Click on the image to purchase this book through Amazon.com. Purchases help support MediaMouse.org.
Focus on the Family is one of the most well known Christian right organizations in the United States, but few people understand it according to The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America Are Winning the Culture War
The book places Focus on the Family’s work in the context of the rise of the religious right in the United States in the late 1970s. Focus on the Family formed in 1977 and eventually became an important entity in the movement, with Focus taking up many of the causes that would characterize the religious right over the past twenty-five years. At the state level, Focus on the Family affiliates have played important roles in mobilizing voters and passing conservative legislation. In the 1980s, Dobson founded and later helped revive the Family Research Council, an organization that became the religious right’s major Washington DC lobbying entity following the collapse of the Christian Coalition. While now separate from Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council has remained closely linked. Focus on the Family has become increasingly political over the past several years, with Focus on the Family Action forming to raise money and directly fund candidates, something that the nonprofit Focus on the Family was unable to do. Additionally, Dobson has been an important part of the Arlington Group, a prominent religious right organization that brings together leaders of many different religious right organizations to coordinate policy. Like many groups on the religious right, Focus on the Family has also engaged in the important work of capacity building and has launched the Focus Family Institute to train and educate young leaders.
Despite its importance as a religious right entity organizing evangelical voters to engage in political action, the core of Focus on the Family’s operations has been its reputation built through James Dobson’s numerous books and pamphlets giving family advice from a Christian perspective. Gilgoff examines in detail how Dobson was able to build a large following on Christian radio and how he built multi-million dollar organization dispensing his advice on a variety of different topics and via a range of media. Gilgoff talks of a strict commitment to “customer service,” individual attentiveness to callers, databases of Dobson’s advice, and trained therapists willing to help callers. At the center of the operation is James Dobson, who has built bonds of trust with his audience through his radio show and has cultivated a reputation for being a “trusted” doctor that is there to help. As such, Dobson’s political participation has been well received by his followers, with many taking him at his word and frequently generating thousands of calls to Congress. Similarly, Focus on the Family has been able to develop extensive mailing lists that can be used to mobilize evangelicals to both pressure legislators and to vote.
In addition to general discussions of Dobson and Focus on the Family, Gilgoff focuses much of his book on recent events in which Focus on the Family has played a pivotal role. Gilgoff recounts how the Terri Schiavo case became an issue of utmost concern for the religious right and Focus on the Family, detailing how the movement responded and pushed their agenda to the forefront of the national debate and to the floor of the legislature. The 2004 election is examined as well, with Gilgoff recounting how Focus on the Family and organizations that it is affiliated with were able to mobilize evangelicals–the so-called “values voters”–to help elect President George W. Bush and what they expected in return. Gilgoff also explores Focus on the Family’s involvement in anti-gay marriage campaigns at the state and federal level, as well the involvement of Focus on the Family, James Dobson, and the larger religious right in determining who would be nominated by President Bush to fill recent vacancies on the Supreme Court. Throughout these discussions, Gilgoff analyzes what has and has not worked for Focus on the Family and the extent to which efforts are likely to continue once Dobson is no longer involved with the organization.
Gilgoff’s book is a worthwhile read for those interested in understanding James Dobson and Focus on the Family. By providing an overview of many aspects of the Focus on the Family operation, their involvement in recent elections, and the challenges facing the organization, Gilgoff makes a valuable contribution to the literature on the political involvement of evangelicals in the United States.
Dan Gilgoff, The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America Are Winning the Culture War
Related posts:
- Court Ruling Strikes Down Evangelical Prison Ministry Program with Connections to the Religious Right in West Michigan
- The Porning of America: The Rise of Porn Culture, What It Means, and Where We Go from Here
- DC Anti-War Network Calls for Nonviolent Actions against the War Machine
- Holland’s Prince Family Continuing to Fund the Religious Right
- 2008 Jesus Radicals Conference Report Back
