sympathized. Frontier revivalists countered that John Adams was a closet monarchist serving the British crown. Neither of these scenarios unfolded.

Hyperbolic scare talk is not limited to traditional religionists. The secular prophets of environmentalism routinely warn that a few more SUVs on the highway will irretrievably push the planet into a calamitous, carbon fueled spiral landing in permanent Hades. Scare talk gets attention, mobilizes followers, and can sometimes achieve partial political gains, although rarely sustainable.

More typically, apocalyptic political warnings are not vindicated, with a few exceptions, like Churchill’s warnings about Hitler and appeasement, or Demosthenes’ oratory against Philip II of Macedon. The ancient Hebrew prophets are the model of such jeremiads, and their dark prophecies were fulfilled, because they of course spoke with divine authority, usually resulting in their own martyrdom. Few if any others have similar authority.

Very possibly America is on the edge of some horrendous, irrevocable collapse. Maybe we are akin to Weimar Germany, decadent, confused, divided, and preparing to surrender our ancient liberties in favor of some ominous new tyrannical order. Possibly, but I don’t expect so.

From my own personal observations, America — in reality versus the hysteria and rantings of the Internet and cable television — is not hovering on collapse. My knowledge of America is hardly comprehensive. But I don’t entirely live in an insulated bubble. I travel all over the country, usually by car, sometimes by train, avoiding airplanes and airports. I stay at Holiday Inn Express, eat at Cracker Barrel and downtown diners, talk to fellow train passengers and fellow hotel guests at the breakfast bar. Some of my most extensive conversations are with cab drivers but also waitresses, desk clerks, fellow tourists at historic sites, and shop keepers. Almost every day I walk four or five miles in different neighborhoods, observing people, commerce and regional habits.

Almost always I’m impressed by the good will, good manners, good humor and good spirits of the random people of all ethnicities and economic classes whom I meet. They generally work hard, seem mostly happy, and are optimistic. The country seems prosperous. Lots of sprawling suburbs full of new houses everywhere I go. Omnipresent shopping malls pulsate with shoppers. Old downtowns I visit usually have experienced some revitalization. Even in poor regions I will find restaurants full of seemingly working class diners with fairly nice cars outside. People generally seem healthy, although Americans — especially the ones at Cracker Barrel — eat too much, reflective of their wealth and comfort.

All the churches I visit everywhere seem full of respectful and devout people who to varying degrees are serious about their faith. Supposedly America is post-Christian, but I’m often struck by strangers who randomly discuss their faith. In restaurants, as an inveterate eavesdropper, I’ll often overhear substantive religious conversations among families and friends.

I like to visit old downtowns. Court houses are always tidy, patriotic statues are usually well maintained, and flags are everywhere I go. I never hear racial animosity or racial resentments in my encounters. Nor do I ever hear disrespect for the country. Some of the best conversations are with DC cab drivers. Elderly DC natives, usually black men, often recall moving here from farms in the South, serving in the military, buying a DC house in the 1960s for $20,000, which is now worth $600,000 or $700,000, making them among the world’s wealthiest people. They enjoy their grandchildren but still want to work. They invariably say their city is a better place than 50 years ago.

Recently I chatted with a black woman who works at a private club I frequent. She’s been there since 1958 and met the Eisenhowers many times. She’ll retire when she’s completed 60 years. Is this city better now than when you were a girl, I asked. She recalled a happy childhood in Washington, but said the city is better now, with “more going on.”

Most DC cab drivers are African immigrants or sometimes south Asian. They’re always fascinating if asked about their stories. Lots are from Ethiopia, having escaped the old Marxist and murderous Mengistu regime. Often these men have survived terrible horrors. Invariably they are very happy and grateful to be in America, although working 70-80 hours weekly to support wives and children in nice suburban houses, far different from war torn villages from their past on another continent.

No place in America resembles any part of Africa politically or economically. But much is made of the white working class’ marginalization in a global economy, in places like West Virginia, where I often spend time at a family home. Many of my neighbors there certainly fit into this category. Yet they survive, often on disability and odd jobs. They have their struggles. Yet they have homes, cars, modern luxuries, including giant screen TVs and wi-fi. Their trips to Walmart seem frequent. And they seem, on the whole, happy.

One of my West Virginia neighbors, sadly now in prison, lived on $700 monthly from Social Security, plus odd jobs, plus recycling beer cans. He drank and smoked and worked hard. There was a large slash across his chest from open heart surgery, an operation not long ago that billionaires and kings could not procure. From his last prison photo, my friend, now approaching 80, looks still robust.

Americans of all classes and races are the most privileged, wealthiest, most protected, pampered and coddled, freest and most fortunate people in human history. At our worst, we live better than kings of old. Our society like all cultures everywhere and at all times is plagued by every form of vice and human depravity, to which each of us sinners contributes. Yet we should thank God continuously for our undeserved blessings. He may conclusively judge our sinful country, just as He justifiably could have in 1916 or 1816. Yet He is long suffering, and His mercy is wide.

Our country, by His unmerited grace, is much, much more than either presidential candidate, neither of whom has the power to destroy us.  Unless He wills otherwise, we will survive, and perhaps thrive. Dobson and many others are rightly concerned over religious liberty. The church’s marriage teaching is now despised by secular culture, just as the church’s teaching on slavery, racial equality, gender equality, justice for the poor, and temperance for all, has been despised and fiercely resisted in the past. In every age the church has its battles, and we are vain to think our own times are the worst. The church, so long as it contends for God-ordained human dignity, will ultimately prevail.

We Christians in America, with our nice homes, nice families, nice cars, nice churches and countless nice creature comforts, often like to complain and predict doom. In recent years I have met increasing numbers of African Christians who have almost none of what we have and instead have survived wars, dictatorships, persecution, famines and disease. They live on the edge from day to day. Yet they rarely speak apocalyptically, complain or predict doom. They are not naive but they are usually hopeful.

A Christian witness that is ungrateful, sour, and direly fatalistic, without hope or serious confidence in God’s supertending mercy, is not effective, truthful or faithful. As the Psalmist urged: “Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.”

  1. Comment by Don Bryant on September 17, 2016 at 10:13 am

    I think this is essentially true. Yet the moral decay is threatening to reach critical mass that weakens the fiber of our collective ability to decide for the good, the true and the beautiful. And there is plenty of evidence that this has become true enough. The last thing I want to do is cry ‘peace’ at the very point where the barbarians are at the gate.

  2. Comment by Jane Franks on September 17, 2016 at 10:51 am

    I agree! History is a great reminder. Read (or re-read) Augustine’s Confessions and City of God. We must have balance, for sure. But always remember (with triumph) the battle the Apostle Paul speaks of constantly and especially to Timothy; and of Jesus’ proclamation of another Kingdom. Whether America recovers or not isn’t really the issue. It’s How we live within our human city, remembering where our true allegiance lies.

  3. Comment by jason on September 18, 2016 at 9:07 pm

    No, he is not correct. Have lost respect for him and the Alt-Right who think a Trump presidency is pristine and holy. Stop the insanity.

  4. Comment by Pudentiana on September 19, 2016 at 5:14 pm

    Dr. Dobson is an old man who has fought long and hard to preserve the foundational unit of any healthy society: The Family. His is a perspective worth considering. Not only have Americans been aborting their offspring for decades, but the family unit is in disarray. Personal debt is crushing the people Mr. Tooley observes at the local restaurants and shopping malls. There is an epidemic of heroin deaths and babies without intact households. Come down to live in the inner city or or any truly poverty stricken rural area. I am sorry to say, the description given here is on the surface. Only a truly disillusioned populace would elect one or the other of the candidates now campaigning. This country needs a revival. That is the real hope of this Nation.

  5. Comment by Creed Pogue on September 19, 2016 at 7:31 pm

    Dr. Dobson has been a Republican supporter more than he has been a Christian leader for a long time.

  6. Comment by Brettany Renée Blatchley on September 20, 2016 at 10:24 am

    “The church’s marriage teaching is now despised by secular culture, just as the church’s teaching on slavery, racial equality, gender equality, justice for the poor, and temperance for all, has been despised and fiercely resisted in the past. In every age the church has its battles, and we are vain to think our own times are the worst.”

    This strikes me as rather tilted in the Church’s favor. As a decades long follower of Jesus and one who has a pretty good grasp of American Church history, I find it hard to see the Church here (as a whole) being on the positive side of any of these things. As a whole, we’ve always had it warped and God’s Spirit has had to go to extremes to change us – usually we’re the last segment of society to change. Where was the church on slavery? Supporting it, and we *still* have issues with racial equality these days. Same with gender equality, and justice for the poor is warped by conservative political ideology. Temperance? I don’t think so – yes, we paid lip service and even damaged our society with our obsession with this, but are we really any more temperate than the society as a whole around us? Truly? Are we really like Jesus? No, not as a whole – if we were, our congregations would be overflowing and people would be flocking to Jesus’ side as in the first century…

    …You cannot argue or bully someone into a loving relationship with Jesus. You can’t mathematically prove God’s existence or why Christ’s ways are any better than anyone else’s. The only thing we can do is *so much* live a life of love like Jesus did, that our acts prove supernatural. Right now, the acts of too many American Christians support the argument that Jesus is the problem, not the solution. That is *so sad*, so sad.

  7. Comment by Steve on September 20, 2016 at 12:26 pm

    Humans are indeed depraved, but I don’t agree with some of your interpretations of history. Where was the church on slavery? I’ll pick on the Methodists, since they were the largest Christian denomination in the 1800s. Read up on Orange Scott or some of the other reformist Methodists prior to the Civil War. The schism in the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1844 that lead to the establishment of a separate southern church, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, was entirely due to questions raised regarding Christians and enslavement.
    I’m curious about how the Temperance Movement damaged society.
    I agree with you that the Church can at times indeed wrongly direct Christians, but those are more the exception than the rule.

  8. Comment by Brettany Renée Blatchley on September 20, 2016 at 8:54 pm

    There were parts of the Church who worked against slavery, and they had to do it on the pain of schism. The Church (once again: AS A WHOLE) has not been good about these things, and it has been brought kicking and screaming to the place where God’s Spirit would have us.

  9. Comment by HopScot on September 20, 2016 at 10:48 pm

    God’s Spirit clearly condemned homosexuality. Those who can’t accept that should move to another religion, or no religion. America is a free market of religions.

    Thankfully, all the pro-gay churches are shrinking and will soon be extinct.

  10. Comment by HopScot on September 20, 2016 at 2:15 pm

    You’re lying.
    The whitest churches in America are the LIBERAL ones.
    The Southern Baptists and Assemblies of God have higher percentages of minorites than the Episcopalians, Lutherans, PCUSA, United Methodists, etc.

    So your slur about “racial equality” in churches is more appropriate for the left-wing, post-Christian churches. Face it, the church you attend is basically a Sunday morning club for white liberals who talk “diversity” but it’s all talk.

  11. Comment by Brettany Renée Blatchley on September 20, 2016 at 8:52 pm

    “Lying??” That’s pretty loaded. How about, “we don’t agree?”

  12. Comment by HopScot on September 20, 2016 at 10:45 pm

    Why do you pretend to be a woman? That isn’t mentally healthy. A man can’t change his DNA, ever. Jesus did not tell people to aid and abet the mentally ill, he told us to heal and cure them. The church exists to put people in a right relationship with the Lord, not to confirm their psychoses. Christians should strive to heal the mentally and emotionally disturbed, not leave them in the delusions. Face up to who you are, there’s nothing wrong with being a man, God made you that way.

  13. Comment by AndRebecca on October 1, 2016 at 3:17 am

    I’m curious, give an example of how Jesus would behave today. Would He have a problem with Dr. Dobson?

  14. Comment by Brettany Renée Blatchley on October 3, 2016 at 12:39 am

    Jesus would have a problem with the way Dobson slanders transgender people, for just one example.

  15. Comment by AndRebecca on October 3, 2016 at 12:41 am

    No Jesus wouldn’t have a problem with Christians being against sodomy.

  16. Comment by BdgrGrrl on October 5, 2016 at 2:46 am

    As my priest said recently, “Jesus is crazy in love with every one of us.” I couldn’t see Jesus disparaging any group of people, like the transgendered, ISIS, or the people in illegal plural marriages in Utah, for example, so we shouldn’t either.

    I recently watched a 60 Minutes TV segment about a young transgendered athlete (female to male) with several people. One Christian snorted in disgust said, “Depraved mind,” and left the room. If He were there, I wondered whether Jesus would have thought, “What a troubled young person. I want to wrap my arms around her, show her a more excellent way that will deliver her from her confusion and something she may not even conside sin.”

  17. Comment by AndRebecca on October 5, 2016 at 8:39 pm

    It isn’t what your priest says or what you think that counts. The road to heaven is straight and narrow and it is what the Lord thinks that counts. You would know that if you were saved. And, 60 Minutes has an agenda, and it isn’t Christian, and you should know that just by watching it.

  18. Comment by BdgrGrrl on October 6, 2016 at 9:57 am

    AndRebecca, where in the Bible does it say that Jesus doesn’t love everyone who has ever lived or will live before He comes again? Of course, He doesn’t love our sins, whether or not we are Christian.

    As to whether 60 Minutes has an agenda, that’s irrelevant to how Jesus would feel about the young woman (her biological sex).

    Jesus and God know I am a Christian, as is my priest; we don’t have to prove it to you or anyone else.

  19. Comment by AndRebecca on October 6, 2016 at 3:18 pm

    Where in the Bible does it say Jesus loves everyone? It says we are to love our enemies and to pray for them. That doesn’t mean we take the side of our enemies and kill ourselves. The Bible has been twisted to mean all sorts of things and the latest twist is the Social Justice Movement. The Catholics have embraced it. You can do a net search on it… Social justice is not God’s justice. Social Justice is the opposite., and it is Marxism. It is a political movement with connections to the U.N. and it’s dictators. You will find this out if you look it up. You aren’t going to get into heaven through a political movement, especially an atheistic one, even if it is taught in your church. The Bible also says to love your neighbor as yourself. This implies you have a healthy love for yourself, which means you are concerned with your relationship with God. You would not want to lead a neighbor down the wrong path or say it is O.K. to go down the wrong path. The Bible is clear on LGBTs and the radical LGBTs know it and work against Christianity. Why be on the side of those who want to take you down?

  20. Comment by BdgrGrrl on October 7, 2016 at 9:09 am

    My faith is in Christ, not in a political movement.

    We will never probably ever agree on this issue. Why not just pray for each other that we both remain faithful to Christ and His mission instead?

    Sue

  21. Comment by AndRebecca on October 7, 2016 at 2:14 pm

    So you refuse to look at the truth of what is going on in your church and your country. I certainly will pray for God to help you see the truth.

  22. Comment by Brettany Renée Blatchley on October 25, 2016 at 4:24 pm

    Um…John 3:16??

  23. Comment by AndRebecca on October 25, 2016 at 7:07 pm

    Try reading John 3:16. In order to believe in Jesus, you have to believe in what He says. And He says go and sin no more. You must attend one of the emergent churches where they don’t preach Christianity.

  24. Comment by Brettany Renée Blatchley on October 16, 2016 at 1:03 am

    You didn’t address the content of my content. Being transgender is not “sodomy.” The sin of Sodom as that of radical inhospitality, not homosexuality (which is also not what transgender is about).

  25. Comment by AndRebecca on October 16, 2016 at 1:39 pm

    I know they aren’t exactly the same, but was using shorthand. They are both against Christian morals and are being used today to get rid of real Christianity in the world. There’s a long history of universalism/atheism in Christian churches and so it isn’t surprising you are being taught some non-Christian ideas in your church.

  26. Comment by Brettany Renée Blatchley on November 4, 2016 at 1:17 pm

    Well, it isn’t appropriate to lump them together even by your reasoning.

    AND saying that either of these are against “Christian morals” is speaking for God and for the whole Church, when in fact you can do neither, AND there are plenty of Christians who see neither homosexual nor transgender persons as immoral (sexually or otherwise)…

    …MOREOVER, there is is virtually nothing in the BIble that even addresses transgender people (and no Deut 22:5 isn’t applicable to trans people OR to Christians at all). The closest the Bible comes to speaking about trans people is when it deals with “eunuchs” (a well known sexual/gender minority of antiquity). Anyway, while such people were excluded from the aspects of Hebrew temple worship (as disabled people were, and for the same reason: they weren’t “perfect specimens”), God speaks favorably of them (Isaiah 56 discussion) and so does Jesus (Matt 19 discussion). Remember the first non-Jewish convert to Christianity? The Ethiopian eunuch?

    …ALSO, since some Christians insist that according to Genesis God made humans “male and female,” but they overlook the little word “and” here. “AND” specifies two of potentially many, while the use of the word “OR” would have meant ONLY TWO, ONLY MALE OR FEMALE. Of course, the Bible doesn’t speak about intersex people. Don’t they exist? Well some Christians will argue with a doctor until they are blue that they don’t…but they actually, factually *do* exist. I exist, and it’s a near certaintaty the transsexualls will all be formally reclassified as intersex when the clinical research settles into full consensus…

    …EXPERIENTIALLY (and this may not matter to you AndRebecca, but it matters to me whether anyone else cares or not): God and I are of one accord with how I am made and what I am doing with my life to live as a Godly woman. If we weren’t, I would be the first, not the last, to know. I don’t expect you to believe that anymore than I may (or may not) accept that you have a thriving relationship with Christ. But I’m the one who has to live *my* life, and I’m responsible to Christ for it, and I’m okay here…more than okay: thriving with *JOY*

    *EVERYONE* is given their gender by God; it is a gift and a responsibility to exercise it as the human beings we are. I excercise my female gender in a way that brings me joy, encourages others, and glorifies God. I’m doing what is required of me.

  27. Comment by AndRebecca on November 4, 2016 at 2:09 pm

    Actually, you and the LGBTs are lumping different deviant behaviors together. I can say, after reading the Bible, and listening to pastors who have studied it and written about it, and can quote chapter and verse, what Christian morals are. They are based on the Ten Commandments and the other commands of God. Starting in Genesis and on through Revelation the Bible says how a Christian is to live and what to do and what not do. No pretending about anything. God, not you, will separate the wheat from the tares. As Christians, we are to get right with God and live how He tells us. He certainly never said to twist the Bible into whatever you want it to mean. Marriage in Biblical times was between a man and a woman, not between two men with one thinking he was a woman. God is not into pretense of any kind. We are warned throughout the Bible about that.

  28. Comment by Brettany Renée Blatchley on November 4, 2016 at 3:26 pm

    Whatever. I can see we are not having a rational discussion here.

  29. Comment by AndRebecca on November 4, 2016 at 3:30 pm

    Actually, we are having a rational discussion and you can’t handle it.

  30. Comment by Brettany Renée Blatchley on October 16, 2016 at 1:21 am

    Dobson wrote of transgender women in World Net Daily recently:

    “If you are a married man with any gumption, surely you will defend your wife’s privacy and security in restroom facilities…” seeing “…a strange-looking man, dressed like a woman … peering over toilet cubicles to watch your wife in a private moment” and “men who walk in unannounced, unzip their pants and urinate in front of [little girls].”

    “If this had happened 100 years ago, someone might have been shot,” he continues. “Where is today’s manhood? God help us!”

    First, Dobson is wrongly insisting that transgender women are men (when the overwhelming consensus in the medical and mental health community is that we are in-fact women. Then he imputes to us the crime of sexual molestation. This is *slander* and it is merely one example from this hateful man.

  31. Comment by AndRebecca on October 16, 2016 at 1:52 pm

    Didn’t you say at the start of this conversation that you weren’t transgendered? Now you say you are. Your DNA is whatever it was at birth and doesn’t change through the years due to thoughts and emotions. In no way are you the opposite sex biologically. So, it’s mental. And, there have been incidences of men dressed as women and not dressed as women doing criminal offences against women and children in public restrooms and even women’s locker rooms. Anything from voyeurism to exhibitionism to rape and murder. That is why we have long standing privacy laws. This isn’t brain surgery.

  32. Comment by Brettany Renée Blatchley on October 25, 2016 at 4:23 pm

    Um…no, I didn’t say one way or the other.

    EVERYONE’s DNA makes a difference in our sexual development at two brief moments in human life: 1) in the hours when our gonads differentiate into ovaries or testes (or don’t: look-up ovotestes) and 2) when we pass our genes onto our offspring. Hormones cause ALL the other changes. Your assumption AndRebecca, leaves-out intersex people, and you are ignorant of the sexing of the brain that takes place in the 2nd trimester under the influence of testosterone (which, incidentally, didn’t happen with me). Humans are *very complex* and strictly male and female human beings do not exist. This can be verified with any college medical textbook…

    …As it happens, I inhabit the blurry boundary between transsexual and intersex. I am neither a cis male, nor a cis natal female, my anatomy is mixed, my hormones female, and my gender identity is female, and though I am “blended,” I am most myself expressed as a woman.

    The criminal offenses you cite are rare even with cis males, and they are unheard-up with trans women. Cis folk are actually more of a threat to a trans folk than any of us are to you. In particular, people have been watching for this and trans woman have never been the perpetrators of such crimes, but we have been harmed ourselves.

    *This* woman would never harm another woman, especially in women’s spaces – *this* woman has experienced rape before.

    Readers might find this interesting and educationational…

    When Does She Become He
    http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unfundamentalistchristians/2016/09/when-does-she-become-he/

  33. Comment by AndRebecca on October 25, 2016 at 7:14 pm

    Are you saying you are a hermaphrodite? They are the only people I know of born with organs and characteristics of both male and female due to a physical reason. Thinking you are something you are not does not cause you to turn into that thing. I can think I’m a lion all day long and not turn into one.

  34. Comment by Brettany Renée Blatchley on November 4, 2016 at 12:47 pm

    Hermaphroditism (an outdated and now considered offensive term), is one *very specific* way of being intersex (on must posses ovotestes to be a true hermaphordite). You are using layperson’s stereotyped “definition” of hermaphrodite and by your loose definition I qualify, though not by the medical definition. This occurred in the course of my DES exposure in utero: endocrine disruption; it’s also likely that I am androgen insensitive as well, but that could be (yet) another effect of DiEthylStilbestrol or it could be genetic).

    AndRebecca, as I said sex and gender and the development of these are FAR more complex than either the Bible or grade-school biology treats the topic – this assertion is not even debated in the medical and mental health fields anymore because the complexity of these areas has far outstripped society’s ways of coping with it. Sex and gender are different, and both of these are continua. If you honestly want to understand this better, there is plenty of information available. I would recommend a college-level text on human development as a start.

    Here is a gripping boot that is as approachable as it is scholarly: “The Riddle of Gender” by Deborah Rudacille.

    I wrote a nice introductory article on intersex issues that could give you some things to think about and research further if you are interested. “When Does She Become He.”

    http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unfundamentalistchristians/2016/09/when-does-she-become-he/

    Oh, by the way: I don’t think I could turn into a lion by thinking about it either – a lion is a different species! I’m merely a different variety of human being! 😉

    Blessings & Joy!!

    Renee

  35. Comment by AndRebecca on November 4, 2016 at 1:44 pm

    I’m using a dictionary definition of hermaphrodite. As an educated human being I’m able to make judgments based on everyday knowledge available to anyone. Society has been coping with men wanting to dress up as women from ancient times. The Bible mentions it for that reason. People know what is going on. As for women thinking they are men, it was never an issue due to percentages. The secular humanists (Marxists) in the West, are using the LGBT movement in order to get rid of Christian morals and replace them with state morals. We’re being told by the federal government what is right and wrong, as they undermine the 1st Amendment. Don’t you think the Feds are overstepping their bounds when they decide who goes into a local restroom? It’s micro-managing people’s lives like never before. There are two Leftist “fathers of the sexual revolution,” and you can google that and see the cruds who started this movement… So you can’t turn into a lion but can change your human DNA into something it isn’t by just thinking about it… The Bible is based on reason and not magical thinking.

  36. Comment by Brettany Renée Blatchley on November 4, 2016 at 3:28 pm

    You might want to use a medical dictionary. That’s the one that counts here.

    http://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/hermaphroditism

  37. Comment by AndRebecca on November 4, 2016 at 3:34 pm

    I don’t disagree with that definition.

  38. Comment by Brettany Renée Blatchley on November 4, 2016 at 3:34 pm

    Clearly you are “educated” and you have all the “answers” already. I bow to your expertise: I am NOT a lion, and I will repeat that 100-times. {giggle} 🙂

    However, nothing you have written here alters any of the facts I have given you. If you chose to ignore them, or discredit them, or elevate *your interpretation* of the Bibe (or someone else’s) above these, well I’m not God and I can’t change your mind. I have facts and I have life experience. You have your (relatively) uneducated opinion and an unwillingness to learn.

    Blessings!!

  39. Comment by AndRebecca on November 4, 2016 at 3:38 pm

    You haven’t given me any facts. I’m glad to hear you don’t think you are God. You sound as if you do think that sometimes.

  40. Comment by Max on September 20, 2016 at 5:05 pm

    Dude, you need to chill.

  41. Comment by Scott M on September 20, 2016 at 1:35 pm

    Neither candidate mentions the national debt which has doubled under the big O. No one can predict the future but in about 10-15 years we may have crunch time: National debt at 30-40 trillion, Medicare and Social Security both having to be severely adjusted due to near bankruptcy! You can’t SEE the national debt, but it’s there and we go blissfully on and burden future generations–there has to be an accounting someday…..would not want to live in the inner city when the governments money runs out…….but then again, the Lord provides, I place my trust in Him
    🙂

  42. Comment by Matthew Kilburn on September 20, 2016 at 2:19 pm

    “You cannot argue or bully someone into a loving relationship with Jesus”

    Well this is where it gets tricky. No doubt a person needs to personally and willfully accept God and his will, yet this acceptance doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Compare a child growing up in the 1940s with one growing up in the 1990s. The cultural norms the child of the 40s was bathed in were undeniably more condusive to Christian moral obedience. That doesn’t mean that child was any less willful in accepting God.

  43. Comment by Ex Tempore on September 20, 2016 at 9:41 pm

    …as Dr. Albert Schweitzer, claimed that each generation interprets Jesus in a different way! The late world famous humanitarian also claimed, that sadly there was no historical evidence for the existence of the biblical Jesus! (“Quest for the Historical Jesus” 1913)

  44. Comment by Jennifer P on September 20, 2016 at 2:29 pm

    The further the country goes down the road in replacing the Judaeo-Christian values of our founders with those of the secular Left the more difficult it will be to undo the damage and put the country back on course. The Founding Fathers indicated that our Constitution could only survive when the people were religious (meaning had basic faith in God and were capable of self-restraint).

    For one example look at the state of families in the Untied States. The #1 predictor of a child having a good life is to be raised in a two-parent (mom and dad married) family. Yet the Left has sought to destroy the family. First, but rendering fathers worthless. Second, by now re-defining family as whatever anyone wants (two dads, two moms, unmarried group, whatever).

  45. Comment by Barb Cooper-Humphrey on September 20, 2016 at 6:10 pm

    I find that many Christians don’t really believe in an all powerful God. They can’t accept that Obama’s election, gay marriage or even early term abortions might actually be God’s choice . Don’t you think that if God didn’t want those things to happen, he might have influenced the votes of people… Some Christians believe in themselves and what others tell them to believe, which seems to lately to be hate anyone who disagrees with them or believes differently.

    There are “real ” Christians too.. They may voice their opinions about elections and policy but accept the results as God’s Will. They focus more on loving & helping others and living their beliefs.

  46. Comment by Matthew Kilburn on September 20, 2016 at 6:44 pm

    They might be “God’s choice”, but only to the extent God does not – and never has – suddenly rushed in to save people from the consequences of their own evil and depravity. Indeed, there is a much stronger Biblical narrative of people rebelling against God, and God allowing them to lie in their own bed until they wake up to the mess they are in.

    There’s absolutely nothing in scripture – or, indeed, logic – to tell us that God’s plan is to condone homosexuality and the mass killing of Christian children.

  47. Comment by Steak&Quiche on September 20, 2016 at 8:33 pm

    BFD

    Since you identify as “secular,” why would any Christian care what you think?

  48. Comment by Ex Tempore on September 20, 2016 at 9:38 pm

    …Bill Maher (tv host and Cornell University graduate), has a blog and YOU TUBE documentary (Religulous), that claims Jesus Christ NEVER existed!…….is he not violating the first amendment?

  49. Comment by Mark McNeil on September 21, 2016 at 8:32 am

    Poppycock, Dr. Dobson is a saint. He is not “ungrateful, sour, and direly fatalistic, without hope or serious confidence in God’s supertending mercy.” Please leave him alone and tend to your own, evidently bountiful and verdant, vineyard.

  50. Comment by Oki Mike on October 1, 2016 at 7:10 am

    I disagree with your analysis Mark. I am 65 years old and I think this country is in deep trouble, The evidence is everywhere. If Clinton nominates the next 2 to 3 Supreme Court judges, it is over for this country. You need look no further than the Obama’s selections. The 2nd amendment to the constitution will be in grave danger.

    I could go on and on. I think Obama has helped to destroy the very fabric of this country. Clinton would be a carbon copy – maybe worse..

    No, I do not see a rosy picture of this country and certainly not the country I grew up in. God help us!

  51. Comment by Byrom on October 1, 2016 at 10:33 am

    I have mixed feelings about this commentary. I believe that the choices we make in our elected officials will influence our lives, positively or negatively. In these times, it is foundational for us to have a very close relationship with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. I am also reminded about what one of my former pastors said when he was leading a Bible study on Revelation. Regardless of what happens, God is always in control. We may not understand the bigger picture of what He is doing in our world or His plans.
    That being said, it is vital for us to remain faithful to Jesus Christ, whatever may happen. Some of us may have to make real sacrifices for our faith in the Holy Trinity. But, we need to remember that this world is not our ultimate home. Believe me, I don’t want to suffer any hardships because of my faith in Jesus Christ. On the other hand, I remember what He suffered for me to be where I am today in my relationship with an awesome God.

  52. Comment by Kingdom Ambassador on October 1, 2016 at 10:38 am

    “…On February 27, 2009, James Dobson conceded that we have lost the culture wars. This is the consequence of Christians [including James Dobson] having spent the last two centuries lopping at the rotten branches of our culture’s corrupt tree while watering and fertilizing its roots.

    “We should lop away at the tree’s corrupt branches (infanticide, sodomy, the economy, etc.). However, until the root of these problems is Biblically addressed, we will never shut down the infanticide mills, we will never defeat the sodomites, and we will never fix the economy. In short, we will never win the culture wars. This issue is more than important for anyone concerned about God, our nation, and the future of our posterity, it’s the cutting- edge issue of our day….”

    For the identity of our corrupt culture tree’s roots, see blog article “5 Reasons the Constitution is Our Cutting-Edge Issue” at http://www.bibleversusconstitution.org/.

    Then find out how much you REALLY know about the Constitution as
    compared to the Bible. Take our 10-question Constitution Survey at http://www.bibleversusconstitution.org/ConstitutionSurvey.html and receive a complimentary copy of a book that EXAMINES the Constitution by the Bible.

  53. Comment by Dr. Daniel Mercaldo on October 1, 2016 at 12:25 pm

    Mark, I agree on one point of your optimism about America. I don’t believe we will completely crumble as a nation, but for one reason…the covenants our Founding Fathers made with God when our nation was formed. Even before the formation as the United States, each of the early Colonies had strong Christian covenantal commitments with God. How often does God say He will not utterly destroy Israel because of His covenants with their Fathers, especially David. Having said that, let me invite you to New York City and vicinity for a visit, and do it with a New Yorker. If you have lived in the Midwest as I have, the picture you paint of America is perhaps true. But come out to the Northeast or the West Coast. You will find one big moral mess that has affected the citizens who live there (Northeast) as I do. Our churches are facing continuous battles with Democrat leadership that is selling the soul of our Region. From our National Senators, Congressmen, State Governors, State elected officials, right on down to our locally elected City officials, morality is out the window, and a twisted political correctness rules. We are in a constant fight against just plain of evil. I can remember Dobson speaking to the leadership of NAE year’s ago, warning of what was coming as far back as warnings about divorce recking our families including Christians. He led the charge against “abortion on demand,” and was right on that issue. I can hear him saying, “If we lose the battle for traditional marriage, we will lose the culture war.” It looks like he was right on that issue, as soon we will stoop even lower in our view of marriage. How about the introduction of “self-marriage” that is just another perversion of Biblical marriage intended by the God who created marriage in the first place. I want to believe what you are saying, and will continue to pray for a spiritual awakening in America. That seems to be our ONLY hope for today and tomorrow. This coming election is critical, and I tend to agree on his analysis of what will happen to us with another Democrat administration. Has anybody read their platform? I’m an Independent, but know who I am voting for in November.

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