c. 2008 Religion News Service

Dobson: Obama has `fruitcake’ take on Constitution

WASHINGTON (RNS) 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.”

In a Tuesday (June 24) program funded by the Colorado ministry’s political arm, Dobson played clips of Obama’s speech at a Call to Renewal conference of religious progressives in June 2006.

Citing the example of abortion, Obama said: “If I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I can’t simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith.”

Dobson disagreed, saying, “That is a fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution. This is why we have elections, to support what we believe to be wise and moral. We don’t have to go to the lowest common denominator of morality.”

Joshua DuBois, national director of religious affairs for Obama’s campaign, said the senator’s entire speech should be considered.

“Barack Obama is committed to reaching out to people of faith and standing up for American families, and 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.”

Dobson also charged Obama with “equating” him with the Rev. Al Sharpton, a civil rights activist, when he is a psychologist and Sharpton is a minister.

“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?” Obama asked in his speech. “Would it be James Dobson’s or Al Sharpton’s?”

Dobson also criticized Obama for speaking of pastors who “deliver more screed than sermons” after the senator recently resigned from the Chicago church that had been led by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright after the former pastor made racially charged comments.

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The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said, “Dobson has no right to set himself up as some sort of spiritual dictator who gets to make personal choices for the rest of us.”

Bishop Harry Jackson, a Maryland pastor and chairman of the High Impact Leadership Coalition, said Dobson’s “counter fire” might be emblematic of other evangelical sentiments.

“More evangelicals will begin to rally, saying that `Obama is not one of us,”’ he predicted.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Presbyterians report biggest drop in nearly 30 years

(RNS) The Presbyterian Church (USA) lost more than 57,000 members last year, the denomination’s largest decline since 1981, church leaders announced at a churchwide General Assembly in San Jose, Calif.

The 2.5 percent drop brings active membership in the PCUSA to 2.2 million, but it remains the nation’s largest Presbyterian denomination.

PCUSA delegates are gathered in San Jose through Saturday (June 28) to debate church policy and elect new leaders at its biennial General Assembly.

Like many mainline Protestant churches, the PCUSA has experienced a decades-long drop in membership, with church rolls declining every year since the denomination was formed in 1983, according to church researchers.

Twelve PCUSA congregations joined other denominations in 2007, and 71 churches were dissolved, according to the PCUSA.

About 130 churches in total have threatened to leave or have left the denomination because of disagreements about homosexuality and the Bible.

The Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, the PCUSA’s outgoing stated clerk, said the membership plunge exceeded expectations.

“While it is deeply painful to lose this many members for any reason, it is obvious that the vast majority of Presbyterians are committed to staying in the PC(USA) and doing Christ’s mission together.”

_ Daniel Burke

Sierra Club highlights going green for God

(RNS) From Christians in Hawaii to Buddhists in Connecticut, and from Jews in New York to Muslims in Wisconsin, people of all walks of faith are finding a myriad of ways to care for the environment, according to a first-of-it-kind report from the Sierra Club.

According to the report, “Faith in Action: Communities of Faith Bring Hope for the Planet” 67 percent of Americans said they care about the environment because it is God’s creation.

Highlighting faith-based environmental initiatives in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, the report praises the “breadth, depth and diversity of spiritually motivated grassroots efforts to protect the planet.”

The 36-page report highlights different programs, from Episcopalians working to restrict oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to a large-scale recycling program at a Southern Baptist megachurch near Orlando, Fla.

The report said faith communities are leading a new eco-conscious wave that is rolling across the nation, “greening” all areas of religious and secular life. Reducing their carbon emissions, protecting endangered species and launching energy awareness campaigns are just some of the efforts being made.

The report is the latest indicator of a fledgling alliance between environmental groups and religious institutions, even as some conservative religious groups remain skeptical about the causes and concerns over climate change.

“Lasting social change rarely takes place without the active engagement of communities of faith,” the report said.

_ Ashly McGlone

Quote of the Day: Barbara Wagner of Springfield, Ore.

(RNS) “To say to someone, we’ll pay for you to die, but not pay for you to live, it’s cruel. I get angry. Who do they think they are?”

_ Barbara Wagner, a cancer patient from Springfield, Ore., who was notified by the Oregon Health Plan that it would not cover her chemotherapy drug but would cover doctor-assisted suicide. A drug company that makes the medicine she needs later informed her that it will provide her the medicine for free. She was quoted by The Register-Guard of Eugene, Ore.

KRE/RB END RNS