Let's Speak Ill of the Dead: Reflections on James Dobson

Administrative Matters

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The Bugbear Dispatch bills itself as a publication about navigating American moral panic. And there are few if any men more singularly responsible for laying the foundations of America's contemporary moral panic than one Dr. James Dobson, who founded the notorious anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ organization Focus on the Family in 1977. Dobson's "greatest hits" include platforming serial killer Ted Bundy in order to sell his anti-porn crusade, since Bundy blamed porn for his murderous violence.

As a leading member of the Reagan administration's Meese Commission (it's a bit of an aside so look it up, kids), Dobson also praised radfem Andrea Dworkin. The two were happy to work together toward banning porn. Oh, and who could forget ol' Jimmy D. reading the lyrics of Prince's "Darling Nikki" in his "tut tut" voice to an audience of 1980s evangelicals shocked and scandalized by the "moral decline" of the times?

Dobson died last Thursday, which is a fact you are likely aware of if you follow many exvangelical or similar accounts on social media, where many people who were harmed and traumatized by Dobson's influence as children have been celebrating. As someone whose life was touched by Dobson's vast malign influence (if not as thoroughly as some exvangelicals), and someone who is committed to truth-telling, I have a modest proposal. Let those cheered by his death celebrate.

Dobson's case is illustrative of how speaking ill of the dead can be an important and powerful form of truth-telling. With that in mind, I suggest not only refraining from chastising those who are glad this monstrous man is gone, but also (and especially) to listen to the truths they are telling.

I refer to Dobson as "Dr." above because, unlike many evangelical charlatans who claim the title, his doctorate is genuine. As a humanities PhD, I would like to think that higher education helps to foster humane and expansive thinking in those who pursue it, but I have to admit that this is far from always the case. Dobson studied under positive eugenicist Paul Popenoe, and the influence of eugenics is undeniably present in Dobson's work and in evangelical subculture, whose prescribed family order and preferred political policies result in the production of more white babies.

Dobson's case is illustrative of how speaking ill of the dead can be an important and powerful form of truth-telling.

After studying under Popenoe, Dobson was quick to position himself as the antithesis of Dr. Benjamin Spock, the famous mid-twentieth-century American pediatrician and author who denounced corporal punishment and promoted a humane approach to childrearing that Dobson and his authoritarian ilk rejected as "permissive." Through books like The Strong-Willed Child (1978) and Dare to Discipline (1982), Dobson taught conservative Christian parents not only that corporal punishment was godly and necessary, but also that they needed to break their children's wills to instill the obedience that would keep them from sin and damnation. He taught evangelical parents (and children) to conflate divine and parental love with fear, pain, and punishment.

The man was clearly a sadist, and not one who channeled his inclinations in a healthy, consensual way. In The Strong-Willed Child, Dobson even bragged about beating his dachshund into submission with a belt. The anecdote is framed as something that's meant to be both relatable and funny, which almost makes our puppy-killing Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem seem halfway decent by comparison.

To be sure, some evangelical parenting "experts"—particularly those associated closely with the Christian homeschooling movement, like Michael and Debi Pearl—could be more extreme than Dobson (or at least more willing to say more extreme things out loud). But Dobson, who founded the parachurch organization Focus on the Family in 1977, paved the way for the influence of people like the Pearls.

Speaking of influence, it is probably impossible to overestimate Dobson's reach in evangelical and evangelical-adjacent social milieus. Using radio to distribute Christian parenting advice as well as his books, by the mid-1980s Dobson was a household name among evangelicals. And because of his "saner," more respectable image than that of, say, Pat Robertson, he didn't turn off the kinds of evangelicals who still looked askance at Pentecostals and prosperity gospel types at that time. The mainstreaming of the latter was more of a 1990s and later phenomenon (though with earlier roots to be sure), but Dobson was mainstream in a way that someone like Paula White could not be until the Trump era. And that made him all the more dangerous.

In 1991, Dobson (who was the sole head of the organization until 2003) moved Focus on the Family from Arcadia, California to Colorado Springs, Colorado. Parts of Southern California (Orange County in particular) have long been hotbeds of reactionary politics, but instead of moving south from Los Angeles County, Dobson hopped a few states eastward, undoubtedly saving a lot of money on real estate. From there, he became a kingmaker in Republican politics, as Colorado Springs became a center of evangelical extremism and the GOP felt the impact of the massive evangelical base that Jerry Falwell, Sr. had done so much to mobilize and that Ronald Reagan welcomed into the Republican coalition with open arms.

Back then—at least in the aftermath of the "Republican Revolution" of 1994 that made bastards like then House Speaker Newt Gingrich and independent counsel Ken Starr (who led an inquisition against the Bill Clinton administration) household names—normal, liberal Americans should have awoken to the looming danger of what is now so often called Christian nationalism and moved aggressively to counter it. Instead, the Democrats entered an era of Republican appeasement that their most powerful leaders remain committed to today under American fascism. Many of us raised evangelical in the 80s and 90s, along with a handful of intrepid researchers (many associated with the Massachusetts-based think tank Political Research Associates to which, full disclosure, I have proudly contributed) and a few others, have been trying to sound the alarm, but to no avail.

Playing the politics of "respectability" and "civility" gets one nothing except steamrolled by authoritarians who don't play fair, and that, my fellow bugbears, is why I am in favor of normalizing speaking ill of the dead. Not for petty purposes, and in many cases (probably most) not of private individuals unless there is a good reason—exposing abuse, for example. But painful truths—truths that, if heeded, may lead to justice or prevent future harm—should not be buried because it's not "nice" to speak ill of the dead. In a period of rising fascism, understanding that to be nice is not always to be good—that, in fact, sometimes doing the good thing demands refusing to be nice—is more important than ever.

My own story intersects some with that of James Dobson and Focus on the Family. My parents moved us to Colorado Springs in 1993, where we had FoTF (evangelicals just call it "Focus") employees in our church. I caught a lot of Dobson radio when hanging out with one of my friends. And, of course, my sister and I were spanked as children, sometimes with wooden spoons (which occasionally broke), thanks to the advice of Dobson. When I got "the talk" from my dad, it was a short, awkward interaction that left me confused and a copy of Dobson's Preparing for Adolescence (1974) to read on my own. It wasn't his worst book, I'd argue, but it was still bad, and undoubtedly one of the many pieces of evangelical subculture that saddled me with extreme anxiety.

My family revered Dobson in theory, but at least we weren't constantly inundated with his audio content, which importantly includes the children's radio show Adventures in Odyssey. For many who grew up evangelical and/or in homeschooling circles, that particular propaganda machine had a powerful impact, and one relevant recent book I can recommend on the matter is Amber Cantorna-Wylde's Out of Focus: My Story of Sexuality, Shame, and Toxic Evangelicalism. Cantorna-Wylde's father was the executive producer of Adventures in Odyssey, and her family cut her off when she came out as a lesbian.

Americans need to hear stories like hers. Dobson's death should not be an occasion to set these stories of the trauma he inflicted aside, but should in fact be a reason to promote those stories vigorously. When people speak ill of a dead public figure, they often have very good reasons for doing so. I sincerely wish Americans would learn to listen.

I hope this essay serves as a decent reference primer for those who have little to no familiarity with Dobson's background or the context in which he worked. I'm a trained historian, and providing that kind of contextualization is something I like to do. But more importantly, I hope readers will use this information to dive deeper into the harm that Dobson did, both to individuals raised with his sadistic ideology and to the fabric of American society. If we're ever going to unfuck America, it's essential to understand how the country got so fucked in the first place.