Years ago, when I was an editor at the Los Angeles Times, I learned just how out of touch the media were with the growing evangelical Christian world.
Walter Martin, the original radio “Bible Answer Man,” had died, and a reporter had compiled an obituary. The article quoted several of Mr. Martin’s admirers, including James C. Dobson, who was described only as a “radio preacher from Pomona.”
Well, that wasn’t quite accurate. The man still known to millions as “Dr. Dobson” was indeed on the radio and was operating out of Pomona, California. But he was not an ordained minister. He was a Christian psychologist specializing in family dynamics who had built a broadcasting empire through his Focus on the Family daily radio program and his best-selling books.
Literally millions of parents, including my wife and me, saw him as a lifeline for helping them through every sort of family situation, from raising toddlers to dealing with teenagers.
When he turned his attention to America’s culture wars in the early 1980s, he became one of the Left’s most formidable opponents and a major ally of Ronald Reagan.
After Jimmy Carter’s White House Conference on Families in 1980, he and other Christian leaders decided some balance was needed in the nation’s capital.
So, they founded the Family Research Council under the leadership of Gerald Regier in 1983. It merged with Focus on the Family in 1988 under former Ronald Reagan aide Gary Bauer and was spun off as an independent think tank in 1992. Tony Perkins has headed it since 2003.
Working in tandem, Focus and FRC have made the case for the crucial role of marriage and families and took on major cultural issues such as abortion, pornography, the LGBTQ movement, and threats to religious liberty.
At the height of his influence during the 1980s and ’90s, Dr. Dobson could shut down the Capitol Hill switchboard by asking his radio listeners to call their representatives.
In 1991, Focus on the Family outgrew its headquarters in Pomona and moved to Colorado Springs, where it continues today as a major radio, streaming, and publishing ministry.
Mr. Dobson reluctantly left Focus in 2009 and started a new radio ministry, Family Talk, which quickly found a large following. Later, he founded the James Dobson Family Institute, where Mr. Bauer serves as senior vice president of public policy in addition to his own organizations, American Values and Campaign for Working Families.
Over the years, Mr. Dobson worked alongside other major influencers like American Family Association founder Don Wildmon, Liberty University and Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell, Free Congress Foundation founder Paul Weyrich, Concerned Women for America founder Beverly LaHaye, Coral Ridge Ministries founder D. James Kennedy, and Campus Crusade for Christ founder Bill Bright, among others.
“In the 1990s he played a key role in persuading millions of evangelicals to become politically active,” said former California legislator Steve Baldwin, also a former executive director of the Council for National Policy.
“Indeed, I would argue that the coalition he contributed to forming eventually led to the Tea Party movement and then to the MAGA movement.”
Focus on the Family and the Focus-affiliated conservative state policy councils were instrumental in passing state constitutional marriage amendments and the federal Defense of Marriage Act in 1986. Mr. Dobson’s wife Shirley Dobson led the National Day of Prayer observances for 25 years.
Mr. Dobson also helped found the Alliance Defense Fund (now Alliance Defending Freedom, ADF), which provides legal help to Christians who face discrimination for their faith. The ADF represented Colorado baker Jack Phillips, who won a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2018 over his right not to be forced to bake a cake for a same-sex ceremony and then again in 2024 over a transgender cake demand.
Dr. Dobson earned his doctorate in psychology from the University of Southern California and worked at Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles. He saw psychology as a way of understanding human motivation and giving people a set of tools, enhanced by biblical insights, to cope with life. He discarded anything that conflicted with his strong, Christ-centered worldview.
In 1970, he published “Dare to Discipline” (1970), which sent liberals over the edge because he endorsed the careful use of spanking.
He wrote many other books, including co-authoring “Children at Risk” in 1990 with Mr. Bauer. The best-seller predicted the fallout we’re seeing now from values-free sex education and mistaken notions about human nature.
Perhaps the most comforting and beautiful book by Mr. Dobson is the small devotional “In the Arms of God.” Each page has a moral insight and Bible verse and spectacular photos of mountains and other natural beauty.
One entry is this:
“If you could fully comprehend how deeply you are loved by God, you would never feel alone again.”
The accompanying photo is of a pristine mountain lake. The Bible verse is: “For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward them that fear Him” (Psalm 103:11).
On Thursday, Dr. Dobson passed away at the age of 89. A Christian gentleman, he was a fierce warrior for everything good and decent.
My family – and country – are far better off for his willingness to dedicate his life to preserving faith, family, and freedom.
A giant of his time, James C. Dobson now knows more about God than all of us put together.
This column was first published at the Washington Times.