Dobson vs. Obama (and anyone else who doesn't do Christianity his way.)

You must get along with each other. You must learn to be considerate of one another, cultivating a life in common.

James Dobson has taken issue with Barack Obama after someone dredged up the fact that he had been mentioned in a 2006 speech Obama gave to a Christian Ministry called, Call to Renewal. During the speech, Obama had posed a very poignant and certainly relevant question.

If we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in schools? Would we go with James Dobsons's or Al Sharpton's?

He also went on to cite the various "contradictions" when you compare Old Testament scripts with New Testament teachings but I think it was to sharpen his first point and provoke engaged thought from his listeners, not to spark a debate on a new topic entirely. I believe Obama was referencing back to a letter from the apostle Paul to the church in Corinthians. I have replaced the names of the Apostles with the names mentioned above to help illustrate.

You're all picking sides, going around saying, "I'm on Obama's side," or "I'm for Sharpton," or "Dobson is my man," or "I'm just in the Jesus group." I ask you, "Has the Messiah been chopped up in little pieces so we can each have a relic all our own? Was Obama crucified for you? Was a single one of you baptized in Dobson's name?" * Original verse is here.

Don't you see? He's trying to show us that we all get caught up in listening to people like James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Al Sharpton, or even Barack Obama and then we decide to shoulder up to them and follow their versions of Christianity. Maybe it fits our comfort level best, or we like they way they make us feel or how they speak to us. Maybe we just like the cut of their jib. For whatever the reason, a large amount of Christians have taken sides based on the minor nuances of someone's doctrine rather than focusing on being considerate to one another and cultivating a life in common as we all follow the teachings of Jesus. One look at Paul's letter and we can see that this isn't new. It happened just as the first churches formed and continued ever since.

Apparently, Dobson doesn't think certain questions should be asked. "I think he's deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own world view, his own confused theology. . . He is dragging biblical understanding through the gutter." Really? Just for posing some deep and honest questions about Christianity in a public setting with other believers? What better a place to have that conversation?

Having already hinted toward snubbing John Mcain, and with the now obvious disapproval over Obama, Dobson was questioned by the AP as to whom he planned to vote for. Dobson, a well respected and followed leader of Conservative Evangelicals across the nation, a man who respects and honors the thousands of men and women who risked their lives and even died so that we can have a free democracy in which we can vote for the leader of our nation, said he will vote in November, but might not vote for President.

When I was a boy, I had a friend who would walk over to my house and we would play hide-and-seek in the woods. We both knew the basics of the game; one person hides, the other seeks. We did disagree sometimes on other details of the game. Do you stay hidden until found or can you try to beat your opponent back to base? How high do you count? Do you have to stay hidden in the same spot, or can you move as long as you aren't found? I was eager to clear these things up and offer some of my own ideas of how it could work so that we could continue playing hide-and-seek together. My friend (I'll call him James Dobson) was only willing to play the game his way and if that wasn't good enough he'd throw a fit and walk back home while the rest of my friends continued enjoying life, and playing hide-and-seek. . .