Dr. James Dobson’s profound influence on radio and family values over the last half-century is lovingly remembered in this special episode. Through poignant reflections and conversations with colleagues, we explore how his work has shaped modern Christian thought and encouraged families globally. Despite the challenges he faced, including the gut-wrenching transition from Focus on the Family to Family Talk, Dr. Dobson continued to pursue his vision, leaving an indelible legacy. Listeners are taken on a journey through Dr. Dobson’s personal experiences—from gripping interviews with the likes of Ted Bundy that challenged societal norms, to his heartfelt, unscheduled departure from
Hello, everyone. You’re listening to Family Talk, a radio broadcasting ministry of the James Dobson Family Institute. I’m Dr. James Dobson, and thank you for joining us for this program.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, welcome to another edition of Family Talk, the broadcast division of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. I’m Roger Marsh, your host for this very special edition of Family Talk as we continue our celebration of the life and legacy of our founder. Dr. James C. Dobson, one of the most influential Christian leaders of the last half century and a tireless advocate for the traditional family, passed away early Thursday morning, August 21st. He has survived by his wife of 64 years, Shirley, and their children, Danae and Ryan, along with their daughter-in-law, Laura, and two beloved grandchildren. In fact, tomorrow would have been the Dobsons’ 65th wedding anniversary. In sensitive times like these, when the emotions are a bit raw, sometimes it’s helpful to sit and reflect on the legacy that sustains us. I’m sure that this recent recording that Dr. Dobson had with his good friend Chris Fabry will certainly speak to you. It’s a sentimental conversation that we began on yesterday’s broadcast. Chris, of course, is the host of the nationally syndicated radio program Chris Fabry Live. So let’s listen in now as Chris begins this special edition of Family Talk.
SPEAKER 02 :
Dr. James Dobson And I’ve heard you probably have gotten letters like this or emails of people are saying, I was driving down the road. I was in my pickup truck and I heard this or that conversation with that person. And I had to pull over because I was so gripped by it. You love those kinds of responses, don’t you?
SPEAKER 03 :
I do. I’m thinking of one woman who was working at a large company. Whatever we were talking about had really gripped her. And she got to work and she was overdue. She was late. And she would not get out of the car until she was through listening to us on Focus on the Family. And finally we finished, and she popped out of the car. And all over the parking lot, people were popping out of their cars because they were also captivated by what was being said there. And so it is the essence of what radio is supposed to be, and it’s why I love it. I love it. You know, I like television, but it’s a whole lot of Valderol. I get bored with that. I love radio because it is so personal. Television is a performance. You know, it’s eight minutes and we’ll be right back. Radio is more personal. of a personal kind of thing. I meet people on the street that I’ve never met, and they know my dog, they know my kids, they know my wife, they know what I did last summer. It is far more of a relationship. And whereas television is a performance. They remember when you fell off the horse, right?
SPEAKER 02 :
I hope nobody else does, but I do. You know, I have so many questions that I want you to answer. And here’s one. I want you to talk about your age. You’re 81 now, but you’re born in 36. It’s not, you know, everybody knows this. You have been on a treadmill every day. And I don’t mean, I mean a literal treadmill. You do this every day. right?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes. In the beginning, after I’d had a heart attack, I decided to do that every single day. And I’ve done it now. This is the 24th year that I’ve done it. I exercised before that. In fact, I was playing basketball when I had the heart attack. So I’ve always loved exercise and love competition. And I played tennis before that. My dad started teaching me to play tennis when I was eight years old. And so that has always been part of my life. But when I had the heart attack, a doctor came in about midnight and we talked about what had happened to me. And he told me that it would really help me if I really got into a daily exercise routine. And I decided, well, if that’s what it takes to stay alive, I will. And so I’ve exercised 45 minutes a day almost every day from that time to this. And my cardiologist told me the other day, He had just done an exam on me, and my heart was functioning like that of a younger man that hadn’t had a heart attack. And he said, I know that you give the Lord a lot of credit for your being alive, and I agree with that. But I can tell you, you’ve earned a lot of it by exercise. And I’ve just stayed with that. And my heart is still functioning like that of a younger man. And I’m grateful for it.
SPEAKER 02 :
Who do you miss the most of all the voices that are out there that are have been silenced now as far as there? No, we can’t ask Chuck Colson a question about this, that or the other thing. Who do you miss the most?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, he’s one of them. He and I would talk every two or three weeks about what was happening in the country and the election and other things, deeply spiritual things as well. And I just loved that man. Another one’s Adrian Rogers. Both those guys were like brothers to me. I said at the top of the program that I feel like you’re a brother to me. But those two guys had a great impact. Adrian Rogers was on our board of directors. And it was absolutely amazing. He joined the board there and instantly changed the nature of the whole board. I don’t mean that they changed their spiritual views or what have you, but they just loved each other in a different way. And he made a great contribution on my life. I do miss both those guys.
SPEAKER 02 :
You know what? Those two that you mentioned, the common denominator that they shared was they had great voices, too. They had this presence. They had this prophetic kind of ministry in the culture as well as in the church. But they’d also been through an awful lot of pain. Adrian Rogers and his wife lost a baby early on. And I think it was that event and little Philip, I think, it was losing him that really caused him to have this tenderness in the pulpit. Although, you know, he could be very strong, Southern Baptist Convention, and Chuck Colson as well. You know, you can’t get stronger than the Marine and, you know, how tough he was. And yet there was this tenderness to him. Do you agree that pain in the life of a leader can take them to a different well in a sense?
SPEAKER 03 :
There’s no doubt about that, Chris. Those two guys along with my dad were three that had a great impact on me. And Chuck wasn’t afraid to tell me that he thought I was wrong. And Adrian, he and I had some wonderful talks together. I feel for men especially who don’t have anybody in their life like that, who will love them, who will tell them that they are a little bit off track, but also will tell you when you’re doing things right. I had a lot of those guys in my life.
SPEAKER 02 :
Let me ask the question about the transition. And I don’t want to ask this because I want you to tell us something that you’ve never told anybody before. But as I recall, one of the things, you know, you think of Bill Bright and Campus Crusade or Crew and other organizations that faced a really difficult time transitioning to the next phase. Your belief with Focus on the Family was you really wanted, you set in place the the transition early on because you really wanted that to go well. And in some ways, it went smoothly. And in other ways, I sense there is still a little regret with how all of that went. You know, it could have gone better, quote unquote. How do you look at that today as you look back at going from focus to family talk?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, Chris, other than the loss of my dad, that was the most painful thing in my life because I had, for more than 10 years, prepared for a smooth transition. I knew a time would come when it was time to go, and I wanted to recognize that when that time came. And we did a lot of talking about it. We had a big manual that we had worked out and I thought I was very much in harmony with the board in anticipation of that. And I had told the board that I thought it was time for me to go, but I wasn’t ready yet. And I told them that it would be maybe six months. Shirley and I were approaching our 50th wedding anniversary, and I thought that would be a good time. But I said, I just don’t feel that the Lord has said now. And yet I was approaching it rationally and I think properly. And I got invited to come down to Georgia for a board meeting. I said, is there a reason why? And I was not given one. I was just told, well, there’s some transition issues that we need to talk about. Shirley and I went into our hotel room and we prayed and we said, Lord, we want to do things right. And if this is the time for us to leave, we would try to be compliant with it. And we walked in and were blindsided. We were told you need to be gone by the next board meeting. And that was one of the most painful things I’ve ever been through because it’s blindsided. I was being heard by 220 million people every day in 150 countries. Our budget was $146 million a year. I had had no great conflict whatsoever. It just, all of a sudden, the board said, it’s time to go. And we cried all the way home. And I’m telling you things I’ve never said publicly before. And I’m not mad at anybody. I don’t want to try to hurt anybody. It just, I had been there 33 years. That’s sort of my baby in a way. And it just suddenly was done. And I was asked at that board meeting, what are you going to do? And I said, well, radio’s my life. I’ll probably do more radio. And the next day, I started Family Talk. I didn’t have anything. I didn’t have a building. I didn’t have a staff. I didn’t have a radio studio. I had very little money. I just went back to where I was in 1977 and started over again. And I wasn’t on anybody’s radio station. I just started from scratch. And the reason I did continue is because the Lord had his hand in my back. And he said, don’t even think about retiring. The job is not done. The family is still in great difficulty. And there’s more that I want you to do. And the Lord has blessed family talk. It kind of took off the way Focus on the Family had taken off in 1977. And so I’m enjoying it, and I’m doing what I think God called me to do. And so that’s where I am. But when I look back on my life, that probably is the most painful experience of all.
SPEAKER 02 :
And I think there’s a lot of people going to identify with what you just talked about, that experience that you’ve gone through. I want to go back to what you just mentioned, though, the pain that you had with Focus on the Family, the transition to Family Talk. And now let’s look at it from this perspective, because there’s somebody listening today who says, I had that. It wasn’t as big, you know, it wasn’t as public as what Dr. Jobson just talked about. But I had that kind of thing happen to me personally, relationships or at work or whatever. Now, here’s the question. How has God then used that pain, that struggle that you went through and has used it both on the air and moving forward with with family talk, with your ministry?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, anything intense like that that you experience changes you. And the Lord uses it. And he’s used it in my life. And, you know, I had the choice of being publicly angry and hurt by that and to be vocal about it. And I chose to take the high road. And I think the Lord has blessed that. I think that he has said to me, I saw it, and it’s okay. You know, have you ever had a moment like that when you just think you feel the Lord’s smile? And it’s not because you’re perfect. It’s not because you’ve done some magnificent thing. But it’s because you say, you heard my voice. And you did what I wanted you to do. And what is that to thee, follow thou me? And I believe that has occurred in my life. I think there’s a softening and there’s a gentle spirit there that I may not have had throughout my life. I’ll have to let somebody else interpret that, but I think that’s what my wife surely would tell.
SPEAKER 02 :
One of the main reasons people know James Dobson and the broader culture is the interview that you did with Ted Bundy. Take us back to that. What do you remember?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, there’s just a world of memories related to that. That was one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever been through. In fact, I knew it was coming. Ted had a lawyer friend who was not his lawyer, but he was a friend. And he came down and met with Ted, I think, about 200 times about the Lord, about his life, about the things that he had done, which were reprehensible. They think that he killed probably around 100 women. And he told a lawyer to call me. This was two years before and said that once the governor of the state of Florida, Governor Martinez, gave the okay for his execution because he was on death row for a long time, that he wanted to talk to me. And the reason Ted wanted to talk to me was because he had been aware of my service on the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography. And he wanted to know more and wanted to tell his story because he felt that it was pornography that really got him in, got him started in sadomasochism. He found magazines at a dump when he was 13 years old. And it is one of those experiences where it’s progressive and addictive. And that’s really what got into him. And he wanted to tell everybody because when I was in the Attorney General’s Commission, we’ve ended with a 2,000-page report. And he read it all. And he saw himself in there. And he felt an obligation. This may be self-serving on his part, but he felt an obligation to warn parents about pornography and don’t let their kids get into it because it never ends. And so after two years, we got the phone call. And I went down to Florida State Prison. There were 300 members of the press there. with all of the TV equipment and everything and the uplink dishes, and they were waiting for something. They wanted to interview Bundy, and he wouldn’t talk to them. And I was the only one he would talk to, and when… When I walked out of that prison, it was 10 o’clock at night. They had strobe lights on and about 50 microphones the way they do in Washington. And it was bizarre, I’m telling you. And it did have a great impact on me. And when it was over, I wept like a baby, I can tell you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Let me with the remaining moments here. I’ve got to know. Was there ever somebody you wanted to interview that wouldn’t come on or didn’t? I remember the Pete Maravich. You’re playing basketball with him and you’re going to record with him. And that didn’t get to happen. You had conversations with him at other times. But was there ever a person that you thought, oh, I want to get that person in the studio and talk with him?
SPEAKER 03 :
There are two. Francis Schaeffer is one of them. I really wanted to interview Francis Schaeffer, and he was a hero of mine. We were talking about heroes earlier. Francis Schaeffer, great philosopher. Boy, did he have an influence on me regarding the sanctity of life and on just the understanding of who Christ is and many things. And he was living in Santa Barbara and I was living in Los Angeles. And I was invited to come to Santa Barbara and interview him. And it was a very busy Saturday for me. And I didn’t go. And he died right after that. I had the opportunity to interview one of the great men of our day. And I didn’t get it done. And I’ve always regretted it. Another one is Billy Graham. I invited him several times to come in. I don’t regret him not going because he had a passion on his life and he had work to do. And he just never found the time to come be on my program or let me come there. But I would love to have interviewed him. I had such great love and respect for him. I’d like to have told him that. I think he knows it because everybody else has told him that too.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, I think there are a lot of listeners who, if we’d been live today, doctor would say the same thing to you. Thank you for your input. When I had this toddler who was screaming or going through colic or a teenager, I didn’t know how to love well, or the, the grandchild or the, you know, all of those different things, the things that you’ve talked about through the years, they’d say, well, Put an arm around you and say the same thing. Thanks for your faithfulness, for your character, for doing what God has told you to do, for the warmth of your voice on the radio that’s still coming through. And I can’t thank you enough. I still have a bushel basket of questions to ask, but we’ll have to end it right there. Thanks for doing this today.
SPEAKER 03 :
Let’s do it again, Chris.
SPEAKER 01 :
Just hearing that sentiment from Dr. Dobson reminds me of an email I received from Chris Fabry a couple of months ago. I’m Roger Marsh, by the way, and you are listening to a special edition of Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk. Chris reached out to me and asked if Dr. would have some time to join him again on Chris Fabry Live. This was just a couple of months ago, and I knew Dr.’s health was… keeping him from keeping the kind of schedule he liked to keep. And so we’ve been dialoguing back and forth. And on the morning of Thursday, August 21st, last Thursday, Chris reached out with another email and said, well, I’m sad that we won’t be able to do the interview, but I’m happy that Dr. has received his ultimate reward in heaven. Well done, good and faithful servant, indeed. Today here on this special edition of Family Talk, we’ve been hearing this conversation featuring Dr. Dobson and Chris Fabry, the host of Chris Fabry Live. It reflects the wisdom, the personality, and the passion that shaped the media ministry of our beloved leader, Dr. James C. Dobson, who is now home with the Savior he loved and trusted. This week here on Family Talk, we are setting aside all other programming in order to reflect on the legacy that we enjoy. We remember Dr. Dobson, but we know it’s a dynamic legacy that will continue on into the future. By the way, if you missed any of these programs, you’ll find the audio recordings online at drjamesdobson.org forward slash family talk. And while you’re there, be sure to check out the tribute to our founder and the many different other features that will remind you about Dr. Dobson’s life and legacy. And please, as God prompts you to give a special gift, follow his lead. With years of planning, the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute is positioned to continue its impact around the world, fueled by the generous support of longtime friends just like you. Now is the perfect time to express your gratitude for the ministry of Dr. Dobson with a prayer, of course, but also with a gift that will catapult his message into the next generation. You can give a secure donation online at drjamesdobson.org. And when you do make a contribution today, we will thank you for that donation by sending you a special commemorative CD put together just for this occasion. It’s a special presentation featuring Dr. and Mrs. Dobson, on the occasion of their 65th wedding anniversary, a two-part program called The Dobsons, A Marriage Made in Heaven. We’ll be happy to send that CD to you as our way of thanking you for your gift of any amount. When you go to drjamesdobson.org, you can also call us toll-free with your contribution at 877-732-6825. That’s 877-732-6825. Or write to us. Our ministry mailing address is Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk. P.O. Box 39000, Colorado Springs, Colorado. The zip code 80949. You know, when you make a contribution, you’re not just supporting a radio program. You’re helping dads and moms all over the world find hope during their darkest moments. You’re providing parents and grandparents with practical guidance. And you’re ensuring that God’s design for family remains a beacon of truth in our culture. So thanks so much for reaching out. I’m Roger Marsh, thanking you for listening today. On behalf of all of us here at the JDFI, tune in again next time as we continue the celebration of the life and legacy of the late Dr. James C. Dobson right here on Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk, the voice you can still trust for the family you love. This has been a presentation of the Doctor James Dobson Family Institute.
