Remembering the zeal and impact of James Dobson

He had great positive influence, even if his political pursuits may have pushed him into overly contentious positions

Like the apostle Paul (as shown in the verse quoted below), James Dobson may have been overly reactionary at times, but he was certainly productive.

Then Paul said to [the high priest], “God will strike you, you whitewashed wall! You sit there to judge me according to the law, yet you yourself violate the law by commanding that I be struck!” Those who were standing near Paul said, “How dare you insult God’s high priest!” Paul replied, “Brothers, I did not realize that he was the high priest; for it is written: ‘Do not speak evil about the ruler of your people.’” —Acts 23:3–5

Until today, the only obituary on my blog was for a pope. But James Dobson also merits one. Even the New York Times thought so; they had an “advance obituary” waiting for release immediately upon news of his death.

Dobson, who died yesterday at age 89, followed a trajectory from family psychologist to author to the most influential voice in conservative US evangelical politics. In his heyday, he was known for his ability to tie up the Capitol Hill switchboard and paralyze congressional office staffs simply by asking listeners to his radio program to “call your congressman.”

Major media obituaries, predictably, highlight Dobson’s role in national politics. But he was more than that for me. One of the books I read when preparing for marriage was his What Wives Wish Their Husbands Knew about Women. I learned from Dobson how to be more sensitive to a wife’s nature and how to avoid playing “assassinate the spouse,” like some husbands who seem to enjoy embarrassing their wife in social settings.

An excellent tennis player, Dobson dreamed of having his name on a tennis trophy. He often told the story of achieving that dream, only to discover 15 years later that his college was cleaning out old items from its trophy case. Someone rescued his trophy from the dumpster and gave it to him, but Dobson used the story to call for humility and spiritual focus, emphasizing that “life will trash your trophies.”

As he entered politics, Dobson was a thoughtful strategist, not a demagogue. He founded the Family Research Council in 1981 and guided the creation of similar family policy councils at the state level. According to an FRC map, these councils now function in 42 of the 50 US states. I worked for one of them, the Pennsylvania Family Institute, for many years, helping to produce credible content on abortion, sexuality, education, euthanasia, and legalized gambling. He also had the foresight to organize physicians as public-policy spokespeople, recognizing the high level of trust that profession enjoyed.

Dobson definitely had his hard-nosed side, as I learned in the late 1990s after his Focus on the Family organization asked me to write an article on Christian higher education. My extensive research included an interview with an administrator at Calvin College (now Calvin University), the intellectually esteemed but sometimes boundary-stretching Reformed evangelical school in Michigan. After I submitted the article, an editor informed me that I would be paid for my work, but that they could not publish it because Dobson would not tolerate an article that portrayed Calvin College in a positive light.

In his later years, Dobson’s stridency became more visible. Obituaries mention his gradual transition out of Focus on the Family (he stepped down from the president role in 2003 and as chairman in 2009), but it’s my understanding that he had become such a political lightning rod that the Focus board either pushed him out or was happy to see him go. The fact that he promptly formed a new organization with a separate “Family Talk” radio program seemed to reinforce that interpretation.

Dobson may have let political goals overshadow his spiritual mission at times, as exemplified by his 2016 description of Donald Trump, whose presidential campaign Dobson backed, as a “baby Christian.”

But as noted in the Bible passage I selected for this obituary, even the apostle Paul could be overly zealous at times. In his impact over the last 50 years, James Dobson may rank second only to Billy Graham among US evangelicals. Funerals are usually a time for saying nice things about the deceased, so I will leave harsher evaluations to others and honor Dobson’s amazing contributions, even as I encourage all of us to reflect on how to express our convictions with grace and to always temper our zeal with respect.