Who Speaks for Family Values?

In 1977, psychologist James Dobson quit his job at the University of Southern California School of Medicine and founded Focus on the Family. In several best-selling books on parenting and marriage and in seminars on family life held around the country, Dobson had already shaped and promoted a philosophy of strengthening families that emphasized discipline, parental authority, and a personal understanding of sin.

Focus on the Family is now a $77 million a year Christian multimedia organization, a prime communicator of what Dobson terms "traditional family morality." Focus produces 30-minute daily radio broadcasts for 1,800 stations worldwide and markets a variety of magazines, books, tapes, and videos that are used in churches, schools, and military institutions. Employees at the Colorado Springs headquarters receive an average of 2,200 phone calls and 9,000 pieces of mail daily requesting advice and counseling. In-house counselors answer many of the inquiries, and others are referred to local counselors and pastors.

Focus has also conducted seminars across the country on how to get involved in the political process. The organization distributed voter guides for 20 states in the 1992 elections, listing candidate positions on what it sees as key pro-family issues.

While there are other conservative Christian organizations doing more extensive grassroots political organizing (such as Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition), Focus on the Family and James Dobson carry immense weight in the family values debate. Focus materials are prevalent in evangelical, charismatic, and many mainline Protestant homes, and Dobson has the patina of trustworthiness that comes from being a non-politician. His word on the need to get back to traditional family morality was taken to heart by thousands long before Jerry Falwell, Robertson, or the Republican Party embraced the family as the way to America's soul.

Dobson, of course, has the right as a citizen to bring his opinion and faith perspective to bear in public discourse. And there is a vital truth in the connections he makes between the health of families and the health of society, between public policy and moral questions. Many liberal advocates of social justice have erred gravely in devaluing personal responsibility and values.

Barbara Dafoe Whitehead's cover story in the April issue of Atlantic magazine (the perhaps too glibly titled "Dan Quayle was Right") has sparked much-needed discussion on the individual and social costs of disintegrating families. Whitehead's article focuses on the ways children from disrupted families are more likely to suffer poverty, poor school performance, and behavioral problems.

THE FAMILY AND society live in a symbiotic relationship. Social injustices stress and strain family structures; likewise a decay in personal values affects the viability of the society, especially in the nurturing of its future members.

But Dobson, on the other hand, has erred in the opposite direction from liberal social justice advocates, placing "values" in a vacuum, separate from the world in which they are lived out. His analysis of what makes for a strong family is disconnected from a number of factors--poverty, racism, and sexism, among others--that influence home environments, family dynamics, and people's very survival. He also neglects the full power of scripture--which addresses justice and poverty as well as personal holiness as components of right relationship in family and society.

Unfortunately, in the political arena, the view of family values promoted by Dobson has become intertwined with and potentially subsumed by a segment of right-wing politics. In Focus materials, the Reagan and Bush administrations are portrayed as 12 years of "pro-family gains," without scrutiny of Reagan/Bush-induced losses for families. It is not clear that genuinely pro-family actions by the Clinton administration, such as health care reform, would be recognized or supported by Dobson or other religious family advocates. Likewise, Dobson's rhetoric leaves little room for dialogue with other people of faith (even other evangelicals) on a more wholistic understanding of family values. The challenge for other Christians is not to abandon the language of values, families, and cultural meaning to those who have defined such words in a narrow way. On the contrary, family values must be reclaimed as worthy of our attention, work, and prayer, in the context of our striving for a more just social order.

It is vital that we build a new, balanced approach, one that draws on the best work of both family advocates and social activists, refusing to separate personal values and social justice. This requires stepping beyond the rhetoric of the old ways. People need a place where they can uphold integrity and responsibility in relationships, as well as work to provide the material means and human rights necessary to guarantee a dignified life for all.

Julie Polter is associate editor of Sojourners.