The drive behind James Dobson, Jr.

James Dobson, who may well be the most famous psychologist in the world, was born in 1936 in Shreveport, Louisiana, by Caesarian section. The doctor told his mother she might not live through another birth. Thus, the man who counsels millions about family life was raised an only child.

A great-grandfather and a grandfather on his mother’s side had been charter members of the Church of the Nazarene, a holiness denomination with headquarters in the Midwest. A prophecy had come to the great-grandfather that all his family for four generations would belong to the Lord. That prophecy has held true, with interest.

Dobson’s father, James, Sr., had felt a call to preach while in high school. “After months of struggling with it, he came home about three o’clock one afternoon, walking back and forth and praying, and finally made his choice. He turned his face up to God and said, ‘It’s too great a price, I won’t pay it.’ And there was a separation that occurred, as he described it.” The words James Dobson uses to describe this event are clearly his father’s; he heard the story many times as a boy, with the distinction drawn sharply between God’s calling and everything else. After his father went on to art school in Pittsburgh (giving up art was the price “too great to pay”), graduating first in his class, he surrendered his life back to God, sacrificed art, and became an evangelist.

A man more unlike the stereotype of a traveling evangelist would be hard to imagine. He was a quiet, vulnerable, deeply compassionate man. Dobson says that as a child the mere thought of his father could move him to tears. “He would never have been able to write a book, not because he couldn’t write it, but because his assessment of himself was so low he couldn’t have risked putting an idea out there emotionally, with the possibility of having it rejected.”

Nazarenes were a fervent people; Dobson’s cousin, H. B. London, says it was “camp meeting all the time.” Dobson’s father, however, was not particularly demonstrative. He showed no interest in or talent for promoting himself, though his deep sincerity penetrated people. He moved from being pastor to evangelist and back several times, and eventually taught art at a Nazarene college in Bethany, Oklahoma, while he continued preaching whenever he could.

Though evangelism could take Dobson’s father on the road for weeks at a time, in the intervals when he was home he hunted with his son, taught him to play tennis, and as the boy grew older, talked to him about books and ideas as though he were a peer. Dobson’s father read widely. He conveyed a strong sense of godliness. His son says today, “My father was probably deeper than I am, spiritually and maybe intellectually.” You do not have to talk very long to James Dobson, Jr., to learn that his father’s influence is the most powerful in his life.

Article continues below

In many ways, though, Dobson takes after his mother. She was the talker, the doer, the activist. Myrtle Dobson wrapped her life around her two men, and she was intensely proud of her son. The do’s and don’ts of church life were strict, but she gave all the freedom she could. Dobson’s wife, Shirley, remembers that “no matter what Jim said to her, even if she didn’t agree with it, she would never put it down. She would always let him say whatever he wanted to say, and then she would ask questions. She would never give an opinion.”

London, who spent many childhood holidays with the Dobson family, remembers them as open about their emotions, with a tendency toward depression and worry. Their son is, like them, extremely aware of emotions, and the anger, compassion, love, or frustration he feels come through unfiltered to his audience. Yet, says London, who is now his cousin’s pastor at the First Nazarene Church of Pasadena, “Jim is probably the most positive, optimistic, forward-looking person I’ve ever met. He loves what he does. He’s never down. I’ve never seen him down.”

Dobson grew up moving, in and out of small communities in Texas and Oklahoma: thus the slight sweetening of the Southwest in the voice now familiar in so many millions of homes. He graduated from high school in San Bonita, a small town near the Mexican border, and went on to Pasadena College, a Nazarene school in California. (The school has since moved and been renamed Point Loma University.)

You would think that the combination of prophecy, of family example, and of college influence would create an environment in which Dobson almost had to become a preacher. Yet he says he felt no pressure. His parents wisely left the subject alone. Among the Nazarenes, a call to preach was specific and unmistakable direction from God, and Dobson experienced no call. During his freshman year, he walked into the office of a popular professor and announced that he had decided to become a psychologist.

The Influence

Millions know “Doctor Dobson” as a psychologist, but ironically, a great many professional psychologists would not recognize his name. His books sell by the million and deal with the classic psychological ground of family life. But they contain almost no references to the vast amount of psychological literature. Dobson shows little interest in his status among professional psychologists. He resigned from the American Psychological Association some years ago, feeling it was worlds apart from him. (He has, however, retained his links to associations of Christian psychologists.)

Article continues below

Dobson has chosen channels of influence closer to a radio evangelist’s than a psychologist’s. Dobson’s peers are preachers—Swindoll, Falwell, Schuller. Yet Dobson seldom exposits a biblical text (and seldom appeals for funds), and he is deeply committed to avoiding topics that would unnecessarily put off people of different religious or political persuasions. Being a psychologist gives him a platform from which to speak to those who would not listen to a preacher. Jewish, Catholic, and Mormon groups appreciate Dobson’s words on family life.

Fifty million people have reportedly attended Dobson’s eight-part “Focus on the Family” film series. On an average day Dobson receives 6,000 letters at the headquarters of the $42 million (the annual budget) Focus on the Family organization he founded in Southern California. He is heard on more than 1,100 radio stations each day, more than anyone else is heard on, except Paul Harvey. But while Paul Harvey offers news and cracker-barrel philosophy, James Dobson asks his listeners to take action: to change their philosophy of child rearing, to organize against pornography in their communities, to write to Washington. And they do. Few organizations anywhere can mobilize the supporters that Dobson can.

In early 1987, angered that government officials had silenced Health and Human Services official Joanne Gaspar for her antiabortion decisions, Dobson inspired 100,000 letters to the White House. Gaspar was restored to power. Largely because of such public clout, Dobson has developed considerable influence in Washington.

Yet Dobson has escaped the national media attention a Jerry Falwell generates. He limits his public appeals to family-oriented issues (you will not hear him pronounce on Nicaragua, for instance), and he keeps a deliberately low profile. Notes Kay James of the National Right to Life Committee, “Effectiveness is what matters, not being a lightning rod.” She, like many others, rates Dobson’s effectiveness at the top among “profamily” spokesmen.

Dobson is a Reagan fan, though not an entirely uncritical one. He has access to the White House, including the President, and pictures of him with Reagan are prominent features of his office décor. He has spent a substantial portion of the last year in Washington, much of his involvement revolving around governmental panels. He has served on (and sometimes chaired) six during Reagan’s term, dealing with pornography, tax reform, army family life, teenage pregnancy, juvenile justice, and missing and exploited children.

Article continues below

Dobson’s influence in Washington is diluted by other competing voices; in the evangelical parachurch subculture, however, his thunder can drown out other sounds. For example, Focus on the Family is the most powerful organization in the evangelical world at moving books. It chooses two main premiums (books offered for a certain donation) each month, and will generally buy about 30,000 copies of each. Its promotion also stimulates sales in bookstores. Ron Land, vice-president of sales and distribution for Word Books, estimates that a book Focus selects will double its retail sales.

Recently Focus has begun publishing books of its own. Harold Morris was an unknown ex-convict, speaking to high-school assemblies, when a tape of his talk reached Dobson’s desk. Dobson put it on the air and received a high mail response. Morris had a book manuscript that several publishers had turned down. Focus published it as its first book; so far it has sold over 200,000 copies.

Focus on the Family is developing into a formidable institution, and is consciously trying to develop ministries that could outlive Dobson’s personal involvement. In the past year, two magazines have been launched (Clubhouse, for children, and The Citizen, for adults concerned about public affairs), book publishing has begun, while a film department produces videos and films on family-related topics. But, says Ted Engstrom, vice-chairman of the Focus board, “Who can follow after the king? If he’s hit by a truck, the broadcast will last for a year, and that’s it.” Focus on the Family remains James Dobson.

The Character

James Dobson once wrote that, had he been asked to write a theme on himself during adolescence, he would have begun, “I am the number-one tennis player in the high school.” That still says something about James Dobson: He is intensely competitive. Three mornings a week he plays serious basketball. (He switched from tennis to basketball because he liked the camaraderie of team sports.) He does not do it just for his health, either. He loves it. Focus vice-president Peb Jackson, a long-time friend, says that on the busiest day imaginable Dobson can be tempted to throw his agenda down and take off for a “really hot three-on-three game.” Dobson is not the reader his father was; he lacks the time for it. He customarily listens, even while shaving, to books on tape; on occasion he hires readers to record books for him. Dobson is well-informed on many subjects, but he is not the kind of person who longs to spend the day in the library. He likes people and he likes action. He loves sports (especially college basketball or anything the University of Southern California plays). He loves to eat (though never anything with eggs in it). He is the last one to give up and go to bed, the last one to leave church, the last one to cut short a fan who has stopped him on the street. He has an uninhibited, antic sense of humor. Says friend Robert Wolgemuth, “When you spend time with that family, you leave exhausted. It’s like being in a college dorm. They’re in motion all the time.”

Article continues below

But life with James Dobson, for all its activity, humor, and conviviality, is a far cry from a college fraternity. Many call him a workaholic (he hates the label), and he astounds co-workers with his output. He manages to be the hands-on leader of a large, rapidly growing organization, write books, lead a daily half-hour radio program, serve on governmental commissions, and make his presence felt in Washington. And, oh yes, he spends time with his family, and answers his mail. He reads virtually every letter of criticism written to Focus.

He will not cut corners in any of this; he is a meticulous, demanding perfectionist. The great struggle at Focus on the Family since its inception has been to get Dobson to let anything happen without his personal inspection. Lately the organization has grown so large (with 500 employees) that Dobson has been forced to stop scrutinizing every facet. But not very long ago he spent several hours in a busy day discussing with his video team his concerns about a coming film: whether the sound effects on a closing door had enough reverberation; whether a brief opening scene should be shown in color, black and white, or sepia; and whether background music swelled to a climax at the appropriate moment. And the film centered on Harold Morris, not James Dobson.

Friends and co-workers, when asked to describe Dobson, tend to revert to one word: integrity. They mean, among other things, that he is the same at home as he is on the stage. In the studio and out, he is usually an extremely likable person. Dobson is genuinely interested in other people. He can and does converse for hours without mentioning himself or his great successes. He does not drop names. When Dobson credits God for his accomplishments, he appears to mean what he says.

Article continues below

He carries a Dictaphone with him, and H. B. London says that more times than he can count he has heard Dobson dictate a memo to his assistant, Dee Otte, asking her to help with an individual’s financial needs. In his films, it is Dobson’s compassion that makes him such an attractive communicator, far more than his practical formulas for family living.

By integrity, his friends also mean his conscientiousness. Dobson is meticulous in avoiding any appearance of greed or malfeasance. One reason for his insistence on ruling the details is his deathly fear that a mistake, even a subordinate’s mistake, might reflect disfavor on the gospel. In the Focus reception area, and also in his office, sits a prominent hand-lettered sign indicating to all who enter that the attractive furnishings were given by personal donation; no general funds were used. The sign is pure Dobson: He likes things nice, but he has to tell the world that the ministry did not pay for them.

Dobson takes no salary, and pays Focus on the Family a monthly reimbursement for book royalties he reckons were generated by the organization’s publicity. He lives in the same attractive but nonpalatial home he has been in for 16 years—Shirley Dobson has long wanted a pool, but has not gotten one. The Dobsons have a condo at the Mammoth Mountain ski resort, and an eight-year-old Mercedes; but he says he intends not to leave a large estate to his children.

In that respect, he is trying to do a difficult thing: be a world-famous expert on raising children, while bringing going up his own two children (a daughter, Danae, who is in college, and a son, Ryan, who is in high school) like normal people. He tries to keep them out of the limelight, and asked me not to interview them for this article. Other people say they are good kids, though not necessarily perfect kids. Says Shirley Dobson, when asked how raising children has changed her and her husband, “I think we’ve both realized that there’s not enough knowledge in the books. You really have to stay on your knees for your kids. They’re individuals. You can’t pigeonhole them and say this is going to work with every child.

Article continues below

“If we had had two compliant kids, we might have thought that if everybody would raise their kids according to the Dobson philosophy, they wouldn’t be having these problems. But the Lord gave us two children who have minds of their own. We can empathize with other parents who don’t have all the answers.”

There is a puzzling difference between the normally gracious and self-effacing James Dobson and the accusing, domineering character who can surface whenever he feels the quality of his organization is threatened. Many of James Dobson’s friends, though they genuinely love him, seem intimidated by him. “It’s very difficult to confront him,” one told me. “He’s so strong. He thinks so quickly on his feet.” Dobson consequently leaves a trail of bruises. He does not leave a trail of bodies—his friends tend to be old friends, and his closest employees are extremely loyal. Many, though, would echo his old friend and use medical school colleague Mike Williamson: “I realized that the only way we would work together was if I let him be the pilot of the ship. When we went to the airport, he would say, ‘You get the bags, I’ll get the car.’ ”

I asked Dobson about these perceptions, and he spoke passionately about his concern that there be a “stamp of quality” on every facet of his work; he feels responsible to every last donor or letter writer, that each be treated with the utmost graciousness.

But Dobson does not just feel responsible for doing his own work well, he feels responsible for seeing that everyone he works with, even tangentially, matches his own sense of quality. His sense of mission is so big that it swallows everything. An interesting example—interesting just because it is so trivial—is his behavior toward photographers. He will not allow them to shoot from his right side, and will stop in midinterview to insist that they comply with his instructions. Dobson explains this insistence not as a question of wanting to look his best (a personal concern), but a question of quality (a public, morally weighted concern). His friends shrug. “It’s just him.”

Dobson was known for his searing memos even in his medical-school days. He told me that he wrote memos to his parents as a child, protesting when he considered their treatment unfair. The best guess is that he got such traits from being raised an adored only child. One close friend says, “I really love the guy, he’s been terrific to me. He’s loyal, and a tremendously faithful friend. But there is one area in his life that he cannot be aware of: it’s being an only child. You don’t have to share clothes. You don’t have hand-me-downs. You get your own way.”

Article continues below

The encouraging news is that Dobson is learning. Another friend says, “The guy has changed dramatically from where he was five or six years ago. When Focus was in its infancy, if somebody hampered its integrity, he would get so upset it would put the fear into you. Some of his memos could be real tough. He’s not changed his commitment to excellence and integrity, but he’s changed in his personal habits. That’s an inspiring part of our relationship: that a person as powerful and confident as he is can change.” Dobson himself says that he has stopped writing tough memos entirely; he now gives criticism only in person.

It is difficult to imagine entirely separating these driving, dominating qualities from the man: James Dobson did not become famous while wanting only to retreat to his study to think and write. He is driven to communicate his vision of the world—driven primarily, it seems, by his sense of God’s calling, by his father’s and mother’s legacy, and by (what is enmeshed with the first two) his own perfectionism. Whatever he does, he will do well, to God’s glory, in the way he believes is right. He expects—demands—that others do the same.

The Rise To Fame

Dobson’s rise to fame is no fairy tale; people in fairy tales experience dramatic setbacks and overcome terrific opposition. Dobson never has. His career has been a straight line of rising success. He has a sense of having been handed his ministry, perhaps because of the way his parents and other forebears prayed for him and his generation. “Sometimes,” he says, “I feel like one of God’s spoiled children. I have never tasted a lot of difficulty.”

In college, Dobson attracted little attention. He was not outwardly pious, nor active in groups of students who went out to witness to their faith. But neither was he rebellious. He always seemed to know exactly what he wanted to do with his life.

An interview with Clyde Narramore, one of the earliest evangelical psychologists, sealed Dobson’s desire to be a psychologist, and pointed him in the direction of a Ph.D. He arrived at the University of Southern California in 1958 after six months in the army. Dobson took exactly the courses he needed and finished with precisely the number of required units.

Before he finished his doctorate, Dobson took a post at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. As a member of the hospital staff, he was appointed to the pediatric faculty of the use medical school when he completed his degree. From the moment when, as a college freshman, he announced his intention of becoming a psychologist, to the day he joined the faculty of a prestigious medical school, Dobson never missed a beat.

Article continues below

At Children’s Hospital, Dobson initiated and oversaw a study of dietary treatment for phenylketonuria, a rare disease that if unchecked leads to severe mental retardation. The $5 million study involved 15 medical centers throughout the U.S. and hundreds of medical personnel. He was a capable researcher, and the study was a success. Dobson published a number of medical journal articles, and eventually coauthored a textbook on pediatric mental retardation.

Professionally, Dobson is something of a hybrid. His training came from the school of psychology (he majored in child development), but he worked with medical doctors, primarily pediatricians. And his work was mainly administering a large research grant; he has had little actual practice as a family psychologist. A reader of his books will note that he draws more from his years of teaching school (a requirement of the educational psychology program he followed) than from professional counseling experiences.

In 1964, still three years from his degree, he began to work at mastering the art of public speaking. He went to any audience that would invite him, taping himself and listening to how he sounded, trying to think about what worked and why. “People expect psychologists to speak and write and be in a public kind of mode, so I set out to learn that.” Perhaps, also, he felt the limitations of his work. He says he enjoyed it, but large medical research programs were a long way from the revivals of his youth. Speaking gave him a chance to talk about something with an immediate, practical impact.

Trying out topics, he found a subject that made audiences buzz: discipline. Eventually he set out to write a book. Dare to Discipline was written, like all Dobson books, with Ticonderoga pencils on yellow paper. To make certain nothing is misplaced, Dobson typically tapes together the pages into a long scroll. (Publishers have given him computers to work on; they end up in someone else’s office.) His friend and colleague Mike Williamson remembers predicting to Dobson, while driving to work in his VW beetle, that the book would sell two million copies. That turned out to be too pessimistic. It has sold three million and is still selling.

Article continues below

Dare to Discipline was published in 1970, when Vietnam War protests reached their height. The book caught the wave of reaction to the excesses of the sixties, and made James Dobson suddenly well known. No one with comparable credentials was speaking up in favor of the old-fashioned virtues of discipline. Dobson’s talks, which had evolved into weekend “Focus on the Family” seminars, soon began attracting invitations coast to coast. He wrote another book, Hide or Seek. His weekend activities grew more prominent than his professional responsibilities at Children’s Hospital. He began to feel that he couldn’t do both. Yet to leave use would mean losing university credentials; and it would mean leaving work that he genuinely enjoyed.

In 1976 he took a year’s leave of absence from Children’s Hospital, devoting the time to speaking and writing. When the year was over he felt he had just begun. But he had promised to return to his old responsibility. When he went to talk to Dr. George Donnell, chief of pediatrics, he had no idea what he would say. But Donnell spoke first. As Dobson tells it, Donnell said, “I’m aware a little bit of what’s happening to you in the publishing field. There is a pediatrician in your old position, but I can easily reassign him. We would like to have you back, but under the circumstances I think it would be unfair of us to insist on that. If you would like to just continue to have a relationship with us on a voluntary basis, you can have your same titles and appointment. We’ll call you when we need you.”

Remembers Dobson, “I cried all the way home.” He felt the Lord had given him direction.

Looking back, it is clear that in that year, 1977, Dobson’s career took off for the moon. At the time, though, acceleration was far from obvious. His weekend seminars were still the main thing: the invitations were pouring in, and bigger auditoriums were necessary. Yet Dobson was increasingly unhappy with what his family seminars were doing to his own family. His two young children needed him at home; so did his wife. He prayed and came to a dramatic conclusion: the Lord wanted him to stop doing seminars altogether. Mac McQuiston, his agent for speaking engagements, remembers the day when Dobson announced this to him. McQuiston immediately knew, with a sinking feeling, that a large part of his business was about to disappear.

Word Publishing, in Waco, Texas, suggested that if Dobson was not going to speak again, perhaps his seminar could be recorded on video. Apparently Dobson was not impressed by the idea; Focus vice-president Peb Jackson remembers him arguing, “Who’s going to sit and watch me talk for seven hours?” However, when Dobson stood up in San Antonio, Texas, for his next-to-last seminar, cameras were rolling. When the last seminar was over, he felt a mixture of relief and regret. He thought his public career had ended.

Article continues below

Instead, of course, it was being pushed into another orbit. The films were to be seen by far more people than could possibly have attended a seminar.

A weekly radio program also began unassumingly in 1977. Jackson remembers meeting with a handful of men to discuss incorporating a nonprofit organization. They had, he says, no idea what the long-range future could be; they simply wanted a legal instrument to receive funds and answer mail from a radio audience. “We wondered whether anybody would bother to write.” They settled on the name that Dobson had been using for his seminars: Focus on the Family.

In the fall of 1977, Dobson’s father received a prophetic message. “Dad was 66, and was beginning to feel he was on the shelf. He prayed for three days and three nights, asking the Lord to extend his brother-in-law’s ministry [he was dying] and also to extend his own [health had sidelined him from preaching]. He was saying, ‘Give us some more years to serve you.’ At the end of three days, the Lord spoke. The Lord didn’t talk to my dad very often, but when he did you’d better listen.

“He told him, I have heard your prayers, I know that you are concerned about my people and my kingdom. I know your compassion, and I’m going to answer your prayers. In fact, you’re going to reach millions of people. But it is not going to be through you. It will be through your son.’ ” James Dobson, Sr., had a massive heart attack the next day, and he died 72 days later.

Other Facets Of Fame

Political involvement came after the radio program and film series. When President Jimmy Carter planned a White House Conference on the Family, Dobson suggested to his radio audience that they nominate him as a representative. His message had been apolitical, but he was increasingly aware of the effect government had on families. Eighty thousand letters flooded in to Washington, and he was duly appointed, one of a small handful of conservatives.

After one session in 1980, James Guy Tucker, who headed the conference, asked Dobson to have a Coke. As Dobson remembers their conversation, Tucker told him, “I’ve been in this city a long time. I did not know until recently that people like you existed on the face of the earth. I had no idea that people with university credentials believed the kind of things you believe. I can tell you this, they’re not represented in this city.”

Article continues below

Extremely anxious not to overpoliticize his message, Dobson keeps the focus of his radio show on helping and encouraging families. His books continue with traditional themes; he has not even written extensively on pornography, though the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography dominated a full year of his life. Yet he is clearly fascinated with Washington, and has been spending increasing amounts of his personal time there. “You talk about tension, there’s a constant tension for me. I could turn Focus into a full-time issues program. The need is there. But it would change the whole ministry.

“When I go to Washington, I get so frustrated because I hear so much that people ought to know, and I don’t feel I can address it without sacrificing something that God’s called me to do.” He also is frustrated because he feels that conservatives are losing the battle to protect the traditional family from a better-organized, better-funded foe.

Criticisms of James Dobson’s work are hard to find, largely because popular Christian writers and broadcasters, despite their influence, are rarely accorded a thoughtful critique. James Alsdurf, court psychologist for Minnesota’s Hennepin County (Minneapolis), notes that during his Ph.D. training at the Fuller School of Psychology, just down the road from Dobson’s headquarters and the largest evangelical training institution for psychologists, he never heard Dobson’s work evaluated or critiqued.

Alsdurf himself, who deals professionally with many cases of domestic violence, complains that if you look at what is selling in Christian bookstores, “you find that people want short-term answers. The problem is that they don’t work in families. There are no shortcuts. I’m not saying Dobson says there are. But the way he packages his show, you come away with a sense that there are.”

Other concerns come from Christians who wish Dobson’s writings were more directly scriptural. Dobson explains that his first four books were written while he was a faculty member at the usc medical school; each book had to be cleared by a review committee before publication, and he felt he could not be outspokenly Christian. Even since he officially severed ties with use in 1983, Dobson’s books, while more overtly Christian, remain a melange of scriptural principles, traditional American values, and common sense.

Article continues below

Dobson is a generalist and a popularist. That is an American tradition: speaking with authority and without footnotes. Both Alsdurf’s critique, and the critique of those who wish for a more articulated biblical base, are essentially criticisms of that tradition. If Dobson were more qualified in his assertions, if he developed careful biblical and theological arguments, if he marshaled psychological data for his positions, it is doubtful that he would sell millions of books.

His friend Robert Wolgemuth suggests that James Dobson can be best understood not as a counselor, but as a prophet. Dobson has established a remarkable relationship with his listeners and readers—his word is practically gospel—but I doubt it is the particulars of his advice that set him apart from a multitude of other counselors. People listen and are moved not so much by the content as something under the content: Dobson’s concern. If you read the prophets of the Old Testament, a similar quality stands out. Their message is simple, and it tends to repeat itself. But the prophets cared. They were heartbroken over what they saw. Dobson cares about families, and he communicates passionately that they matter.

Wolgemuth says, “I see Jim as a prophet to women. I think he has given Christian women permission to struggle through their role as mothers in the same way that Francis Schaeffer gave Christians permission to think.” Yet Dobson has also been a prophet to men, with a simple message: Your kids and your wife deserve (and need) your attention. He has proclaimed family life as a noble, godly calling.

Considering Dobson’s success, it is interesting to wonder why Christian radio stations are not dominated by psychologists. The answer points to Dobson’s uniqueness. There are Christians who have an equally rigorous academic background, but most are driven by imperatives within their field—scholarship, professionalism. There are Christians who communicate with Dobson’s earthy practicality and driving concern, but few have his kind of credentials.

Unique among major Christian broadcast figures, Dobson has brought a secular vocation to a Christian cause. He has grafted the scientific authority of doctors and psychologists onto the emotive moral force of an evangelist. When you listen to James Dobson, you often come away with a lump in your throat. He communicates with great skill that he cares, and he releases in his hearers their own richly emotional sense of caring—for children, for God and family, for the old, good ways.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.

Our digital archives are a work in progress. Let us know if corrections need to be made.

Tags:
Issue: