GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.-When the Rev. Ed Dobson set out to live like Jesus for a year, he didn’t plan on stirring up controversy. Then again, Jesus stirred up plenty.

The one-time architect of the religious right is in hot water with some conservatives over his statement that living like Jesus during 2008 influenced him to vote for Barack Obama-his first presidential vote for a Democrat.

Dobson’s admission he took an occasional beer while witnessing for Christ also has raised eyebrows at Cornerstone University, where Dobson is vice president for spiritual formation. School policy prohibits drinking by faculty and students.

The dust-up prompted Cornerstone President Joseph Stowell to defend Dobson on an electronic campus bulletin board. Dobson explained his actions on the same posting.

“I feel sorry that I’ve caused any controversy, but I don’t regret anything I did,” Dobson said.

Others around the country also have criticized Dobson following a recent appearance last Sunday on “Good Morning America Weekend” and a Religion News Service story about his journey on the USA Today Web site.

In his message to Cornerstone issued last Thursday (Jan. 8), Stowell supported the right of Dobson or any faculty members to “vote their conscience without censure or exclusion.”

He also said Dobson was not asked to sign the lifestyle statement that prohibits drinking because he is a volunteer. Dobson, a nondrinker, said he allowed himself an occasional swig because Jesus drank wine and partied with sinners.

“Personally, I applaud Ed’s passionate pursuit of Jesus,” Stowell wrote. The controversy “should remind us that living in Jesus’ way is a worthy goal that is often risky and sometimes radical.”

Stowell later downplayed the controversy, saying only it has “sparked a lot of interesting and constructive conversation.” He declined to elaborate on his statement to the Cornerstone community.

“We’re grateful that he’s here and has been willing to give us this year,” Stowell said.

In the early 1980s, Dobson helped found the now-defunct Moral Majority and served as an aide to the late Jerry Falwell. He later became the pastor of a Grand Rapids megachurch and in 1999, he and fellow Moral Majority alum Cal Thomas criticized religious conservatives’ political involvement in their book, “Blinded by Might.”

Dobson originally agreed to serve one year at Cornerstone and will step down when the semester ends in May. Dobson left Friday for a scheduled vacation until early March.

Dobson strove last year to follow Jesus’ Jewish lifestyle as well as his teachings, growing a bushy beard, keeping a kosher diet and rereading the Gospels every week.

During the “Good Morning America” interview, Dobson acknowledged he has been criticized for linking his Obama vote to Jesus. While disagreeing with Obama on abortion, Dobson said the Democrat was closest to the spirit of Jesus’ teachings of compassion and peace.

“I understand, to some degree, their reaction,” Dobson said later. “I don’t have a lot of faith in any politician, no matter the party, and I really wrestled with voting for Mr. Obama, given that he is pro-choice. But I concluded that wasn’t the only issue that was important, that I wanted to be pro-life from conception to the grave.”

Dobson emphasized he is not saying everyone should have voted for Obama, or that Jesus would have. But he said the controversy clouded the main focus of his experience.

“I have come away deeply appreciative of the life and the sufferings and the resurrection of Jesus,” Dobson said.

One Cornerstone professor said he wished Dobson had not made his vote public, arguing it was not germane to the Jesus lifestyle.

“Given Obama’s voting on abortion, those are some very un-Jesus-like votes,” said theologian Michael Wittmer, author of “Don’t Stop Believing: Why Living Like Jesus Is Not Enough.”

Dobson’s admission of drinking raises the question why Cornerstone maintains its no-drinking policy, Wittmer added.

“I don’t think there’s anyone at Cornerstone that is upset with the fact that Ed had beer,” Wittmer said. “(But) they realize if the vice president can do it, why aren’t we allowed to do it?”

(Charles Honey writes for The Grand Rapids Press in Grand Rapids, Mich.)

KRE/AMB END HONEY