No, James Dobson Was NOT Just a "Man of His Time"

And those he harmed deserve to be heard

An interesting thing happened yesterday on social media after it was announced that James Dobson had died.

Strangers, who thought their suffering at the hands of their parents was an isolated incident, found comfort from so, so many others who were similarly harmed.

I have never seen such an outpouring of contempt towards someone who has just died.

It was startling, I know, for many who held him in high regard (and the extent of it was startling even for those who didn’t!). But it showed the depth of the anger and the trauma and the hurt that is felt by millions upon millions of strong-willed children whose parents, instead of attuning to their emotional needs, tried to break their spirit and control them.

It showed the depth of anger from the women who had been told by Focus on the Family counselors to return to abusive husbands; from adult children now estranged from their Dobson-loving parents, because their parents got sucked into authoritarian right wing politics and have become unrecognizable; from brothers and sisters meeting at the grave of their lost LGBTQ sibling, who unalived themselves because they were rejected by parents and had no hope.

It’s important to speak truth of the dead when it means comforting the afflicted.

Many have expressed disappointment and even anger that I would mention the harm that Dobson's work did to so many. Yesterday, as I spoke up (even mildly!) on social media, I was told I should have waited. It wasn’t the right day

(I’m not sure when the “right day” would be—if I waited a week, they would have said: “why are you talking about him now? He’s dead and can’t defend himself! It’s old news.”)

Here's why it's actually VITAL that we mention that harm right away:

Many, many people suffered terribly directly as a result of Focus on the Family's teachings. Their parents were taught to punish them for normal child development, and they developed anxious or avoidant attachment which has affected them their whole life; they lost faith in Jesus because of Dobson’s allegiance with corrupt political officials in the name of Christ; they submitted to abuse because they thought they couldn’t escape.

These people have deep, deep wounds. They were harmed.

If all they see today are people saying, "What a life James Dobson lived for God!", how will they feel?

I want those who were hurt by Dobson to know they are seen.

That we remember them and think of them. That they matter, and their pain matters.

Articles praising Dobson and praising his legacy will be everywhere over the next few weeks, and that will be very painful for those who have been hurt.

I want them to know that they are safe with my community, that we see them, and that they matter.

If that seems crass--if it's more important to speak only good things about a man with such a mixed legacy who has hurt so many--then I believe people’s loyalty is misplaced.

Remember that Jesus left the 99 to go after the 1. We do not choose to protect the legacy of someone in power, and comfort those close to the proximity of power, when people are lost and hurting.

Yet the excuses have already begun: “He was a man of his time.”

When someone was a theological giant in their time, but history judges their legacy differently, many defenders will say, “he was just a man of his time.” You can’t expect him to have gotten that right, because everyone got it wrong then. You’re just judging him with modern lenses, and that’s not fair.

There is some truth to that argument. As we look back on history, there are those who truly did seem to know God, but had glaring blind spots. I’m sure I’m one of them—we all are to an extent.

But to me, the big question is this: Even if they did get some things wildly wrong, did they move the conversation towards justice, towards love, towards kindness? Did they move the conversation towards a fuller picture of the incarnation of Christ in our lives?

Take Luther, for instance. He said some horribly misogynistic things, but he also had a deep love for his wife, and he taught others to love their wives too. But most of all, his teachings that we could have an individual relationship with God and didn’t need a mediator except Jesus have led us, five hundred years later, to realize that women are full image bearers, and there truly is no male nor female in Christ Jesus.

He was also wildly wrong on other things—his anti-Semitism was reprehensible and inexcusable—but he planted the seeds for us to grow in Christ and hopefully overcome that.

At the time he was writing, pretty much everyone was an anti-semite and a misogynist. In that sense he was a man of his time. But those coming after him could be less of both of those things because of his writings.

(I know he was largely a mixed bag and held things back in many areas—but because of the idea of a personal relationship with Christ, many more had the courage and capacity to challenge the things Luther got wrong).

Or take C.S. Lewis. Rereading The Horse and His Boy now, as an adult, is a jolting experience. It’s so racially coded, and paints Turkish people in rather terrible ways. We can acknowledge that C.S. Lewis had racism that he had not dealt with.

But at the same time, his book The Last Battle was likely the first big deconstruction book, and his writings have led people to a more expansive view of the gospel and of knowing Jesus. He did not get everything right, but he moved the conversation forward, towards Christ, in the right direction.

Then there are those who have no excuse.

Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, two often prized theologians, were slave-owners—which means they believed it was okay to own their fellow human beings. They did not see other people as fully human. One cannot say they were merely “men of their times”, and everyone did it, because there was always a loud and vocal abolitionist movement. They heard the arguments against slavery (in Whitefield’s case, we know Wesley wrote to him about it) and they rejected them. They did not move the conversation towards Christ; they kept it stuck towards injustice.

And their view of God justified their power-over theologies.

They did not have an excuse, and all of their theology is tainted irrevocably by this deep and dark evil.

When history measures Dobson, what group will he be in?

Will he be a “man of his time” but one who moved the conversation forward, or will he be seen like Whitefield and Edwards, men who used religion to justify their own power and control over others, and whose view of God led directly to the oppression of others?

I believe it will be the latter.

Yes, in the 1970s and 1980s and 1990s there were many who didn’t understand attachment theory, and who believed spanking was okay.

But do you know who else was popular in the 1970s and 1980s? Fred Rogers. He was a household name. Love and acceptance and grace already had a visible, high-profile model. Research into child development was also prolific at this time, and we knew the importance of giving children autonomy, as was age appropriate, and not punishing for normal childhood development. And yet Dobson, who was a trained psychologist, rejected this.

I remember being in university in the late 1980s and being so frustrated with Dobson that I even crafted a letter to him. He had been appointed to a Commission on Porn, and Dobson’s focus was on how porn was destroying the family. I felt that he could form a partnership with feminists, and have a united front, if he could also talk about how porn hurt and objectified women. But no, it had to be all about the family. Women’s objectification didn’t matter.

Even in his heyday, Dobson was holding the conversation back, not driving it forward.

The trauma that we saw poured out yesterday shows much of his legacy.

It’s largely because of Dobson that Christianity and politics in the United States became so intertwined. It’s largely because of Dobson that the purity culture movement became entrenched. It’s largely because of Dobson that the toxic marriage books that I’ve been railing against became best-sellers. It’s largely because of Dobson that so many parents thought spanking and controlling their kids was godly.

It’s largely because of Dobson that we have an exvangelical movement.

Many asked me yesterday, “how would you feel if, on the day you died, people spoke up against you?”

That’s actually an easy one. Of course people will speak against me when I die, just as they speak against me now (if people still know who I am by then!). But the question is not whether people speak up against you: the question is what they speak up against you for.

Jesus said that He came not to bring peace but a sword. When we speak up for Jesus we cause division. But are those who are angry at us angry because we are protecting victims? Are we on the side of justice and love and kindness, or are we on the side of self-righteousness and the drive for more power and control?

My family will understand if I am called out for standing up for justice. They will not mind.

But I also know that I have not got everything right.

None of us has.

Martin Luther King Jr. said that the arc of human history bends towards justice. That arc has taken a few detours lately, especially in the United States, but it does go in that direction. We are not there yet; none of us sees Christ fully. But I hope I move us that little bit closer.

That’s the measuring stick we should all use when we look at “heroes of the faith.” Because in the end, that’s all that matters.

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You may also enjoy:

• Rebecca and I talked about Dobson being a “man of his time” in our Round-up video today, if you want to see this in video form!

• My open letter to Focus on the Family about Love & Respect (that was the starting point of our journey towards research and writing about toxic teachings)

• Why we should stop talking about kids like they’re “dirty rotten sinners”

• Can Christians please stop spanking babies?

• What does the research really say about spanking?

• The sexual element in spanking that people are afraid to talk about

• The Whole Story: Our HEALTHY course about puberty and sex for kids