Roger Marsh: Well, hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. I'm Roger Marsh. Today, you will hear part two of the conversation we brought you yesterday featuring Chris Fabry from Moody Radio interviewing our own Dr. Dobson about his 40 years in the broadcasting industry. On this second installment, Chris will ask Dr. Dobson about his famous interview with Ted Bundy, as well as some other intriguing questions. Well, let's get right into it. Here now is part two of Chris Fabry's interview with Dr. James Dobson here on Family Talk.
Chris Fabry: What a pleasure to have Dr. James Dobson with us today. We're finding out a little bit more about what goes on behind the scenes. We were just talking about laughter and tears. I really think that what people are looking for, and this can happen with radio because it's only the voice, but if you've just got your voice and you're talking with somebody else, radio is so personal a medium. That's why it can go so deeply, and I've heard you probably have gotten letters like this or emails that 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?
Dr. Dobson: I do, and I'm thinking of one woman who was working at a large company. Whatever we were talking 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. 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. It is the essence of what radio is supposed to be and it's why I love it. I love it.
I like television, but it's a whole lot of folderol. 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 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 than... Whereas, television is a performance.
Chris Fabry: They remember when you fell off the horse, right?
Dr. Dobson: I hope nobody else does, but I do.
Chris Fabry: There... You know, I have so many questions that I want you to answer, and you have been on a treadmill every day, and I mean a literal treadmill. You do this every day, right?
Dr. Dobson: 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 to exercise and loved competition. 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. 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 takes to stay alive, I will," and so I've exercised 45 minutes a day, almost every day from that time to this.
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. 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." I've just stayed with that and my heart is still functioning like that of a younger man and I'm grateful for it.
Chris Fabry: Yeah. Who do you miss the most? Of all the voices that are out there that have been silenced now as far as they're no... We can't ask Chuck Colson a question about this, that, or the other thing. Who do you miss the most?
Dr. Dobson: 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. 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.
Chris Fabry: 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 he could be, be very strong, Southern Baptist convention, and Chuck Colson as well. 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 than others?
Dr. Dobson: 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. Adrian, man, 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.
Chris Fabry: Hmm. 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 of Campus Crusade or Cru 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 transition early on because you really wanted that to go well. In some ways it went smoothly, and in other ways, I sense there is still a little regret with how all of that went, "It could have gone better." How do you look at that today as you look back at going from Focus to Family Talk?
Dr. Dobson: 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. 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. 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.'"
Yet, I was approaching it rationally and, I think, properly. I got invited to come down to Georgia for a board meeting. I said, "Is there a reason why?" 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." We walked in and were blindsided. We were told "You need to be gone by the next board meeting." That was one of the most painful things I've ever been through because it came as 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. It just all of a sudden, the board said, "It's time to go."
We cried all the way home, and I'm telling you things I've never said publicly before. 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-
Chris Fabry: Yeah.
Dr. Dobson: ... and it just suddenly was done. I was asked at that board meeting, "What are you going to do?" I said, "Well, radio's my life. I'll probably do more radio." 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'd just went back to where I was in 1977 and started over. 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."
The Lord has blessed Family Talk. It kind of took off the way Focus on the Family had taken off in 1977. 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.
Chris Fabry: 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. Now, let's look at it from this perspective because there's somebody listening today who said, "I had that. It wasn't as big, it wasn't as public as what Dr. Dobson 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 Family Talk, with your ministry?
Dr. Dobson: Well, anything intense like that you experience changes you and usually The Lord uses it, and He's used it in my life. 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. I think The Lord has blessed that. I think that He has said to me, "I saw it and it's okay." Have you ever had a moment like that when you just think you feel the Lord smile? 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?"
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 Shirley would tell.
Chris Fabry: One of the main reasons people know James Dobson in the broader culture is the interview that you did with Ted Bundy. Take us back to that. What do you remember?
Dr. Dobson: 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 and about his life, about on the things that he had done, which were reprehensible. You know, they think that he killed probably around a hundred women. He told a lawyer to call me, and 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. 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.
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, and he found magazines at a dump when he was 13 years old. 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 ended with a 2,000-page report and he read it all. 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.
After two years, we got the phone call and I went down to the Florida State Prison. There were 300 members of the press there with all of the TV equipment and everything and the uplink dishes. 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. When I walked out of that prison, it was 10:00 at night. They had strobe lights on and about 50 microphones the way they do in Washington. It was bizarre, I'm telling you, and it did have a great impact on me. When it was over, I wept like a baby, I can tell you.
Chris Fabry: 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 were playing basketball with him and you were 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?"
Dr. Dobson: 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, a 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. 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. 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 and I don't regret him not going because he had the 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 have loved to have interviewed him. I had such great love and respect for him. I'd like to have told him that, but I think he knows it because everybody else has told him that, too.
Chris Fabry: 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 that I didn't know how to love well, or the grandchild, you know, all of those different things. The things that you've talked about through the years, they'd say, 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. I can't thank you enough for... I still have a bushel basket of questions to ask, but we'll have to end it right there. Thanks for doing this today.
Dr. Dobson: Let's do it again, Chris.
Dr. Tim Clinton: You've been listening to Family Talk. I'm your co-host, Dr. Tim Clinton, and that was the conclusion of a very special two-part interview featuring our host, Dr. James Dobson. Now, Dr. Dobson doesn't usually take the chair of the interviewee, but when his friend, Chris Fabry of Moody Radio, asked him a few questions about his years in radio, Jim, as his friends call him, was happy to oblige. As you just heard, Dr. Dobson shared some very personal stories, as well as some wise insights and observations. I hope that you enjoyed this rare glimpse behind the scenes of his historic career. If you missed any part of the program yesterday or today, you can listen again when you visit drjamesdobson.org/familytalk. That's D-Rjamesdobson.O-R-G/familytalk, or call us toll free at 877-732-6825.
If you'd prefer, you can also contact us by sending a letter or card in the mail. Dr. Dobson loves hearing from listeners in that way, and we make sure every piece of mail is read. Drop us a line, let us know what you think about the broadcast. Our ministry's address is The Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, PO Box 39000, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80949. That's The Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, PO Box 39000, 3-9-0-0-0, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80949. We love being a part of your life and we can't wait to hear from you.
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To give today, visit drjamesdobson.org, or call 877-732-6825. You can also send your contribution through the mail. The address once more is The Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, PO Box 39000, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80949. I hope you'll consider a gift during this critical time. The summer months are slower in the ministry field in terms of support, people traveling out of town on vacation, and we pray that you'll stand with us. Most importantly, thank you again for listening and for making Family Talk a part of your day. I'm Dr. Tim Clinton. I hope you'll join us next time. Until then, may God bless you and your family.
Announcer: This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.
Roger Marsh: Hey, everyone, Roger Marsh here. When you think about your family and where they will be when you're no longer living, are you worried? Are you confident? Are you hopeful? What kind of legacy are you leaving for your children and their children? Here at Family Talk, we're committed to helping you understand the legacy that you're leaving for your family. Join us today at drjamesdobson.org for helpful insights, tips, and advice from Dr. James Dobson himself. And remember: your legacy matters.
Dr. Dobson: Hello, everyone. This is James Dobson, inviting you to join us for our next edition of Family Talk. Every day, we come to these microphones with someone in mind, whether it's a busy mom looking for tips on discipline, or a husband who wants to learn more about connecting with his wife. We want to put an arm around your family in any way that we can, so join us next time for Family Talk, won't you?