RELIGION : A Force in Conservative Protestant America : Dobson’s Influence Based on Family Issues

Though he is neither an ordained minister nor a television personality, James C. Dobson of Arcadia has emerged as one of the most influential voices in conservative Protestant America.

A Christian psychologist to the nation’s evangelical families and a frequent Reagan Administration appointee to government panels, Dobson has lately used his clout on radio to fight legislation deemed harmful by the religious right.

Two weeks ago, Congress was bombarded with calls urging legislators not to override President Reagan’s veto on the Civil Rights Restoration Act, and Dobson was one of the instigators.

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On three of his daily “Focus on the Family” radio shows--heard over more than 1,200 stations--Dobson urged listeners to protest that the act was, as he put it, “an incredible intrusion into religious liberty.”

Because of that and similar outcries from Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell, Timothy Robertson of the “700 Club” and other conservatives, Capitol Hill officials said more than 500,000 calls were received by congressional offices on one day alone. A spokesman for Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), who originally voted for the bill and then voted to override the veto, said his office was “inundated by calls from people who believe, incorrectly, that the bill is going to undermine religion.”

The measure, which had Catholic and mainline Protestant backing, was passed by the Senate 73 to 24 on March 23 and the House voted for it 292 to 133 the next day, margins large enough to override the veto.

In an interview at his new, $12.2-million ministry headquarters in Pomona, Dobson said Focus on the Family did not get involved in the legislative fight the first time it went through Congress.

“It is really a church-state issue, and I expected the church to defend itself and it didn’t,” he said. Under the Civil Rights Restoration Act, anti-discrimination standards would be enforced against an entire institution even though only some of its departments received federal funds.

Dobson said civil rights act supporters have not persuaded him that religious bodies that accept federal funds will not be eventually forced to hire alcoholics, transvestites, drug addicts, AIDS patients and homosexuals.

As for congressmen who complained of vitriolic calls, Dobson said, “It’s really interesting. The more liberal perspective is entitled to be vitriolic. If you insult homosexuals, or women, or any of their cherished minorities, you are going to get a vitriolic response. Congress hears that.

“Those on the right side of the spectrum are supposed to go about their business and raise their kids, do their work and not become upset when their territory is invaded. . . . For those who called and their calls were disregarded, I just hope they’ll remember in November. You’ve got to translate it into political action.”

Dobson said he does not address issues that are not related to the family. “I will not talk about Central America or the new (nuclear arms) treaty we’re working on with Russia,” he said.

‘A Force to Be Reckoned With’

The “pro-family” agenda covers a lot of ground, including strong criticism of the U.S. Supreme Court, said David Crane, issues director at People for the American Way. Though the liberal, Washington-based organization has primarily critiqued the political pronouncements of television evangelists, Crane said, “We’ve taken Dobson seriously. He’s a force to be reckoned with.”

Focus on the Family recently launched an attractive, 16-page monthly magazine called Citizen that encourages its more than 60,000 readers to act in the public arena. The main articles in the March issue were headlined “The Unbelievable Beliefs of the ACLU” and “Freedom From Religion, the ACLU’s Skewed View of Society” and were not limited to rapping the liberal group for its stance against restraints on pornography.

Yet, as Dobson pointed out, his lay ministry focuses primarily on family matters. That was how he developed a following in the first place.

A former pediatrics faculty member in the USC School of Medicine, Dobson wrote a child development book in 1970 titled, “Dare to Discipline.” It has sold more than 2 million copies and still ranks in the top 10 best-selling paperbacks in Christian bookstores, according to Bookstore Journal.

Books Are No. 1 and 2

Two new books he published last year--neither one containing political overtones--rank 1 and 2 on the hard-cover Christian best-seller list, ahead of books by popular evangelicals Charles Colson, Billy Graham and Fullerton pastor Charles Swindoll.

In the No. 1 book, “Parenting Isn’t for Cowards,” Dobson tells readers that some children are born strong-willed and others are naturally compliant, leading parents to think wrongly that they are either terrible or wonderful in child-raising.

As would be expected in the evangelical book market, Dobson discusses biblical verses that may bear on ideas of child-rearing. He assures them that “as a Christian psychologist, I have always filtered man-made theories through the screen of Scripture. . . .”

Another indicator that Dobson’s ministry has won over much of the “born-again” audience is a finding from 18,000 questionnaires mailed in last fall to the World Home Bible League by subscribers to eight evangelical and Pentecostal magazines. Focus on the Family was picked as the “favorite ministry” by more respondents than any other group, including the Billy Graham Evangelistic Assn., according to results released in early March.

Market researcher George Barna of Glendale said the magazine subscriber survey did not meet the usual criteria for a valid survey. But in his own frequent telephone polling among evangelicals, Barna said, “Focus on the Family usually comes in the top three or four when we ask people what kind of ministry they are willing to support or which they think is having the greatest impact.”

It is not unprecedented for a layman to gain broad acceptance as an evangelical leader. Down the San Bernardino Freeway to the east, founder Bill Bright presides at the Arrowhead Springs headquarters of the international Campus Crusade for Christ. The evangelistic ministry was an outgrowth of Bright’s conversion as an adult.

Became Christian at 3

Dobson, who will turn 52 this month, said he became a Christian at age 3--during a service being conducted by his father, a Church of the Nazarene pastor.

Responding to the traditional appeal for anyone to come forward and give themselves to Jesus Christ, Dobson said, “Without asking anybody, standing by my mother, I stepped out and walked down the aisle. I remember crying and feeling whatever repentance a 3-year-old can feel for what evil I had done.”

Still retaining a soft Southern accent from his youth in Louisiana and high school days in Oklahoma and Texas, Dobson attended Pasadena College and USC, receiving a Ph.D. in child development from the latter school in 1967.

He was co-director of a national study based at Childrens Hospital in Los Angeles that he said successfully demonstrated the value of a diet to prevent mental retardation in children with phenylketonuria, an inborn defect in metabolism.

During his work in that study and while teaching at USC, Dobson published “Dare to Discipline,” described by his ministry as a “call for a return to biblical rules and limits--tempered by love.”

In order to respond to mounting church requests for his prescriptions on family life, he left the USC campus in 1977 to begin a weekly radio program called “Focus on the Family” out of an office in Arcadia. Two years later, he produced a seven-hour film series that has been seen by an estimated 50 million people through churches and television.

His activities in government service began with his 1980 appointment during the Carter Administration to the White House Conference on Families. He authored a minority report that became a part of the final document.

Of several Reagan Administration appointments, Dobson’s most visible post was on the U.S. Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography in 1985-86.

Resigned in Protest

However, he resigned in protest one month ago from his latest appointment--to the National Panel on Teen Pregnancy Prevention. Secretary of Health and Human Services Otis R. Bowen made a speech at the panel’s first meeting last September “and said all the things that I believe,” Dobson said in an interview.

“The answer to this problem is to get parents involved and to help kids abstain and to show them that it is to their advantage to wait, that now virtue is a necessity. . . . Yet as soon as the secretary left, it became clear that very few on the panel agreed with him or intended to implement his charge to us,” he said.

Dobson said that 14 of the 18 panel members were “from the Planned Parenthood perspective,” whose liberal approach to condom distribution and what he called “amoral advice on sexuality” he opposes. Additionally, he and two other “pro-family” advocates who resigned said they did so because they had no right to write a minority report.

Meanwhile, the Focus on the Family ministry was outgrowing its expanded Arcadia complex. Last October, the organization’s 500 employees moved to a gleaming new building in Pomona whose cost for land and construction was put at minimum levels by a developer and a general contractor, who were described as Christian.

Only $1.5 million is still owed on the $12.2-million purchase, according to Rolf Zettersten, vice president of the communications division. “But in another five years or so we may even outgrow this facility,” Zettersten said.

Focus on the Family, which had a budget of $33.7 million last year, projects one of $42 million this year, he said. About 98% of the ministry’s income is from donations by listeners to Dobson’s radio program and people who receive written materials, said Paul Nelson, executive vice president. “Most contributions are of the $10, $15 and $20 variety,” Nelson said.

150,000 Letters a Month

About 150,000 letters arrive each month, all of which receive personal responses from a large staff, Dobson said.

“The theme when our board met this year was ‘consolidate in ‘88’--to try to slow it down,” Dobson said, “but we haven’t been able to.”

The nine-member board includes Dobson’s wife, Shirley, but all others are non-family members, including Susan Garrett Baker, wife of Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III. “We have a very strong, independent board,” Dobson said, adding that it can and has overruled him.

Because of royalties from his 11 books and his film series, Dobson said he receives no salary from Focus on the Family. “I’ve never taken a dime, and I never will,” he said. Dobson also said he contributes to a portion of the radio syndication costs too, since the program inevitably contributes to publicity for his books.

Dobson acknowledged that evangelical leaders face enormous pressures--whether they are ordained ministers or not--to be impeccable role models.

Asked if that puts unwelcome stress on his 27-year marriage and the son and daughter of an “authority” on family, Dobson said he goes to some length to make it clear that he and his family are not perfect.

“We talk about our flaws,” he said. “In the broadcasting studio, I will frequently talk about a fight that Shirley and I had over something that I think people will relate to. I’ve been honest about the fact that we don’t have perfect kids, though I protect their privacy.”

Though he said he accepts the burden that some place on him, Dobson said, “The principles I teach did not originate with me. They’ve been around for at least 2,000 years, and they will be valid if I fall on my face.”