Catholic scholar recalls ministry, impact of late founder of Focus on the Family

In 2014, James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family and a longtime broadcaster, became one of the first evangelical Christian leaders invited to speak at the national March for Life, joining a group of speakers that in past years had been dominated by Catholic clergy and Catholic members of Congress.

“Young people, you are the future of the pro-life movement. We will win this fight,” he told the pre-march rally of several thousand marchers on the National Mall in Washington.

On a 2022 radio broadcast, “Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk,” Jeanne Mancini, a Catholic and March for Life president at the time, summed up her appreciation for the legacy of Dobson and his wife, Shirley: “They’ve just been at the forefront of (abortion) and so many critical social issues in our culture — just filled with gratitude for their leadership.”

Dobson, 89, died in Colorado Springs, Colo., on Aug. 21. Born in Louisiana on April 21, 1936, he was raised in the Church of the Nazarene, where his father, grandfather and great-grandfathers were preachers. But he became a psychologist instead of a minister.

With a doctorate in psychology, he became a child psychologist and an associate clinical professor of pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California while also being on staff at Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles. His break with the American Psychological Association came in 1973 when the organization announced that it would no longer consider homosexuality a mental disorder.

Dobson was one of the last surviving figures of the so-called Religious Right and the culture wars of the 1970s and 1980s. Their ranks included influential ministers such as the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who founded the Moral Majority, and the Rev. Pat Robertson, who shared his views on “The 700 Club,” the flagship television show of the Christian Broadcasting Network, which he founded. But unlike the late Revs. Falwell and Robertson, Dobson sometimes sought to ally himself with Catholics on social issues.

He began a radio program, “Focus on the Family,” in 1977 after his book on child-rearing, “Dare to Discipline.” The book, published in 1970, was considered a counterbalance to the popular books on the subject written by pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock, whom critics considered too lenient.

But his views on corporal punishment could also draw outrage. Chapter 1 of his 1978 book “The Strong-Willed Child” included a lengthy story about how he gave his noncompliant dachshund a beating with a belt. He concluded that “just as surely as a dog will occasionally challenge the authority of his leaders, so will a little child — only more so.”

In November 2000, Dobson and Charles Colson, the founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries, were the only two Protestants attending the Pontifical Council for the Family meeting at the Vatican. Dobson praised the Catholic Church for its efforts to protect the family.

“Boys are in far greater danger as a group than girls are,” he said. “Part of it is the confusion over what it means to be a man, and some feminist ideas have precipitated that confusion.”

As an evangelical, he said he had some theological differences with the Catholic Church, “but when it comes to the family, there is far more agreement than disagreement, and with regard to moral issues from abortion to premarital sex, safe-sex ideology and homosexuality, I find more in common with Catholics than with some of my evangelical brothers and sisters.”

Dobson remained a leading pro-life voice for decades, aiming his criticisms at both Democratic and Republican presidents. In 2003, he was succeeded as “Focus on the Family” president by Donald P. Hodel, and he resigned as its chairman in 2009. The following year, he created “Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk.”

The “Focus on the Family” broadcast he started is still heard on about 2,000 radio stations.

Catholic legal scholar Robert P. George, the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, issued an appreciation of Dobson on social media, noting their work together two decades ago “on a number of projects to protect and promote marriage and the family and the sanctity of human life.”

“These causes had no more determined or dedicated advocate than Dr. Dobson,” George said.

He said Dobson understood “that culture matters — that it substantially informs and shapes people’s perceptions and understandings and, to a considerable extent, constitutes a framework of expectations and norms that guide the choices — including the morally significant choices — people make.”

“He also understood that though law and public policy are, in part, shaped by (other aspects of) culture, they also help to shape culture,” George added.

But above all, George said Dobson was the same man in private that he was in public, and did not try to cultivate an “image” or “brand.”

“He was simply himself — a deeply committed Christian, a husband, a father, a friend. He understood himself as called to serve Christ by serving others, and that’s what he endeavored to do,” George said.

Dobson is survived by his wife of 65 years, Shirley, a daughter, Danae Dobson, and two grandchildren.

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