Family Talk

Dr. James Dobson: You're listening to Family Talk, the radio broadcasting division of the James Dobson Family Institute. I am that James Dobson, and I'm so pleased that you've joined us today.

Roger Marsh: Well, welcome to Family Talk, the broadcast ministry of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. I'm Roger Marsh. Let me ask you something: Do you ever feel like the problems facing our culture today are just too big, that one person alone couldn't possibly make a difference in the world around us? Well, if so, today's program is for you.

On the last edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk, we began a conversation about the power of simply showing up and standing for truth with prayer, persistence, and grace. Our guest, Vicky Dunn, has spent decades on the front lines of the pro-life movement in Missouri, and her story is a testament to what happens when ordinary believers refuse to sit on the sidelines.

But today's conversation is going to go even deeper. You're going to hear about the spiritual warfare Christian families are facing right now and how even the most faithful homes are not immune to the lies permeating our culture. Vicky will share why she believes we need to reclaim what is sacred, including marriage, sexuality, and the innocence of our children.

If you've ever wondered whether your voice really matters, whether one person standing for truth can make a difference, Vicky Dunn offers a challenge that might just get you out of your seat and into the fight. Our host for today's broadcast is Gary Bauer, Senior Vice President of Public Policy here at the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. Let's listen now as he continues his conversation with Vicky Dunn on today's edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk.

Gary Bauer: Well, folks, welcome back to Family Talk. We're having a second day of conversation with one of our everyday heroes. Vicky Dunn, welcome back to the show, and let's continue our conversation.

Vicky Dunn: All righty. Thank you.

Gary Bauer: I remember back, it seems like it was a thousand years ago now, but just going back to Bill Clinton's administration. Do you remember he used to say, "Look, nobody likes abortion, but we want it to be safe, legal, and rare"? That seems so quaint now because we're at a time when our opponents on this issue want all stigma removed from the taking of an innocent human life.

I saw the other day a group called "Shout Your Abortion." Be proud of it is their point. They literally have come out with a little book aimed at five to eight-year-olds to try to teach these innocent little children that the right to abortion is like a superpower that they all have, and it enables them when they grow up to make the life that they want to make.

I was reading about this and thinking, my goodness, these children aren't that far out of the womb themselves because their parents didn't abort them. And here's this group. It's just hard for me to imagine something more evil than trying to deceive these little children.

Vicky Dunn: I agree. I actually think when we talk about the abortion issue, we need to back the train up and go back to the sanctity of sex. When we were fighting to keep this out of our constitution, there was a little local newspaper where letters were flying back and forth on both sides because it was a big issue in Missouri.

The one letter that struck me as profound was a letter writer who said that sex has become recreational. And so when you have sexualized the children, such as you're talking about happening in our libraries and in our schools, and making it a recreational activity, we need to reclaim the sanctity, the beauty, the holiness of what God had intended for the sexual union within a marriage.

Part of my grieving on where we are was that we haven't stood. We had in our constitution, and this is Dr. Dobson as well, when we were fighting for the sanctity of marriage. It started way back then in Missouri, I think it was 2003, maybe. I remember standing on the street holding my sign, "Marriage is a man and a woman," and he spoke of that as well on the radio.

I think there were 31 other states that had it within their constitution that it was a man and a woman. So I really feel like we need to reclaim the sanctity of marriage and sex within marriage. And when I was in the counseling room, when I worked with the pregnancy resource centers that I did, we would introduce secondary virginity and try and introduce the gift that that is within marriage. It really is the protection that God has so that the hearts aren't hurt and it doesn't hurt the family. My heart is opened up to reclaiming all the sacred, which starts with the innocence of children, to keep them away from the pornography and then to reintroduce the beauty of marriage, of sex within marriage. It's been a whole journey.

Gary Bauer: Well, I think your analysis is absolutely right. You mentioned the votes that were held in multiple states. This was such a terrible moment in America. We had 31 states, I believe, that ended up voting on this over several years of the battle. All the way from liberal California to relatively conservative Georgia.

In every case, people voted to keep marriage as the union of one man and one woman, which of course is what it had been through millennia of Western civilization. And then we wake up one morning and the Supreme Court in one fell swoop cancels out all of those votes. So much for democracy, right? That we live in a Democratic Republic and the people have a right to rule. All of that was struck down and we end up having this redefinition of marriage.

I think that and the sexual revolution more broadly has really caused a tremendous erosion that we're in the middle of right now. I think it explains, Vicky, the research that shows how many young men and women are depressed, how many don't have hope for the future. And I think it's because they've been sold a lie. The lie of "if it feels good, do it," that there's nothing sacred, that you're the product of evolution, that there's nothing after this. By the way, you're living in a terrible country. Who wouldn't be depressed if those things were all true?

We started our conversation talking about the power of prayer. And the things we're talking about right now, we've all got to pray and double down on praying. And then when we're done, pray some more. But I understand you have a particularly emotional story about someone that you had been praying about to accept the Lord. You don't have to get into names or anything of that. I know these are sensitive issues. But could you share that with us? Because I found it to be so emotional and it really grabbed my heart when I read about it.

Vicky Dunn: Absolutely. It's my privilege. It goes back to the prayer cards at the Leaders Council in Community Bible Study, where we prayed for each other's families. Always, I would put everybody I love, near and dear to me, salvation for those that I loved on my prayer card.

One of those persons, as a new believer, you go around telling everyone Jesus is the only way. Well, this person told me, "Well, I don't know about that. But if I ever need him, I will pray to him." Well, that person needed him in 2013 when he was in a head-on car accident.

Right behind him was what we call the good Samaritan. He was a believer sent by God, who came to the window of the car and used David's phone and called. He would subsequently use the jaws of life to get him out of the car and he was taken to a local hospital.

But all along the line, we had the good Samaritan's contact on the phone. So after David had died, we got back in contact with the good Samaritan and he said, "What a man." He said the first words out of his mouth were, "Would you pray with me? I need to get right with Jesus." And he did. To know that that's where David ended up and that God had provided, that was part of the "you will be blessed for your obedience." That was the blessing of prayer and the fact that I was able to share in the Leaders Council the need for prayer for salvation for all those that we love. So that is that story.

Gary Bauer: Making sure in our own home, right? That we've gotten it right seems these days almost every day. I talk to people that are fathers and mothers in Christian homes, and they'll inevitably, if you talk for a little while, tell me about a child that's been lost to all the lies that permeate our culture. And of course, we know who the father of all lies is.

There was someone I was with recently at a meeting at the White House and everybody in the room was a Christian. This gentleman, I think, did everything right, but he told me that he had a daughter that had fallen away and has isolated them. So we really are in America in spiritual warfare, not only to save our country but to save our families. Christian families are not immune from this, as you know.

Vicky Dunn: Absolutely. Tom and I have 10 grandchildren, and to continue with the theme of blessed for your obedience, I was in Community Bible Study with many of my grandchildren. The last year that I was in was the COVID year, 2020. We were going through the Book of Acts and I was convicted myself to have believer's baptism because it was so emphasized. Believe and be baptized, believe and be baptized.

So I had the blessing of being baptized with my grandchildren witnessing it. And then I do have to say a couple other dimensions on prayer and salvation for families. My mother died. She's the one that went to Bible study with me. The four generations, at 81, got her first Bible.

So when she was 86 years old, she wrote what she called her special letter. My sister Diane, I have to tell you what a wonderful sister I have. She called herself Mother's business manager because she was in all Mom's business. But the last years of her life, Diane was so instrumental in shepherding Mom through so many of the challenges that she had.

But she handed Diane a letter that she wrote at 86 and said, "Don't distribute this until I die." It was called the special letter. We got to read it at her funeral service, her celebration of life, where she said everybody needs to know Jesus. She loved us all, and the greatest joy of her life was seeing the children, but she wanted everyone to be in heaven with her, to turn to Jesus. It was a beautiful letter where she asked for forgiveness if she had done anything wrong.

So that was a blessing from Community Bible Study. And then the most recent one is in October of this year when my husband and my two grandsons had believer's baptism at our little hobby farm in the country. It was done by a gentleman that used to work with Tom that turned into an evangelist in the little town next to our little hobby farm. He came out and baptized my husband and grandsons. So the blessings just keep coming.

Gary Bauer: Well, that's fantastic. I was getting ready because, in preparing for our conversation, I saw that your husband had had this happen relatively late in life. Now, did he think of himself as a believer before this and this was a recommitment? Or was this ground zero starting in a belief commitment for the first time?

Vicky Dunn: Well, Gary, my husband is a man of very few words. I've got a lot of words, and he's got very few. His love language is smoked meat and deer sausage. I am not exactly sure what Bible verse he is relying on for those. But he is alongside in this journey all the way, such a sweet, generous man, but a man of few words.

So my husband being a man of few words, when this former employee started having tent revivals in the town next to our little hobby farm, and then started a church called the House of Hope where he ministered to those that were kind of down and out, maybe drug addicted, but needed help. It's a wonderful ministry.

So recently, Tom started smoking some meat for their overcomers meetings that are on Thursday evening and delivering the meat to Carl. After Charlie Kirk died, someone in our little small town said, "Can we come out to the river and be baptized in the river?" because after Charlie Kirk died, there was this revival, as you well know.

Gary Bauer: Yes.

Vicky Dunn: Well, that planted the idea in Tom's head that he wanted to make it known. So Carl Duff was his connection. Tom's a very quiet, private man and to do it in a church with everybody was difficult. So Carl very sweetly came out. Our daughter and grandsons were there, and as Carl baptized Tom, he said, "Is there anybody else?" and then our two grandsons came forward. It was a beautiful moment.

Gary Bauer: I can imagine. My grandmother took me to church for years when I was a little boy because of various problems in our family including alcoholism. But later, after she passed away when I accepted Christ and walked up to the front of the First Baptist Church of Newport, Kentucky, I got to the front and turned around and my father had walked up with me and we were baptized together. So when God moves in these ways where the people you love and who love you are on the same faith journey you're on, that is a tremendous blessing. It sounds like you've experienced that in spades.

Vicky, you've been such a warrior and getting out there and just showing up is important. One of the things here at the James Dobson Family Institute we're trying to do is to get more Christians to overcome whatever it is, their shyness, their fear or whatever, because we need to show up. Could you give some encouragement to people about just picking an area where you want to fly the banner of Jesus Christ and go do it because there's not a problem America is facing that can be solved without Christians?

Vicky Dunn: Absolutely. And I thank you for the opportunity because I am not a leader. I really do not consider myself a leader. But I did have the Holy Spirit give me the sense of protection for this battle that we fought, and I was not afraid to go out by myself. So I would get up in the morning and Missouri Right to Life had a hotline if they would see these paid solicitors trying to get signatures to put this evil thing in our constitution and I would just go.

I would just go stand next to them with prayer and just stand there and be a presence. I didn't have to say much. I often would go to the banquets where there would be a thousand people sitting there ready to write a check, but I thought if everyone got out of their banquet chair and just put their boots on.

You know who was a big encouragement to me was Chuck Colson before he died. He died with his boots on. He's another one of my heroes. Tom and I were at his last conference called "Break the Spiral of Silence," where he encouraged us to go talk over the fence to our neighbors and just to speak. He used what happened in Germany because all the Christians became quiet.

He was up on the stage at that particular meet and he sat down in the chair and then pretty soon they called 911 and he went to the hospital and he died shortly thereafter. He was a Marine that died with his boots on. So rather than putting on tennis shoes for the pickleball court, I prefer to put on some boots. When this battle started in Missouri, we needed the churches to stand. We needed them, and I did move over to a church that was standing verbally from the pulpit for months and months and months before it. When I got my letter from the church, it said, "Welcome to the battleship. It's not a cruise ship." And I truly believe that especially when you're healthy and you can stand up and the Lord gives you breath, you need to be out there about His business. So that would be my encouragement.

Gary Bauer: That's a great encouragement. I knew Chuck Colson before he was a Christian and I must tell you I tremendously liked the Chuck Colson after he became a Christian. He was one tough customer before he found Christ. Talk about the life-changing power of the Spirit.

Dr. Dobson used to say, "As the family goes, so goes the nation." At the James Dobson Family Institute, of course, we've lost our leader but we haven't lost his vision and we are committed to making sure that we continue the fight for family, faith, and freedom. Can you say a few words about why this ministry continues to be important to you and your hopes and prayers for the future about it?

Vicky Dunn: Absolutely. So many of his resources as a keeper of legacy stones. I have his books and I'm amazed as I've gone through my mother's paperwork to see her legacy out there. I am leaving behind a lot of his works. His voice was so important and we have taken the father out of the home. That was the sexual revolution. And he was such a champion for the family, the family as God ordained it with the husband as leader, as a spiritual head. His message is timeless. So yes, I am a very big champion of his legacy.

Gary Bauer: Well, we thank you for your support and encouragement. You said a little earlier, Vicky, that you're just a blade of grass in the grassroots movement of Missouri Right to Life. You're a lot more to that and you've obviously been committed all of your life to speaking up and defending those that can't defend themselves. We love you, we're proud that you love this ministry, and we want to thank you for your service and for your prayers and continued support of the James Dobson Family Institute. We look forward to celebrating in the months and years ahead a lot more victories with you.

Vicky Dunn: Thank you, Gary. Thank you for the privilege of sharing what Dr. Dobson meant to me and my faith journey.

Roger Marsh: Sometimes the most profound acts of faith aren't the ones that make the headlines. They're the quiet, consistent choices we make to show up, to pray, and to stand for truth even when no one else is watching. You've been listening to Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk and we've been enjoying a conversation with Gary Bauer, our Senior Vice President of Public Policy here at the Dr. James Dobson Policy and Culture Center. Gary's guest has been Vicky Dunn, one of our everyday heroes who's been a pro-life warrior in the state of Missouri for decades.

If you missed any portion of today's program, or if you'd like to hear part one of this conversation, you can listen again online at JDFI.net. And if Vicky Dunn's story encouraged you, I hope you'll share it with someone who needs a reminder that one faithful life really can make a difference. By the way, keep in mind Gary Bauer blogs regularly at JDFI.net. He also hosts the Defending Faith, Family, and Freedom podcast, and if you haven't subscribed to it yet, you can do so at JDFI.net, OnePlace.com, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Right now, your support matters more than ever before as we work to equip believers to stand for faith, family, and freedom in their own communities. We invite you to partner with us by praying for us and making a donation today. You can make that secure donation when you visit JDFI.net. That's J-D-F-I dot net. You can also call a member of our constituent care team at 877-732-6825. That's 877-732-6825.

If you prefer to write to us, keep in mind our ministry mailing address is Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk, PO Box 39000, Colorado Springs, Colorado, the zip code 80949. And of course, remember to sign up for Gary Bauer's outstanding podcast, Defending Faith, Family, and Freedom. Each episode, Gary welcomes guests who speak to the pressing issues of our day, offering perspective on current events and public policy through the lens of the U.S. Constitution and an unapologetic biblical worldview. It's the kind of thoughtful, faith-filled commentary that equips you to engage the culture with confidence. Search for Defending Faith, Family, and Freedom wherever you get your podcasts. Keep in mind you can also find it on our website at JDFI.net.

I'm Roger Marsh, and from all of us here at the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, thanks so much for listening today. Be sure to join us again next time right here for another edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk, the voice you can still trust for the family you love.

This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.