Overview

Dr. James Dobson, PhD., founder of the conservative Christian foundation Focus on the Family, is well-known to the secular world as a crusader for the Christian right. But within Christian circles he is known primarily as a childrearing expert. Millions of American children have been raised on his message, disseminated through books, videos, radio programs, magazines, and other media.While evangelical Christians have always placed great importance on familial responsibilities, Dobson placed the family at the center of Christian life. Only by sticking to proper family roles, he argues, can we achieve salvation. Women, for instance, only come to know God fully by submitting to their husbands and nurturing their children. Such uniting of family life and religion has drawn people to the organization, just as it has forced them to wrestle with what it means to be a Christian wife, husband, mother, father, son, or daughter. Adapting theories from developmental psychology that melded parental modeling with a conservative Christian theology of sinfulness, salvation, and a living relationship with Jesus, Dobson created a new model for the Christian family.But what does that model look like in real life? Drawing on interviews with mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters, Practicing What the Doctor Preached explores how actual families put Dobson's principles into practice. To what extent does Focus shape the practices of its audience to its own ends, and to what extent does Focus' understanding of its members' practices and needs shape the organization? Susan B. Ridgely shows that, while Dobson is known for being rigid and dogmatic, his followers show surprising flexibility in the way they actually use his materials. She examines Focus's listeners and their changing needs over the organization's first thirty years, a span that saw the organization expand from centering itself on childrearing to entrenching itself in public debates over sexuality, education, and national politics.

Full Product Details

9780199755073

Table of Contents

Reviews

There is no more universal challenge than parenting. Susan Ridgely shows how Focus on the Family offers a disciplinary touchstone for a wide range of Christian adherents seeking answers to the toughest parental quandaries. Through her thoughtful engagement with a range of informants, Ridgely decodes evangelical extremism and finds within it more flexibility and virtuosity than previously understood. After reading <em>Practicing What the Doctor Preached</em>, there can be no doubt: parenting is the lived religion of political life. --Kathryn Lofton, Professor of Religious Studies and American Studies, Yale University Since the 1970s, Focus on the Family has delivered a uniform message for promoting 'family values.' But do people really follow it? Susan B. Ridgely's smart and engaging book answers that question. Through interviews and a comprehensive examination of its literature, Ridgely follows the negotiations between prescription and practice as evangelical parents embrace the rhetoric of 'family values.' An important and lively study that is a must read for anyone interested in contemporary American evangelicalism. --Amy DeRogatis, author of <em>Saving Sex: Sexuality and Salvation in American</em> <em>Evangelicalism</em> In this deeply researched and clearly written study, Ridgely offers an empathetic analysis of one of the most influential-and controversial-conservative religious movements of the past half-century. Challenging popular stereotypes of a monolithic top-down organization, Ridgely shows a significant gap between Dobson's authoritarian pronouncements and the common sense ways in which his followers actually implemented them. She also shows how the movement changed over time, varied on different issues, and splintered between convert and cradle evangelicals. It is a singularly important contribution to the burgeoning academic literature on religion and culture in contemporary America. --Grant Wacker, author of <em>America's Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation</em>

There is no more universal challenge than parenting. Susan Ridgely shows how Focus on the Family offers a disciplinary touchstone for a wide range of Christian adherents seeking answers to the toughest parental quandaries. Through her thoughtful engagement with a range of informants, Ridgely decodes evangelical extremism and finds within it more flexibility and virtuosity than previously understood. After reading Practicing What the Doctor Preached, there can be no doubt: parenting is the lived religion of political life. --Kathryn Lofton, Professor of Religious Studies and American Studies, Yale University Since the 1970s, Focus on the Family has delivered a uniform message for promoting 'family values.' But do people really follow it? Susan B. Ridgely's smart and engaging book answers that question. Through interviews and a comprehensive examination of its literature, Ridgely follows the negotiations between prescription and practice as evangelical parents embrace the rhetoric of 'family values.' An important and lively study that is a must read for anyone interested in contemporary American evangelicalism. --Amy DeRogatis, author of Saving Sex: Sexuality and Salvation in American Evangelicalism In this deeply researched and clearly written study, Ridgely offers an empathetic analysis of one of the most influential-and controversial-conservative religious movements of the past half-century. Challenging popular stereotypes of a monolithic top-down organization, Ridgely shows a significant gap between Dobson's authoritarian pronouncements and the common sense ways in which his followers actually implemented them. She also shows how the movement changed over time, varied on different issues, and splintered between convert and cradle evangelicals. It is a singularly important contribution to the burgeoning academic literature on religion and culture in contemporary America. --Grant Wacker, author of America's Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation

Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals. -B. W. Hamilton, CHOICE There is no more universal challenge than parenting. Susan Ridgely shows how Focus on the Family offers a disciplinary touchstone for a wide range of Christian adherents seeking answers to the toughest parental quandaries. Through her thoughtful engagement with a range of informants, Ridgely decodes evangelical extremism and finds within it more flexibility and virtuosity than previously understood. After reading Practicing What the Doctor Preached, there can be no doubt: parenting is the lived religion of political life. --Kathryn Lofton, Professor of Religious Studies and American Studies, Yale University Since the 1970s, Focus on the Family has delivered a uniform message for promoting 'family values.' But do people really follow it? Susan B. Ridgely's smart and engaging book answers that question. Through interviews and a comprehensive examination of its literature, Ridgely follows the negotiations between prescription and practice as evangelical parents embrace the rhetoric of 'family values.' An important and lively study that is a must read for anyone interested in contemporary American evangelicalism. --Amy DeRogatis, author of Saving Sex: Sexuality and Salvation in American Evangelicalism In this deeply researched and clearly written study, Ridgely offers an empathetic analysis of one of the most influential-and controversial-conservative religious movements of the past half-century. Challenging popular stereotypes of a monolithic top-down organization, Ridgely shows a significant gap between Dobson's authoritarian pronouncements and the common sense ways in which his followers actually implemented them. She also shows how the movement changed over time, varied on different issues, and splintered between convert and cradle evangelicals. It is a singularly important contribution to the burgeoning academic literature on religion and culture in contemporary America. --Grant Wacker, author of America's Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation

Author Information

Susan B. Ridgely is Associate Professor of American Religions at University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her work focuses on demonstrating the importance of age as a category of analysis in religious studies, by highlighting how children shape their religious communities as well as how the interplay of generations serves as a primary means of innovation. She is the author of When I was a Child: Children's Interpretations of First Communion (2005) and editor of Children and Religion: A Methods Handbook (2011).

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available