Friday, August 22, 2025

Part I

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Defender of the Faith and the Family: The Life and Legacy of Dr. James Dobson

One of the most influential figures in American Evangelicalism died yesterday. Dr. James Dobson died at his home in Colorado Springs, Colorado, at age 89. He was one of the most significant figures in the evangelical world, very much a figure in what became known as the New Christian Right. He was a part of the activism that helped to propel Evangelicals forward even politically. He made a difference in politics. He was an advisor to no less than five United States presidents. There’s always a story behind the story. And when it comes to James Dobson, he was born in Shreveport, Louisiana in 1936. Two very active Nazarene parents. Both his mother and his father had been speakers for the church, preachers. Itinerant evangelist was one designation. And at some point his mother decided to stay at home with young Jim Dobson. And his father continued largely on the road as an itinerant evangelist and preacher.

That became a part of Jim Dobson’s background. It was a part of what propelled him, I think, forward in terms of his study, first at Point Loma College. And then he went to the University of Southern California, and did both a master’s degree and a PhD in psychology. And he focused particularly on children. Now, after that, he ended up on the staff of a children’s hospital, but he also became associate clinical professor of pediatrics at the University of Southern California’s Medical School. And that was a role he fulfilled for many years, but there were huge things going on in the background that had Jim Dobson’s attention. And the background moved to the foreground. So, one of the things that marked Jim Dobson, is that even as so much of the therapeutic world was moving in a markedly secular direction and in a very liberal direction, he was not.

One key moment came in 1973, when the American Psychological Association changed its position on homosexuality. And that created something of a crisis at the time. Jim Dobson eventually would leave the School of Medicine there, where he was a child psychologist and leave the staff of the hospital. And he had begun media work already. It was discovered he had real talent for communicating over the media. And he eventually established a media presence that became later Focus on the Family. And Focus on the Family was established in 1977 and was most closely identified in the beginnings with Pasadena, California. And by the way, before going through the graduate program, Jim Dobson married his wife Shirley. And they were very close indeed, nearly inseparable. And their marriage lasted almost 65 years. Pretty remarkable on its own.

With the formation of Focus on the Family, something very interesting happened. Again, let’s take the date, 1977. But prior to that, Jim Dobson had written a book. And that book published in 1976 became a bestseller in the evangelical world. And it had larger cultural significance as well. That book was entitled Dare to Discipline. Now, just think for a moment about the necessity of a title written for parents, Christian parents in particular, that would have the title Dare to Discipline. That meant that disciplining children at that point was considered something of a counter-cultural act. And that’s exactly what it was. There’s a background to that. Dr. Benjamin Spock, a progressivist pediatrician, gained a great deal of attention in the 1940s and ’50s, and that continued into the ’60s and ’70s, for extremely liberal, very permissive understandings of child-rearing. And in particular, how to raise children when it came to discipline. And the bottom line was basically don’t.

And so, there was this huge worldview shift. Christians should to pay a lot of attention to this. It was a huge worldview shift. It affected the so-called humanistic disciplines. It affected the therapeutic professions particularly. And it also was a part of a larger kind of moral rearrangement in the middle of the 20th century. And it basically began with redefining human beings. And that meant not only adults, but also children. And the big issue here was, and there was an influence also from liberal theology. Liberal theology also was encouraging models of what were often described as Christian nurture. Very different understanding of the child. And one of the things is that the child was redefined, not as let’s just say a little sinner, but rather as a little psyche. And discipline was considered by many to be a form of tyranny on the brittle, fragile, developing psyche of the child. And so, parents began to lean back.

Dr. Benjamin Spock in the 1940s wrote a book on babies and children. And it became a bestseller at the time. Indeed, it was one of the biggest selling books of the 20th century. And Benjamin Spock suggested a very liberal permissive understanding of parenting. And he basically told parents it’s not your job to discipline your children, rather you nurture them. And basically, you encourage children in a very liberal direction. And by the way, Benjamin Spock lived that out in other dimensions of his life, becoming rather notorious for his activism against the Vietnam War, and against nuclear weapons and other things as well. You might describe Jim Dobson in his book, Dare to Discipline, and in what became the main messaging through Focus on the Family and for the entirety of his life, as being the reverse Spock, the un-Spock, so to speak, when it came to Dr. Benjamin Spock. And among American evangelicals, frankly, Jim Dobson known just in a most familiar way as Dr. Dobson.

Dr. Dobson became one of the most trusted and voices speaking into family life, children, the relationship between a husband and a wife in marriage. And frankly, there was an attentiveness to a Christian understanding of the family that had been lacking for some time. And that’s a problem for the church. It was a wake-up call for the church. It tells you something that in a therapeutic age, the person, the man who gained so much influence for demonstrating conviction in this area was not a preacher, not a theologian, but a psychologist. And that was, of course, Dr. Dobson himself. Focus on the Family exploded. Now, consider again the times. You’re talking about the late-1970s. And Dr. Dobson became very involved in things. One of the controversies very early in his public emergence was over what was called the White House Conference on the Family, that was translated into the White House Conference on Families.

It became one of the notorious events in the administration of President Jimmy Carter. And President Carter had proposed holding this White House conference on basically the status of the family. But by the time the conference was held, liberals and progressivists had pressed upon the White House to change the name of the event from the White House Conference on the Family, that implied a stable definition of the family. Instead, it became the White House Conference on Families. And it basically implied by the change in the word. By the way, it would’ve implied it had that been the word originally. But when you change the word, that draws an even greater attention to it. And the word was changed to families from family, and that made a profound point.

But Jim Dobson’s involvement in public policy basically continued, especially when Republicans were in the White House. And he was a part of what became known as the New Christian Right. Every one of those words can be debated in a different sense. But he certainly became a part of the resurgence of political activity among evangelical Christians at the end of the 20th century and into the 21st century. Now, behind that is the reality that many evangelicals had just taken the culture for granted. They were very distressed about directions in which the culture was headed. But there had been a basic withdrawal on the part of many conservative Christians from the political process. And Jim Dobson, along with Jerry Falwell, and Francis Schaeffer and so many others, helped to awaken evangelicals to a political responsibility.

And Jim Dobson never stood back from that and he never apologized from that. He became deeply involved in a lot of these issues. And let’s remember that long before we talk about the emergence of Focus on the Family and all the way up until, let’s just say the generation of Jim Dobson as a young adult, Americans weren’t divided over the question of whether a boy was a boy and a girl was a girl. Americans weren’t divided over the definition of the family. And they certainly weren’t divided over marriage. There was a consensus on these issues. And there was a consensus on sexual morality, and the importance the family, and marriage as well. That became openly subverted in the social revolutions, especially of the 1960s. And by the time you get to the expressivism of the 1970s, it needed pushback.

And Jim Dobson was pushing back in two different ways. The first way was through his books and through his radio program on Focus on the Family, that eventually mushroomed into a nationwide phenomenon. Jim Dobson really spoke to parents in that context, and that was pretty revolutionary. Consider this, he was speaking on the airwaves directly into the homes. Just think of moms in the kitchen and parents in the car, mom and dad, and they were listening. And here was this very gentle voice, Jim Dobson had in broadcasting terms a very soft, warm voice with very firm convictions. That was a unique and very powerful combination. And you know what? At least a lot of what Jim Dobson said was exactly I think what informed Christian parents would’ve said a generation before.

But in the main, they didn’t have to say it. By the time you get to the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, well, you got to say it and you got to be explicit. And a lot of parents need encouragement along those lines and reinforcement in biblical understandings of marriage, family, and child-rearing and all the rest. And Jim Dobson was very much on the front lines of that and for a very, very long time. I mentioned the worldview issues that were behind this. I want to go back to his book, Dare to Discipline, from the mid-1970s. I said this book really changed the cultural landscape. I want to read to you a section from his introduction to the book from 1976, because it’s just really important. Listen to these words that he wrote. “The term ‘discipline,’” so he has to define it. He has to put the word discipline in quotation marks in this book in 1976. That’s how weird the culture had become.

“The term discipline is not limited to the context of punishment and neither is this book.” He went on to say, “Children also need to be taught self-discipline and responsible behavior. They need assistance in learning how to face the challenge and obligations of living. They must learn the art of self-control. They should be equipped with the personal strength needed to meet the demands imposed on them by their school, peer group, and later adult responsibilities. There are those,” Listen to this, 1976, “There are those who believe these characteristics cannot be taught, that the best we can do is send the child down the path of least resistance, sweeping aside the hurdles during his formative years. The advocates of this laissez-faire philosophy would recommend that a child be allowed to fail in school if he chooses, or maintain his bedroom like the proverbial pigpen or let his puppy go hungry. I reject this notion,” he wrote, “and have accumulated considerable evidence to refute it.” Wait just a minute. You had to accumulate evidence to refute that. Yes, 1976, it was an incredibly timely argument. He went on to say, “Children thrive best in an atmosphere of genuine love, undergirded by reasonable, consistent discipline.” He went on, “In a day of widespread drug usage, immorality, civil disobedience, vandalism, and violence, we must not depend on hope and luck to fashion the critical attitudes we value in our children. That unstructured technique was applied during the childhood of the generation, which is now in college. And the outcome has been quite discouraging.” How’s that for an understatement? He then offered this, “Permissiveness has not just been a failure. It has been a disaster.”

That’s a call to arms. It was the declaration of a major pushback against the culture, and Jim Dobson deserves a lot of credit for defining those issues and frankly, just returning to a basic biblical wisdom. And also, just giving parents, parents in particular, just confidence in being parents. A Christian mom, being a mom. A Christian dad, being a dad. 

There’s pushback to this. I want you to notice that once the death of Dr. Jim Dobson was announced, there is immediate pushback. For instance, MSNBC, Anthea Butler, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. She’s identified as a professor of religious studies and Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She wrote a book, MSNBC’s title is “James Dobson’s harsh, disciplinarian Christianity changed GOP politics.” Well, he did have an impact on GOP politics. That’s not the main impact of his life, but some of the language in this is just amazing. Professor Butler writes, “He was a psychologist who didn’t seem to comprehend what it means to be human.” Elsewhere in the article she writes, “On top of that,” Speaking of his concentration on discipline. “On top of that, the way he vilified gay people helped lay the foundation for the anachronistic political beliefs of today’s GOP. He leaves an indelible stain on our politics and culture. It is not surprising then that whole podcasts and books exist to talk about the harmful results of Dobson’s teachings. He was a psychologist who didn’t seem to comprehend again,” she writes, “what it means to be human.”

Well, the battle’s drawn. And Dr. Jim Dobson understood that. He never pulled back from the battle. I won’t say he enjoyed it. I’ll just say he didn’t mind it. He understood what was at stake. And quite honestly, I think a part of it was just what he had seen in the culture. I think there in the culture of Southern California, he saw the future taking shape. And he saw big problems and he was willing to speak out about those things. By the way, in terms of critique, Sojourner’s left-wing group, formerly identified as evangelical, I’ll just say they’re left-wing now. Back in 2019, they wrote, “The rhetoric employed by Dobson and other evangelical leaders is frighteningly similar to that of German pastors and theologians in the Third Reich.” Wow.

Let me just say, I think it also sounds remarkably like what the normative Christian would’ve understood just a few years before Dr. Dobson had to write the book. That tells you how fast society moves, and especially how fast progressivist, permissive and liberal ideas both about children and child-rearing had appeared in the culture. Now, Focus on the Family just exploded in terms of growth. It would move to Colorado Springs, Colorado. It would offer an array of programs, platforms or radio programs, seminars. The books kept coming and all the rest. Dr. Dobson’s influence was absolutely massive. His voice was soft, his conviction was clear, and he had his enemies. I saw him deal with both his friends and his enemies when it came to so many of these big battles.

I was honored to be a member of the Board of Directors of Focus on the Family. I came in during the years of Dr. James Dobson and it was really interesting. He was very much on the forefront of dealing with so many of these issues. But I saw both the personal and the policy side. And that was an amazing thing to see, just to see how Dr. Dobson related to people. Let me just say that the radio program carried his voice. And I think so many Americans just almost felt like they had an immediate relationship with him. And especially young parents seeking for a comforting, but challenging voice when it came to the responsibility of raising their children. From inside the boardroom, I saw Dr. Dobson’s conviction. I saw his determination. I saw it renewed issue by issue, and the program by program and sometimes controversy by controversy.

All that comes with a cost. And eventually, Dr. Dobson would leave Focus on the Family. And he started another organization known as the James Dobson Family Institute. Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. He continued to speak to the issues. And quite frankly, he did so all the way into the last months of his life. 

Let me speak personally. I’m honored to have known Dr. James Dobson and to have known him as a friend. Honored, Mary and I, to have him at dinner in our home and to be in so many events together. I saw him in public and I saw him in private. And I saw him in times that were happy and in sometimes that were less happy. That’s just the way it is in life and in ministry. And I want to tell you the special thing I saw about Dr. Dobson. And I’ve written about this elsewhere.

And I wrote about it at World Magazine, even in the article that will release today at World Opinions. I saw him deal with children that’s abstract. I saw him deal with children in my home. I saw him deal with my children. Mary and I saw Dr. Dobson sit down at dinner in our home, and choose to sit so that he could talk to the children and zero in on the children. I remember him asking my daughter the question, “What do I need to know about you in order to know you better?” And he could just start a conversation like that. And I can just tell you it’s one of the most genuine things I’ve ever seen. And I guarantee you that my children have never forgotten that night, nor will I. There are so many people with giant footprints in church history. Even just fast-forwarding into the 20th and 21st centuries in American evangelicalism, so many figures who had great formative influence.

It will take some time to take the full measure of any of these. The same thing’s true with Dr. James Dobson. But we do know this, he was one of the most influential voices in defense of the family and of Christian faithfulness in his time. And he was also a very real human being I’m glad to have known as a friend. It is my honor to honor him in his memory this day after he died. Dr. James Dobson died yesterday at age 89.

Part II

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Is It Possible to Support Capital Punishment and to Fight Abortion Simultaneously? — Dr. Mohler Responds to a Letter from a 16-Year-Old Listener of The Briefing

Now we’re going to turn to questions. And once again, I just have to say I’m astounded by the questions that are sent in. They’re just really intelligent. They’re right on target and make us all think. So, I want to turn to the first one.

It’s coming from a 16-year-old young man who is writing a senior thesis at school. And he’s asking the question, “Is it possible to support capital punishment and fight against abortion in the United States from an ethical and theological standpoint?” Well, I’m not going to give you enough for your senior thesis, but I hope to push you a little bit forward on this. I want to tell you, yes, I believe you can make that case and should make that case. And I’m thankful that a young man is taking this on as the case to make. That’s very encouraging to me. So, how do we think about this? Is it possible, is the question, to support capital punishment and to oppose abortion, basically, and to seek both of those to be honored in the law and reflected in the law? I want to say yes it is.

And I think a part of the reason why we need to understand this is because I think many Christians misconstrue capital punishment in terms of the biblical understanding. So, the biblical understanding is actually very, very clear. And I think we could look at the entire Scripture and in particular the Old Testament, where the capital punishment is mandated in many recitations of the law in different contexts. But the most important thing is to understand premeditated murder. And the key text for understanding that is Genesis 9, where in the Noahic covenant, that’s the covenant that God made with Noah after the flood, we read this, “And for your lifeblood, I’ll require a reckoning. From every beast, I will require it and from man. From his fellow man, I will require a reckoning for the life of man.”

And then in Verse six of Genesis 9, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.” And so, there’s a distinction here. There’s a distinction between killing an animal and killing a human being. And that has to do with the fact a human being is made in God’s image. And thus, the logic in the law that was given here and the strictures of the covenant that God made with Noah, handed to Noah, revealed to Noah, it has to do with the fact that the image of God makes humanity distinct from every other living creature. And thus, homicide is different than any other form of killing. And it comes with a consequence. And the biblical logic is this, if you intentionally take a man’s life, you forfeit your own in order to make very clear what is at stake. The way to preserve, protect, respect, the dignity of every single human life is to understand that premeditated murder is one thing that simply can’t possibly be accepted.

It requires the society’s strongest, clearest sanction. It is taking life in such a way you forfeit your own. And we live in a fallen world and that means that every legal system is imperfect. And that’s one of the reasons why when you look at something like capital punishment, number one, needs to be legally mandated. That is to say it’s not just some kind of mob action. It’s within a legal structure, the rule of law. Secondly, it needs to be specified for certain crimes, that I would say premeditated murder is at the top of that list and generally has been. If there’s any consensus on the issue, and I think this is rooted in the natural law, premeditated murder is the one thing. And that’s clearly what’s implied here in the Noahic covenant in Genesis 9.

And I think the third thing, every society that honors the rule of law has to get to, and that is there has to be enormous protections for anyone who’s accused of murder. And the evidentiary requirement for premeditated murder has to be very, very high. And that’s also, by the way, reflected in Scripture, in the Old Testament law in terms of how many witnesses are required for this kind of action. I think that God’s Word itself just affirms the fact that there are crimes and then there are crimes. And there are different consequences for different crimes. And there are victims of crimes and then there are victims. Someone can wantonly take an animal’s life. That’s very different than premeditated murder of a human being as an image bearer of God.  So, that’s the capital punishment side.And I think you’ll find a lot of classic Christian reasoning based upon the Scripture, very consistent with that argument. 

Then the argument against abortion, the pro-life argument. Deeply rooted in Scripture, all the way back in creation order, where every single human being is made in God’s image. And that image is to be fully respected. And thus, you ask the question, well, what about an unborn baby? Well, an unborn baby is a human being. As a matter of fact, the biblical theology gives us nowhere to go, other than the fact that when the sperm and the egg come together and fertilization takes place, God has said, “Let there be life.” There’s a human person there. So, not just potential human life, it is human life. Not every embryo will be born, not every embryo will go through the full process of development, fetal development, all the way to be born. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not at every point in that continuum, fully human and fully to be respected with a life to be protected. 

All right. But this is very interesting way the question is asked. This young man says, “Is it possible to defend capital punishment and be against abortion, certainly in a political legal context at the same time?” And I would say yes. And that has been the consistent position of the Christian Church for centuries. But we’re in a different context now, in which you have some new arguments being made. And so, the reason why there are a lot of people who would kind of address the question the way you would address it here is because the Roman Catholic Church, particularly through some of its official teachings, but also through some of its prominent leaders, moved towards what was called a seamless garment understanding of the defense of life, in which you had some people who came out against abortion and against capital punishment.

They said, “If you’re against abortion, you should be against capital punishment.” I’m simply going to say I think they were wrong. I’m also going to tell you, just in terms of a calculation, if I could give up capital punishment to gain the protection of every unborn life, I’d be very tempted to take it. I’ll just tell you that. I think in the great battle, that’s the harder thing. But that’s not what’s really going on here. I don’t think those issues are rightly put together in this so-called seamless garment. I think the Christian Church was right for centuries to hold to a very clear biblical understanding. The Bible mandates that capital punishment should be the ultimate sanction for premeditated murder. And that the unborn life is to be protected, because of the image of God, as Genesis 9 fully prevails from the moment of fertilization on. All right. Great question.

And I’ll simply say to this young man, I would love to see your senior thesis when you finish it. God bless you.

Part III

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Does the Skrmetti Ruling Undermine Parental Rights? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The Briefing

All right. Next question, another big question. And it’s about parental rights. It’s a mother who writes in. And she was listening to my conversation about the Skrmetti decision and the legislation in the State of Tennessee that prohibits transgender treatments for minors. And she asked about the question as related to parental rights. She says she’s a mother of four and she’s writing about how conservatives should think about the Supreme Court decision, that’s the Skrmetti decision, as it relates to parental rights. She said, “I understand the Supreme Court was not being asked to consider the issue of parental rights, but instead was considering whether Tennessee law is a violation of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.” This is a smart mom. She’s paying attention.

“However,” she says, “the Tennessee law does curtail parental rights, so should a conservative celebrate a Supreme Court decision that upholds the curtailing of parental rights?” Great question. I’m going to say that when you look at parental rights, one of the things we as Christians have to ask is how this fits in the larger context. And so, let me put it this way, there’s not a biblical argument for parents having the right to abuse their child. There’s not a biblical argument for parents having the authority to, say authorize transgender treatments for their children. And this issue of parental rights and medical care is one that’s come up for a long time. And honestly, it’s been a very difficult thing for the courts to handle. 

Very close to Louisville here, there have been some famous cases in which parents on their own claimed religious grounds of rejected medical treatment for their children. And sometimes that’s to deadly effect. And there is a process whereby the courts can step in. Parental authority is creation order, it’s primary, but in the same way that sometimes the courts have to intervene in a family situation. And in most cases, we would simply have to hope that that would never happen. But we can understand there’s some circumstances in which the state would have to come in protection of children. In another sense, the same way the state has the right to come in protection of children on something basic. And I think the mother in this case, the listener is asking a very good question, should the government just have the right to pass any legislation along these lines, the answer being no. And this is where there would have to be a really strong understanding of the imperative to protect young people that would frankly either authorize or prohibit certain medical treatments.

I also want to say something else, and that is that in every state already there are such laws. So, this isn’t the first law having to do with minors and medical treatment that might be understood to abridge parental authority. Quite honestly, it’s not just the law, by the way. It’s not just legal strictures here. You also have medical practice and medical ethics and other things that come in. So, good question. I appreciate both of this. One coming from a mom, in this case having to do with parental rights. Parental rights are creation order, therefore they are fundamental. And we should fight that parents have the full respect for the authority that is rightfully theirs, but that does not include the authority to allow a surgeon to perform horrifying surgery on a child.

Just in closing, we only got these two questions because they’re such big questions, but they’re both front-line questions I’m glad we got to look at today. This question about parental rights. The mom goes on to say, “Wait, how long is it before someone claims that children need to be protected from, say a Christian parent’s religious influence?” Well, there’s no way around the fact that if we lose influence in society, if indeed our society turns into a regime totally against parental authority, the religious authority of parents is going to be one of the first things to go. And that’s going to be a very, very tragic day, if and when that happens. But I will simply say, you can already look to some places in the world where it’s not hypothetical, it’s real. So, that’s not an unrealistic warning to us all.