Dr. James Dobson remembered for his compassionate ways and steadfast Christian testimony
David Zalubowski - AP
Dr. James Dobson, founder of Colorado Springs-headquartered Focus on the Family, will be remembered as a compassionate soul who had a gift for empathizing with grief-stricken people and walking with anyone going through life’s difficulties.
He was known to shed tears upon hearing of an unknown family’s loss of a child, current Focus President Jim Daly said.
“Now, it is our turn to weep,” Daly wrote on Focus’ website on Thursday, the day the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute announced Dobson had died at his home in Colorado Springs. Dobson was 89.
Dr. Walt Larimore (left) and Dr. James Dobson prepare for a radio broadcast on Tuesday August 7, 2001, at Focus on the Family. Larimore, a medical doctor from Florida, is being groomed as a potential on-air replacement for Dobson. Jay Janner/The Gazette
“He was a loving husband, father and grandfather, and a friend to millions of listeners and readers around the world,” Daly said in his online letter. “Dr. Dobson’s presence will be sorely missed, but we rejoice in the knowledge that he is now joyfully in the presence of the God he served.”
A political conservative and prolific author, Dobson also faced criticism for being outspoken in opposing abortion, rights for gays, including marriage, and pornography. Over the years, he often advised White House panels, became an adviser to five presidents and served on President Donald Trump’s Evangelical Executive Advisory Board.
Dobson’s life was “a testament to unwavering faith, moral courage and a passionate devotion to strengthening families through the truth of God’s word,” the institute said in announcing his passing. “For nearly 50 years, his voice resounded across airwaves and through generations, boldly championing the sanctity of human life, the sacredness of marriage and the biblical foundation of the family.”
A statue of James Dobson sits in the James Dobson gallery at the Focus on the Family Welcome Center, Tuesday, September 17, 2002. photo by Adam Welch
A child psychologist who started a radio show counseling Christians around the world on how to be good parents and have a successful marriage, Dobson founded Focus on the Family in 1977 and relocated his ministry from California to Colorado Springs in August 1991.
From a modest weekly radio program broadcast from a two-room rented office in Arcadia, Calif., Focus grew into a multimillion-dollar empire topping 1,000 employees after the organization moved to Colorado, and Dobson became one of the most influential evangelical Christian leaders in modern time, advising presidents as casually as he advised moms.
But he was aware that not everyone embraced his staunch biblical stance on issues of the day, which generated controversy that followed him throughout his 33-year reign at what’s become a multi-media communications ministry.
In a 2023 video interview with Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, which Dobson started in 1981 and incorporated in 1983, Dobson said he enjoyed his original career as a professor of pediatrics at University of Southern California’s School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles.
After 17 years of teaching, he left to start Focus on the Family.
“I walked into a buzzsaw,” he said to Perkins about his career move.
Focus on the Family pushed for the passage of Amendment 2, a Constitutional change that Colorado voters approved in 1992. The amendment prohibited the state and local governments from enacting or enforcing laws that would protect individuals based on their “homosexual, lesbian or bisexual orientation, conduct, practices or relationships.”
The U.S. Supreme Court struck it down in 1996.
“That became so controversial,” Dobson told Perkins in 2023. “Gay activists didn’t have anybody to blame for their loss for that point of view. We had bloody animal parts coming to our door — I wasn’t used to that.
“We’ve lost most of the battles along the way, but we think maybe things are changing now. Pastors are more aware of the battle we’re in; we serve a big God, and we can’t give up.”
Dobson told Perkins he never thought he’d see Roe v. Wade overturned and asked that advocates stand firm in continuing to oppose abortion.
“I think our country is in great jeopardy — there’s been no time except the Civil War when we’ve been so divided, and there’s been so much hatred and wickedness, and people calling good evil and evil good. We have to be a strong light in a dark and stormy culture.”
Dobson named Daly as his successor as president and CEO of Focus on the Family in 2005. Dobson left the organization in 2010 and founded the institute that bears his name. He continued his Family Talk radio show, which is nationally syndicated and is carried by 1,500 radio outlets with more than half a million listeners weekly, according to the institute.
An estimated 200 million people worldwide tuned in to Dobson’s final turn as host of the “Focus on the Family” radio show in 2010, Gazette reports from that time said.
His family said in a statement that Dobson’s “impact endures through the many lives he touched, the families he strengthened and the unshakable faith he proclaimed.”
A life-size bronze statue of Dobson’s father, the Rev. James Dobson, sits in the lobby of the welcome center at Focus’ headquarters in northeastern Colorado Springs. Dobson credited his father for helping shape his faith.
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