Kathy,

I guess I haven't been staying until the instructions of the products at the
end these days so I didn't realize that.  I have purchased things from them
many times over the years.  When my 26 year old son was a year old, he was
having ear infections about once a month.  Sandy didn't sleep for months
without getting up many times a night.  She was working at the hospital
offices back then so I literally had to hold him upright against my chest so
he could sleep and he wouldn't crawl around or play all day.  The Lord led
us to a chiropractor and he, at that time, was using an ultrasound
treatment.  The doctor was a Christian.  My friend who took us, brought me
home and we walked to the front door.  I unlocked the door, pushed it
opened, and Everett started wiggling like he wanted down.  I put him down,
he was walking, and he ran over to his toys and played all day and I never
held him once.  During those hundreds of hours of holding him over the many
months, however, I listened to the radio, and every Focus on the Family,
program every single day.  Sometimes twice a day because we have so many
Christian radio stations, you can always catch the shows later if you miss
one.  Anyhow, Focus on the Family was my life line back in those days.  No,
I don't believe everything they say but, shoot, I don't even believe
everything I say half the time and of course we all know I have never
changed my mind because I am always right.  Any time our son started acting
like another ear infection was coming on, and all this was after dozens of
trips to the medical doctor and dozens of bottles of liquid medications and
antibiotics, we got our son to the chiropractor right away, eventually he
went to using a low level laser light, and our son never had to take
medications again for ear infections.  It was amazing.  The treatments,
normally one or two or three a week at the most, were only 4 dollars each
and sometimes he didn't even charge us for some of the treatments.  The only
real problem I have with Focus on the Family, other than all the politics
they have gotten tangled up in over the years, is that it seems to have
morphed into a certain class of Christian of which I am not apart.  My life
isn't as stable or regular and even, and by the book, sort of speak, as I
get the impression they think it should be.  Frankly, I'm not that good of a
Christian based upon how psychology is integrated into the Christian's daily
life.  I've likely told this before but years ago, I was in a church called
Amazing Grace.  It was a low level Pentecostal church, sort of speak, and
Sandy played the drums on the worship team.  One Wednesday night, they had
us watch a Dobson film on Sexually Transmitted Diseases.  A wonderful church
presentation, tongue in cheek, and the thing freaked me out.  By the time
the film was over, I was reviewing my life, out of fear, that I might have a
STD and I knew that was impossible based upon my Christian life style even
as a teenager on drugs.  I may have shot speed up my arm without using a
clean needle or swabbing the skin with a cotton ball doused with alcohol,
but I was afraid God would kill me if I had sex before marriage.  Not
necessarily a bad attitude to have in my opinion but I'm just saying, this
film almost had me convinced I was diseased and I hadn't even done anything.
They really put the pressure on in other words.  Something bothered me about
the film and the interviews with the teenagers they showed but I couldn't
figure out what it was.  I just figured it was my old cynical attitude again
and tried not thinking about it until, that is, one day, a week or so later,
it hit me what was wrong.  They were frightening people that they might get
a disease, if the had premarital sex, and not approaching it from a
Scriptural view.  Oh, sure, they talked about Christian values but something
was even missing from that.  After Sunday school one Sunday thereafter, the
pastor, a man in his early sixties, taught our class.  I was seated in a
chair on the front row.  The room drained of people but my kids weren't out
of Sunday school yet and I believe Sandy had already left to get up on the
stage with the music team.  The pastor came over and sat down next to me and
we began talking.  He had taught that Sunday on Christian values learned as
a kid so we rehashed his Sunday school lesson over again.  He mentioned all
the things he could not, was not allowed to do, on Sundays because it was
the Lord's day.  I laughed because, although I was only about 30 years old,
I had been raised the same way.  I couldn't play with my neighbor friends on
Sunday, shoot my bee bee gun, ride my bike, or even leave my yard most of
the time.  You had to be super sick not to go to church, too.  So, we
compared notes about all this and my pastor said, "Phil, I don't think all
that hurt us too much, do you?"  I laughed and said I thought it probably
did us a lot of good and he agreed.  No, I didn't raise my children that way
but we did have restrictions related to Sunday and just Christian living in
general.  So, back to the Sexual Transmitted Disease film Dobson had back
then.  He has another one, a newer one now, which I've seen, too, plus he
covers this same issue about once a year on his radio show.  In fact, the
last issue related to STD which he literally covered on his radio program
and I heard, not once, but twice on two difference stations because I
couldn't believe my ears, was getting STD by engaging in oral sex.  I am
writing about this and have not finished it yet but I heard things on that
show which deeply sadden me because the same cotton picking thing was
missing on this 30 minute radio program that was missing from the two films.
There are probably more films by now and DVD and who knows what else.  The
problem with the radio show was, they had a girl asking a question, a
teenage girl, and I listened to the program twice, as I said, because I
thought I had missed it but I didn't.  They never answered the 17 year old
girl's freaking dad blame question.  I was yelling at the radio by the time
it was over saying, "Why won't you answer her legitimate question?"  When
I'm finished with my article, it is sort of a rebuttal, I do answer the
young lady's question but I also make some other points which will probably
get me excommunicated.  Anyhow, here is what was missing from the films and
from the radio show.  When my pastor said, "I don't think how we were raised
to respect God and Sunday and the church hurt us any," I agreed, as I said.
Our conversation then turned to the one element that didn't seemed to be
preached on much any longer and that was sin.  I didn't sleep with a girl
back during my drug days due to the lack of offers or desire even on my
part.  I did it out of the fear of God and the fear of what sin would do to
me.  I know this sounds stupid because I was living in sin but it was the
truth and it was how I felt.  AIDS wasn't around then either so they
couldn't scare us with that but they did preach the truth and that
premarital sex was sin and God hates sin.  That I knew was true so
regardless of everything else I did and am not happy I did now, I believe
what the Bible said and what I was taught.  Dobson's films, at least the
first one, on STD and the like, nor his last radio show on oral sex and STD
among teens and what teens were doing in church bathrooms, on school buses
on the way home, and even among those in the big church youth groups, was
missing one big word called sin.  I asked my pastor, "Did you hear the word
sin one time during the film last Wednesday night?"  He was quite for a long
time as he thought.  "No," he said.  "You are right.  I didn't hear it."
This guy was a big Focus supporting and when Promise Keepers popped up
later, he and the church supported it big time, too.  I never did because of
what I saw and yes, I have talked to people who went and I have listened to
the live radio broadcasts when they were aired and loved every sermon and
message I heard so don't dump on me for that.  I know the history of promise
Keepers from day one and I have written about it and it is posted on my
website.  You won't like what you read because the organization was started
for the wrong reasons and I was there in the first meeting and saw and heard
what they said.  They don't say it now of course but I digress.  Regardless,
I still praise God for all the good Focus has done all these many years and
I believe without any doubt in my heart, regardless of people I doubt are
born again he has recently had on his radio show to push their political
book for them, and regardless of the wrong stand they have taken on over
abortion in recent months, that James Dobson is a man of God and his single
purpose of mind is to reach people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I hope
he doesn't die in my life time because I'll certainly miss him.  How did I
get into all of this?

Phil.


Phil.