Evangelist accuses Obama of 'distorting' Bible

Story Highlights
* NEW: Obama fires back at Dobson, clarifies his what he said in speech
* Obama camp offers to meet with Focus on the Family
* Dobson says Sen. Obama is "dragging biblical understanding through the gutter"
* Obama has "a fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution," Dobson says


CNN) -- A top U.S. evangelical leader is accusing Sen. Barack Obama of deliberately distorting the Bible and taking a "fruitcake interpretation" of the U.S. Constitution.

In comments aired on his radio show Tuesday, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson criticized the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee for comments he made in a June 2006 speech to the liberal Christian group Call to Renewal.

In the speech, Obama suggested that it would be impractical to govern based solely on the word of the Bible, noting that some passages suggest slavery is permissible and eating shellfish is disgraceful.

"Which passages of scripture should guide our public policy?" Obama asked in the speech. "Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is OK and that eating shellfish is an abomination? Or we could go with Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount?

"So before we get carried away, let's read our Bible now," Obama said, to cheers. "Folks haven't been reading their Bible."

He also called Jesus' Sermon on the Mount "a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our Defense Department would survive its application."

In the comments aired Tuesday, Dobson said Obama should not be referencing antiquated dietary codes and passages from the Old Testament that are no longer relevant to the teachings of the New Testament. Video Listen to Dobson blast Obama's biblical interpretations »

"I think he's deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own world view, his own confused theology," Dobson said, adding that Obama is "dragging biblical understanding through the gutter."

Responding to Dobson's comments Tuesday evening, Obama sharply disputed the suggestion he was distorting the Bible.

"Someone would be pretty hard pressed to make that argument," he told reporters aboard his campaign plane. "It is a speech that affirms the role of faith not just in my life but in the life of the American people, that suggests that we make a mistake by trying to push faith out of the public square."

"I do make the argument that it's important for folks like myself, who think faith is important, that we try to translate some of our concerns into universal language so we can have open and vigorous debate rather than having religion divide us," Obama said. "And I do suggest that the separation of church and state is important. But there's no, no theological work being done in that speech in terms of the Bible."

Joshua DuBois, Obama's national director of religious affairs, said the Illinois senator is "committed to reaching out to people of faith and standing up for American families."

"A full reading of his 2006 Call to Renewal speech shows just that," DuBois said. "Obama is proud to have the support of millions of Americans of faith and looks forward to working across religious lines to bring our country together."

DuBois had earlier called Focus on the Family to suggest a meeting with the group ahead of the Democratic Party's convention in late August, according to Tom Minnery, the organization's senior vice president for government and public policy.

Minnery wouldn't say whether any such meeting is planned but said the group is open to it.

Dobson also takes aim at Obama for suggesting in the speech that those motivated by religion should attempt to appeal to broader segments of the population by not just framing their arguments around religious precepts.

"Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal rather than religion-specific values," Obama said. "It requires their proposals be subject to argument and amenable to reason."

Dobson said the suggestion is an attempt to lead by the "lowest common denominator of morality."

"Am I required in a democracy to conform my efforts in the political arena to his bloody notion of what is right with regard to the lives of tiny babies?" he asked. "What he's trying to say here is, unless everybody agrees, we have no right to fight for what we believe.

"What the senator is saying there, in essence, is that 'I can't seek to pass legislation, for example, that bans partial-birth abortion, because there are people in the culture who don't see that as a moral issue,' " Dobson said. "And if I can't get everyone to agree with me, than it is undemocratic to try to pass legislation that I find offensive to the Scripture. Now, that is a fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution."

According to Minnery, Dobson was particularly offended by a portion of the speech in which Obama mentioned evangelical leader and the Rev. Al Sharpton.

In the speech, Obama said, "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?"

In response, Minnery said, "Many people have called [Sharpton] a black racist, and [Obama] is somehow equating [Dobson] with that and racial bigotry."

Dobson's comments follow the Obama campaign's recent efforts to increase its appeal among evangelicals, many of whom have expressed reservations about supporting Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee.

Dobson himself has said he will not vote for the Arizona senator.

Minnery said he doesn't expect Obama to make inroads into the reliably Republican voting bloc.

"Evangelicals are people who take Bible interpretation very seriously, and the sort of speech he gave shows that he is worlds away in the views of evangelicals," he said.

Minnery also said Dobson will probably continue his criticism of Obama.

"Given our fact that religion seems to be such a relevant topic in this election again, we will defend the evangelical view vigorously," he said.

Obama plans full-throttle push for evangelicals
By Daniel Burke

WASHINGTON -- With the Democratic presidential nomination in his grasp, Sen. Barack Obama is making a full-throttle push for centrist evangelicals and Catholics.

It's a move that's caught off guard some conservative evangelicals, who say they are surprised and dismayed to see a progressive-minded politician attempting to conscript their troops. At the same time, they say Sen. John McCain has done little to court their affections.

"I've never seen anything quite like it before," said evangelical author Stephen Mansfield, who wrote "The Faith of George W. Bush" and has a forthcoming similar book about Obama.

"To be running against a dyed-in-the-wool Republican, and to be reaching into the Christian community as wisely and knowledgeably as (Obama) is -- understanding their terms and their values -- is just remarkable."

Earlier this month, the Illinois senator held a closed-door meeting in Chicago with nearly 40 Christian leaders, including evangelical heavyweights like the Rev. Franklin Graham, publishing magnate Steve Strang and megachurch pastor Bishop T.D. Jakes.

Obama's campaign is also launching a grass-roots effort, tentatively called Joshua Generation, with plans to hold concerts and house meetings targeted at young evangelicals and Catholics.

Meanwhile, a new political action committee set to launch later this month, the Matthew 25 Network, plans to direct radio advertising and mailers to Christian communities while talking up Obama in the media. The group is not officially tied to the Obama campaign.

Obama's emphasis on faith outreach plays to his strengths, campaign observers say. The senator is at ease speaking about religion and preaches a message of forging common ground with disparate communities.

Still, some religious leaders wonder if Obama's Christian-focused outreach may alienate Jewish and Muslim voters, for example, not to mention the Democratic Party's large secular wing.

"You really have to consider the question: What message does this send to people of other faiths?" said the Rev. Romal J. Tune, a Washington pastor who works on religious outreach with the Democratic National Committee.

Joshua DuBois, Obama's director of faith outreach, said the campaign is "not solely focused" on evangelicals and Catholics but "committed to reaching people of faith broadly and trying to bridge religious divides."

Nonetheless, Obama has clearly learned a lesson from previous, unsuccessful Democratic presidential candidates: Ignore -- or dismiss -- evangelicals at your peril.

Despite the concerted push, Obama faces a tough task in trying to loosen the GOP's hold on a majority of white churchgoers. A recent poll by Calvin College found McCain leading Obama 57 percent to 25 percent among evangelicals and 43 percent to 35 percent among Catholics.

"Right now there's really more continuity than change" among religious voters, said John C. Green, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. "But we're at the beginning of the campaign, and what campaigns try to do is change people's minds."

Obama may have done some of that at the Chicago meeting, which one adviser described as a "Nixon goes to China" moment.

Abortion and gay marriage -- issues on which the Illinois Democrat openly disagreed with many of the evangelical leaders in the room -- dominated the discussion, according to participants.

Still, Strang wrote in a blog, Obama "won over the loyalties of many."

"He came across as thoughtful and much more of a `centrist' than I would have expected," Strang wrote, adding that he hopes McCain will host a similar gathering.

Mansfield said he sees similar political acumen in the Joshua Generation program. Often used as a "mobilizing phrase" among evangelical church youth groups, the "Joshua Generation" name refers to the biblical story of Joshua, who did what Moses could not: lead his people into the Promised Land.

"The impressive thing about Obama is that he knows this," Mansfield said. "This is language you expect to hear at a youth rally, not from the presidential campaign of the most liberal member of the Senate."

The Matthew 25 Network, named after the biblical passage in which Jesus promises eternal life for those who care for the least and the lost, will be led by Mara Vanderslice, a young evangelical who briefly led faith outreach for Sen. John Kerry's 2004 campaign and later founded a respected political consulting firm.

About 40 people turned up for a $1,000-per-head Washington fundraiser earlier this month to hear about the group's plans for targeting Catholics, moderate evangelicals, Hispanic Catholics and Protestants, Vanderslice said.

The PAC is just one "piece of the faith outreach puzzle," said Mike McCurry, a former press secretary for President Bill Clinton who is advising the project.

"For evangelicals, obviously this is an uphill battle. No one is proposing that we go and win a majority of them," McCurry said. But there are significant numbers of moderate Christians "and we need to reach them."

June 24, 2008
Dobson: Obama has `fruitcake’ take on Constitution
By Adelle M. Banks

WASHINGTON -- Focus on the Family founder James Dobson harshly critiqued a two-year-old speech by Sen. Barack Obama on religion and politics, calling his views "a fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution."