The whole SpongeBob vs. James Dobson thing keeps getting funnier. Currently MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann is giving Focus on the Family what for. While I sympathasize with Dobson for the media misconstruing his statements, they get what they deserve from Olbermann.

What kind of a Christian organization makes such vehemont attacks? What happened to turning the other cheek? I understand the rationale–you can’t just sit back and let society go to hell. But there’s better ways to do that. Attacking individual members of the media isn’t going to accomplish much. I blogged over at Church Marketing Sucks today about the p.r. no-no’s you can learn from the SpongeBob debacle.

Of course it’s no secret I’m not a big fan of Dobson. I’m probably finding a bit too much glee in the whole thing.

I find the words of Brian McLaren from a recent interview I did that appeared in Prism magazine helpful:

We somewhere got the insane notion that the only faithful way to relate to a non-Christian is either ignoring her, persecuting her, or converting her. That’s absurd. How about befriending her? How about showing hospitality to her? How about getting to know her, seeking to understand her, seeking to be a blessing to her? We’re afraid that by accepting people, we’re giving tacit approval to everything they believe and do. If parents were to act that way–and sadly some do–by equating acceptance and approval, so that they withhold acceptance to show disapproval, we’d produce even more screwed-up kids than we already do. The essence of many family dysfunctions is confusing acceptance and approval. The church family too often suffers from this dysfunction. It’s time for us to get some therapy. Reading Henri Nouwen’s The Return of the Prodigal might help us see that this issue is at the heart of Jesus’ message.