Remembering James Dobson: Dobson’s changing focus
James Dobson. Photo by Focus on the Family via Wikimedia Commons. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.
Rev. Dr. Paul Bailey
Dr. James Dobson died on August 21, 2025. He founded Focus on the Family shortly before I entered full-time pastoral ministry in 1980. What started out as a radio program on most Christian stations, soon branched out to magazines, videos, and books. Many resources were directed at young people, for example the story broadcasts for children: “McGee and Me,” “Adventures in Odyssey,” and “The Last Chance Detectives.” My family would listen to the cassette tapes when we were in the car and by the children’s bedside. Focus on the Family even produced worship bulletin inserts on family life issues. Dobson’s influence on Christian marriages and families in the late ’70s and ’80s was transformational.
We often remember someone by the last chapters of their life, how they progressed or regressed. If that were the case, I would remember Dobson’s “anti” approach to the world. Christianity Today’s recent memorial to him noted: “He grew more political as time went on. Dobson also had a large political impact, mobilizing Christians to vote for conservative candidates who prioritized opposition to abortion, pornography, and the social acceptance of homosexuality.”
I first started to sense his shift toward becoming a political influencer when the Focus on the Family radio series seemed to end many programs with instructions about what to write your congressional representative. By the time I moved to a second pastorate in 1989, Congress, boycotts, and writing campaigns were what I heard discussed on the show as much as family matters. I don’t want to lose sight, though, of the original influence Dobson had on Christians and churches in America.
When I began pastoral ministry in 1980, I had already been listening to the Focus on the Family radio program. The folks in my congregation had been too, so we would occasionally discuss an episode or two. Dobson was carving new territory on many levels. For one, he had created a program on Christian radio that wasn’t a pastor’s sermon or an all-music format. It was refreshingly topical. Guests, both female and male, addressed a wide variety of interpersonal family issues.
Second, Dobson’s voice added legitimacy to the practice of counseling in evangelical circles. What I mean is that for those of us who were evangelicals, to have a psychologist call themselves a Christian was eye-opening. Counseling was suspect. If you needed counseling, you might go to your pastor (or better yet, a pastor in a neighboring town) and have that pastor tell you the applicable Bible verses. For many, the need for counseling reflected one’s disobedience to God’s Word and/or a neglect of one’s “quiet time.” And if you went to a non-Christian counselor, they would surely claim that your faith in Christ was your real problem. But Dobson, himself a counselor from the decidedly non-evangelical University of Southern California, would interview marriage therapists and family counselors on the show. Christian counseling was becoming acceptable. By the early 1990s, there were two Christian counseling centers in our city.
Dobson’s greatest contribution in his time was simply using all the avenues of Focus on the Family to open up larger conversations in the Christian community about marriage, family, and parenting.
But I think Dobson’s greatest contribution at that time was simply using all the avenues of Focus on the Family to open up larger conversations in the Christian community about marriage, family, and parenting. At that time, too few in the Christian community were talking about what men and women could do to improve their marriages. Few people were talking about how male and female love languages were different. Yes, they were stereotypical, but it gave husbands and wives approaches they could use to improve their marriages beyond the notion that wives should submit to their husbands. He even discussed S-E-X.
Dobson professed the use of clear boundaries in parenting and the importance of consistent parenting. He advocated traditional marriage roles but with love and respect. Each role had responsibilities, not unrestrained power. The Christianity Today memorial pointed out that “Part of Dobson’s power…noted, was his gentleness and moderation. ‘His writings have a sensible tone,’ wrote Rodney Clapp. ‘He rejects extremes, fishes methodically for the “logical middle,” advocates being open-minded but not letting “brains leak out.”’” Dobson’s early writings were marked by moderation and balance; qualities that later gave way to a more combative tone as his influence expanded.
During my career, I knew many churches which used his Focus on the Family videos. I was so convinced about the role of family ministry in the church that I began that second pastoral calling with an agreement that I would pursue a Doctor of Ministry degree in Marriage and Family Ministry. Rarely would a local pastor be perceived as an authority on marriage and family relationships, but you could announce that a Dobson video series was going to be shown and you suddenly had a marriage seminar or parenting support group underway. In many ways, Dobson laid the foundation for people in the pew to examine the entire range of issues related to marriage and family.
Dobson’s programs included both beneficial advice and approaches that are considered harmful today. One friend told of parents who would listen to the discipline part of a parenting topic, and not the love and respect part. She remembered being beaten after many an episode. So too, some stayed in marriages in hope of improvement, longer than necessary.
For those searching for memorials of James Dobson’s life, you will hear about his angry political initiatives because those are characteristic of the latter phase of his influence when he seemed to abandon any efforts on building healthy families, let alone maintaining an inviting Christian witness. He focused on the use of government control to achieve what he perceived as godly goals. He still mentioned the name of Jesus, but no longer a Jesus I recognized.
But I will remember his early years, when he focused on the family.
Rev. Dr. Paul Bailey retired in 2021 from the Eastwood Baptist Church in Syracuse, NY. In addition to over 40 years of pastoral ministry, he was an adjunct instructor in Communications at Onondaga Community College for 15 years.
The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of American Baptist Home Mission Societies.
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