Focus on the Family

On today's broadcast, James Dobson interviewed Ralph & Danielle Drollinger, longtime friends of his who run an organization called Capitol Ministries, an organization that hosts regular Bible studies for, and ministers to, Members of Congress.

Among the members listed as sponsors on the organization's website are Todd Akin, Michele Bachmann, Paul Broun, Trent Franks, Louie Gohmert, Sue Myrick, Mike Pence, Tom Price, Lamar Smith, Joe Wilson and various others.

Danielle was actually a former employee of Focus on the Family before Dobson helped her get a job as a staffer for a Congressional committee in Washington DC.  After she and Ralph were married, they started Capitol Ministries with the intention of creating a nationwide "farm system" to cultivate conservative Christian candidates at the state and national level.

And, as Ralph explained, thanks to the rise of the Tea Party, all sorts of Religious Right candidates have been elected to Congress "under the radar":

Dobson: Tell us, very quickly, about the exciting thing that is happening with now thirty five new Evangelicals and people that love Christ have come to the House of Representatives primarily. That's almost doubled the number of people who were there before.

Drollinger: Today, I think with the new class in were up to probably sixty Evangelicals now holding office. And what's really interesting about this - just to analyze it for a second - is with the entitlement program runaway, there's been a pendulum swing that has risen the Tea Party. And the Tea Party is this huge voter block that is bigger than, say, our old Religious Right voter blocks because it's all kinds of people that are trying to elect fiscal conservatives to save the country economically. And when you elect a fiscal conservatives with this big engine called the Tea Party, you typically get a social conservative ...

Dobson: And often a Christian.

Drollinger: That's right. And so now we've got this flood of new believers that have snuck in under the radar. And before, the secular media would always shoot our horses in the corral before they got out on the track. And now they've all snuck in under the radar and through the guise of being fiscally conservative they've rallied huge voter bases. They get elected and they happen to be believers and they're saying "let's fuel a movement for Christ in the nation's capital."

Drolling went on to explain that at a recent Bible study for members of Congress, he taught on the issue what the Bible says about entitlement programs and mentioned that he also makes these studies available in printed form for Members who cannot make it to any particular study session.

And indeed he does, as there are twleve year's worth of such studies posted on their website.

So what exactly is Drollinger teaching members of Congress? Just that "America's bankrupting entitlement policies stem from bad theology" - namely, the Social Gospel, which is an "aberrent" and "heretical" theology that is a "perversion, or a corruption of what the Bible actually teaches":

It follows that the way a legislator understands God via his or her theology, or lack thereof, will determine their ideology in both personal and policy formation ... If the Social Gospel is unfounded in Scripture, such thinking and ideology should be soundly rejected. Why? Whenever an individual or society veers from the owner’s handbook, the way therein always proves detrimental.

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[N]owhere in Scripture does God assign the specific responsibility to Government to provide entitlements for its citizenry, whereas Scripture does assign specific entitlement responsibilities to various individuals and other institutions (as previously seen in this study). Again, one could argue that since Scripture does not prohibit Government from directly aiding the poor that such is biblically permissible. But to the degree any institution engages in responsibilities outside of its biblically-explicit God-ordained role(s) is the same degree to which it becomes inefficient and wasteful. 1 Peter 2: 13-14 states the specific role of Government is this: “Reward those who do good and punish those who do evil.”

The misunderstandings and supposed scriptural justifications for enormous government-based entitlement programs stem not from Christianity but from another misguided religion. Outside the explicit ordinances of the Scriptures, it follows that direct governmental provisions of entitlements lead not to selfsufficiency but by and large the ruin of both the individual recipient and the nation’s treasury.

May God grant you, our nation’s leader’s great wisdom to transition our policies to biblically-informed positions relative to best helping the poor and bereft—people whom you and I love and people whom God loves.

After Focus on the Family asked members to pray for Justin Bieber’s protection from Usher, the organization is now taking a stand against Lady Gaga. While Lady Gaga is a leading advocate of LGBT equality, Focus on the Family consistently lobbies against gay rights and is a chief sponsor of “reparative therapy” for gays and lesbians. Jim Daly, the head of Focus on the Family, writes about Lady Gaga’s Born This Way, and unsurprisingly finds her music and message deeply troubling. In his critique, Daly claims that people can be “set free from homosexuality,” and compares homosexuality to adultery:

I am not inclined toward celebrity psycho-analysis, and, candidly, find it strange to even write the word “Gaga.” But when millions of young people download her music and watch her videos, parents are wise to take note of what the hype and hoopla is all about.

In Born This Way, the claim is made that you’re born either heterosexual or homosexual. Don’t fight it - simply accept and embrace it.

The problem is, researchers are not sure about what causes homosexuality. Many are concluding it is a complex combination of things, but it is not as clear cut as simply genetic material.

The pulse and pace of modern culture can usually be determined from its music and movies, not faith and reason. That a song advocating for a genetic determinative for homosexuality sits atop the charts is disconcerting, but not entirely shocking. From the outside looking in, two things strike me.

First, by Stefani Germanotta’s own admission, she’s built her entire persona and celebrity on a platform that’s anything but typical. She is playing a part, a role, and not living as she would outside the bright lights. Put another way, Lady Gaga was clearly not born this way.

Second, and more importantly, the message found within the lyrics of Born This Way is in stark contrast to the message of the Gospel. All of us are born into sin, the Bible tells us, with desires and resulting actions that separate us from God and put us at odds with His blueprint for our lives. But the Good News is we’re not hopelessly trapped in our sin and failure. Despite the fact that we were “born this way,” each of us can be set free – from homosexuality, or heterosexual sex outside of marriage, or pornography, or greed, or gossip, or any other human shortcoming – to be the men and women God intended us to be.

The latest issue of Focus on the Family's "Citizen Magazine" features a cover story on Sen. Jim DeMint and the cost he has had to pay for standing on his Christian/Tea Party principles ... but it is a sacrifice DeMint is willing to make because "our government has never been further from the principles of freedom" and only Christians can save it:

Tea Party icon Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., is just one example of a Christian opting to stand on principle — and his faith — and paying the price in doing so.

While his fiscal conservatism is widely reported, his strong social values and Christian beliefs have proffered him not only perspective, but also courage and perseverance — rare commodities inside the Beltway.

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DeMint said there’s always a sacrifice involved when people begin to stand for their convictions, but he said one must have courage.

“I’m afraid Christians have been intimidated with this idea of separation of church and state — which is not in our Constitution at all — and that maybe their views aren’t welcomed in the public square; that maybe expressing a value judgment about right or wrong is no longer welcomed,” he said.

“We can’t have that anymore. If a society can’t speak out about what’s right or wrong according to their religious convictions, the culture will continue to decline and those who want lower and lower standards will continue to prevail. Biblical standards have preserved our country to this point.

“People of faith are going to have to stand back up. They’re afraid to go out in the community and say what’s right and wrong and challenge the culture. When I speak to pastors today, I challenge them and say, ‘Don’t let this government make you hide within the walls of your church.’ We need leaders. If we didn’t have pastors to lead this country in the revolution, America would never be free.”

Allow me to just call attention to the title of this piece:

"The Cost of Discipleship" just so happens to be the title of a book written in 1937 by German Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was executed for opposing the Nazis.

Just because James Dobson left Focus on the Family last year doesn't mean he has abandoned his Religious Right activism.  Last week he dedicated two days of his radio program to exposing the dangers of Islam with Jerry Boykin and this week he is dedicating two days to exposing the evils of Planned Parenthood with Gary Bauer and Rick Santorum.

On today's broadcast, Santorum claimed that the Nazi's eugenics ideas were taken from Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger and that the organization continues to target minorities to this day:

Dobson: We're going to talk about Planned Parenthood today which has been in the news recently in scandals that reveal just how evil and how sinister this organization really is.

Santorum: They have been pushing their agenda for close to a hundred years. I mean, it goes all the way back to Margaret Sanger and her views on eugenics, of culling the race from inferiors, that started Planned Parenthood. This was a movement to try to purify the race and she was for abortion and sterilization and things to get to her aim of a eugenics movement in this country and it was, unfortunately, widely accepted in the early part of the last century. That, with what happened in Nazi Germany which, by the way, took a lot of their eugenics ideas from Margaret Sanger and from the American eugenics movement and applied them to the Jews and other quote "undesirables" in Nazi Germany. But Planned Parenthood is the offshoot, is the progeny of Sanger and this movement and it continues today as they set up their clinics and as they try to ... again, if you look the statistics, target the minority community, the African American community where the abortion rates are much, much higher. This is no accident.

When a woman walks into an abortion clinic, she's entitled to a dead baby and it doesn't really matter how you do it - that's where the abortion movement is moving.

Mark your calendars on April 18th for Focus on the Family’s “Day of Dialogue.”

After the anti-gay ministry Exodus International dropped the “Day of Truth,” an event that tries to counteract GLSEN’s “Day of Silence,” which takes place on April 15th and opposes anti-gay bigotry in schools, Focus on the Family took over and renamed it the “Day of Dialogue.” The website features stories of people “leaving homosexuality” and criticizes GLSEN and the Day of Silence.

Candi Cushman, who leads Focus on the Family’s “True Tolerance” campaign against anti-bullying programs, wants to introduce the Day of Dialogue with a positive spin:

Focus on the Family rolled out its Day of Dialogue™ campaign today with one goal in mind: To encourage honest and respectful conversation among students about the fact that God cares about our relationships, our sexuality and our souls. The nationwide event, which began in 2005 as the Day of Truth, will take place April 18.

Through the Day of Dialogue, Focus hopes to encourage peaceful, student-initiated conversations and ensure there is a safe space for different perspectives and viewpoints, including faith-based ones.

Candi Cushman, education analyst for Focus on the Family and director of the new Day of Dialogue website, said the name change reflects the key goal of equipping students with an opportunity to articulate a Christian perspective.

“We’re excited about shepherding this student-led event,” she said. “Focus has a long tradition of supporting those who want to express their faith-based viewpoints about homosexuality in a loving and respectful way, and the Day of Dialogue gives students a great way to do just that.”

The event will come on the heels of the Day of Silence, on which gay activists and their allies encourage students to take a vow of silence to bring “attention to the silence faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their allies.”

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Cushman said: “Our focus for this year’s event is going to be on dialogue and giving students of faith an opportunity to express the model presented by Jesus Christ in the Bible — who didn’t back away from speaking truth, but neither held back in pouring out His compassionate love for hurting and vulnerable people and defending those people from harm.

“The most important way family advocates can help is to make high school and college students aware of the Day of Dialogue. Students can register, and check out activities, conversation cards and posters on the new website.”

Focus on the Family’s Chad Hills is concerned about Justin Bieber. Reacting to Bieber’s interview with Rolling Stone, where the singer discussed issues from abortion to abstinence and healthcare, the Focus on the Family spokesman is nervous that Bieber didn’t embrace the abstinence-only-until-marriage stance heavily promoted by Focus. Hills thinks that his manager, the “crude and sexually explicit R&B icon” Usher, may be corrupting the 16 year old singer. “Justin is already being asked – and criticized – for his political beliefs,” writes Hills, who goes on to criticize Bieber for his views on abstinence, “when he probably can’t even tell you why he ate waffles for breakfast.” He asks readers to pray for Bieber, whose movie is being marketed to evangelical Christians, from “being swept directly into the center of the extremely profane, hyper-sexualized, violent and self-indulgent culture of R&B.” Hills writes:

The secular music and entertainment industry is a sexual and political minefield for adult artists, much less for kids. Justin is already being asked – and criticized – for his political beliefs, when he probably can’t even tell you why he ate waffles for breakfast.

Bieber’s only a kid, and he’s being swept directly into the center of the extremely profane, hyper-sexualized, violent and self-indulgent culture of R&B. Moreover, Justin’s being “mentored” by the very crude and sexually explicit R&B icon, Usher.

The Bible warns us in 1 Cor. 15:33, “Do not be misled: ‘Bad company corrupts good character.’” Temptation is an ever-present force when people are in the spotlight.

What can you do? Pray hard for these people. Because, as Miley Cyrus and others have discovered, it’s much more difficult to keep your faith in the limelight.

Being young and famous does not destine you to moral failure, but it does mean you need to know where you stand – before you take the stand. NFL football star, Tim Tebow, is proof that it can be done.

Whether or not you like Bieber or R&B-style music, I know Justin’s mother is concerned. And she’s praying for her son’s protection. Shouldn’t we do the same?

With greater awareness among policymakers about the problem of pervasive anti-gay bullying in schools, the Religious Right has stepped-up their efforts to misleadingly label anti-bullying policies as “homosexual propaganda.” Focus on the Family warned of “activists who want to promote homosexuality in kids,” David Barton dismissed accounts of bullying and condemned alleged “homosexual indoctrination,” and the Minnesota Family Council blamed the LGBT community for bullying by endorsing an “unhealthy lifestyle.”

Now, the California Family Council (CFC) is escalating its own attacks against anti-bullying initiatives in schools. The CFC is affiliated with Focus on the Family and was highly involved in the campaign to pass Proposition 8. The CFC is now turning its attention to combating what it calls the new “cause célèbre of homosexual activists,” implementing anti-harassment policies. The CFC’s Rebecca Burgoyne spoke to the American Family Association’s news service OneNewsNow about their work fighting anti-bullying policies under the guise of protecting free speech:

A pro-family activist is taking to task a prominent homosexual-rights group for camouflaging its true agenda behind the banner of "bullying" in public schools.

Rebecca Burgoyne, research analyst with California Family Council, tells OneNewsNow that children across The Golden State are being indoctrinated with a pro-homosexual message. She maintains that the Obama administration and homosexual lobbyists are advancing an agenda that silences religious speech and the rights of parents.

"For many years, maybe a decade or so, gay activists in California have been making a big to-do about 'bullying' because of sexual orientation -- or even perceived sexual orientation," she explains. And the term "bullying," she argues, has become the elementary-level word for "hate speech."

January 24-28 marked "No Name-Calling Week" in public schools across the nation -- a week-long observance designed for fifth- through eighth-grade and sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). While the observance claimed to be a week of educational and creative activities "designed to address bullying and end name-calling of all kinds," Burgoyne explains that the agenda behind it contains a decidedly pro-homosexual slant.

"Nobody wants a child to be bullied," she acknowledges. "Nobody wants a child to [be] hurt. Most people say 'Oh, great! We're teaching our children not to bully each other' -- which is a good thing. But it's being used instead to push the homosexual message."

In an article published on her group's website, Burgoyne notes that a young adult book featured during the week is The Misfits. The book, authored by an open homosexual, normalizes same-sex attraction, one character being an "openly homosexual seventh-grader who sees nothing wrong with being attracted to the boy who sits next to him in class."

The CFC research analyst contends that through such events as "No Name-Calling Week," homosexual activists are seeking to make same-sex attractions acceptable to young children -- while at the same time silencing the voice of other viewpoints.

• Joseph Farah says he "wouldn't vote for Mitt Romney if he were running against Satan himself."
• Gordon Klingenschmitt says the repeal of DADT will result in a "purge" of Christians from the military.
• Focus on the Family is not impressed with Barbara Bush's support for marriage equality.
• FRC 's Robert Morrison says Lila Rose "deserves a Pulitzer Prize."
• Anti-mosque activist Andy Sullivan opposes the "Ground Zero Mosque" because "according to the IRS, they are a religious 501c3 charity, meaning they cannot have access to federal monies. No religious institution has the right to have access to federal monies."
• Next, Bill O'Reilly will be asking "magnets, how do they work?"
• Finally, Bryan Fischer says we need to "start dismantling egregiously wrong precedents such as Roe v. Wade and Lawrence v. Texas."

Republicans and their allies have consistently smeared the recent health care reform law by suggesting that it will lead to taxpayer subsidized abortions. Poltifact says that, despite Rep. John Carter’s assertions to the contrary, the health care reform law certainly “does not provide full federal funding of abortions — and that’s clear,” but that hasn’t stopped GOP leaders like Speaker John Boehner and Michele Bachmann from asserting that taxpayer funds are already being used to finance abortions. CitizenLink (formerly Focus on the Family Action) and Susan B. Anthony List even ran campaign ads that called the reform measure “the biggest expansion of abortion in decades” and charged supporters with backing President Obama instead of choosing “to protect life.” While the claim that the health care reform law provides funding for abortion has been readily discredited, an even more extreme and conspiratorial claim is emerging: that health care reform could require doctors to perform abortions.

According to the Columbia Free Times, Republicans in the South Carolina State House are planning to pass anti-choice legislation including one measure entitled “Obamacare Abortion Opt-Out.” The South Carolina House Republican Caucus announced that State Rep. Greg Delleney will be introducing the “Obamacare Abortion Opt-Out” to ensure that “S.C. Doctors will not be required to perform abortions if required to by Obamacare.” The legislation is one of many right-wing bills that the South Carolina GOP hopes to pass in the new session, including a “Repeal Amendment” and a “Taxpayer Bill Of Rights.”

Rep. Delleney is a staunchly anti-choice member of the State House and he also plans to introduce a bill that would allow health care workers to refuse patrons contraceptives. He previously introduced legislation that would require women to see ultrasound images before terminating their pregnancy and to endure a twenty-four hour waiting period before having an abortion. Rep. Delleney also gained attention when he excluded gay and lesbian students from dating violence curriculum in schools.

His “Obamacare Abortion Opt-Out” though represents one of the GOP’s most ludicrous and extreme attempts to malign the health care reform law yet.