I’m not going to offer up platitudes about the man and his life. I wish his family peace and strength, though. I’ve often thought about how difficult it must be to mourn as a family member of a public figure, especially someone as polarizing as Mr. Dobson.
If God exists and is just, Mr. Dobson was (is?) in for a huge surprise as to his final accommodations.
There are, no doubt, thousands of people who can attribute their fractured families to Mr. Dobson’s “guidance” regarding LGBTQ+ children. He never met a gay person he liked. He supported conversion therapy and did everything he could to fight any equalization of rights related to the LGBTQ+ community.
Focus On The Family, Alliance Defending Freedom, and the Family Research Council are all Dobson-created and -led organizations that have fought hard against the idea of furthering human rights for the LGBTQ+ community.
He called for men to murder trans women.
His 1970 book, Dare to Discipline taught parents to “break the will” of their children and to spank them if they cried more than five minutes after an initial spanking.
Break the will? That’s something you do to prisoners of war and incarcerated people, not to children.
Diana and I spanked our kids, and I’m more than a little ashamed about it.
In his 1997 book James Dobson’s War on America, former Focus On The Family executive Gil Alexander-Moegerle wrote, “James Dobson believes that he has been entirely sanctified, morally perfected, that he does not and cannot sin. Now you know why he and moralists like him make a life of condemning what he believes to be the sins of others. He is perfect.”
I haven’t thought well of Mr. Dobson in many years but reading something like that really scares me. It scares me that not only did someone think that about himself, but that no one around him checked him on his beliefs.
No self-respecting Christian should ever think so much of themselves.
No self-respecting Christian should ever think so little of others.
From the very beginning, we’re told that we are created in the image of God, if the Bible is to be believed.
Then God said, “Let us make humans in our image. (Gen 1:26/NRSVUE)
How can anyone who claims to follow God tell others to commit murder?
How can someone who claims to follow God want to use government force to deny basic human rights to people because of who they love? Where is that command in the Bible? Did Jesus ask Pharaoh to pass laws based on the Torah?
There’s little doubt in my mind that families were torn apart because of James Dobson. Parents thought they had his blessing to beat their children under the guise of “loving discipline.” They thought that banishing their child because of same-sex attraction was some kind of twisted “tough love.” How many of those children went on to be sexually assaulted trying to survive on the streets?
How many families tormented and bullied their own kids, the literal “least of these,” because of how this man spoke about LGBTQ+ people?
How many of them went on to die by suicide because their family—the ones who were supposed to love them unconditionally—threw them out because of James Dobson’s teachings?
They say that everything a Christian does is part of their witness. That the way a Christian’s lives their life and how they treat others, all of that teaches everyone else in the world about the God that person worships.
People like James Dobson have driven more people away from God than they likely ever led to Christ. Because who wants to be associated with someone as hateful as a man who called on people to murder?
Thanks for reading. Feel free to share a thought in the comments. Sign up for my infrequent newsletter here. Find some of my other writing at The Good Men Project, too. Subscribe to the blog via the link in the right sidebar or follow it on Mastodon. You can also add my RSS feed to your favorite reader.
Share your thoughts!