Focus on the Family [censored] Warning About the 6/8 IGREA Hearing

[Landlord79]

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I guess what I want to say is, Dr Dobson has done more for our country than many of you will ever think about doing, and just because he has stepped on our toes with this one issue doesn't make him a villain. His beliefs are Biblical and his intentions are good, so we don't need to attack him, we just need to defend what is important to us, while keeping things in their proper perspective.

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No offense, but this paragraph is nonsense. His involvement in politicking with regard to online gambling should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone who's paid any attention to his active involvement in the political process, and I'm sure he's just getting started. Before you know it, we won't be able to dance in public or wear cotton/rayon blends, or get divorced, injunctions against which are also in the Bible.

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Okay, a few more examples, but if he's right about Christ being the only way to heaven, and therefore the judgment of God to come later, we will really wish that we had listened to him more because the 80 years that we have on this earth is nothing compared to eternity.

Are you saying that Christians should just lay down and not defend themselves from the attack of this changing world? If gays and lesbians can fight for their rights to be married, is it wrong for the church to fight to keep the right of having prayer in schools?

[CHAx]

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Engineer,

I am done with this thread after this post. I hope most posters here recognize the folly of attempting to publicly make the arguments you are making, even if you and some others don't.

FOF and others have an argument against gambling that goes like this:

1) gambling is a sin
2) gambling causes X to happen that is bad for people and society at large.
3) [implied] people shouldn't be allowed to do things that harm themselves and not others.

Now instead of focusing on rebutting #2 and #3, which leaves them only with #1 which is only tenable to a minority of the population and politicians, you instead want to engage them on a battlefield of THEIR CHOOSING, i.e what is or is not the proper interpretation of the Bible and Christian morality. Which then allows them to paint you as anti-Christian/morality and be much more effective in rallying to their cause those who in general believe the same as them, but aren't otherwise likely to participate in the political process. You thus just help them to mobilize more support for THEIR purposes.

We aren't some kind of general purpose political party that engages FOF on a wide range of issues and needs to spend the effort on portraying them in a negative light overall. Rather we are a special interest group that can't afford to engage in those kinds of personal and broad range attacks, lest we alienate the fence sitters and make ourselves look unreasonable. We need to FOCUS on the non-morality aspects of our opponents' arguments, which we can easily refute, and which allows us to wage the battle on a field of OUR choosing.

But if you and others just can't help yourself and feel it necessary to blowhard about the nuances of morality because of your personal distaste with and disagreement with the overall positions of FOF and their allies, then go ahead. Just realize that not only are you putting that above what is the best political strategy for engaging our opponents, but also are using a dominated strategy given their political clout relative to ours, and risking dooming our chances. And obviously I am not talking about making random posts here, but on what we should say publicly, and what we should focus our efforts on.

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Well said.

[Sephus]

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if he's right about Christ being the only way to heaven, and therefore the judgment of God to come later, we will really wish that we had listened to him more

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if the muslims are right, you're going to really wish you hadn't let your wife/daughter/sister show her face in public.

[RoundGuy]

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Are you saying that Christians should just lay down and not defend themselves from the attack of this changing world? If gays and lesbians can fight for their rights to be married, is it wrong for the church to fight to keep the right of having prayer in schools?

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We are in this world, not of this world. Give to Caesar what is Caesar's...etc.

Please show me how it is Biblical for a Christian to get involved in political (worldly) issues. It isn't. James Dobson is a disgrace to all true Christians, with his political agenda.

[kleath]

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Are you saying that Christians should just lay down and not defend themselves from the attack of this changing world? If gays and lesbians can fight for their rights to be married, is it wrong for the church to fight to keep the right of having prayer in schools?

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I don't recall not being able to pray in school, you mean those prayer rally's I've seen were lies and just a front hang out and smoke pot? Or are you actually advocating the ridiculous notion of school leaders initiating school prayer, which is such a terrible and awful idea that it shouldn't have to be explained. Having been and been around Christians, very few of them actually act in the manner of Christ, I think Jesus would truly be ashamed of FotF as a whole.

[Skallagrim]

To the poster who believed that Rev. Dobson has done more good for this country than any of us, I ask you to rethink things.

I beleive Dobson has done more harm to both religion and politics than just about anyone else in recent memory.

Mixing religion and politics invariably produces bad politics and worse religion. Dont believe me? Consider Iran.

Let me try and illustrate the point by way of a parable. Most of the christian-political types are upset about gay rights. They want laws making gay marriage illegal, and stopping gays from doing a number of things. They believe it is right to push this agenda politically. My reading of Jesus' trachings leads me to the opposite conclusion. I think Jesus would demand not mere tolerance of gays but their complete and total acceptance. Put aside the theological debate and assume for a minute I convince the majority of people I am right. Am I then entitled to have a law passed making it illegal to not admit gays ANYWHERE? In other words, it would be illegal for you to NOT admit them to your church AND you have to allow them to all positions of authority and admit them to all sacraments. You go to jail otherwise. If you respond by saying the state shouldnt legislate in this area of personal beliefs, how can you go on asking the state to legislate against others' personal beliefs based on your persona beliefs?

Abortion is another example - if the state has the legal authority to ban abortions, does it not then also have the right to MANDATE abortions (as in China)? Maybe the state shouldnt have the right to interfere in pregnancy at all, eh?

Is that not enough to convince you that there should always be seperation of church and state? Either the state legislates your religion or the state stays out of your religion. Seems an easy choice...

Our founding fathers got it right and Jesus would agree, I think.

"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's...."

If only Rev. Dobson were that good of a christian.

Skallagrim

[Landlord79]

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if he's right about Christ being the only way to heaven, and therefore the judgment of God to come later, we will really wish that we had listened to him more

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QFT... LOL, good point
if the muslims are right, you're going to really wish you hadn't let your wife/daughter/sister show her face in public.

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[Landlord79]

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To the poster who believed that Rev. Dobson has done more good for this country than any of us, I ask you to rethink things.

I beleive Dobson has done more harm to both religion and politics than just about anyone else in recent memory.

Mixing religion and politics invariably produces bad politics and worse religion. Dont believe me? Consider Iran.

Let me try and illustrate the point by way of a parable. Most of the christian-political types are upset about gay rights. They want laws making gay marriage illegal, and stopping gays from doing a number of things. They believe it is right to push this agenda politically. My reading of Jesus' trachings leads me to the opposite conclusion. I think Jesus would demand not mere tolerance of gays but their complete and total acceptance. Put aside the theological debate and assume for a minute I convince the majority of people I am right. Am I then entitled to have a law passed making it illegal to not admit gays ANYWHERE? In other words, it would be illegal for you to NOT admit them to your church AND you have to allow them to all positions of authority and admit them to all sacraments. You go to jail otherwise. If you respond by saying the state shouldnt legislate in this area of personal beliefs, how can you go on asking the state to legislate against others' personal beliefs based on your persona beliefs?

Abortion is another example - if the state has the legal authority to ban abortions, does it not then also have the right to MANDATE abortions (as in China)? Maybe the state shouldnt have the right to interfere in pregnancy at all, eh?

Is that not enough to convince you that there should always be seperation of church and state? Either the state legislates your religion or the state stays out of your religion. Seems an easy choice...

Our founding fathers got it right and Jesus would agree, I think.
<font color="blue"> "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's...."
</font>

If only Rev. Dobson were that good of a christian.

Skallagrim

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I don't have time to respond to this, but you have completely missed the boat. This is referring to taxes and respect as an authority.

Separation of church and state works to protect religion, much like a corporation protects it's owners. The Founding Fathers were mostly Christian and wanted their Christian rights protected from the government. It was explained better above by someone else.

I may not be a sinless man, but I would invite you to walk a day w/ me and see the life that I live if you think that all Christians are hypocrites.

The basic law of the Bible is the law of love. God is forgiving and loving, but He is also Holy. I won't open that up to people who have never pondered and meditated on pure holiness, but if Christians don't stand up for their rights, then soon all their rights will be taken from them, just like anyone else who sits idly by.

And also, Jesus would love all gays w/o loving their actions. He takes us as we are, but doesn't expect us to stay the same. The Old and New Testament both point to homosexuality as sin, God, being holy, destroyed Sodom and Gamora because of this sin. Anyone Christian who says differently doesn't believe that ALL of God's word is true and therefore is not a true Christian, but a hypocrit, living a lie.

I have many friends who are unsaved and living in sin, I don't judge them and I accept them as they are, but like God, I hope for the salvation of their souls and the repentance of their sins.

May God bless you, I'm going home.

[RoundGuy]

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The Founding Fathers were mostly Christian and wanted their Christian rights protected from the government.

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Source please. Preferably from the Founding Fathers themselves.

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I may not be a sinless man, but I would invite you to walk a day w/ me and see the life that I live if you think that all Christias are hypocrites.

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All Christians are hypocrites. It's a matter of to what degree.

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Anyone Christian who says differently doesn't believe that ALL of God's word is true and therefore is not a true Christian, but a hypocrit, living a lie.

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I wouldn't open this can of worms, if I were you. Would you like me to point out about a hundred things in the Old and New Testament that Christians no longer believe are true? Are you really a true Christian then? Or do you just pick and choose what to believe...

[TheEngineer]

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I am a Christian and my church supports and is based on a lot of the same beliefs of FOF, I don't agree with them on this issue because it is trying to put limitations on the whole of society because some can't handle their gambling. I think what Dr Dobson does is awesome, and he is right in thinking that as the family deteriorates, so does the morality of the society. But morality doesn't create disciples of Christ, Christ wants a relationship with us, and that relationship creates morality and cures us of our addictions and gives us true life.

Playing poker allows me to win some "monies" and have the occassional opportunity to minister to someone about Christ. I'm not a you have to quit sinning now before you can be saved Christian, I'm one who encourages you to get saved then let Christ pull out what he needs to pull out from you Christian. I don't judge, nor will I. Christ takes us as we are then makes us better.

I guess what I want to say is, Dr Dobson has done more for our country than many of you will ever think about doing, and just because he has stepped on our toes with this one issue doesn't make him a villain. His beliefs are Biblical and his intentions are good, so we don't need to attack him, we just need to defend what is important to us, while keeping things in their proper perspective.

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Good post. I have no issues with Dobson and what he and FOF do for those WITHIN THEIR OWN ORGANIZATION. I think it's fine that they don't wish to play poker. However, he's attacking our freedoms without any basis to do so (but pretending he does), so I wished to share that with the group. I think it's important that we understand our opposition.

As for Jesus making wine, he certainly was not making it for people to get drunk. Likewise, we don't wish for anyone to get addicted to Internet poker. That being said, I think it's safe to say alcohol has caused thousands of times more problems than poker ever could, yet Jesus felt we should be able to decide on our own how to handle alcohol. Anyway, I have no desire to get too deep into a theological discussion. I really just wanted to let people know that the Bible doesn't prohibit gambling. This was brought up at Friday's hearing to great effect.