Dr. James Dobson
[omitted]
Colo. Springs CO
September 27, 2007
Pastor Bob Enyart
6126 Braun Court
Arvada CO 80004
Dear Dr. Dobson,
I hope you are well. We have written open letters to you, and this private letter is the only mail we will ever send to you at your home address. We've had this address for two and a half years, and haven't used it out of respect for your privacy. Now, we will use it just this once.
Your son Ryan was on my radio show on January 26th of this year to discuss his book about intolerance. Of course when interviewing him I never brought up our disagreement with you, because he is his own man, and deserves his own opportunity to minister as God has laid on his heart. In a moment, I'll share something important that has to do with your son and with Franklin Graham. But first, I am sure you are either angry with me and our fellow signers of the open letters, or at least, you are hurt; so you may want to throw this letter down. But I beg of you, as someone who has loved you since soon after I became a Christian in 1973, I beg of you to read this letter.
My wife Cheryl and I have raised seven boys (and we're still doing so). Before the oldest was born, I read your book so I could do a better job raising my children than my father did raising me and my brothers (we all dearly love him and he is now with the Lord). Our youngest three are still at home, and so Cheryl and I have been reading Bringing Up Boys, and are blessed by its wisdom. In the sixteen years I've hosted a talk show, a hundred times I've publicly expressed my love and respect for you, and always remind people of the multitude that Focus on the Family has brought to know the Lord. As best I can judge the hearts of each of the signers of our open letter, each one has a deep love and respect for you, and Alan Keyes perhaps most of all. We are not convinced that those who are defending you love you more than we do, and we are certain that you would disdain being held above criticism. To each one of us, signing our open letters admonishing you, has brought instant condemnation from the vast majority of Christians, and when each advertisement runs, we do not celebrate, but grieve.
The enclosed newspaper contains our latest ad which ran last week in Don Wildmon's part of the country, and it added Judge Roy Moore's name to the list of leaders condemning the PBA ruling. This was our first Mississippi ad, but the last one to run with only the names of the original signers; the next full-page open letter will include Dr. Keyes name as a signer.
If we were trying to reach almost any other Christian leader, we would have concluded by now that his pride would be virtually impossible to overcome. Dr. Dobson, you may see it as a backhanded compliment, but your humility over the years gives us hope that you can still be reached. We pray that you would talk to Del Tackett about the enclosed letter. He will tell you that when you defend rulings which authorize the intentional killing of the innocent, that you are subordinating the greatest precedent, Do not murder, and that you are practicing moral relativism, which in law is called legal positivism. You are leading a generation of Christian lawyers, politicians, judges, and voters into that form of secular humanism. And after a quarter-century of such political and legal strategy, we have destroyed a generation of our own pro-life Republican judges who now believe (we document this) that the God-given right to life is no longer relevant, but rather, they believe that the government has the right to regulate the intentional killing of the innocent.
We have not imagined this epic tragedy; nor are we admonishing you for some pleasure or personal benefit.
The Truth Project cannot be just a set of DVDs; it must be put into action regardless of the cost. Otherwise, to know what will happen to Focus on the Family in the near future, you only need to look at the history of Christian universities, and hospitals, and mainline denominations. The Lord said that you cannot put new wine into old wineskins. He was referring to the old and new covenants, but there is an application of His words to organized ministry. The truth of the Gospel is always new, but our Christian organizations pick up the influence of the world, and eventually, transfer their loyalty to a humanist worldview. Christian universities, within generations, become godless. Christian hospitals eventually perform abortions. The mainline denominations, birthed in righteousness, now widely reject biblical morality, and often they even deny the bodily resurrection of the Lord.
A new development in the bylaws of Christian ministries is to recognize this sad reality of their own eventual spiritual demise. Great leaders have learned to prepare for their own replacement, but almost none have spent any time planning for what to do with the coming spiritual downfall of their ministry. Such new bylaws address this inevitability, and require the ministry to disband after three generations of hopefully faithful leaders (Moses, Joshua, and the elders who outlived Joshua, Joshua 24:31), and after three generations, such bylaws require the ministry to liquidate their assets and fund some other young vibrant ministries that are not related to the original. Christian leaders naturally have a desire to create a perpetual earthly ministry, but that goal ignores biblical wisdom and all relevant history.
Focus is only now in the process of transitioning to its second generation of leadership under Jim Daly. But there is no principle that says that a ministry cannot become harmful sooner rather than later. This is what Ryan and Franklin Graham have in common: a unique, God-given opportunity to extend the best of their father's ministries for another generation. By the end of only one generation, Billy Graham's ministry actually supports abortion for rape and incest and defends it to kill handicapped unborn children. In the 1997 The Billy Graham Christian Worker's Handbook, he wrote, "We should accept abortion in these cases: rape or incest...", and his 2001 edition urged tolerance for killing children "when tests reveal that the unborn child has severe abnormalities." So, the world's greatest Christian evangelist offers tolerance toward killing handicapped kids. With the growing moral relativism in the Body of Christ, Billy Graham likely received no loving correction from any major Christian leader, although thousands of grassroots believers and activists mourn for him over this falsehood that God's command, Do not murder, is a secondary consideration.
When Terri Schiavo was being starved to death by judicial decree, pro-lifers were heartened that her case was going to the 11th Circuit in Florida, because we had six judges on that court. Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and George W. Bush appointed six judges to that court, including one you personally lobbied for, William Pryor. However, all six of our judges voted to allow Terri to be starved to death. All six. Focus on the Family, National Right to Life, Jay Sekulow and others have advocated legal positivism for a quarter century, and this has destroyed any commitment our own conservative Republican judges may have had to the God-given right to life. Yet, you have never reported to your audience this grave tragedy. (There are too many horrendous Republican rulings that we have documented to list, but they include support of child molesters, child pornography, and the Dover Pennsylvania decision that dripped with hatred toward creationists from a judge nominated by George W. Bush in 2002.) Perhaps your public policy staff and judicial analysts mislead you as to which party these judges are affiliated with. But when Republican judges render godless and wicked decisions, you speak as though it were Democratic judges who issue those rulings, and you urge Christians to lobby to get a few more Republican judges on the bench, as though then we will win, never telling those fellow believers that it is our own Republican judges who stab us in the back.
The world needs Focus on the Family to be strong for more generations (as the Lord tarries). You have produced the wonderful Truth Project, but God holds Focus accountable to live the Truth Project. God did not entrust ministries to corporate boards, but to individuals... and families. And while I know nothing about Ryan and Franklin Graham other than my brief interactions with them and reading their writings, I do believe that they uniquely have the standing to prevent their father's great ministries from falling rapidly to the flesh and humanism.
If we signers are wrong, we deserve the condemnation we get from the many Christians who reject our plea to you. We are not wrong, and those advising you are wrong. We interviewed Colorado Springs OB-GYN Dr. Roy Stringfellow on Sept. 18, and he admitted for example, that the PBA ban will not stop a single late-term abortion committed by Warren Hern in Boulder, Colorado. He knew this all along, yet he misled you when he wrote that, "The elimination of partial birth abortion effectively removed the only realistic procedure for aborting babies in the late second trimester and the third trimester." Also, Dr. Stringfellow couldn't name a single late-term abortionist whom the ruling had prevented from killing later-term babies. Dr. Dobson, the PBA ruling has had no affect on the scheduling of late-term abortions, which continue unabated, and are committed at the notorious clinics that had been performing them all along with no slow-down, as attested by the media, by street activist witnesses, and by our own phone calls to schedule 30-plus-week abortions around the country. Further, Dr. Stringfellow misrepresented to you that he had read Gonzales v. Carhart. It is known that he did not, since he claimed on my radio show that the ruling outlawed not only PBA, but also lethal injections, which of course it did not. If you need encouragement from Dr. Jack Wilke to stop the erosion of credibility at Focus for distributing Stringfellow's blatantly false claims, please call him and ask if the above trimesters quote is true or false. Like so many others, Dr. Stringfellow erred because he can't get himself to admit the futility of the 15-year PBA effort, and therefore he is willing to make wild assumptions to justify what was a tragic effort.
Quotes from Judge Roy Moore on how wicked the PBA ruling is follow the end of this letter. These admissions were hard for the Judge, because he had followed your lead, Dr. Dobson, and had praised the ruling in print and in public appearances. But then he read the ruling. Some have been dismayed by our confronting you, but those who have gone on to personally read Carhart have been even more shocked, many to the point of tears, to read what this brutally wicked ruling actually says, being shocked also because they were misled by ministries they have grown to love and trust.
Do you think our accusation against you is motivated out of jealousy or envy? Dr. Dobson, if you judge our motives, and not our accusation, you will not be able to determine whether we give false testimony or tell the truth. I asked Colorado RTL and American Life League to leave my name off the open letters, out of fear that my past efforts to expose this crisis may prevent you from taking this current effort seriously; they refused. But please don't project onto the other signers whatever disappointment you may feel toward our Denver Bible Church. As Paul asked, have they become your enemy for telling you the truth? I understand Tom Minnery and Carrie Gordon Earll not replying to me when we sent them advance copies of the open letter. But I don't understand them not responding to a signer like Judie Brown and her American Life League, and even after the first letter appeared, I don't understand them ignoring a signer like the Rev. Tom Euteneuer with his Human Life International which operates actively in 80 countries. Please don't ignore the growing list of leaders condemning the PBA ruling, now including Judge Roy Moore. And please don't ignore the names being added as signers of our next open letter, including that of Alan Keyes, which may destroy his Republican primary campaign even before it gets started. I believe Dr. Keyes is signing our open letter because if we fail to expose the moral relativism that is corrupting the gospel of Christ, what difference will the outcome of future elections make? [BE note: after studying our letter, Dr. Keyes requested, with heaviness of heart, to add his name.]
Please go to Dr. Tackett. Please put aside your anger toward me, and think only of the other signers and of what is at stake (far more than the next election). And please read with him the enclosed open letter in Mississippi's Daily Journal. And please watch together the enclosed DVD, Focus on the Strategy II. If you read and watch, our love for you will be evident, and you will become more knowledgeable than your staff on how to handle this matter. For it is clear that your executives have not once taken our concerns seriously, but instead, reply with name calling and comments about ultrasound machines, and calling us rogues and divisive, when it is National RTL for a quarter century that has been kicking out affiliates and leaders who disagree on strategy and oppose pro-choice Republican candidates. Dr. Tackett has the wisdom needed to seriously weigh the principles that are at stake in this grave disagreement.
In Christ,
Pastor Bob Enyart Denver Bible Church & KGOV.com
p.s. Please see the reverse for Judge Roy Moore's quotes.
Judge Roy Moore quotes from an August 16, 2007 interview on Denver's 50,000-watt AM 670 KLTT
- Things aren't always as they seem. And when this ruling came out, many praised the ruling; in fact I was one of them. I had not fully read the ruling... But then when you read the Carhart opinion, you realize what they have done is atrocious.
- I've never seen a court so apologetic to abortionists... that is very wrong.
- Quoting the Gonzales v. Carhart ruling itself: "In addition, if intact D&E is truly necessary in some circumstances, a prior injection to kill the fetus allows the doctor to perform the procedure given that the act's prohibition only applies to the delivery of a living fetus."
- When I heard someone say "This opinion does not save a single human life", they are correct. [That 'someone' Dr. Dobson, was quoting you.]
- It actually sets another bad precedent if you will. It sets a precedent in 2007 of how you can take life. And that's just bad. ...We have put the rule of man above the rule of law. ...We've got judges across our country [and] in Colorado no doubt, that are eliminating any acknowledgment of a sovereign God...
- I likened this Carhart opinion to... a court in Germany, during the Holocaust coming out and saying, The Congress has just passed a rule that we couldn't gas these Jews but it certainly allows us to put them in a deep ditch and cover them with dirt while they are still breathing. You see, that is how atrocious this Carhart opinion is. It says you can still kill them, you just have to do it a different way. Now if anybody doesn't believe that that is what this opinion says, I invite them to read it. ... You have just got to read the opinion.
- In the 1700s precedent was defined as precedent as long as it didn't conflict with reason, logic or the law of God.
- Well, we all stand in need of some correction. And I can admit I was too, I needed that. I spoke too quickly. But you know, all you have to do is read the opinion.
- Show Host: Judge Roy Moore, does a civil government have the right to authorize the intentional killing of an innocent person? Judge Moore: No. Host: They don't have that right? Judge Moore: No.