Open letter to James Dobson - After your support of Donald Trump, you have no right to preach to America about 'God's judgement'

 

James Dobson apparently thinks we've forgotten about his support of Donald Trump

It's always both amusing and infuriating when conservative evangelicals attempt to lecture the rest of us on values and morality while simultaneously pretending that the past four years didn't happen and they never bent over backwards to support Donald Trump or make excuses his many negative excesses.

James Dobson is today's example of religious right hypocrisy: 

 . . . let me tell you why this particular Easter has even greater significance for me as a follower of Christ. It is because without His death and resurrection, there would be no hope for America. I would be in despair today because of the wickedness that is besieging our homeland. Though I am not a prophet, it appears to me that divine judgment has befallen our nation. The evil one, Satan (who always has only been able to operate within parameters permitted by the Lord, e.g., Job 1:7, 12), appears to be unleashing his assault on our culture with even greater ferocity. He is creating chaos in our cities and schools, and is stalking the halls of government. It is as though, because we have replaced the truth with a lie, God has given us over to a reprobate mind. (Romans 1:25, 28) 

Why do I draw such a conclusion? It is because our nation is divided into warring camps, with violence and pestilence plaguing the land. Sixty-two million babies have been murdered in cold blood, and hundreds of millions of additional federal dollars have been allocated to expand the unborn holocaust. And the institutions of marriage and the family are under siege. Our birthrate is falling, and our children are being taught hate and sexual perversion in our government schools.

 How can a holy God look upon such debauchery and stay His righteous hand? He cannot. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, "God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever.

I think you can guess why I had a hard time not titling this post James Dobson can kiss my black ass. Dobson has always exuded (more like oozed) an especially repugnant type of oily self-righteousness, but the obliviousness with which he cloaks his latest "God is going to strike America down" ramble is especially repulsive. He seems to have totally ignored the last four years and especially his place in it. 

I hope he reads this letter so that he can be reminded:

Dear James Dobson,

Your little piece today about God's judgement on America was interesting in light of a few facts you seem to hope that folks in this country ignored.

You unabashedly supported Donald Trump, easily the worst  president in our country's history. You gave him undeserved comments of support when he gave you things:

When you weren't giving him praise, you jockeyed for front row position in photos with him:

And when the religious magazine, Christianity Today, called for Trump's removal because of his corruption and lack of character, you defended him while avoiding the issue of his character:

“I have read a new editorial published by Christianity Today that promotes impeachment of President Donald Trump. The editors didn’t tell us who should take his place in the aftermath. Maybe the magazine would prefer a president who is passionately pro-abortion, anti-family, hostile to the military, dispassionate toward Israel, supports a socialist form of government, promotes confiscatory taxation, opposes school choice, favors men in women’s sports and boys in girl’s locker rooms, promotes the entire LGBTQ agenda, opposes parental rights, and distrusts evangelicals and anyone who is not politically correct. 

By the way, after Christianity Today has helped vacate the Oval Office, I hope they will tell us if their candidate to replace Mr. Trump will fight for religious liberty and the Bill of Rights? Give your readers a little more clarity on why President Trump should be turned out of office after being duly elected by 63 million voters? Is it really because he made a phone call that displeased you? There must be more to your argument than that. While Christianity Today is making its case for impeachment, I hope the editors will now tell us who they support for president among the Democrat field. That should tell us the rest of the story.”

And that in itself is ironic seeing how you called out Bill Clinton in 1998 during the Lewinsky scandal for what you perceived was a lack of character on his part:

What has alarmed me throughout this episode has been the willingness of my fellow citizens to rationalize the President’s behavior even after they suspected, and later knew, that he was lying. Because the economy is strong, millions of people have said infidelity in the Oval Office is just a private affair–something between himself and Hillary. We heard it time and again during those months: “As long as Mr. Clinton is doing a good job, it’s nobody’s business what he does with his personal life.” That disregard for morality is profoundly disturbing to me.

 . . . As it turns out, character DOES matter. You can’t run a family, let alone a country, without it. How foolish to believe that a person who lacks honesty and moral integrity is qualified to lead a nation and the world! Nevertheless, our people continue to say that the President is doing a good job even if they don’t respect him personally. Those two positions are fundamentally incompatible. In the Book of James the question is posed, “Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring” (James 3:11 NIV). The answer is no. . . . 

What changed James? What's with the lack of consistency? You were front and center to rail against Clinton, but basically ignored a myriad  of opportunities to be a moral voice when it came to Trump. Not when he defended the racists in Charlottesville or had protestors teargassed before walking to a church and holding a Bible up for photo op, not after all of the lies he told. And not even when his inept stewardship in the fight against COVID cost over 500,00 American lives.

Where were you, James?  Or better yet, I have a more pertinent question for you.

Why in the hell should anyone pay any attention to you now? What gives you the right to assume that you are still a moral voice? Particularly in light of your behavior these past four years. You seem to think that the designation was given to you as a birthright and no actions on your part would strip you of it.  

That's not how it works. No matter how you plead concern for America's moral soul or God's judgement, a lot of us are ignoring you because we saw your actions during the last four years. Many more are paying attention because of the same reason - we saw your actions during the last four years. To put it mildly, we are pissed. We saw how you and others like yourself abandoned all pretext of morality and values in pursuit of an orange-incrusted golden calf and the trinkets of power he gave you. You ignored, you obfusticated, you made excuses. Hell, you even lied to keep the goodies coming.

You've  got one hell of a nerve. Do you think we're stupid? Do you think we weren't paying attention to all of the times you kissed Trump's lying ass?  Where do you get off in thinking that after your behavior over the past four years,  you can justifiably retake your place as a religious moral leader? And you really didn't deserve that designation in the first place. You have no place to preach about God to us because you abandoned God. And your actions make me wonder if you even believed in God in the first place or saw Him as a commodity to gain power and influence - a commodity which you tossed aside once the power came into your grubby hands.

So to put it plainly, kindly fuck off. You may have still have some naive supporters or even supporters who are two-faced and double dealing as yourself, but it doesn't excuse your lies or deception. Not in our eyes and especially not in the eyes of God.

If you are truly fearful of 'God's justice,' I suggest you worry less about America and more about yourself. A lot of us now see exactly for what you really are. 

Most of all, God sees you.