Uploaded August 2025 | Updated September 2026, 6 hours ago
FULL EPISODE: youtube.com/watch?v=Cmu_MwNy9Js&t=2s
Diana Butler Bass, a Christian theologian, recounts her personal experience with threats following her critical engagement with evangelical figures, including James Dobson.
This was the first time she received death threats—highlighting the visceral reactions still elicited by religious-political commentary.
In this episode, we discuss the influence of James Dobson, who died this week, on evangelical Christianity and the Christian Right political movement. Dobson's writings, particularly his parenting guide Dare to Discipline, promoted harsh punishment of children and patriarchal norms. Dobson’s vision of strict discipline and hierarchical authority, popularized through is massive Focus on the Family media empire, laid the groundwork for the current white evangelical movement and the MAGA worldview. Diana shared her personal experience of being targeted by Dobson in a FOF newsletter, which led to death threats. We also discussed the unprecedented deployment of military troops in Washington, D.C., where both Diana and Robby live, which Trump falsely claimed was necessary due to high crime rates, despite actual crime being at a 30-year low. This occupation of our nation’s capital—and its justification with the invocation of a fake emergency based on lies—are straight out of the dictator's playbook. We close with the need to keep resisting and speaking out.
FULL EPISODE: youtube.com/watch?v=Cmu_MwNy9Js&t=2s
Diana Butler Bass, a Christian theologian, recounts her personal experience with threats following her critical engagement with evangelical figures, including James Dobson.
This was the first time she received death threats—highlighting the visceral reactions still elicited by religious-political commentary.
In this episode, we discuss the influence of James Dobson, who died this week, on evangelical Christianity and the Christian Right political movement. Dobson's writings, particularly his parenting guide Dare to Discipline, promoted harsh punishment of children and patriarchal norms. Dobson’s vision of strict discipline and hierarchical authority, popularized through is massive Focus on the Family media empire, laid the groundwork for the current white evangelical movement and the MAGA worldview. Diana shared her personal experience of being targeted by Dobson in a FOF newsletter, which led to death threats. We also discussed the unprecedented deployment of military troops in Washington, D.C., where both Diana and Robby live, which Trump falsely claimed was necessary due to high crime rates, despite actual crime being at a 30-year low. This occupation of our nation’s capital—and its justification with the invocation of a fake emergency based on lies—are straight out of the dictator's playbook. We close with the need to keep resisting and speaking out.
