NASHVILLE, Tenn.—James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, says he’s concerned about future evangelical leaders staying focused on issues like abortion and gay marriage.
The radio talk show host told a group of Christian broadcasters Tuesday night the passing of Jerry Falwell, the Rev. D. James Kennedy and Ruth Bell Graham represent the end of an era.
He also noted others like Billy Graham, Chuck Colson, Pat Robertson and Chuck Swindoll will also soon pass from the scene and questioned the impact on the conservative Christian church.
“It causes me to wonder who will be left to carry the banner when this generation of leaders is gone,” Dobson told an audience of nearly 1,400 at the National Religious Broadcasters conference. “The question is will the younger generation heed the call? Who will defend the unborn child in the years to come? Who will plead for the Terri Schiavos of the world? Who’s going to fight for the institution of marriage, which is on the ropes today.”
Dobson’s comments come as Falwell and other founders of the Christian right have died or are approaching the end of their careers. National groups like the Christian Coalition are struggling, and the organizational muscle of the movement now rests with local pastors, not national figures.
“Who in the next generation will be willing to take the heat, when it’s so much safer and more comfortable to avoid controversial subjects,” he said. “What will be the impact on the conservative Christian church when the patriarchs have passed?”
Former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who stepped out of the race last week, had won widespread support among pastors and other evangelicals at a local level, but not with those heading influential national organizations and other conservative evangelical leaders.
Dobson endorsed Huckabee, but other leaders had shied from the former Arkansas governor and Baptist minister because of his lack of money or support for expanding the evangelical agenda to include the environment and poverty, as well economic and tax positions that fiscal conservatives have attacked.
Dobson has said he has no plans to endorse presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain and has criticized him for his support of embryonic stem cell research and his opposition to a federal anti-gay marriage amendment. Dobson said he’d sit out the presidential election if McCain were the nominee.
Following Huckabee’s success with the evangelical bloc, Christian activists and other observers of the movement have noted that the next generation of younger leaders isn’t as interested in polarizing debates and want to broaden the evangelical agenda beyond divisive issues like abortion and gay marriage. The founders of the religious right, however, see such a prospect as a distraction and have tried to squash that idea.
Dobson, 71, said many of his comments on Tuesday were the same he made at Kennedy’s funeral last fall, when he told those in attendance he’s praying that the next generation of Christians will answer God’s call to take up the mantle of leadership in their place. He made the same request of conference attendees.
“My generation is passing and a new generation has to be willing to take up the Gospel…to receive the mantle, to hear the call, and yield to the call.
“Change is inevitable. We must change with the times. Change is good. Change is necessary. But we must not change the message. It must go forward,” said Dobson, who got a round of applause from the audience after the statement.
President Bush spoke to convention attendees earlier Tuesday, saying he would not be influenced by what’s happening in the 2008 presidential race in how he will run the Iraq war. He also asked the audience to send their “love and prayers” to Billy Graham, who is recovering from surgery in North Carolina. Graham’s wife Ruth died last year.
“He (Graham) led the way for America’s religious broadcasters,” Bush said. “He brought the Gospel to millions, and many years ago he helped me change my life. A lot of Americans love Billy Graham, and I’m one. So, Billy, we’re thinking about you.”
Falwell, a television evangelist who founded the Moral Majority and became the face of the religious right in the 1980s, and Kennedy, a founding board member of the Moral Majority and founder of the Center for Reclaiming America for Christ, both died last year as well.
Dobson stepped down as Focus on the Family president in 2003 but hasn’t hinted at retirement, remaining the board chairman and the ministry’s public voice on its flagship radio broadcast.
