| Politics

This first volley between Dr. Dobson and Senator Obama marks a turn in the public debate in this campaign season.

CHESAPEAKE, VA (Catholic Online) - Now it begins.

The Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, has begun his outreach to faith based voters. Dr. James Dobson, a respected voice within the evangelical protestant community and beyond, has engaged the debate.

The media is screaming “Bible Wars”.

What is this all about? What does it mean for Catholic Christians? How should we respond?

As someone who has had the privilege of meeting Dr Dobson, I have great respect for the wonderful work he is doing and has done for the “poorest of the poor”, children in the first home of the whole human race, their mothers womb. I consider him to be one of the great defenders of true marriage and the family founded upon it.

However, I am deeply concerned at the damage that this entire new front in the election of 2008 might cause if not properly approached.

Dr. Dobson, legitimately utilizing his radio pulpit, is raising some serious questions concerning the Democratic Presidential candidate’s efforts to garner the support of evangelical Protestants and other Christians. He is also no fan of the nominee of the other Party.

I know that the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, is also reaching out to Catholic Christians. In fact, Doug Kmiec, whom we have published on Catholic Online, was numbered among the thirty participants who recently met with Senator Obama in what is hailed as his first effort at building a base of support for his campaign in the Christian community.

Dr. Dobson used the text of a speech which Barack Obama gave in 2006 to a group called “Call to Renewal” to take exception to Senator Obama’s efforts to present himself as a viable candidate for Christian voters. Doctor Dobson questioned the candidate’s interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures and made a reference to his constitutional interpretation which was less than flattering.

In that speech, Barack Obama said the following: "Even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson's or Al Sharpton's?"

The Senator then used the old argument used by some who want to discount the proper role of the principles found within the Scriptures as relevant for good governance. He made reference to the Old Testament dietary laws.

Those guidelines were offered by a loving God to assist a nomadic people in their efforts to remain healthy during their sojourn through the desert. Then he used the Levitical texts referring to slavery, which, in the face of a practice which was normative in other Nations at the time the texts were written, called the Nation of Israel to a radical empathy and justice toward those in indentured servitude.

With poor or nonexistent exegesis, Obama tried to use these passages to insinuate that the Bible has little relevance for modern governance. He also failed to point out that all Sacred Scripture, for the Christian, is given its fullness of meaning, only through the Paschal mystery, the Incarnation, Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. We see the Old Testament now fulfilled, completed and given new spiritual meaning in the light of the coming of the Savior. Perhaps, in his own Catechetical instruction as a Christian, he was not taught that.

Next, Obama, in one of a few references in that speech to the New Testament, used the Lord Jesus’ instructions in the Sermon on the Mount, a textbook on the life of virtue and the radical Christian call to discipleship, to do the same thing. This teaching was given to those who, aided by the grace which would be given through this Paschal mystery, would take up the Lord’s continuing redemptive mission through the Church and continue His work in the world until He returned.

He used this teaching as another example of what he was insisting were the perils of placing the principles offered by the Bible into the sphere of governance. Again, this was a poor example of exegesis and a failure to truly present orthodox, classical Christian teaching.

Using these Biblical texts as a vehicle for making his political points were at least disingenuous. He did not distinguish which principles contained within the Scared Texts are intended for the followers of Jesus Christ and which can properly be used as guides for establishing just principles of governance within pluralistic civil societies.

Also, we who are Christians need to realize an even more important truth, that the Bible is the Book of the Church which was given to and for the community of disciples who gathered to follow the Incarnate Word of God, Jesus Christ, and would then become His Body on the earth. It can only be understood, in its fullness of meaning and its implications for living, within that community.Of course, that ...