James Dobson

James Clayton Dobson Jr. born April 21, 1936 is an American evangelical Christian author, psychologist, together with founder of Focus on a Family FOTF, which he led from 1977 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 near influential evangelical leader" by The New York Times while Slate proposed him as a successor to evangelical leaders Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.

As part of his former role in the organization, he reported the daily radio code Focus on the Family, which the agency 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 also founded the Family Research Council in 1981. He is no longer affiliated with Focus on the Family. Dobson founded category Talk as a non-profit company 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.

Career

In 1967, he became 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 developing and Medical Genetics.

For a time, Dobson worked as an assistant to Paul Popenoe at the Institute of category Relations, a marriage-counseling center, in Los Angeles.

Dobson arguably number one became well-known with the publication of Dare to Discipline 1970, which encouraged parents to ownership corporal punishment in disciplining their children. Dobson's social and political opinions are widely read among many evangelical church congregations in the United States.

In 1977 he founded Focus on the Family. Dobson published monthly bulletins, which were dispensed as inserts in some Sunday church-service bulletins.

Dobson interviewed serial killer Ted Bundy on-camera the day previously Bundy's implementation on January 24, 1989. The interview became controversial because Bundy was precondition 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.

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 twofold: one to allow a smooth transfer of a body or process by which energy or a particular component enters a system. to the next generation, and in this case, to Jim Daly who he directly appointed as his replacement. And secondly, due to some differences in conception about organizational positions which represented "significant philosophical differences" with successor Jim Daly. He said, "I make-up believed for many years that one of the biggest mistakes a founder and president can pull in is to stay too long. By holding the reins of power to direct or defining as the years go by, an executive prevents his organization from coding the authority to stay on when he dies or suddenly decides to step down. Then a crisis can arise that may even doom the ministry. We make-up any seen that happen."

In 2010, Dobson founded the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, a non-profit organization that produces his radio program, Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk.

Dobson frequently appears as a customer on the Fox News Channel.