{"id":16802,"date":"2025-08-23T09:24:20","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T15:24:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/james-dobson-helped-propel-u-s-evangelicals-back-into-politics\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T19:38:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T19:38:16","slug":"james-dobson-helped-propel-u-s-evangelicals-back-into-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/james-dobson-helped-propel-u-s-evangelicals-back-into-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"James Dobson helped propel U.S. evangelicals back into politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"In
In 2008 photo, Christian evangelical leader and founder of \u201cFocus on the Family,\u201d James Dobson, listens to President George W. Bush address the National Religious Broadcasters 2008 Convention at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center in Nashville. (The Associated Press)<\/span>Charles Dharapak<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
His \u2018focus on the family\u2019 helped energize \u2018religious right\u2019<\/div>\n

For decades, one name was ubiquitous in American evangelical homes: Focus on the Family. A media empire with millions of listeners and readers, its messages about parenting, marriage and politics seemed to reach every conservative Christian church and school.<\/p>\n

And one man\u2019s name was nearly synonymous with Focus on the Family: James Dobson.<\/p>\n

Dobson, a primary figure of the Religious Right who died on Aug. 21, 2025, was born in 1936, when conservative Protestant Christianity was a far cry from what it is today. As a sociologist of religion who has studied American evangelicalism for 30 years, I believe Dobson\u2019s influence and moral authority were instrumental in transforming the Religious Right into the powerful cultural and political force it has been for half a century.<\/p>\n

A household name<\/div>\n

Dobson earned a doctorate in psychology from the University of Southern California, where he taught for several years. In 1970, he published \u201cDare to Discipline,\u201d a book encouraging parents to use corporal punishment to instill unquestioned respect for authority in their children.<\/p>\n

\u201cDare to Discipline\u201d arrived at a time when many evangelicals were alarmed about how their children were being influenced by \u201csecular\u201d American culture. The book was updated in 1992 and reissued several times, and Dobson\u2019s introduction to a 2018 version claimed that the book has sold over 3.5 million copies. \u201cDare to Discipline\u201d became an important source for Christian families seeking advice rooted in a \u201cbiblical\u201d understanding of family, parental authority and child development \u2013 and it made Dobson a household name.<\/p>\n

Capitalizing on that success, Dobson founded Focus on the Family in 1977. The organization\u2019s signature radio program took his message about family and faith virtually anywhere people could go, and grew increasingly political. By 1995, Focus on the Family had a budget of more than US$100 million, and by 2008, the radio program had aired on over 3,000 stations in 160 countries.<\/p>\n

The primary theme throughout Dobson\u2019s radio program and publications was that \u201cfamily values\u201d were under attack by a godless society embracing abortion, gay rights and gender equality. His views hearkened back to \u201cDare to Discipline\u201d: Authoritarian patriarchal families with distinct gender roles for men and women would preserve the family and the future of the country.<\/p>\n

From the family to the Supreme Court<\/div>\n

Dobson left Focus on the Family in 2010 and founded the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, originally named Family Talk. He and like-minded hosts dispensed folksy advice, along with guests well known to their audience. But they also addressed explicitly political issues, such as opposing policies that support abortion, same-sex marriage and some protections for LGBTQ+ people that they believe conflict with their religious liberty.<\/p>\n

In addition, Dobson helped found other powerful evangelical organizations working toward the Religious Right\u2019s ideological and political goals, such as the Family Research Council and the legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, which has supported several high-profile Supreme Court cases.<\/p>\n

In 2022 and 2023, the Supreme Court made three rulings that advance long-held goals of the Christian Right. A slim majority overturned Roe v. Wade, the decision which established the constitutional right to an abortion in 1973. The ruling in a Colorado case, 303 Creative LLC vs. Elenis, determined that business owners could not be compelled to create messages that conflict with their \u201csincerely held beliefs\u201d \u2013 meaning, in this case, that a wedding website designer could refuse same-sex clients because of her religious beliefs. And the court continued to soften limits on using state funding for students at religious schools.<\/p>\n

Attorneys from the Alliance Defending Freedom worked on the abortion case and 303 Creative. The group submitted an amicus brief in favor of using state money for religious instruction in the third case, Carson v. Makin.<\/p>\n

Retreat and reemergence<\/div>\n

The roots of contemporary \u201cevangelicalism\u201d trace back to the Protestant fundamentalist movement that emerged in the early 20th century. Ever since, the movement has opposed ideas that it believes could undermine the core of America as a Christian nation.<\/p>\n

In the wake of the Russian Revolution, for example, fundamentalists identified \u201cBolshevism\u201d as a threat to Christian America. Today, a century later, some Christian conservatives criticize many types of history education and diversity programs as \u201cneo-Marxist\u201d or \u201ccultural Marxism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conservative Protestant groups have not always been such major political players, however. Around the turn of the 20th century, evangelical institutions like the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, now called Biola University, focused on individual faith and Bible training. Personal faith was promoted as the engine for social change and resistance to \u201cun-Christian\u201d ideas and practices, not political advocacy.<\/p>\n

The famous Scopes Trial, the 1925 case that pitched Biblical teachings about creation against the theory of evolution, prompted some fundamentalist groups to retreat from public affairs and politics. Following Scopes, evangelicals established broad networks of their own independent churches, K-12 schools, universities and media organizations \u2013 including publishers and electronic media \u2013 thus creating a subculture within which to worship and raise their children.<\/p>\n

Yet these organizations also laid the groundwork for what would finally emerge in the late 1970s as the Religious Right \u2013 with leaders like Dobson, televangelist Jerry Falwell and pastor and novelist Tim LaHaye.<\/p>\n

\u2019One nation, under God\u2019<\/div>\n

Dobson\u2019s influence will continue through his writings and the organizations he founded and influenced. In particular, his legacy can be seen in conservative evangelicals\u2019 emphasis on the \u201ctraditional\u201d or \u201cbiblical\u201d family, defined as a married mother, father and children. He long promoted a gender hierarchy in marriage, with the husband being in \u201cauthority\u201d over wife and children, and viewed LGBTQ+ rights as a threat to the family and to the nation.<\/p>\n

This conception of the family has found its way into most evangelical institutions. More broadly, within the conservative movement, the patriarchal family is understood as the authentic expression of God\u2019s law and is often viewed as the ultimate model for social institutions \u2013 including a Christian nation.<\/p>\n

Numerous fundamentalists and evangelicals have argued that evangelical Christianity should be the true basis for a \u201cChristian America.\u201d What distinguishes Dobson\u2019s approach was how he adapted Christian nationalism, framing it as a crucial issue for parents and families: translating ideas about Godly societies into guidance on \u201cproper\u201d child rearing and child development. His focus on the family as the foundation of Christian civilization mobilized millions of American evangelicals politically \u2013 on a scale that previous leaders never approached.<\/p>\n

The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts. The Conversation is wholly responsible for the content.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2008 photo, Christian evangelical leader and founder of \u201cFocus on the Family,\u201d James Dobson, listens to President George W. Bush address the National Religious Broadcasters 2008 Convention at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center in Nashville. (The Associated Press)Charles Dharapak His \u2018focus on the family\u2019 helped energize \u2018religious right\u2019 For decades, one name […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-16802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16802"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16802\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20400,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16802\/revisions\/20400"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16802"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}