{"id":237,"date":"2008-10-29T15:22:33","date_gmt":"2008-10-29T15:22:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2008\/10\/james-dobsons-letter-from-2012.html"},"modified":"2008-10-29T15:22:33","modified_gmt":"2008-10-29T15:22:33","slug":"james-dobsons-letter-from-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/10\/james-dobsons-letter-from-2012.html","title":{"rendered":"James Dobson’s letter from 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

The so called “letter from 2012<\/a>” released by James Dobson is one of the most disingenuous pieces of political rhetoric I have ever encountered. The letter, portrayed as his worst fears, actually reveals the details of his agenda over the next four years. <\/p>\n

The Religious Right has a proven track record of ripping apart administrations that don’t toe their party line, but this is the first time I have seen a president condemned before he is even elected. If we accept this fear-mongering, it will only serve to embolden and empower Dr. Dobson and his allies. <\/p>\n

I understand that Dr. Dobson has a different vision for America than what may come about if Barack Obama is elected president – and I remind you that is still very much an “if” – but our leaders are elected to represent the views of all Americans, not just those who agree with Focus on the Family. <\/p>\n

These are difficult times we are living in, and we must – together – bring our nation safely through them before we can pretend to assume what difficult times may lie ahead. Regardless of who is elected next Tuesday, our new president must ensure that our nation remains open to people of all faith traditions, that it continues to embrace the principle of religious freedom on which it was founded and that its citizens are respected as much for their individual differences as they are for their collective patriotism. <\/p>\n

James Dobson’s letter is a reactionary abomination, containing a dismal distrust of democracy and a disrespect for the American people. Evidently Dr. Dobson’s resident apocalyptic fortune teller went crazy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The so called “letter from 2012” released by James Dobson is one of the most disingenuous pieces of political rhetoric I have ever encountered. The letter, portrayed as his worst fears, actually reveals the details of his agenda over the next four years. The Religious Right has a proven track record of ripping apart administrations…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,1,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christians","category-election-08","category-evangelicals"],"yoast_head":"\nJames Dobson's letter from 2012 - Progressive Revival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/10\/james-dobsons-letter-from-2012.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"James Dobson's letter from 2012 - Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The so called “letter from 2012” released by James Dobson is one of the most disingenuous pieces of political rhetoric I have ever encountered. 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Dr. Welton Gaddy, leads the national nonpartisan grassroots and educational organizations, The Interfaith Alliance and The Interfaith Alliance Foundation and serves as the Pastor for Preaching and Worship at Northminster (Baptist) Church in Monroe, Louisiana. Rev. Gaddy is the host of State of Belief, a weekly radio show by The Interfaith Alliance that is carried on AirAmerica. State of Belief is based on the proposition that religion has a positive and healing role to play in the life of the nation. Rev Gaddy is one of 20 international religious leaders on the Council of 100 Leaders, a group created by the World Economic Forum to improve dialogue and understanding between the Western and Islamic worlds. In addition to being the author of over 20 books, Welton provides regular commentary to the national media on issues relating to religion and politics. Some of his appearances include CNN Presents: The Fight Over Faith; PBS's NOW with Bill Moyers; PBS Frontline's The Jesus Factor; PBS's The Newshour with Jim Lehrer; NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw; CBS Evening News with Dan Rather; ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings; numerous National Public Radio stations including KQED's Forum in San Francisco and KCRW's The Politics of Culture in Los Angeles; CNBC's Capital Report; CNN's The World Today with Wolf Blitzer; CNN's Inside Politics with Judy Woodruff; PBS's Religion and Ethics Newsweekly; CBS's Freedom to Pray; C-SPAN's Washington Journal; NBC's Dateline. He is the former host of Morally Speaking on NBC affiliate KTVE in Monroe, Louisiana. Founded in 1994, The Interfaith Alliance (TIA) has grown into a national grassroots organization of 150,000+ individuals of faith and goodwill drawn from more than 75 different religious traditions or beliefs with a cyber-network of 10,000 activists and 75 local activist groups. Dedicated to promoting mutual respect, cooperation and civility, TIA strives to promote religion as a positive and healing force in the life of the nation. While ministering to churches with a message of inclusion, Welton emerged as a leader among progressive and moderate Baptists. Among his many leadership roles, he is the immediate past President of the Alliance of Baptists and is a twenty-year member of the Commission of Christian Ethics of the Baptist World Alliance. His past leadership roles include serving as a member of the General Council of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, President of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and Chair of the Pastoral Leadership Commission of the Baptist World Alliance. Prior to the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention, Welton served in many leadership roles in the SBC including membership on the convention's Executive Committee from 1980-1984 and Director of Christian Citizenship Development of the Christian Life Commission from 1973-1977. Welton received his undergraduate degree from Union University in Tennessee and his doctoral degree and divinity training from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/wgaddy"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}