If you were part of evangelicalism or Christian nationalism, anytime in the last 50 years,

you know him as Dr. James Dobson from Focus on the Family.

I grew up loving adventures in Odyssey and especially McGee and Me.

Look who's here with an exciting new series of video hits.

It's McGee and Me, the new adventures.

Bigger, better, more fantastic than ever.

Mountain climbing. Three exciting new stories from the real and make-believe worlds of Nicholas

and his animated friend, McGee. It was nice knowing you, McGee. They seemed like wholesome,

educational content for good Christian families and kids.

I had no idea that the particular brand of discipline that I suffered at home,

and the purity culture I would begin to encounter when I was nine were also ideas from this innocent, family-friendly organization.

Focus on the family marketed itself as a warm, nurturing Christian ministry devoted to helping families thrive,

presenting an image of wholesome guidance on marriage, parenting, and faith.

Glossy magazines saving us from harmful secular media, radio programs, and children's resources

portrayed it as a safe, moral alternative to a culture and decline.

They especially like to emphasize how that culture was harming children.

But beneath this facade, focus on the family functioned as a powerful political machine,

an ideological engine of the religious right.

Rather than simply offering family advice, it promoted authoritarian and often abusive parenting, patriarchal gender roles, abstinence-only education, and anti-LGBTQ propaganda, often misrepresenting science and demonizing anyone outside their worldview.

In reality, it was less about protecting families and more about enforcing a rigid, conservative Christian order, shaping public policy

and fueling the culture wars under the guise of family values. This is a very personal topic for me,

because James Dobson's influence directly affected my siblings and I, me into my late 20s.

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