By Jeffrey Walton, Juicy Ecumenism. (Image: screenshot/YouTube)
One of America’s leading social conservative figures, called “the nation’s most influential evangelical leader” by The New York Times in 2005, has passed away.
Focus on the Family founder Dr. James C. Dobson died peacefully today at his home in Colorado Springs following a brief illness, according to a statement from the Focus on the Family Institute. He was 89.
Across five decades, Dobson’s writing and public ministry shaped Christians who looked to the psychologist for advice on how to parent, beginning with his widely read 1970 book Dare to Discipline. The son, grandson, and great-grandson of Church of the Nazarene ministers (Dobson’s parents were traveling evangelists) he was shaped by a Holiness tradition that prohibited film viewing or social dancing and strongly advocated for traditional gender roles in the household.
“‘Dare to Discipline’ was published in 1970 in the midst of the Vietnam War and a culture of rebellion. The book was written in that context, but the principles of child rearing have not changed,” Dobson told Christianity Today in a 2010 interview.
While Dobson’s ministry was chiefly focused on parenting, he also became a widely known voice in the political arena, publicly speaking out in favor of traditional marriage and upholding the sanctity of human life. He was among the most influential public voices backing largely successful efforts to pass state constitutional amendments (later nullified in Obergefell v. Hodges) defining marriage as between one man and one woman.
Focus on the Family, which relocated from California to Colorado in 1991, was a draw in my own family’s move to the “Evangelical Vatican” of Colorado Springs in the 1990s. We had no affiliation with the organization, but its fingerprints were everywhere, directly and indirectly, even for an Episcopalian like me.