Dobson Signs Off at Focus on the Family

Dobson will host his final Focus on the Family radio
show Friday, when he is expected to talk about the future of Focus on the
Family and Family Talk, a new ministry he is starting. Dobson’s wife, Shirley,
also has resigned from the ministry’s leadership.

“This is a difficult experience for Shirley and me because
we’re awash in nostalgia,” Dobson said on Thursday’s broadcast. ” … We have
spent three quarters of my professional life here within the confines of this
ministry. It’s been our life. It’s been our home. But the Lord has led us. He’s
put His hand at my back, and it’s been very clear that He’s saying it’s time to
go, it’s time to let go.”

Dobson, 73, has been phasing out of leadership of the
Colorado-based ministry since 2003. He resigned as chairman of the board in
February 2009 but was expected to continue hosting Focus on the Family’s
flagship radio program, where he has been giving marriage and parenting advice
as well as his views on political issues. 

But in November he announced that he was stepping down as
host of the show and the following month said he would begin hosting a new
radio program with his son, Ryan. Titled James Dobson on the Family, the
program is expected to discuss marriage and parenting issues and give Dobson
more freedom to discuss public policy concerns.

The New York Times speculated in January that Ryan
Dobson, 37, may have motivated the transition. A Focus board member told the
newspaper that board policy prohibited Ryan Dobson from becoming the voice of Focus
on the Family because he has been divorced.

Dobson said Thursday that the new ministry would not compete
with Focus on Family and that Focus’ board voted last weekend to provide funds to help him
launch Family Talk.

“I’m starting a new ministry … but it is not in any way a
matter of tension,” Dobson said during the broadcast, which also included Focus
on the Family President Jim Daly and board chairman Pat Caruana. “We’re going
in the same direction. The board expressed that partnership and that
camaraderie in the decisions made last weekend, and I deeply appreciate it.”

This week, Focus on the Family has aired emotional
calls from dozens of listeners thanking Dobson for his counsel and pro-life
leadership in the last 33 years.

Tom Minnery, a senior vice president at Focus on the Family,
said the ministry would not depart from Dobson’s vision.

“The pillars will remain the same,” he said,
according to Focus on the Family’s CitizenLink. “Our devotion to our cause
of the family, our devotion to the notion that life is sacred, to the notion
that marriage is one man and one woman, those will never change.”