James Dobson, without sin just like Jesus

I heard Al Franken talking about a conversation this morning with Steven Colbert. Colbert asked if Franken had heard that Dobson said he was without sin. Al did not remember. I do know the answer. (see below—my “church creds” are in paragraph six) . Please forward the information to Colbert. I cannot email him directly. There is no contact info at Comedy Central.

Dobson is a member of the Church of the Nazarene--a holiness church. Fundamental to their belief system is the doctrine of Entire Sanctification.
It is a second conversion event in which the members become sinless like Jesus and never sin again for the rest of their lives. If they sin even once in their lives after they are entirely sanctified then they will go to Hell when they die. They cannot be redeemed.*

Nazarenes must declare that they are Entirely Sanctified before they can take any leadership position in the church (board of Christian Life, Sunday school teacher, etc. Dobson has been THE major leader in the Nazarene church for last 30 years. He had to have declared himself entirely sanctified.

The Nazarene view is very different from the mainstream protestant views that Christians may be tempted into sin "backsliding" after conversion but as long as they confess their sin to God and sin no more they can get their sin forgiven. There is no forgiveness for sin for an entirely sanctified Nazarene. However the Nazarenes do not have as many acts that would be considered sinful as do most protestants especially evangelicals and Baptists. A Baptist can sin by having "lust in his hearts (ala Jimmy Carter) for a woman other than his wife even if he never acts on that lust in any way. No such lusting in your heart sin exists for Nazarenes. A Nazarene sin is defined differently. It has to be a willful overt act. However one has to wonder if some of the “untruths” that James Dobson has said on Focus on the Family radio would be considered willful lies if so he is eternally damned according to his own doctrine.

Also Nazarene women are encouraged not to wear makeup including lipstick, not wear jewelry including wedding bands, not supposed to ever attend any movie or be in any movie theater, may not smoke, drink alcohol and cannot be members of the masons or have any affiliation to masons. The joke my wife’s uncle (a Methodist minister) used to tell about Nazarenes was: “Baptist were so narrow that they would fit three to a bed, but Nazarenes were so narrow that they fit ten to a bed.” (Narrow being a play on words. Christians who are extremely religious are called narrow because they walk a very narrow road to salvation due to an excessive amount of rules they follow).

I know these things because I was a member of the Church of the Nazarene in Porterville Church California for nine years in the seventies and eighties. It was the largest Nazarene Church in the San Joaquin Valley. I was on The Board of Christian Life, spent eight years as a Sunday School teacher and my wife and I ran the Christian scouting program called Caravans at the Church). I was given awards for Outstanding Service Award—Children’s Ministries, Caravan Worker of the year 1978, and Outstanding Christian Service Award for Caravan Work 1978-1982. In order to hold these positions I had to declare that I was Entirely Sanctified.

Our minister during this time was Wil Spaite. He had been the College tennis team partner of James Dobson when the two were enrolled in Pasadena College ( a Nazarene college which has since moved its campus to Point Loma, CA and is called Point Loma Nazarene College.) I believe that Pastor Spaite and Dr. Dobson may have been roommates in college as well.

Pastor Spaite was able to get James Dobson as a speaker at our church in Porterville in 1982 because of his personal close and long time friendship. Even then because of his book Dare to Discipline, James Dobson had enough celebrity status that booking him at a local church (rather than a larger venue) was virtually impossible. When he spoke at our church he was still working at USC in southern California as a child psychologist. He called himself Dr. Dobson even then and talked about his work at the USC hospital leading most to the conclusion that he was a medical doctor. He is not. His doctorate is in psychology.

Dobson could not have spoken from our church pulpit unless he had declared himself entirely sanctified.

Darwindad

*The “cannot be redeemed” part can be gotten around. If there is a major sin after the declaration of Entire Sanctification, then there can be a determination that the person who sinned was never really Entirely Sanctified. Apparently the sinning person had been mistaken when he though he was given the second infilling of the Holy Spirit and gotten entirely sanctified. If the “mistaken about entire sanctification” sinner confesses in front of the Congregation and then asks for forgiveness and asks the Holy Spirit to Entirely Sanctify him (for real this time), then he can still get into heaven.

After my wife and I moved away one of our friends, a Church Board Member, was caught in an adulterous affair. He had to confess in front of the Congregation. He lost his Church Board job of course. Within a couple of years afterwards, he died of brain cancer. He was not yet forty. You can guess what some church members thought about his early death.