James Dobson

Dr. James Clayton Dobson (born April 21, 1936) is a conservative protestant Christian fundamentalist and psychologist who presents a daily radio program called Focus on the Family on over 6,000 stations worldwide in more than a dozen languages. He is chairman of the board of a nonprofit organization based in Colorado Springs, Colorado of the same name, which he founded in 1977. His programs are estimated to be heard by more than 200 million people every day in 164 countrieshttp://www.family.org/docstudy/aboutdrdobson.cfm, and Focus on the Family is also on 80 US television stations daily.

Overview

Dobson is an Evangelical Christian with significant political clout, because he can mobilize his listeners to contact politicians with civic concerns. Liberal critics label Dobson as a fundamentalist, but some fundamentalists are among his severest critics mainly because Dobson works cooperatively with Protestant and Roman Catholic Christians and Jews, and because the organization is politically active. Many fundamentalists also decry his mixture of psychology and faith.

Related Topics:
Evangelical - Liberal - Fundamentalist - Protestant - Roman Catholic - Jew - Psychology - Faith

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He first became well-known with the publication of Dare to Discipline, a book which became hugely popular with parents of young children, especially other Christians. He is also widely read in weekly bulletins also called Focus on the Family which appear as inserts in Sunday church service programs handed out to congregations of evangelical churches in the United States.

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He attracted some controversy because in it he approved of the spanking of young children. Michael Crowley writes in Slate Magazine that "hat made Dobson's books successful wasn't, as you might think, bilious jeremiads about modernity, but rather their highly practical advice about daily challenges from midlife crises to sibling rivalry. In these books and elsewhere, Dobson can sound like a perfectly sensible, if conservative, pop psychologist, not too different from Dr. Phil." http://slate.msn.com/id/2109621/ Dobson has used his following to gain considerable social and political influence.

Related Topics:
Spanking - Slate Magazine

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Dobson has two children, Danae and Ryan, with his wife Shirley.

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Dobson was an eyewitness to the death of basketball great Pete Maravich. Maravich was scheduled to appear on his radio show on January 5, 1988. That morning, Maravich collapsed during a pickup basketball game in which both he and Dobson were playing, and was declared dead on arrival from a heart attack resulting from an undiagnosed congenital defect.

Related Topics:
Basketball - Pete Maravich - January 5 - 1988 - Dead on arrival

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