While I hate to write about old news, this isn't really old, per se, in that the issues that were raised remain the same.  And I think that the interchange is instructive.  Or more accurately, the interpretations of the Christian faith and the context of historical American democracy remain pertinent.  So, I'm gonna go ahead and spend a few minutes on this.  

First off, if you listen to the whole broadcast from Dobson (the applicable part begins about 15 minutes or so into the broadcast), Dobson and his co-host Tom Minnery completely misinterpret parts of Obama's comments.  They seem to feel that he is comparing Dobson and the Rev. Al Sharpton, when in fact he is contrasting them.  Obama doesn't seem to be saying that Dobson and Al Sharpton are somehow alike, but rather that they are quite different - and yet they both consider themselves to be devoted Christians, which leaves the difficult conundrum of having to somehow sort out how two people can be so very different - politically and theologically - and yet profess the same faith.  Obama is capitalizing on this confusion between very divergent poles of Christian thought, not attempting to paint Dobson and Sharpton with the same brush.  

However, they move on to examine Obama's comments about the difficulty of knowing how to apply what the Bible teaches.  Obama teases that we can't just rely on a Christian teaching - or even a Biblical teaching, because the Bible apparently offers so many ludicrous ideas on how to live.  Obama specifically references Leviticus, stating that it implies slavery is acceptable, and that it outlaws eating shellfish as an abomination.  Then he refers to Deuteronomy and the command to stone a disobedient child.  Finally, he comments that the Sermon on the Mount is so radical that the Defense Department probabaly couldn't "survive it's application".  

Leviticus 25 assumes that slavery exists, as does Leviticus 19 and 22.  It's not clear which passages Obama has in mind specifically, and it doesn't really matter, since any of them will do.  The Bible does acknowledge that in the Old Testament theocracy of Israel, slavery existed and there were regulations about how to deal with it.  Leviticus 11:9-10 deals with the dietary restrictions of the theocracy of Israel, which among other things, ruled out shellfish as unclean.  Deuteronomy 21:20-22 deals with the necessity of stoning a drunk and disobedient son, while Deuteronomy 22:20-22 deals with stoning to death a promiscuous, unmarried daughter.  And yes, the words of the Sermon on the Mount are incredibly radical and counter cultural - both when they were spoken and still today.  If you read Matthew 5, you can't help but come away with the realization that the Kingdom of God, and how God has ordered reality, is completely contrary to the way that sinful man insists reality must be.  Of course the Department of Defense couldn't survive.  The fact is that nobody could - it highlights the complete brokenness that we live with, and our complete need for a savior who can empower us to live in ways that we could never aspire to on our own.  

Obama then jests that Christians aren't reading their Bibles.  The implication is that Christians don't really know what it says, and therefore, shouldn't be basing their lives on applying what it teaches, or expecting their government to.  

The Bible does say all of these things.  However, Obama is using faulty logic and exegesis in order to make his point.  He assumes that a literal reading of the Bible requires a literal and equilateral application of everything it says.  However, this in fact works against a literal reading of the Bible, rather than for it.  A literal reading of the Bible requires one to be able to distinguish what the Bible is actually doing when it says something, and to recognize that not everything stated in the Bible is binding on Christians today in an equal way.  This doesn't destroy the integrity of the Bible, rather it preserves it by understanding that the Bible is a complex compendium of books, and that those books serve different purposes.  To compare a book of poetry with a historical narrative would be poor reading and interpretative skills, as any literature teacher would tell you.  

So Obama references regulations that were in place for the people of Israel in the Old Testament - members of a theocratic geo-political entity which finally ceased to exist in AD 70 - and acts as though those provisions could still be thought to hold true for Christians today.  He does this while ignoring Acts 10:9-16, which addresses specifically the dietary restrictions of the Old Testament.  he ignores the words of Jesus at the last supper, when he declares that he is instituting a new covenant - a covenant that supersedes the Mosaic one, and that is based not on obedience to the law, but on the blood and body of Jesus himself.  If there is faulty exegesis to be evident here, it would seem to be on the part of the person who is picking out pieces of Scripture without rightly understanding them in terms of the whole of Scripture.  Folks I talk to call this "cherry picking", except that they're usually accusing Christians of doing this to support particular views on issues such as homosexuality and abortion.  Cherry picking isn't sound exegesis - granted.  But it's equally unsound when someone wants to do it to try and criticize the Bible, as when someone does it to try and defend the Bible.  

The US is not a theocracy.  We are not the 'new Israel'.  We are a secular state (in very much the same way that modern Israel is not the recreation of the Old Testament Israel, but is rather a new, separate, secular state).   We have benefited a great deal from the separation of church and state that our forefathers envisioned and crafted.  But we also live in a culture that now wishes to redefine separation of church and state, to actually bring about the persecutions that our forefathers sought to avoid.  

The US is founded and based on Judeo-Christian principles and assumptions.  They permeate everything in our founding documents.  The understanding that every human being has objective value that is not to be determined by other men, but only by their status as a creation of God - this is a Judeo-Christian value.  Arguments about the deistic tendencies of some of the founding fathers don't eliminate the fact that their deism was influenced by Judeo-Christianity.  

Today, the fact remains that we are, at least on paper, a predominately Judeo-Christian nation.  Based on 2001 Census data, basically 80% of the US population identifies themselves as somehow Christian in orientation.  Self-identified Jews comprise 1.4% of the population.  Muslims compose .6% of the population.  Buddhists and Hindus together make up less than 1% of the population. Atheists and those with no stated religious persuasion make up 15% of the population.   So to say that we are a pluralistic nation is both true and untrue.  There are a variety of beliefs represented in the population, but they're hardly to be considered equally represented.  And to insist that the foundational beliefs and understandings of our nation have to be discarded is erroneous and dangerous.  We've existed for over 200 years in a climate that allows multiple religions and denominations to co-exist peacefully.  That state of affairs is directly attributable to the Judeo-Christian bases of our country.  Note, for example, the religious plurality that *doesn't* exist in many Muslim nations.  Note also the religious pluralism that *doesn't* exist in traditionally communist and atheistic regimes.  If you want to make the case for pluralism and respect for all religions, it would seem that you can best make that case in a nation that has based it's very creation on Judeo-Christian principles.  And it would seem that removing and expunging those principles from the public forum is a move that will only weaken the religious freedoms of everyone, rather than strengthening them.

And if you want to examine the particular Judeo-Christian understandings that Obama attempts to throw confusion on, you'll find that, up until the 20th century, basically, there was not the plurality of understandings regarding the nature and meaning of Scripture.  That most Christians fell into what would today be called a very conservative Christian understanding.  You'd find that the confusions about the nature and intent of Scripture have primarily arisen because of very antagonistic literary and historical methods of interpretation and exegesis, which often have as their basis the assumption that what the Bible says is *not* true, and therefore it has to be studied in such a way as to demonstrate and support the presupposed non-truth of it.  Their practices of interpretation are unique, in that they are not applied to other literary documents the same way.  The result is a growing strain of Christianity that assumes the Bible is not correct - or at least not 100% correct, and therefore it can and should be dissected in order to maintain the parts that make sense to us and are convenient, while downplaying or even ignoring those parts that are most challenging, least understandable, and arguably, most critical and necessary.

Plenty of Christians are reading their Bibles, Mr. Obama.  However plenty of them also understand what you - and the liberal Christian critics - seem not to.  The Bible is not a tool.  It is not a convenient means of forwarding a social agenda.  It is not a source of rich metaphors that make our speeches more compelling.  It is not convenient simply for dealing with situations that the state is unable to address adequately.  The Bible is not a means to your ends, Mr. President, or anyone else's other than God Himself.  And while the Bible is at times bewildering and challenging, it is these things as the Word of God that are to transform every individual heart.  It is the profoundly contrary nature of the Bible that most clearly speaks of how far we've fallen, and how desperately we need to be rescued and redeemed.  

President Obama's understandings of the Scripture and the public square seem to be limited to utilizing it as a pretext for advancing social changes.  And while it can and has been used towards this end, this is never the ultimate end.  Or perhaps more accurately, the transformations that the Bible leads to are far more pervasive and life altering - both individually and communally - than anyone is fully capable of accepting and recognizing.  So long as the goal remains the preservation of the state, the Bible remains simply one tool in an arsenal of social and economic and military options.  The Bible is not concerned with the preservation of the state, because as history amply attests, the state is a transitory creature, impermanent at best.  You can't rely on Romans 13 to engender support for the State, while ignoring the Gospels that put Romans 13 into perspective.  You don't get to reap the benefits of Biblical metaphors, while casting aside the Savior that makes all of those metaphors work, who gives them their power and their resonance and their truth.  

I pray that President Obama will continue to struggle with the issue of faith - both his own, and that of the people that he represents.  I pray that he will inform this struggle from a broader - and more historical - understanding of the faith and the Bible, rather than simply those who seem inclined to misread Scripture to suit their personal and social and political goals.