Dobson had outsized influence in boosting authoritarianism among evangelicals

Focus on the Family founder, bestselling author and political activist dies at 89

James Dobson; photo from the Focus on the Family obituary.

Walk in the home of almost any evangelical couple raising children during the 1970s and into the ’80s, and chances are that you could find a copy of James C. Dobson’s Dare to Discipline (1970) on the bookshelf. Just as Dr. Spock, as pediatrician Benjamin Spock was known, was wildly influential in…