Focus on the Family founder and social conservative commentator James Dobson has baffled his followers and pundits at large with his statements about the presidential campaign. Dobson has said he will not vote for Sen. John McCain, at one point suggested he would not vote in the presidential election, and more recently said he “will certainly vote,” without indicating whom he will support. When WORLD On the Web writer Alisa Harris called Dobson’s various stances a “flip-flop,” however, Focus on the Family took issue with her characterization. See Focus on the Family Action Vice President of Media and Public Relations Gary Schneeberger’s response at the end of Alisa’s updated post here.

The Religious Right is still desperately trying to catch John McCain’s attention, and they’re still running into the same problem that left them with a candidate so distasteful to them in the first place. They can’t seem to pull it together and make up their minds.

The latest news: A group of 20 social conservative leaders has signed a full-page ad issuing dark threats if McCain picks Mitt Romney for his vice president. The irony: The group includes a former Romney supporter.

Paul Weyrich – founder of the Moral Majority – once supported Mitt Romney for president. Then Weyrich admitted before Religious Right leaders “and before almighty God” that he was wrong, and decided to join the campaign against Mitt Romney for vice president.

Baffling, but Christian Right guru James Dobson has flip-flopped, too [see Focus response below]. First, Dobson said he would vote for a third party candidate if neither party nominated “an individual who pledges himself or herself to the sanctity of human life.” Then Dobson said he would vote for (but not endorse) either Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee. After Romney dropped out, Dobson endorsed Huckabee — too late to make a difference.

The GOP nominated a candidate with an unimpeachable pro-life voting record, but Dobson still isn’t happy. He backed off his threat to vote third party and said he wouldn’t vote at all this November. Then he changed his mind and said he will vote, despite the fact that McCain supports embryonic stem cell research.

But if McCain changed his position, would it help? It didn’t help Romney. The whole thrust of the anti-Romney campaign is that Romney is untrustworthy because he reversed his positions on abortion and gay marriage.

On April 2, James Dobson told the Wall Street Journal, “I have seen no evidence that Sen. McCain is successfully unifying the Republican Party or drawing conservatives into his fold.” Considering the wildly vacillating choices social conservatives have made this election season, maybe McCain is waiting for them to unify themselves first.

UPDATE: (From Gary Schneeberger, vice president of media and public relations for Focus on the Family Action):

The thesis of Alisa Harris’ commentary is faulty – which might explain why some of her facts are, too. Central to her analysis is that socially conservative evangelicals all fit snugly under a single tent; problem is, that never has been accurate. Our movement is a vast and varied one – from political insiders who see pragmatism as the best way to effect long-term change, to more prophetic voices whose allegiance is to principles – not candidates, political parties or even election results.

It is into this second camp that Dr. Dobson falls. Ms. Harris accuses him of “flip-flopping” on the standards that will guide his voting this November. In truth, Dr. Dobson made it clear, speaking as a private citizen from as early as January 2007, that he could not support Sen. McCain’s candidacy. He said the same of the candidacies of Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson later last year. He also said, as Ms. Harris notes, he would vote for a third-party candidate if both major parties nominated standard-bearers not committed to the sanctity of human life. That commitment to not cast a ballot for someone who would end preborn life has not wobbled one whit: certainly not in Dr. Dobson’s indication he could vote for either Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee, the two candidates who unapologetically championed the pro-life cause; or in his endorsement this February of Gov. Huckabee, still in the race at the time.

It is also unfortunate that Ms. Harris states that Dr. Dobson remains unhappy even though the GOP, in McCain, has anointed someone with an “unimpeachable pro-life voting record.” That is simply untrue. Sen. McCain led the charge in the Senate on two bills that would have allocated federal money for lab experiments on human embryos – tiny human lives which would have been killed after the tests were done. Thankfully, President Bush understood that you can’t call yourself pro-life and abide the slaughter of nascent life in the name of suspect science. He vetoed the immoral legislation, knowing it would lead to cloning. Dr. Dobson agrees with the president’s position, which is one of the reasons he is “still not happy” with the GOP’s ’08 nominee.

Still, Ms. Harris goes on to suggest Dr. Dobson recently told Sean Hannity he would vote for Sen. McCain anyway – evidence of yet another apparent flip-flop. In truth, what Dr. Dobson said on Hannity’s America a few weeks ago was that he certainly would vote, but gave no indication for whom, emphasizing the importance of the candidates and issues down the ballot and expressing his belief that we have a God-given responsibility to let our voices be heard. Again, there is nothing inconsistent in these pronouncements.

Dr. Dobson has spent 35 years “in the arena,” as Theodore Roosevelt said, defending the value of all human life and the importance of traditional marriage as a building block of society. He’s taken his fair share of hits from the media (even the Christian media, including World) for the stands he’s taken. Those positions spring not from expediency, but from conscience and principle. It is an honor to serve such a man, because he is the antithesis of a flip-flopper. He is guided by deeply held biblical convictions – and is unafraid to defend his beliefs against those who would mock or misrepresent them.

Readers: I stand corrected in my mischaracterization of Dr. Dobson’s comments, saying that he will vote in November, as implying that he will vote for Sen. John McCain. It wasn’t my intention to misrepresent his position in any way, and I’m very sorry for any damage or confusion this has caused. Alisa Harris

The original article was posted on WORLD On the Web on April 8.

Only once did Focus on the Family’s Dr. James Dobson endorse a presidential candidate–and that was George W. Bush, who in 2004 ran unopposed for the GOP nomination. In this year’s election, Dobson has largely skirted the issue–perhaps in part because he’s hesitant to mistakenly back a losing candidate and thereby devalue the worth of any future endorsement. But if and when he throws his support behind one of the candidates, will it even matter?

The founder of the Colorado Springs-based organization may have reason to be concerned about his influence. At the age of 71 and semi-retired from the day-to-day operations of his organization, Dobson is seeing Focus on the Family’s fortunes wane - CEO Jim Daly describes them as “flat” - perhaps an inevitability for a ministry pegged to one towering figure. The ministry’s expenses have exceeded its revenues for two years - what Daly calls a “drawdown from reserves” - by $4.1 million in fiscal year 2006 and by $9.9 million in 2005. (Figures for 2007 have not yet been released.)

Especially in light of a younger generation of evangelical leaders like Rick Warren, Joel Osteen, and Bill Hybels, is Dobson’s political influence in the Christian arena as important as it was in the past?

I’ve been thinking more about the conflation of conservatism and Christianity among many people I know. In a recent issue of Newsweek, Michael Gerson describes three evangelical approaches to politics, embodied by a prophet (James Dobson), a priest (Billy Graham), and a kingmaker (Pat Robertson). Gerson argues that all three approaches are declining:

“Leaders such as Robertson mainly exercise broad influence in the imagination of liberals. Evangelicals, particularly younger evangelicals, are undergoing a shift in attitudes. Many have little interest in the self-destructive purity of the prophet or the raw pragmatism of the kingmaker. They remain culturally conservative, but uncomfortable with a harshly judgmental tone in their politics. They find the model of the religious right too narrow and are increasingly motivated by a broader range of social concerns.”

Columnist Andrew Sullivan, meanwhile, was enthusiastic about Gerson’s point of view:

“It seems to me that our society needs Christian witness - on charity, on caring for the environment, on protecting the vulnerable, on seeking peace, on opening dialogue - as much as it doesn’t need Christianist intolerance, politicking and campaigning. It’s especially important, it seems to me, that Christian witness also regain humility and an indifference to power. Forsaking a partisan identity is critical to this.”

Part of the problem, I think, is that a conservative philosophy is largely one of restraint on most government spending , with an expectation that local, voluntary initiatives will do more to assist the poor and downtrodden than any government program. Conservative Christians involved in politics, therefore, project an image of being “against” assistance for the poor, “for” war, and far more concerned with stopping gay marriage than stopping AIDS. They want much of what we call mercy missions to be off the political agenda. Conservatism, in other words, is worlds apart from Christianity — it fosters a space for effective mercy, but it doesn’t embody mercy. Insofar as people identify Christianity with conservative political action, therefore, they are likely to come away with a slanted view of what our faith really means.

It can be problematic, then, when politicians trumpet their Christian credentials; if 90 percent of what a politician stands for doesn’t advance Christian principles, but instead advances conservative principles, then perhaps the perception of Christianity, among the unchurched, is done a disservice when they perceive the politician to embody what a Christian is all about. Likewise, of course, when a notable Christian endorses such a politician. C.S. Lewis once remarked that what we need are not more Christian writers, but more great writers who are Christians. Perhaps the same applies to politicians.

The best innoculation, I think, to a wrong perception that Christianity is equivalent to conservatism is the mercy work of many good churches. For every politico a non-Christian sees claiming the Christian label, we want him to see a hundred Christians in his community, quietly, humbly doing the work of our Father. The more we can accomplish that, the harder it will be for people to identify Christianity with whatever happens to be popular among politicians who claim to act on Christ’s behalf. “You will know them,” Christ said of the good and the bad, “by their fruits.” My prayer, in the current political season and the decades to follow, is that more non-Christians will come to know us in that way, by lifechanging encounters with loving Christians.