James Dobson

In 2020, Dobson worked alongside other conservative Evangelicals and Evangelical organizations, including Jim Daly and Focus on the Family, to support the reelection of President Donald Trump. He echoed his support of the President throughout the impeachment proceedings earlier that year.

Dobson endorsed Ted Cruz in the 2016 Republican primaries. After Marco Rubio and Donald Trump announced they would support the Supreme Court ruling that legalized gay-marriage, Dobson stated, "we knew we could not support them." However, Dobson would later go on to endorse Trump in the general election against Hillary Clinton. Dobson has been named by Christianity Today as one of the Trump Administrations top "Evangelical Faith Advisers".

Anyone who has ever abused a child—or has ever felt himself losing control during a spanking — should not expose the child to that tragedy. Anyone who has a violent temper that at times becomes unmanageable should not use that approach. Anyone who secretly 'enjoys' the administration of corporal punishment should not be the one to implement it.

As part of his former role in the organization, he produced the daily radio program Focus on the Family, which the organization has said was broadcast in more than a dozen languages and on over 7,000 stations worldwide, and reportedly heard daily by more than 220 million people in 164 countries. Focus on the Family was also carried by about sixty U.S. television stations daily. Dobson founded the Family Research Council in 1981. He is no longer affiliated with Focus on the Family. Dobson founded Family Talk as a non-profit organization in 2010 and launched a new radio broadcast, Family Talk with Dr. James Dobson, that began on May 3, 2010, on over 300 stations nationwide.

In November 2009, Dobson signed an ecumenical statement known as the Manhattan Declaration calling on evangelicals, Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians not to comply with rules and laws permitting abortion, same-sex marriage and other matters that go against their religious consciences.

In 2008, Dobson's Focus on the Family program was nominated for induction into the National Radio Hall of Fame. Nominations were made by the 157 members of the Hall of Fame and voting on inductees was handed over to the public using online voting. The nomination drew the ire of gay rights activists, who attempted to have the program removed from the nominee list and to vote for other nominees to prevent it from being approved. However, the program garnered enough votes and was subsequently inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame.

Dobson supports intelligent design and has spoken at conferences on the subject, and frequently criticizes evolution. In 2007, Dobson was one of 25 evangelicals who called for the ouster of Rev. Richard Cizik from his position at the National Association of Evangelicals because Cizik had taken a stance urging evangelicals to take global warming seriously.

However, in 2006, Dobson said that, while "there is disillusionment out there with Republicans" and "that worries me greatly," he nonetheless suggested voters turn out and vote Republican in 2006. "My first inclination was to sit this one out," but according to The New York Times, Dobson then added that "he had changed his mind when he looked at who would become the leaders of Congressional committees if the Democrats took over."

In September 2005, Tolerance.org published a follow-up message advertising the DVD's continued availability, including We Are Family Foundation president Nancy Hunt's speculation that many of the DVDs may be "still sitting in boxes, unused, because of Dobson's vitriolic attack."

In his 2004 book Marriage Under Fire, Dobson suggests that heterosexual marriage rates in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden have been falling, and that this is due to the recognition of same-sex relationships by those countries during the 1990s. He remarks that the "institution of marriage in those countries is rapidly dying" as a result, with most young people cohabiting or choosing to remain single (living alone) and illegitimacy rates rising in some Norwegian counties up to 80%.

Dobson stepped down as President and CEO of Focus on the Family in 2003, and resigned from the position of chairman of the board in February 2009. Dobson explained his departure as a result of "significant philosophical differences" with successor Jim Daly.

Dobson and Charles Colson were two participants in a 2000 conference at the Vatican on the global economy's impact on families. During the conference, the two Protestants met with Pope John Paul II. Dobson later told Catholic News Service that though he has theological differences with Roman Catholicism, "when it comes to the family, there is far more agreement than disagreement, and with regard to moral issues from abortion to premarital sex, safe-sex ideology and homosexuality, I find more in common with Catholics than with some of my evangelical brothers and sisters."

Dobson interviewed serial killer Ted Bundy on-camera the day before Bundy's execution on January 24, 1989. The interview became controversial because Bundy was given an opportunity to attempt to explain his actions (the rape and murder of 30 young women). Bundy claimed in the interview (in a reversal of his previous stance) that violent pornography played a significant role in molding and crystallizing his fantasies. In May 1989, during an interview with John Tanner, a Republican Florida prosecutor, Dobson called for Bundy to be forgiven. The Bundy tapes gave Focus on the Family revenues of over $1 million, $600,000 of which it donated to anti-pornography groups and to anti-abortion groups.

At the invitation of Presidents and Attorneys General, Dobson has also served on government advisory panels and testified at several government hearings. He was given the "Layman of the Year" award by the National Association of Evangelicals in 1982, "The Children's Friend" honor by Childhelp USA (an advocate agency against child abuse) in 1987, and the Humanitarian Award by the California Psychological Association in 1988. In 2005, Dobson received an honorary doctorate (his 16th) from Indiana Wesleyan University and was inducted into IWU's Society of World Changers, while speaking at the university's Academic Convocation.

Although Dobson initially remained somewhat distant from Washington politics, in 1981 he founded the Family Research Council as a political arm through which "social conservative causes" could achieve greater political influence. In 1996, he cast a vote for U.S. Taxpayers' Party Presidential candidate Howard Phillips.

He is known for his work on Dark Echoes (1977), Space Patrol (1950) and Hornets' Nest (1970).

Dobson arguably first became well-known with the publication of Dare to Discipline (1970), which encouraged parents to use corporal punishment in disciplining their children. Dobson's social and political opinions are widely read among many evangelical church congregations in the United States. Dobson published monthly bulletins, also called Focus on the Family, which were dispensed as inserts in some Sunday church-service bulletins.

Dobson married the former Shirley Deere on August 26, 1960. The couple have two children, Danae and Ryan. Ryan Dobson (born in California in 1970) graduated from Biola University in La Mirada, California; he is a public speaker with specialization on issues relating to youth and the anti-abortion movement. He was adopted by the Dobsons and is an ardent supporter of adoption, especially adoption of troubled children.

Dobson attended Point Loma Nazarene University, where he was team captain of the tennis team, most valuable player in 1956 and 1958, and later returned to coach in 1968-1969. Dobson earned a PhD in child development from the University of Southern California in 1967. He was an Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Southern California School of Medicine for 14 years. He spent 17 years on the staff of the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles in the Division of Child Development and Medical Genetics. Dobson is a licensed psychologist in the State of California.

Dobson studied academic psychology, which most evangelical Christians in the 1950s and 1960s did not look upon favorably. He came to believe that he was being called to become a Christian counselor or perhaps a Christian psychologist. He attended Pasadena College (now Point Loma Nazarene University) as an undergraduate and served as captain of the school's tennis team. In 1967, Dobson received his doctorate in psychology from the University of Southern California; he served on the faculty of the university's Keck School of Medicine for 14 years. For a time, Dobson worked as an assistant to Paul Popenoe at the Institute of Family Relations, a marriage-counseling center, in Los Angeles.

James Clayton Dobson Jr. (born April 21, 1936), also known as Jim Dobson, is an American evangelical Christian author, psychologist, and founder in 1977 of Focus on the Family (FOTF), which he led until 2010. In the 1980s he was ranked as one of the most influential spokesmen for conservative social positions in American public life. Although never an ordained minister, he was called "the nation's most influential evangelical leader" by The New York Times while Slate portrayed him as a successor to evangelical leaders Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.

James Dobson was born on October 2, 1920 in Greeneville, Tennessee, USA.

His father, James Dobson Sr. (1911–1977), never attended college. He was a traveling evangelist, chiefly in the Southwest. The parents took their young son along to watch his father preach. Like most Nazarenes, they forbade dancing and going to movies. Young "Jimmie Lee" (as he was called) concentrated on his studies.