My wife and I had the privilege of attending the memorial service for Dr. James Clayton Dobson Jr. in the greater Denver area this past Saturday. (He had died Aug. 21.) The audience got to hear just a taste of Dobson’s incredible impact and of his humble, thoughtful and Christian character.
Dobson was a bestselling author with multiple titles of books aimed at helping bolster the family. He earned his doctorate in child psychology at UCLA. In his work, he discovered the power of radio and utilized this incredible tool to reach a vast audience. At the height of his broadcast ministry, he was reaching about 300 million people worldwide.
Dobson founded Focus on the Family and the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. At its zenith under him, Focus on the Family became a media empire with worldwide outreach.
In the service itself, his surviving widow, Shirley Dobson, was honored by all. Speaking that day were former U.S. Reps. Bob McEwen and Michele Bachmann. Also speaking were his daughter, Danae, and son, Ryan, who gave very powerful, heartfelt tributes to their dad.
In her speech, Danae Dobson mentioned that about 25 times in his life her dad had faced a potential death – such as a stroke that kept him from speaking for 24 hours and a heart attack. But he recovered from these things – so much so that Danae started to nickname her dad, “Laz” – short for Lazarus, the man in the Bible Jesus raised from the dead.
It was also brought out in the service that Dobson was so committed to his own family that he had a private phone line installed in his office, just for them to be able to call – his wife, his daughter and his son. No matter how busy he was, he made himself available to them.
Other speakers included Dr. Dobson from previous recordings, as well as Gary Bauer, Rev. Jim Garlow – who delivered a powerful eulogy – and Alan Sears, the first president of ADF, the Alliance Defending Freedom. The ADF is a significant legal organization Dobson helped create. To this aspect of his legacy, we now turn our attention.
The ADF was co-founded by Dobson, as well as my long-time boss and pastor, Dr. D. James Kennedy. Also founding this Christian legal group were Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, as well as Christian broadcasters Larry Burkett and Marlin Maddoux.
Although all these men are dead, their work lives on. Their website notes: “ADF is the world’s largest legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, the sanctity of life, marriage and family, and parental rights.”
They have been quite victorious, as their website highlights: Since its founding in 1994, “we have played various roles in 83 Supreme Court victories, and since 2011, we have directly represented parties in 16 victories at the Supreme Court.”
It is significant that Dobson and Kennedy, et al. saw the need to protect God-given freedoms in the courts (and in the courts of public opinion) in order to guarantee the freedom to proclaim the Gospel in America.
For the most part, America was founded for religious freedom. Many of the original settlers who came to these shores came for conscience’s sake – to worship Jesus without harassment, as they had experienced in their European countries of origin.
In the 1643 New England Confederation, these settlers declared: “We all came into these parts of America with one and the same end and aim, namely, to advance the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ and to enjoy the liberties of the Gospel in purity with peace.”
Jews and other groups also found safe haven here.
Jumping ahead to the 1780s, when the Constitution was written and ratified, many Americans insisted on a Bill of Rights, so the first 10 amendments to the Constitution were ratified in 1791. And what was the first liberty written in the First Amendment? Religious liberty.
That is what America is all about, as the settlers and founders of this nation conceived it. But in the last several decades, secularists have gnashed their teeth against religious freedom and biblical morality. This is why the legacy of Dobson, Kennedy and the others is so consequential on this front.
The brochure for Dr. Dobson’s memorial service noted: “I will consider my earthly existence to have been wasted unless I can recall a loving family, a consistent investment in the lives of people, and an earnest attempt to serve the God who made me.”
The Dr. James Dobson memorial service on Oct. 4, 2025, in Hawthorne Hills, Colorado, is a memory I will long cherish. I think my wife put it best. I asked her for her opinion about the service afterward. She said, “We were in the presence of greatness.” Hear, hear.