Posted by Helen on: 03.07.2007 /
This week’s Economist includes a column Is James Dobson’s legendary power starting to wane? Here’s how it begins:
JAMES DOBSON is the Godzilla of the religious right. Other leaders have blazed for a while and then guttered out—Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson because they were incapable of buttoning their lips, Ralph Reed and Bill Bennett because, in different ways, they fell prey to the temptations of casinos. But until now Mr Dobson has gone from strength to strength.
Mr Dobson has long enjoyed unrivalled clout with Christian conservatives. Who else could have derailed a bankruptcy bill that was beloved by business (in 2002) or ejected Tom Daschle from his South Dakota Senate seat (in 2004)? The Dobson-inspired House Values Action Team includes some 70 Republican congressmen. Several leading Republicans, including one former senator, Jim Talent, have Mr Dobson to thank for their conversion to Christianity. Mr Talent, who was raised in a Jewish household, pulled into the side of the road and gave his life to Christ after listening to one of Mr Dobson’s broadcasts.
Comment by: benjamin ady
1That’s actually a really encouraging article. Thankyou for pointing it out.
Comment by: Marcia
2One can only hope.
Comment by: Meredith Eugene Hunt
3My answer to the question is “No.” Why else would Dobson be so viciously attacked now from the political Left?
Comment by: benjamin ady
4Meredith,
Are you describing this article as a “vicious attack”, or are you referring to something else?
Meredith, I’m really stoked that you are here at CatE. You bring a unique and engaging perspective. You rock.
I regularly find Dobson, on his radio show, fairly obnoxious (not that I listen often or anything–just occasionally one does hear it here or there), and find myself puzzled as to why so many listen with so much apparent support and so obviously enjoy it.
but then, of course, I find lots of this sort of thing puzzling. I find the fact that 5000 people listen to hour long sermons from Mark Driscoll every Sunday. I find it puzzling that 49% of the people who voted voted for Bush in ‘04. I guess I’m just a puzzled kind of guy.
Comment by: April Terry
5One thing I like about my liberal husband is that he always listens to the other side. I think that is an important virtue when one is forming one’s opinions. It also humanizes the other side.
For me, I don’t care much about Dr. Dobson’s politics, but I like some of the stories that are aired on his program.
I think it is a great disservice to the Christians of this nation to be politicized to the point that we can’t see or understand the other side.
Several years ago, our singing group worked with a local bible college to offer a music workshop. After several years of accepting them and working with them, they eventually cut all ties with us when my husband balked at their request for us to perform at a political event. He balked because he didn’t want to be a hypocrit.
It deeply saddens me to think that because we didn’t want to sign onto their brand of politics, we were treated as though we were heretics.
Does everyone have to believe the exact same thing in order to be a Christian? If so, the body of Christ is in big trouble.
Comment by: Helen
6April, like you I preferred when the Focus on the Family program really did “focus on the family” and not politics.
The alliance between conservative Christians and right-wing politics in this country always seemed strange to me, since I grew up in a country (England) where Christians tended to favor the politic left because the left focused more on helping the poor.
I was very happy that the author of The Myth of a Christian Nation had the same problems as I did with the way Christians like James Dobson get involved in politics.
Comment by: Helen
7Meredith, like Benjamin, I appreciate you joining in the conversation here.
Comment by: Karen
8His power may indeed be waning. It has to wane sometime, after all, he’s 70 now.
But be assured he’s not going out quietly.
He and a group of similarly-minded Christians have recently begun an effort to try and get Richard Cizik canned from the National Assn of Evangelicals. (Helen recently blogged here about Cizik’s efforts to engage evangelicals in the environmental movement.)
Here’s a link to a story about it.
The kicker: Dobson and his cronies are not even members of the NAE, yet they apparently feel important enough to try to influence its leadership decisions.
Comment by: trissa
9I truely enjoyed that article!
I remember a time when Dobson was a hero of mine. I can remember riding home in the evening listing to his quiet voice tell interesting stories. However, somewhere along the way, I found his politics to be, in my opinion, un-christ like.
In 2004, he essentially told people that they weren’t good Christians if they didn’t vote for George Bush. Like Helen I don’t understand how evangelical Christianity and right wing politics became linked. In fact, I think that Jesus would be very sickened by many conservative values.
I could spend several hours writing about the evils of Bush and his administration, but instead I will just say that I believe Dobson lets his agenda regarding abortion and same sex marriage cloud his judgement regarding politics. He has lost sight of social justice and caring for those less fortunet.
Dobson abuses his power when he tells millions of Christians how to vote.
Comment by: Helen
10Karen, thanks for your comments about Dobson and Cizik, including the link.
I reposted your comment here:
Evangelical leaders object to Cizik’s global warming focus
Comment by: Helen
11trissa thanks for your comment. I’m glad you enjoyed the article!
Comment by: Rachel
12I completely agree, April!
It seems strange to me as well, Helen. I’m glad things are finally changing.
Comment by: Rachel
13I used to feel the same way, Trissa. I so admired and trusted Dr. Dobson. I remember being a pre-teen and listening to cassette tapes of “Preparing for Adolescence” and being comforted and reassured by what he had to say. His message was one of building a young person’s confidence and self-worth. And he took a lot of flack back then for telling teens that masturbation was not a sin.
When Dr. Dobson first starting becoming political, I embraced everything he had to say without question. But over the years, I became increasingly disappointed and disillusioned with him. He seems to me now to be controlling and petty. His power is slipping away and he is desperately grasping for what is left. It is sad to me because when I was a kid listening to his radio show and the ever present cassette tapes, he really seemed like a kind and trusted friend.
Comment by: Meredith Eugene Hunt
14I am perplexed about writers here who as young people saw James Dobson as a hero because of his family focus and now think he is a skunk [or a monstrous, mad lizard] because of his politics, and I am trying to understand this. Did Dobson change? I’ve been paying attention to him over many years and I haven’t noticed. Did you change? Of course, I don’t know anything about that. Or maybe has the general social climate changed? That I definitely think is so. That climate is a factor in why Dobson has come under attack more often by the political Left.
Once the Left had Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson to worry about, and with diligence and loving attention, the Left succeeded and making them into bugaboos in the public mind. Falwell and Robertson, as it appeared, did their part by sometimes saying or doing something stupid. But I don’t think they actually merited the reputation that attached to them.
Dobson is head and shoulders above Falwell and Robertson, and yet I think that the [unfair] attacks against him have taken a toll, where some people who otherwise are and have been favorably disposed to him are now doubtful. Calumny has an effect even among the most noble and well meaning.
benjamin, as to “vicious,” one aspect is co-ordination. In the right-hand column of the Economist article is link to the book “The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America Are Winning the Culture War“, by Dan Gilgoff I heard Gilgoff talking from his book on NPR’s Fresh Air, which I listen too fairly often. Notice that the Economist article ends with a reference to Jesus Machine. Political attacks against individuals or ideas, etc come in waves, and I think we are in one.
As for “single issue” politics, I recommend this commentary in the current issue of World magazine: http://www.worldmag.com/articles/12749 [I apologize that the full article is available to subscribers only.]
Conservatives care about the poor as much as liberals, and if one looks at support for private charities as a measure, perhaps much more. It’s just that they differ as to how best to help. The Left generally thinks that government should be the primary mechanism for charity and aid.
I also think that conservatives generally care as much for the environment. That’s a whole “nother discussion.
Anyway, that’s my contribution to the discussion.
And I will mention that I am neither a Republican or a Democrat. I’m unaffiliated. I don’t let anyone off the hook, myself included.
Oh, Focus on the Family Radio Theatre productions? Absolutely fantastic. Top notch. Check out Les Miserables.
Comment by: benjamin ady
15Meredith,
I’m wondering what you mean when you talk about “the reputation attached to them”?
I mean didn’t Robertson, for instance, call for the assassination of a foreign head of state rather recently?
Didn’t Falwell blame 9-11 on the homosexuals?
Which part of their “repuatation” do they *not* merit?
I actually dread to think what FOTF has done to Hugo’s brilliant work. Now I shall have to check it out.
I continue to enjoy your use of words. I loved the “skunk, (or monstrous mad lizard)” and also “bugaboo” is a lot of fun. Thankyou!
Comment by: Helen
16Meredith, I’ve heard some awesome Focus on the Family Radio Theatre productions too.
I never liked Dobson’s political programs - I used to avoid them and listen to his other ones. So, I haven’t changed in that regard. I might perhaps have become progressively less tolerant of Christians pushing a right-wing political agenda. But I never liked it.
As for political waves, I think Bush might have helped galvanise the opposition by the extent of his visible interest in advice from conservative evangelicals. It makes many people who aren’t conservative evangelical dispensationalist Christians very nervous that a president might be making major foreign policy decisions based on what dispensationalists say the Bible says about the ‘end times’. It makes them nervous enough, I think, to give a lot of momentum to any wave which opposes that.
Comment by: Karen
17Absolutely. When I was a fan, his books and his radio shows and his magazines focused on parenting, marriage, raising kids in a complicated, difficult world. Our family loved the Adventures in Odyssey series and took the tapes with us on car trips. I definitely didn’t always agree with him, but I respected him. I met him once. I even did some work for his organization.
Then, in the early ’90s after he moved to Colorado Springs, he deliberately expanded his “focus” onto national politics and championing conservative issues. This was a sea change for him, and he admitted it, because he’d always stayed apolitical before that.
It was this change that put me off of him and his organization. Despite being a fundy evangelical, I was always in the liberal camp politically. (Yes, this made me quite the odd duck in church circles!)
He’s come under the microscope for criticism (and admiration, in many circles) because he’s gained enormous political power during the Bush Administration. Anyone who becomes a self-appointed “kingmaker” will be scrutinized highly, that goes with the territory.
Comment by: Doreen
18Dobson is a very frightening character who uses fear tactics to raise millions from his minions.
He does not preach a Gospel of love. It is one thing to take a moral stand on things you truly believe are Biblical. It’s quite another to try and bully people into a group mindmeld where you as “father figure” do things like dictate where your minions should shop.
He has been asked repeatedly by scientists to stop lying about their work.
And this isn’t a leftie speaking but a registered independent.
Comment by: Meredith Eugene Hunt
19I don’t know about you all but, generally, if I hear something bad about someone whom I have any affinity for, or even if I don’t have affinity but it’s someone important, and I want to have an opinion, I will check it out for myself—see the comment in context, etc– instead of taking the word of the Press at face value, or even depend upon a snippet. Solzhenitsyn, a hero of mine, said that he and his dissident colleagues (and every other independent, intelligent person in the old USSR) “read between the lines” of the official news. There was a joke that “Pravda is not Isvestia and Isvestia is not Pravda,” which literally meant “truth is not news, and news is not truth.” That in a nutshell is why I don’t think that Falwell and Roberstson deserved their reputations, that and I don’t think they merit(ed) any attention whatever in the first place—except when R ran for president.)
The reason I mention Les Miserables is that I think skeptics of the Jesus Machine will be surprised (and pleased) at the beautiful treatment the story received. Focus on the Family Radio Theatre did not skimp on talent in this production. For instance, Brian Blessed played Jean Valjean. Check him out at IMBb.com.
Comment by: Meredith Eugene Hunt
20(Note: Pravda and Isvestia were the two leading newspapers in the USSR. I forgot to mention this.)
Comment by: Helen
21Meredith, I prefer to check things out for myself too. My views about James Dobson are based on hearing him on his program and reading lots of his monthly magazines and newsletters (I was on his mailing list for quite a while).
Comment by: Rachel
22I remember seeing James Dobson being interviewed by George Stephanopoulos a few years back. Dr. Dobson had said some very harsh things about some of his political adversaries and George asked him in a respectful tone if that was a Christian way to talk. Dr. Dobson responded with anger and disdain, saying how dare George question HIM about what is Christian behavior! (George Stephanopoulos’ father is a Greek Orthodox priest.) Dr. Dobson acted SO arrogant and self-righteous. I remember thinking, “how would ANYBODY be attracted to that?”
That for me was the last straw, when I completely lost respect for Dr. Dobson, NOT based on what anybody else had told me, but based upon what I saw for myself. I don’t enjoy saying that. This is a man who I once loved and trusted completely, who helped me a great deal through his materials on self-esteem and adolescent development. I actually wrote to Dr. Dobson as a child and received a personal reply, which I treasured and still have in my possession. I am very sad to see the person that he has become.
Comment by: Doreen
23I receive Dr. Dobson’s mailings, as well as those from a wide variety of sources. Sad to say, that’s where I’ve formed my opinion about him. Just as I’ve formed my opinion about Janet Parshall from listening to her radio program.
These days my most frightening and amusing (simultaneously, yes) mailings are from Exodus International.
Comment by: Meredith Eugene Hunt
24Well, Last night, I tried to find a recording of the Dobson/Stephanopoulos interview. NPR had a story with a soundbite cutting in just after the part where Dobson (allegedly for me) told Stephanopoulos not to lecture him on being a Christian. For the sake of discussion, I’ll just assume that he did say what the transcripts I saw say he said.
I attended a workshop in Flint, Michigan years ago and a one of the speakers talked about the marketing strategy of MacDonalds. Big Mac (you know, like Big Oil) learned and believed that it took 10 positive contacts to offset one negative contact. So, the idea was that if you saw nine happy meal commercials on TV and when you patronized the “restaurant,” the receptionist who served your food smiled, and then you found a NAIL in your hamburger, you would forgive Ronald MacDonald and come back.
Yeah, if Dobson snapped back to Stephanopoulos (and there was some interrupting and badgering from Stephanopoulos in the NPR clip)(there is no virtue in one’s father being a Greek Orthodox priest), it was not elegant. Certainly I would have done better under the circumstances. (Just kidding!) Certainly, there were 100 things that Dobson could have said that would have been better, but at least for me I have had nothing but positive contacts from Dobson over the years, so the nail was not the last…. straw. I do think it makes a huge difference that I basically agree with Dobson’s values and his interest in transforming culture. What he does from the Right is what many do from the Left. He is an activist who began on a foundation of serving families.
For me, however, there is a problem with discussing Dobson at all. Many (most, I should say) attacks against him are strongly colored by the disagreement people have with his goals and values. The discussion then becomes not the issues, but the man. All men and women have weaknesses, and all men and women are inconsistent. There are degrees of this—the failings of some totally disqualify them from respect and positions of power. For me the issues are paramount, and whether a particular person rises or falls is relatively irrelevant to them.
Yes, Helen, I doubt it is happening, but a foreign policy based on a belief that all Christians will be raptured before the tribulation would be scary. That kind of pietism often is withdrawn from caring about what is happening in the… heareandnow.
Some people would feel that the Great Tribulation had come if we ran out of toilet paper.
(As Mark Twain would say, I’ve been waiting for a chance to use that joke.)
In situations like this it is helpful to remember that sage observation: “In theory, there’s no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is.” -Yogi Berra
Comment by: Rachel
25My reason for mentioning that detail was to point out that George Stephanopoulos was raised in a devout Christian family and thus IS quite familiar with Christian teachings.
Now there is something we can both agree on, Meredith!
Comment by: Meredith Eugene Hunt
26I meant “hereandnow.”
Comment by: Helen
27Meredith wrote:
LOL :)
I see what you’re saying - but rather than not discuss public figures because we disagree with them, I’d prefer to see if we can learn to separate our disagreement with their opinions from our views about their character.
Comment by: Doreen
28Meredith wrote
I cannot separate the person from the way he/she chooses to express his/her goals & values. Whether a person speaks lovingly or condemningly, whether a person uses faith or fear, what a person does with money, speak to his/her character AND values.
Let’s take Joyce Meyer for example. I happen to disagree with some of her goals and values, but not the way she chooses to express them. Or let’s take someone like Louis Farrakhan as another example. I happen to disagree with some of his goals and values AND the way he chooses to express them. (Although I read he is changed since having cancer.)
I agree all have weaknesses but not that all are inconsistent.
Comment by: Rachel
29Well said, Doreen!
Comment by: Deana
30I don’t know that Dobson has lost much of his power. Why else would some politicians with presidential aspirations go to him and confess their sins? (Cf. Newt Gingrich this past week.)
Comment by: Helen
31That’s a good point, Deana. I heard very briefly about Newt Gingrich on the news yesterday but wasn’t aware that his confession was on Dobson’s program until I read your comment.
Here’s a news report about Newt Gingrich’s confession
Comment by: Laura M.
32I hope that’s not a dig at conservationists?
Comment by: Laura M.
33Are you kidding, a chance to ‘come out’ and finally confess what an utter hypocritical blowhard you are while Dobson sits there and holds your hand, while he simultaneaously wipes away each and every one of your gigantic, salty, self-loathing crocodile tears (it’s just so hard cheating on your wife while trying to put another man in jail for doing the very same thing, boo-hoo!)?
Oh, and the free foot-rub and back-rub was really appreciated too, I’m sure, while being told what a brave little soldier you are for surviving the whole horrible ordeal and for having the courage to criticize others while labeling yourself as non-judgemental.
Comment by: Doreen
34Laura M., you cracked me up.
It was rather amusing to see the photos of the “Big 3″ from the “family values” and “save marriage from gays” party with the text underneath stating “No. of marriages = 5.”