(RNS) — James C. Dobson, psychologist, best-selling author, popular radio host and well-known advocate for family values, died Thursday (Aug. 21). He was 89.
“Dr. Dobson was a pioneer — a man of deep conviction whose voice shaped the way generations view faith, family and culture,” said Gary Bauer, senior vice president of public policy at the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, in a statement announcing Dobson’s death. “His bold leadership, integrity, and compassion helped equip countless families to thrive in a world of shifting values. He was a mentor, a counselor, and a steady voice of truth in turbulent times.”
Focus on the Family’s current president Jim Daly remembered Dobson for his compassion that was evident each time he heard one of the many stories of family trauma shared with him over the years.
“He never lost his heart for those who weep,” Daly said. “Now, it is our turn to weep. He was a loving husband, father and grandfather, and a friend to millions of listeners and readers around the world. Dr. Dobson’s presence will be sorely missed, but we rejoice in the knowledge that he is now joyfully in the presence of the God he served.”
Southern Baptist President Clint Pressley and SBC Executive Committee President Jeff Iorg were among many Southern Baptists affirming Dobson’s impact on the Church.
“James Dobson had a profound impact in my life through is books and other media,” said Iorg. “He shaped my understanding of marriage and parenting in practical ways I did not learn growing up in a secular family. His legacy lives on in countless families made stronger by his influence.”
Pressley said: “James Dobson’s impact for God’s kingdom will be felt for many years. His work to support God’s design for the family has impacted Southern Baptists for decades. We are grateful for his long and faithful ministry. May God bless his family as they grieve.”
A child psychologist by training, Dobson founded Focus on the Family in 1977 to promote conservative views on parenting, defending spanking of children as a means of discipline. The nonprofit, based in Colorado Springs, Colorado, became hugely influential, first among evangelical Christians and then among a broader public thanks to his internationally syndicated radio programs.
Dobson was heard on more than 4,000 North American radio stations, and his show was translated into 27 languages in more than 160 countries, according to the website of the institute. His parenting precepts were further outlined in “Dare to Discipline,” a book published in 1992, and its many sequels. Dobson ultimately wrote more than 70 books, including “The New Strong-Willed Child,” “Bringing Up Boys,” “Bringing Up Girls” and “When God Doesn’t Make Sense.”
As Dobson’s popularity with cultural conservatives grew, political leaders sought him out. In the 1980s Dobson was regularly invited to the White House to consult with President Ronald Reagan and his staff. In 1985, Dobson was appointed to Attorney General Edwin Meese’s Commission on Pornography.
In 1983, Dobson and Bauer started the Family Research Council in Washington to advocate pro-family policies.
Franklin Graham, who said Dobson died after a brief illness, hailed Dobson’s almost five decades of ministry. “Dr. Dobson was a staunch defender of the family and stood for morality and Biblical values as much as any person in our country’s history,” Graham, a son of evangelist Billy Graham, wrote in a Facebook post. “His legacy and impact for Jesus Christ will continue on for generations.”
Dobson’s unflinching conservativism rankled some Republican leaders at the height of his influence. During the 1996 presidential campaign, for instance, Dobson warned that any attempt to water down the anti-abortion plank in the GOP platform would result in widespread defection from Republican ranks by evangelical voters. He also objected to suggestions that the party’s presidential nominee, Bob Dole, choose a running mate who backed abortion rights.
But Dobson’s mark on conservative thought and evangelical Christian politics continues to this day. In 1994, he was one of the co-founders, along with evangelical luminaries such as Bill Bright and D. James Kennedy, of the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal organization now known as Alliance Defending Freedom. The ADF at one point employed Mike Johnson, who has since become U.S. House speaker, and it was a key proponent of the Dobbs V. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case, which resulted in the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022.
A Shreveport, Louisiana, native, Dobson grew up in Texas and Oklahoma, the son of an evangelist and pastor in the Church of the Nazarene. After graduating from a Nazarene college in California, Dobson earned a doctorate in child development from the University of Southern California. He then joined the pediatric faculty of USC’s medical school, where he taught for 14 years.
Dobson left academia in 1976, and the next year he launched Focus on the Family, beginning from a two-room suite in Arcadia, California. As Dobson’s radio show and the organization swelled in popularity, he increasingly became a force among conservative opinion-makers.
He eventually moved the organization to Colorado Springs, where he built an international organization with a staff of more than 1,300 employees. In addition to the radio show, the center attracted 200,000 visitors a year and opened an $8.5 million welcome center where films, videotapes and books could be purchased.
At its height, his radio audience swelled to 200 million in 95 countries. He often used the show to decry the moral decline he saw in the culture.
“What is tragic and yet curious about the period between 1965 and 1975 is that the radical left had virtually no organized opposition. The media was entirely sympathetic towards its point of view,” said an authorized biography, “Turning Hearts Toward Home,” written by Focus on the Family official Rolf Zettersten.
On his shows, Dobson easily switched from political topics to cultural and religious-based ones, always centering his concern on how Americans were raising their children.
“There is nothing more important to most Christian parents than the salvation of their children,” he once said. “Every other goal and achievement in life is anemic and insignificant compared to this transmission of faith to their offspring.”
Dobson left Focus on the Family in 2009 — some reports at the time said he was pushed out — and launched the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute and “Family Talk,” a new nationally syndicated radio broadcast. Dobson last recorded a broadcast in March and it aired in April, according to the public relations agency representing the family and the institute.
Dobson also turned his energy toward the imaginary, supporting an “Adventures in Odyssey” radio drama series with Focus on the Family and co-authoring the 2013 dystopian novel “Fatherless,” in which parents of more than two children are pejoratively dubbed “breeders,” reflecting the anti-family sentiments he sought to counter.
“In 1977 I founded what became a worldwide ministry dedicated to the preservation of the home,” he told RNS shortly after the novel was published. “That effort placed me in one cultural skirmish after another, unwittingly confronting forces much darker than I knew. I don’t pretend to comprehend what occurs in the unseen realm. But I know that we all live in what C.S. Lewis called ‘enemy-occupied territory.’”
He is survived by his wife of 64 years, Shirley Dobson, two adult children and two grandchildren.
From Religion News Service. May not be republished.
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