While so many modern christians are despicable bigots whose main aim in life seems to be to make life miserable for people who are not like them, perhaps one of the worst was a bloke called James Dobson who founded the ultraconservative Christian organisation Focus on the Family in 1977. He died a day or so ago at the age of 89. Born in 1936 in Shreveport, Louisiana, Dobson was initially a child psychologist who launched a radio show to counsel Christians on parenting1. He also wrote Dare to Discipline and The Strong-Willed Child and, among Christians, these books were deemed classics. However, it is clear that much of the parenting advice in those books is not only wrong but dangerous. It suggests violence as punishment for the child’s transgressions; discipline rooted in retribution2.
Focus on the Family claims its mission is to help families thrive. However, much of its time, energy and funds are directed towards advocating against equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people and their families. Among other crap, it promotes the harmful and discredited practice of “conversion therapy”. For years, it preached that same-sex attraction is ‘preventable and treatable’. The organisation continues to endorse the rubbish rejected by every major medical and mental health organisation, blaming child molesting, divorce, and ‘rebellion against societal norms’ for people’s sexual orientation. It also opposes allowing same-sex couples to adopt, saying the children of gay and lesbian parents are ‘human guinea pigs’. The organisation has called trans-gender people ‘mentally ill’ and suffering from a ‘devastating condition’. It claims the reason more LGBT young people are unhappy is because the campaign for their human rights ‘encouraged them to self-identify as gay or transgender’. They also maintained that anti-bullying programs in schools ‘promoted homosexuality’ and believed it created ‘a system ripe for reverse discrimination’. It also campaigned against workplace anti-discrimination legislation because employers might face consequences for firing people solely because of their sexual orientation. It also wants business owners to have the right to turn away LGBT customers because of the latter’s sexual orientation. To cap this off, it thinks being LGBT is ‘a particularly evil lie of Satan’ which will lead to the destruction of civilisation3.
From the bastardry above, it just gets wackier. Focus on the Family’s attitude to ‘the great age scientists have assigned to dinosaur bones’, is that this is just a particular way of interpreting the fossil record, and that not everyone agrees with this4. They then refer to the oxymoronic ‘creation scientist’, Henry Morris, who asserts that the arrangement of fossils should be interpreted solely as the result of the ‘Genesis Flood’4. We know this to be abject horseshit. There are numerous methods of dating which demonstrate that the several thousand year ‘chronology’ is simply silly. These methods include Uranium-Lead, Potassium-Argon, Argon-Argon, Rubidium-Strontium, Samarium-Neodymium, and a few others, none of which support the drivel that Young-Earth creationists put out5.
They also see no problem with the assertion that at some time in the past some people lived to be several hundred years old. They put this down to differing environmental conditions in the past. They believe that the decrease in longevity is because of the ‘fallout’ from mankind’s sin and the effects of the Genesis Flood5. You have to laugh.
Their attitude to US school shootings is all about explaining it to kids of various ages6. However, nowhere is there anything about talking to adults, particularly those in the US Congress, about banning automatic weapons. This is the ultimate stupidity; coping with something horrendous, rather than trying to prevent it happening. Many christians in the US have stated that school shootings are because there is not enough ‘god’ in schools7. There is no god in public schools in Australia, nor are there any school shootings. People like Dobson are not genuine in that they should know that having no god in schools in other countries does not make them hellholes of school shootings, as the latter do not occur at anywhere near the rate in the US. It is because these other countries severely restrict access to guns. No god and no guns works vastly better than more god and more guns.
In addition, such religious organisations hide their bigotries by including the word ‘family’ in their name; this is a form of ‘astroturfing’8. Their attitudes have little to do with families other than proscribing families that are unlike theirs.
Like most religious nutters, Dobson was all about inflicting his religious hatreds on people, to the extent of legislating them, thereby making some people’s lives a misery. If you are thinking ‘only in America’, you’d be mistaken, because they have a branch of the organisation in Australia too.
While compiling the above, I bumped into an obituary of Dobson written by commentator John Fugelsang, entitled ‘James Dobson: founding father of Christ-free Christianity’. He encapsulated Dobson in the following: “He was a simple man, with a simple theology: God loves you, unless you’re gay, trans, a woman with ambition, a feminist, a liberal, a scientist, a journalist, a Democrat, in love with someone of a different race, or a child who thinks maybe hitting isn’t love”9.
People like Dobson are a disgrace to the species. They flog the name Jesus to death while ignoring most of what the latter is reputed to have said. They are what I call CINOs; Christians In Name Only.
Sources
- https://apnews.com/article/james-dobson-obituary-focus-on-family-51a9dbf50e26eaee2ac01d457e9d46aa
- https://baptistnews.com/article/this-is-how-unhinged-focus-on-the-family-has-become/
- https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/10-things-you-should-know-about-focus-on-the-family
- https://www.focusonthefamily.com/family-qa/science-and-the-bible/
- https://blotreport.com/2019/02/08/creationists-and-time/
- https://www.focusonthefamily.com/parenting/talking-to-kids-about-mass-school-shootings/
- https://www.afa.net/the-stand/culture/2018/02/why-school-shootings-not-enough-god-not-enough-guns/
- https://blotreport.com/2021/06/04/religious-astroturfing/
- https://open.substack.com/pub/johnfugelsang/p/james-dobson-founding-father-of-christ?r=18y4cr&utm_medium=ios
Brilliant
Such true words, little could be added to this clear and concise statement of fact except perhaps ‘Religion is a poison of the mind’