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What James Dobson's Resignation Means for Focus on the Family's Future
Tweet Share on Facebook February 27, 2009 Comment (118)By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
Focus on the Family founder James Dobson has stepped down as chairman of the organization, citing the need to pass the reins to a new generation of leadership, the Associated Press reports. Importantly, Dobson will continue to host the organization's eponymous daily radio broadcast. His departure means that Focus recognizes the need to prepare for the post-Dobson era. Dobson turns 73 this year. The transition won't be easy. On the one hand, Dobson—a child psychologist—is the organization's greatest asset, and phasing him out may do Focus in. On the other, Dobson has become a liability because the cult of personality around him has prevented the organization from connecting to a new generation of Christians.
Dobson is so closely affiliated with Focus that most Focus supporters don't distinguish between the man and the organization he founded in 1977, even though he stepped down as president in 2003. That explains why Dobson is staying on as the ministry's voice on the radio and as a spokesman for Focus's sister political organization, Focus on the Family Action. Focus just doesn't have anyone else who could draw the 1.5 million daily radio listeners that Dobson pulls in.
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A Race-Based Omission in a Story about Faith
Tweet Share on Facebook February 27, 2009 Comment (4)By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
Responding to my story about President Obama opening public events with local folks reciting prayers, a number of readers and bloggers note that I mention the racial identities of two nonwhite invocation givers but decline to do so for a third—named Ryan Culp—whom they correctly conclude is white. One reader writes:
When the Baptist minister and the administrator for the Tohono O'odham Nation are mentioned, their races are centrally used to identify them.
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This Week in Catholic Political News
Tweet Share on Facebook February 27, 2009 Comment (29)By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
I can't remember as big a week for Catholics in national politics since Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton squared off in Pennsylvania's Democratic primary last April. With Catholics accounting for roughly a third of Keystone State Democratic voters, the contest prompted both candidates to hire Catholic outreach directors and to dispatch high-profile Catholic surrogates.A recap of the last week:
On Monday, Pope Benedict XVI named Timothy Dolan the new archbishop of New York, the closet thing to an American pope. One of his first congratulatory calls was from President Obama. The White House had the political savvy to keep quiet about the call to the media, to avoid making it look political.
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Kathleen Sebelius's Abortion Stance: the Catholic Angle
Tweet Share on Facebook February 27, 2009 Comment (13)By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
The Brody File says the White House is weighing the controversy over Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius's ties to embattled abortion provider George Tiller in deciding whether to appoint her to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. I wonder how much (if it all) this controversy is exacerbated by Sebelius's Catholicism and her falling out with her own bishop over her support for abortion rights. If Sebelius were a pro-choice, mainline Protestant, would she be less of a lightning rod for pro-lifers?
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Why Christian Radio's Nervous Over Fairness Doctrine Despite Today's Senate Ban
Tweet Share on Facebook February 26, 2009 Comment (29)By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
My most recent God & Country column for the new digital U.S. News weekly explains why Christian broadcasters fear the return of the Fairness Doctrine—or something like it—even more than other broadcasters. You can read the column here. The Senate has passed a Fairness Doctrine ban today, but the measure is mostly beside the point in the view of Fairness Doctrine fans and foes. From my column:
Democrats, though, say reports of the fairness doctrine's second coming have been exaggerated by conservative opinion shapers looking to stir up their base. (Privately, some conservative activists acknowledge that the threat appears remote.) The anti-fairness doctrine campaign, liberals allege, is intended to tarnish other proposals aimed at bringing ideological balance to the airwaves, which are publicly owned and which the Communications Act of 1934 require "to operate in the public interest." A recent report on the subject by the liberal Center for American Progress recommended restoring ownership caps on stations, expanding the role for local listeners in radio licensing, and charging fees to stations that shirk public interest obligations. "No one is advocating a return to the fairness doctrine," says John Halpin, one of the report's authors. "We have no interest in taking anyone off the air."
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Bobby Jindal's Head Vs. Sarah Palin's Heart
Tweet Share on Facebook February 26, 2009 Comment (13)By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
More on how a Jindal-Palin presidential matchup might play out, from Michael Gerson in the Washington Post :
In Louisiana, Jindal is the darling of evangelical and charismatic churches, where he often tells his conversion story. One Louisiana Republican official has commented, "People think of Bobby Jindal as one of us." Consider that a moment. In some of the most conservative Protestant communities, in one of the most conservative states in America, Piyush "Bobby" Jindal, a strong Catholic with parents from Punjab, is considered "one of us."
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Roundup: Reaction to White House-Commissioned Prayers
Tweet Share on Facebook February 26, 2009 Comment (2)By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
A variety of reactions around the blogosphere to my story on the White House's practice of commissioning and vetting prayers for President Obama's public events.
AllahPundit at Hot Air is relishing the prospect of atheists freaking out:
Sue, atheists. Sue like the wind . ... Exit question: Who's up for seeing Hitchens and his lawyer roll into court with a complaint to knock this one out of the park, huh? Come on. Common ground at last!
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Public Prayer at Presidential Events: A Brief History
Tweet Share on Facebook February 25, 2009 Comment (1)By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
Reporting my piece on the Obama White House commissioning and vetting prayers for the president's rallies, I spoke with aides and official archivists for presidents going back to the Carter administration. I couldn't find a White House precedent for the Obama prayer program. The Reagan White House came closest. But I was intrigued by the aides' and archivists' reports on how public prayer figured—or didn't—into previous White Houses.
Aides from George W. Bush's White House said flatly that the White House wasn't involved in scheduling prayers at Bush events. Former Bush religious outreach liaison Bill Wictherman, who I quoted in my story, said that doing so would have caused a major flap: "If a similar thing had been done by President Bush's White House, I guarantee you there would have been a lot of people crying foul."
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False Allegations About False Bobby Jindal Rumors
Tweet Share on Facebook February 25, 2009 Comment (13)By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
More than a few readers and fellow bloggers are outraged over my anti-Sarah Palin "smear" alleging that her supporters are spreading scurrilous rumors that fellow rising Republican star Bobby Jindal is secretly Muslim. Here's Warner Todd Huston at NewsBusters summarizing my take:
That's right, just two people claiming in the comments section of his U.S. News post that Jindal was a secret Muslim was enough for Dan Gilgoff to decide that Sarah Palin's entire support base is smearing Bobby Jindal as a secret Muslim.
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Bobby Jindal's Come-to-Jesus Writings
Tweet Share on Facebook February 24, 2009 Comment (17)By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
The many parallels between the political profiles of Barack Obama and Bobby Jindal—who will participate in a face-off of sorts this evening—have been well documented. Both represent generational shifts for their parties. Both belong to racial minorities. Both claim Ivy League credentials and meteoric political ascents.
Another striking commonality: Both came to Christianity from other traditions and have written eloquently and at length about their long and painful come-to-Jesus experiences. Such public introspection about personal faith is unusual for politicians. Obama came up in a secularist household, with a tacitly Muslim dad (who was almost completely absent from his life) and stepfather. Jindal was born to Hindu parents.
For Obama, his coming to Christianity in his 20s makes for some of the most personal and moving passages in Dreams from My Father
and The Audacity of Hope. Jindal chronicles his own conversion in prose that's as compelling, if much more widely dispersed, encompassing articles written for a handful of periodicals throughout the 1990s. Here's an example, from a 1993 essay he penned for the Jesuit magazine America:
