Colorado Springs – On the first floor of Focus on the Family headquarters, amid rows and rows of cubicles, is the correspondence department.
Here, more than 80 employees field phone calls and e-mails from people like Shelly, who wants to help the homeless, and Rhonda, who may be suffering from postpartum depression.
With a few keystrokes, correspondence assistants can summon James Dobson’s wisdom on a wealth of subjects from potty training to home schooling. At their fingertips are thousands of evangelical Christian books, DVDs and tapes, products stored in a warehouse big enough to warrant its own ZIP code.
This corner of the Focus on the Family empire, ministry officials say, is nearest to the heart of Dobson, their founder and visionary, the man known as “Doc.”
The people who call and write in, after all, are some of the same people who listened to Dobson when it was just him and a part-time secretary in the radio wilderness, the same people who came to trust him as if he were a family friend, the same people who helped expand his influence to the most powerful corridors of Washington.
Indeed, it is the political realm where Focus on the Family has gained its reputation as influence broker. Dobson factored large in the 2004 election campaign, an effort he is sure to replicate in the looming battle over a Supreme Court justice nominee.
But most of Focus on the Family’s 1,400 employees toil not in politics but in the cubicles of constituent services and places like it: a department that supports Christian crisis pregnancy centers, a publication that screens the latest Batman movie for objectionable content, a department promoting abstinence as a means of fighting AIDS in Africa.
This is the dual personality of Focus on the Family, a division so clear that the board of directors this year adopted a new motto – “to nurture and defend the family” – to better articulate its mission. The larger “nurturing” component provides family advice based on conservative Bible teachings. The “defense” side is dedicated to public policy work.
Yet these are not two separate worlds but rather two halves of a whole. A call from a woman whose husband left her for “the homosexual lifestyle,” Focus officials believe, is evidence of the country’s moral decline. That, in turn, is something that must be fixed by influencing politicians who shape public policy to underscore the message that homosexuality is unacceptable.
In the 80920 ZIP code of Colorado Springs, it’s all connected.
“Focus on the Family by and large is nurturing, caring for families trying to make it,” said Kurt Bruner, a Focus on the Family group vice president. “But there are those moments where big issues come up where suddenly we have to step up and say, ‘We’re not going to let you bully the family.”‘
Building an empire
A child psychologist and son of a Nazarene preacher, Dobson founded Focus on the Family in 1977 to counter what he perceived as the era’s permissive parenting.
Dobson gained a following that has mushroomed into a broadcast and publication giant with a $140 million budget and an 81-acre campus. Dobson’s half-hour daily syndicated radio program remains the flagship, reaching 7 million to 8 million listeners a week.
But newer products are finding audiences as well, none so much as Plugged In, a magazine and website that offers reviews of movies, music and video games. The website registers 1 million visitors a month.
The latest issue gives the new Coldplay CD a favorable review, singling out “pro-social content” in lyrics about love and repairing what is broken. The horseracing movie “Seabiscuit” is red- flagged for more than a dozen “abuses of the Lord’s name.”
“Roger Ebert would never think to address that,” said Bob Waliszewski, Plugged In senior director. “But all Christian families seem to hate it.”
Another example of the intertwined nature of the ministry’s dual personality: Since January 2004, Focus on the Family has subsidized the placement of 120 ultrasound machines in Christian crisis pregnancy centers to complement counseling against abortion.
“It is a tool to help a woman have all the information she can have in making a decision,” said Julie Parton, director of Focus’ pregnancy resource ministry. “It helps her understand it’s not just a blob of tissue.”
That puts the program, called Option Ultrasound, in the ministry’s “nurture” column – it’s one-on-one contact. But it’s also no secret that conservative activists believe technological advances showing the earliest flutters of life also could prove a powerful tool to change societal views about abortion.
“In my mind, the parallel is the abolitionist movement in the 1800s,” Bruner said. “It wasn’t till ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ showed the face of what was happening to the victims of this evil that the country turned.”
“Heart of the ministry”
Boiled down to its essence, Focus on the Family is a help line writ large. It’s a point of pride here that phone calls are answered by the third ring.
In the operations building, employees handle “faster contacts” – donations, requests for a book mentioned on Dobson’s radio show. The contacts requiring more legwork – 7 percent to 10 percent of them – go to correspondence. The ministry receives 8,000 to 10,000 calls, e-mails and letters a day.
“This is the heart of the ministry because we really relate to people, people suffering from a terminal illness or broken relationships,” said Frank Keller, the department director. “This is doing a bit of social work.”
The most serious calls are “triaged” to 16 licensed counselors who offer advice and referrals to a national network of counselors.
Phil Swihart, director of counseling, fields a typical call: from a woman who has moved twice and borne two children in quick succession. Swihart explains there are different forms of depression, that what she is going through would be a lot for anyone to bear. The woman asks about postpartum depression, and Swihart recommends she talk to her physician.
There is no mention of faith or God until the end of the conversation, when Swihart asks the woman if they can pray together. She accepts his offer.
Focus on the Family officials emphasize this kind of interaction is its top priority, not politics. But it’s also true the group is more involved in the political sphere than ever before.
Dobson first tasted Beltway influence on a Reagan- era government pornography commission and later hosted GOP presidential hopefuls at his office and endorsed candidates as an individual.
But Dobson’s involvement reached new heights in 2004 when he formed Focus on the Family Action, which by law does not face the same restrictions on political work. The group raised $8.8 million in six months, endorsed four GOP Senate candidates and staged voter rallies in battleground states.
“Our sole purpose is really to help people,” said Jim Daly, who succeeded Dobson as Focus on the Family’s president, freeing up Dobson to get more political. “The advocacy is also to help people – through government thinking through the consequences of what they want to do, and to have a voice in the public square.”
What makes Focus on the Family different from most evangelical Christian activist groups is it built its credibility through being a resource for families, getting into politics later.
But for critics such as Barry Lynn, director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, that is one of the core problems with Dobson.
“He lures people onto a political path by first meeting some personal need,” Lynn said. “That’s very manipulative.”
Others contend Focus on the Family idealizes a form of family that is no longer dominant.
“Marital advice and parenting techniques that worked in the 1950s, when almost everyone married early and very few mothers worked outside the home, is not always helpful to families and parents today,” said Stephanie Coontz of the Council on Contemporary Families.
A widening reach
With its image and budget growing, Focus on the Family is looking ahead with initiatives to reach new audiences and shore up its loyal base.
Two years ago, the ministry launched Troubledwith.com, offering guidance on everything from dating and alcoholism to divorce and death with a minimum of “Christian-ese.” A subscription-based service, Focus on Your Child, offers age-specific material on child-rearing.
Focus on the Family’s plan next spring is to launch a major curriculum called “The Truth Project.” Through small groups at churches, homes and offices, the ministry will teach what it believes is absolute truth – that Jesus’ resurrection was historical fact, that Satan is real, that the Bible is God’s word.
The rationale behind the effort, borne out by studies, is that cultural forces have eroded the belief systems of born-again Christians, said Marc Fey, project director.
“It is for Christians, with the hope that in strengthening Christians, that’s going to result in people who know how to engage the culture,” he said.
Indeed, the Truth Project is grounded in Focus on the Family’s belief that Christians need to do more than tend their own homes, that they are called to influence the wider culture – to both nurture and defend.
“In some ways, this is like the masculine and the feminine, the nurturing and defending side that a mother and father do in a home,” Bruner said. “Sometimes, parents do both. You’re not really a good parent if you don’t do both.”
Staff writer Eric Gorski can be reached at 303-820-1698 or egorski@denverpost.com.
