It may be that these days it is Mr. Dobson, not Senator Obama, who is confused about the role of religion in public life. Focus on the Family does still have a wide radio audience and is a multi-million dollar operation, but it remains to be seen whether, in fact, the power of this ministry to simply tell people what to think is waning. By giving this politically oriented radio address, I believe Dobson reveals he does not sufficiently credit the increasing interest among Evangelicals to think for themselves when they apply their faith to the public square. Dobson, over these many years, has developed the bad habit of treating God as a wholly owned subsidiary of his operation. That kind of hubris makes for terrible theology and terrible politics.

Will the Dobson kind of theo-politics, suitably wrapped in the bible, work these days to drive Evangelicals away from Senator Obama and his message of constructive social responsibility? I think not. Documents such as the recent Evangelical Manifesto indicate that Evangelicals are increasingly resentful at being treated as an arm of the Republican party. Dobson and his organization appear to be working out of an older paradigm where Christian conservatives voted the way James Dobson, Pat Robertson or the late Jerry Falwell told them to, though in suitably coded biblical and theological terms. Today Evangelicals are very involved in environmental concerns as “Creation Care” and are working hard to reduce or even eliminate poverty and exit polls indicate that self-identified Evangelicals vote both Democratic and Republican.

What was Obama’s real fault in the eyes of Dobson? The real impetus for Dobson’s ire was surely not just a speech delivered two years ago (June 2006), but the much more recent bridge-building by Senator Obama and his team with a broad range of religious people, including not only Evangelicals but many others. Obama recently met with some prominent Evangelicals for a productive meeting and his campaign had reached out to Focus on the Family. It has been reported in the press that last week, Joshua Dubois, a former Assemblies of God associate minister and member of the Obama organization, called staff at Focus on the Family and offered to visit the ministry in August when the Democratic National Convention is in Denver. It seems more likely that it is this very recent overture the prompted Dobson’s radio address.

There is even more evidence that it is Dobson and not Obama who is out of step with the American people and their views on faith and public life. This week more results were released from the Pew U.S. Religious Landscape Survey.

Based on interviews with more than 35,000 American adults, this extensive survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life details the religious makeup, religious beliefs and practices as well as social and political attitudes of the American public. The Pew website offers this summary: “most Americans have a non-dogmatic approach to faith. A majority of those who are affiliated with a religion, for instance, do not believe their religion is the only way to salvation. And almost the same number believes that there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of their religion.”

In short, a majority of Americans agree with Senator Obama about how biblical interpretation and democracy can work productively together. And a majority of Americans do not seem to agree with James Dobson’s claim to the sole truth of the bible. Amen and amen.