Gloom and Doom is Almost as Big a Lie as the Stolen Election, But This One is Told by an Evangelical

Baptist News Global: At 88, James Dobson Still Warning of Doom if a Democrat is Elected

Democratic party Presidencies have been characterized by economic prosperity, including job growth and low unemployment, wage growth, expansion of the GDP and the stock market.  The last three, as a matter of fact, account for 95% of all jobs that the economy has created since the cold war, and that is an established, well-reported, fact.  

Crime rates also seem to fall when there's a Democrat in the White House.  During President Biden's term in office, it is also a documented fact that violent crime has reached a record 50-year low.  That's right.  In spite of all of the bluster from his predecessor, the crime rate fell under Joe Biden, and let's also look at why.  It's called, providing resources for law enforcement.  That's at all levels, by the way, not just funding police departments, but just about everything else benefits from what the federal government kicks in, because Democratic party Presidents tend to be more about using America's resources instead of trying to cut services that it is constitutionally obligated to provide.  

Violent crime actually increased during all four years of the Trump administration, after a relatively steep decline under Obama's Presidency.  The crime rate dropped significantly every year President Obama was in office, and reached an eight year low during the last year of his Presidency.  It started up again when, well, you know what the rest of the story is.  It went up again under Trump.  

And in all of the categories of multiple social issues that more conservative Americans, including those who are Evangelical in their religious practice seem to think are the constitutional responsibility of the President of the United States, but which that office actually has almost nothing to do with, it's really a matter of opinion as to how Americans have fared.  After a lot of talk, and more talk, about how we should have exited Afghanistan when we discovered that Osama Bin Laden was actually in Pakistan, it was a Democratic President who actually took the steps to get us out, and then engineered and negotiated an air lift that removed over 100,000 people from the country, and stopped the wasteful spending on a failed "nation building" project initiated by President Clinton's Republican successor.  

Democratic party Presidents have been very good for America, very good indeed.  That's because they tend to see government as being more "of, by and for the people" than Republicans do.  And hey, nobody is perfect, regardless of their party affiliation.  Democrats tend to run on the issues and look to resolve problems.  Republicans tend to avoid issues, which is why they must create these doom and gloom, us versus them, divisive, negative campaigns to try and convince enough voters that Democrats are taking the country to hell in a handbasket because they themselves have nothing beneficial to offer them.  

And one of those doom and gloom, negative, hateful naysayers is Dr. James Dobson.  

Dobson Still Warning of Doom if a Democrat is Elected

Dobson is an Evangelical author, psychologist, and far right wing social reformer.  He founded a ministry called "Focus on the Family," off which he prospered very well, and through which he marketed his books and media materials and became one of the most influential spokesmen for conservative social positions among the conservative Evangelical community in America.  Focus on the Family included a daily radio program with a large, worldwide audience, with some television coverage as well. 

Dobson was a strong advocate for what he termed "family values," which included an Evangelical Christian perspective on social issues like homosexuality, traditional gender roles, and marriage that is singular and heterosexual, based on his interpretation of the Bible.  He was the most influential culture warrior among conservative Evangelicals for many years, managing resources to create large networks of lobbying organizations and groups that influenced politicians and in many cases, identified, supported and ran candidates for public office.  

But he was no prophet.  

He wound up coming into the period of his greatest prosperity during the Reagan and Bush years, and started hollering about what would happen when Democrats were elected President just before Bill Clinton entered the White House.  None of Dobson's gloom and doom prognostications has ever come to pass.  

There's an Old Testament verse that addresses this, which I will include here for those who use the Bible as support for any idea that fits their particular worldview. 

You may say to yourselves, "How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the Lord?"  If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken.  That prophet has spoken presumptuously.  Do not be alarmed.  Deuteronomy 18:21-22, NIV  

I would say that Dr. Dobson's political prognostications, appearing in his October newsletter, deliberately political in their intent, are more conspiracy theories than they are accurate predictions.  They represent no known reality and bear no factual support.  Dobson has given himself over to hearsay and rumors, in the true spirit of conservative Evangelicalism.  

Here's the Load of Bull

According to Dobson, if a Democrat is elected President, be warned:  

• Tens of thousands of churches will have nowhere to meet after public schools ban them. 
• Christian schools and adoption agencies will shut down.  
• Secular bookstores will ban books from evangelical publishers.
• Christian stations won't be able to preach the Bible, and conservative talk stations will go belly up, or switch to country or gospel music. 
• Homeschooling would be outlawed, public school students will receive mandatory gender identity training in first grade, the Boy Scouts will no longer exist, citizens will lose their guns, Christian non-profits will be threatened, gas will cost $7 a gallon, public school teachers will no longer lead students in the pledge of allegiance, and Russia will hit Israel with a nuclear bomb. 

We've had three Democrats in the White House since the last cluster of these complaints hit the schedule.  None of what is in Dobson's doom and gloom list has ever come to pass.  And here's why.  None of these things are under the control of the executive branch of government.  It would take Congress, passing legislation through both houses, to get to the President's desk to sign, for any government policy to bring about any of these things.  Dobson, who has a doctorate, should be smart enough in American civics to know better.  This is just another in a long line of whining dog whistles to keep conservatives angry, to keep them motivated to vote against Democrats, and to keep them behaving like pagans instead of Christians when it comes to their public testimony.  

Gas is currently less than $3 a gallon and going down.  Our very experienced, economically savvy President, a Democrat by the way, has not only opened up the tap so that we are producing more oil and natural gas as a nation than we have ever produced, and you can look that up. he recently sold off a percentage of our strategic oil reserves at a price of over $80 a barrel, and refilled the reserves with oil at around $70 a barrel, literally saving both the government, and the consumers in this country who buy gasoline, a fortune.  

Most of the rest of this is the same old "poor, poor, pitiful me" stuff we see from conservative Evangelicals all the time.  Being under a constant barrage of attack from worldly evil helps raise a lot of money and it motivates a lot of support.  And claiming to be under constant attack from "the world" is a really good excuse for most of these people to ignore the words of Jesus when he said, "Love your enemies, and pray for those that spitefully use you."  

We have a Democrat in the White House now.  If there are any Christian adoption agencies that have shut down, it's not because the government, which has a constitution that limits its powers and protects freedom of religion, has instigated it, it's because their own practices may have put them out of business.  Several years ago, my wife and I pursued an adoption through a Christian agency and discovered their philosophy was one that only placed children in the homes of white people who had the kind of money necessary to pay their exorbitant fee.  That, and their lack of any means to help families pay the expenses, made it clear what kind of parents they were seeking to adopt the children that came their way.  So if any of them go out of business, it's because of things like that, not because there's a Democrat in the White House.  

Religious liberty is a constitutionally protected individual right, including the separation of church and state.  Democrats respect the Constitution as the cornerstone of our Democracy, Republicans nowadays are the enemies of it, threatening civil unrest and even violence if they don't get their way and are not allowed to impose tyranny on those who disagree with their social agenda.  Neither the Democrat in the White House now or the one who is the party's nominee have ever expressed any desire to do anything that would lead to a Christian school closing, to shut down a Christian radio or television ministry or station, or regulate, control and eliminate home education.  Bookstores choose their own stock based on what sells and what doesn't and no book distributor will turn down the profit margin made off selling Christian-themed books.  

In fact, as far as freedom of conscience and religious practice goes, the current President is a devout Catholic who attends Mass virtually every week, or has it performed at the White House, and the Democratic party nominee is a member of a Baptist congregation in San Francisco.  Both have expressed the importance of their faith practice to themselves, and their desire to protect freedom of conscience as a basic, constitutional right.  

Aren't We Getting Tired of This Negative, Anti-Patriotic Putting Down of Our Country by Religious and Political Conservatives Who Have no Answers or Solutions for Resolving our Problems? 

I don't see anything in Dobson's diatribe that resembles the Christianity described in the biblical text, or that was taught and lived by Jesus Christ.  Christianity, including the conservative, Evangelical version of it, has just as much access to the marketplace of ideas as any other ideology or philosophy or religion.  So I tend to interpret Dobson's shrillness and criticism as an attempt to blame Democrats for the failures of American Christianity, especially the conservative brand of it, to reach people with its evangelistic message and win converts without using the power of the state as a means of coercion. 

I was raised in a conservative, Evangelical church myself, and though I no longer use those terms to identify my own faith, I expect more from people who go out of their way to underline their own righteousness and compare it to that of other Christians who they think of as inferior to themselves because they have a slightly different theological and doctrinal expression of their Christian faith and it doesn't match up to their own.  And this us vs. them creation of enemies out of people Jesus identified for us as our neighbor, and then commanded us to love them as we love ourselves, is unacceptable and ungodly.  

Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar.  For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.  And he has given us this command.  Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.  I John 4:20-21