Dr. James Dobson has died this week at the age of 89.
He was probably my last living hero. Some of my other heroes have included my father, Bernard Coonradt (well, because he was a great father), President Ronald Reagan (greatest president of modern times), and Don Wildmon (head of the American Family Association, who could take whatever criticism was thrown at him).
James Dobson was once called the most influential evangelical in America. This was remarkable in that he was not a member of the clergy but was a child psychologist. He gave advice on families and raising children. This seems like an unusual road to fame. How did he get to be the most influential evangelical in America? Because he stood against modern methods of raising children, which had become increasingly liberal and indulgent.
Dobson stood for the biblical ways of raising children. This was controversial. It shouldn’t have been but became so. In recent decades what used to be considered normal became viewed as strange, and what was once wrong became right (sounds like George Orwell’s 1984).
Society had evolved to favor easier methods of child raising championed by Dr. Benjamin Spock. In response Dobson, in 1970, wrote his landmark book Dare to Discipline, which advocated a return to traditional/biblical methods of discipline, including (gasp!) spanking, done as an aspect of a loving upbringing by loving parents.
Seven years after the publication of this book he founded Focus on the Family–an organization designed to fight against the erosion of biblical values in family life. At its a centerpiece was a radio show, hosted by Dobson himself, which grew so much as to be found on stations virtually everywhere.
Focus on the Family was headquartered for its beginning years in Southern California, then it moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado. It had quite a large campus there (we’ve visited several times). My brother worked there for about 20 years.
At some point Dobson left Focus on the Family for reasons that did not seem entirely clear. But it was not an ugly, abrupt leaving, just something that Dobson apparently felt he had to do. And what did he do then? Sit on the front porch in a rocking chair, sipping iced tea? No. He went right out and started another new ministry from the ground up called Family Talk. Here he was at retirement age, starting out all over again. Again, this ministry featured him during a radio program. I think he exemplifies the saying, “better to burn out than to fade away.”
In my occasional listening to his radio show and reading his writings, I found his advice to be good, biblical, and at times surprisingly realistic and gritty. He did not preach an impossible ideal that could only work in groups that were cut off from society. It just seemed like good advice, rooted in eternal truths, which could best be used by Christians but would be profitable for non-Christians as well.
Dobson’s lamented that the traditional family had been disintegrating in America as biblical values were abandoned. The sexual revolution, started in the 60’s, had matured and its influence had gradually worked its way out into greater society. The result was not pretty. Divorce was up. Living together without the benefit of marriage was up. Broken homes multiplied. And the kids paid the price. For standing against this destruction, Dobson was attacked.
During the Reagan administration, Attorney General Edwin Meese asked him to join the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography. This commission reported on the devastating effects of pornography and called for a crackdown.
A sidenote about Dobson: he was from my denomination, the Church of the Nazarene. His father was a Nazarene minister. Dobson was probably the most famous member of the Church of the Nazarene ever–though most of his readers and listeners probably didn’t know it. He didn’t mention it probably because he didn’t want anything to hinder his wide influence across denominational lines.
But the thing I admired most about him was that he never compromised. He never backed down even though he faced a tidal-wave of opposition from the left–all for advocating things that not too long ago were viewed as normal and good. I thought of him as kind of a warrior. Critics would label him a ‘culture warrior’ in a negative sense, but I saw him as a warrior for things that were good and right and healthy and normal. He could have made his life easier if he just stuck with child psychology, but he chose the tougher road, one that brought him trouble.
In the Old Testament God sent prophets to Israel to call the nation to repent and to return. In the New Testament God gives prophets too (prophecy is listed among the spiritual gifts). The people of God throughout the ages are given prophets to correct them and bring them back. I think Dobson was one of these prophets. I remember someone on one of his radio shows saying that he was like, “A voice crying in the wilderness…” That was accurate.
There’s a verse in Ezekiel that describes a tragic situation: “I [the Lord] looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none,” (Ezekiel 22:30). Dobson was one who stood in the gap on behalf of the American family.
It raises the question: would I be someone who will ‘stand in the gap’? It’s easy to avoid taking that stand. Vital movements, once so full of courage and fire, fall into routines. Then comes institutionalism. There’s plenty of disincentives to speaking prophetically and biblically to institutions, even Christian ones. It’s easy to ‘go along and get along’. But we are not called to take the easy road, but the higher one.
We’ve become too polished, too safe, too fearful. But sometimes God raises up a James Dobson. He did not take the easy road. He made trouble for himself by doing the right thing. That’s the main reason why I admired him.