"On Thursday morning, my inbox was empty, and then I saw the news on Slack. A few minutes after that, a friend texted: "JAMES DOBSON IS DEAD!!!!!" I looked at X and read the headline again. I started to believe it. My husband walked into the room, where I sat on our bed, and I told him. He said he'd bring me Champagne that night."
"Dobson was not a preacher like Jerry Falwell or a lobbyist like the lesser-known Gary Bauer, though he moved in the same circles and pursued similar aims. He was a child psychologist who exchanged academia for Christian ministry because he was horrified by the sexual revolution. The traditional American family was at risk, he thought; Christian parents should enforce their values through corporal punishment at home, and later, by voting according to Biblical principles."
"He endorsed Donald Trump in 2016 after it became clear that Ted Cruz did not have enough Evangelical support to win the Republican nomination. Trump was "a baby Christian," Dobson said, and though he was no longer at Focus and had probably entered his final decline, his words still mattered. Dobson lived just long enough to see his work bear hideous fruit."
James Dobson founded Focus on the Family, co-founded the Family Research Council and participated in the Arlington Group, building a powerful Christian-right network. He wrote more than seventy books and built a radio empire that reached millions worldwide. He trained as a child psychologist and left academia for Christian ministry because he opposed the sexual revolution. He urged Christian parents to enforce values through corporal punishment and to vote according to Biblical principles. He endorsed Donald Trump in 2016, calling him "a baby Christian." He lived long enough to see his influence produce violent and harmful outcomes and remained a personal enemy to some.
Read at Intelligencer
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