Family Talk

Dr. James Dobson: Welcome everyone to Family Talk. It's a ministry of the James Dobson Family Institute, supported by listeners just like you. I'm Dr. James Dobson, and I'm thrilled that you've joined us.

Roger Marsh: Well, welcome back to Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. I'm Roger Marsh. On the last edition of our program, our own Gary Bauer, Senior Vice President of Public Policy here at the Dobson Policy and Culture Center, sat down with Rich Bott, President and CEO of the Bott Radio Network, to hear the remarkable story behind three generations of Christian broadcasting.

On today's Family Talk program, they'll pick back up on the incredible legacy that Rich's family has built and what it means to defend faith, family, and freedom on the airwaves in a nation that desperately needs to hear the truth. So let's get into today's edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk with Gary Bauer.

Gary Bauer: Well, welcome back to Family Talk, my friends. We're here again for day two of our interview with Rich Bott of the famous Bott Radio Network. I don't want to waste even a second. Let's get right into it.

You know, Rich, there are so many new technologies now, and there's all this stuff streaming and the rest of it. You know more than anybody that radio and Christian radio is not dead. It is still reaching countless people. Give me your thoughts on that.

Rich Bott: Oh, well, yes, absolutely. Number one, we have a listener comment line, and we love hearing from our listeners and hearing some powerful testimonies about how God has used Christian radio in their life. There are lots of stories about how I just hopped into the car and it was tuned to the radio, and there it was, and it came on and it was just right what I needed to hear.

I call those divine appointments. The word of God is quick and powerful. It’s sharper than any two-edged sword. It pierces even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow. So the Lord's word will accomplish the purpose for which it is sent. As long as we keep the focus on the word of God and applying it in the days in which we live, the Lord will bless that. He’ll prepare hearts to receive that, and we see that every day.

Radio is still a powerful, powerful tool. There are a lot of new technologies, but radio is still ubiquitous. It's everywhere. You can't get away from it.

Gary Bauer: And it's—I don't even know what the right adjective is. If you're in your car driving or whatever and you've got the radio on, that voice can feel like that person's right there with you when you're driving. You literally almost feel as you would if you were just looking across the table at them.

I remember during all the years that I did work with Dr. Dobson how often, particularly mothers, would come up to him and say, "I had several children, my husband was traveling all the time, I was pressured, and I didn't know how I was going to handle everything. Dr. Dobson, your voice would come across that radio when I was in my kitchen or in my living room, and it would put me at ease. It made me feel like somebody understood what the challenges were that I was facing." I think that's what radio as a medium does.

Rich Bott: It absolutely does. Even though you're talking to thousands and thousands of people, you're talking to them one at a time. It's a very intimate medium. It communicates the gospel very effectively. Of course, we know that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. So we like to emphasize that as we broadcast over the radio.

Dr. Dobson's vision for family ministry came at a time when the family was ignored and being supplanted. In those early days when prayer was removed from schools, he raised the alarm. It’s such a need today, and it continues for families that want to raise children in the way of the Lord. That's part of the biblical commandment to nurture and bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Dr. Dobson's ministry over the many years—and we're so blessed to broadcast his ministry on Bott Radio Network—has been such a powerful force. I say our format is quality Bible teaching with Christian news and information. Dr. Dobson spans that quality Bible teaching because so often he talks about the Bible, but also then how to apply it in your daily life, in your family life.

Gary Bauer: Rich, a little earlier in our conversation, you mentioned that we're really in a spiritual war. Of course, that's been the case since the fall in Eden. There's a force for good and a force for evil, and that spiritual war goes on until the very end when good triumphs. That's the thing as believers we all take comfort in.

As you know, Dr. Dobson felt very strongly that not only did we need to be in our churches praising God, not only did we need to stay in the word and pray every day, but he also wanted us to be Christian citizens. He would often use his radio show over the decades to educate Christians around the country about the things that were happening maybe in their state capital or in Washington, D.C., that would impact their religious liberty, their family, their children, and so forth.

Bott Radio was always standing with him in that. Sometimes there'd be pushback by other types of radio networks, but not at Bott. He was always very happy that your family and he were on the same page about Christian citizenship. So let me ask you about that. The country's obviously in the middle of all kinds of challenges. The years that I've been involved in this, I've never seen such divisions over fundamental issues, things that are hard to reconcile. So where do you think we are as a nation? Do you think our best days are still ahead or not?

Rich Bott: That depends on what we do as believers and how we maintain a fidelity to the founders. This nation was founded on Christian principles and with certain understandings that we're created by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That's a wonderful legacy, but we have to fight for it each generation.

I think Ronald Reagan famously said that freedom is only one generation removed from extinction. So just as the founding fathers fought for those principles, we need to be faithful in fighting for them in our generation as the Lord gives us the ability to do that.

The Bible talks about the gates of hell will not prevail against it. When you think about that, the gates are not an offensive weapon; it's a defensive weapon. We're supposed to be storming the gates and advancing the kingdom of God and doing so in each generation, and the gates of hell will not be able to withstand that. So we need to be faithful, but we also need to be informed as we engage in these arenas.

That's another part of what Christian radio is all about. Family Talk is so faithful in doing that, and that's why it fills such an important role in our broadcast schedule and our broadcast day is to have programming such as Family Talk and End of Day Report to fill that void.

Dr. Dobson was such a visionary. He founded the Family Research Council, which you're so very familiar with, and the Alliance Defending Freedom and these various organizations that he was so instrumental in. We drink the water from wells which we did not dig, and we eat the fruit from trees that we did not plant. So we are beneficiaries of the legacy of people that went before.

Gary Bauer: Rich, I think you probably remember this, but when I left the Reagan administration, Dr. Dobson and I had done enough things together that he mentioned to me that he wanted to start a Washington operation. He had registered this Family Research Council. It only had a couple of employees, but he thought we could maybe make it something really effective.

I flew out to see him and I presented him a budget. I thought he was going to pass out. He said, "Gary, I had no idea it would cost this amount of money." We prayed about it, and he gave a spiritually mature prayer, not the kind of prayer I wanted him to give. I wanted him to pray for the money. Instead, he prayed that if God wanted this to happen, He would open doors, and if He didn't want it to happen, the doors would stay shut.

I thought to myself, "What kind of prayer is that?" Well, I flew home a little depressed. I found out later that before the day was over, a businessman had unexpectedly dropped by. They had a conversation, and one thing led to another, and the gentleman ended up writing a check for the entire first year of operation, except for one dollar of the budget. He told Jim to call me and tell me I was responsible for raising the rest, which was that one dollar. So I felt like it was kind of a reaffirmation that when God is in something, whether it's the tremendous growth of Bott Radio or all the things Dr. Dobson has built and the work we've been doing in Washington, if God's in it, it will work.

Rich Bott: Yes, and Gary, you mentioned something just right now: that Christian radio is teamwork. We can provide the radio platform for a ministry, a powerful ministry such as Family Talk, and we depend on the listeners to fund the ministry of Family Talk so it can afford to be on the radio and to be able to expand to more cities. So it's clearly a partnership between the broadcast platform and the radio ministry itself, together with the radio listeners that listen and support the ministries such as Family Talk.

How do people get in touch with Family Talk if they feel like the Lord is leading them to support this ministry?

Gary Bauer: You need to go to drjamesdobson.org to get more information about our programs and Family Talk and about all the things we're doing along with Bott Radio to defend faith, family, and freedom.

Rich Bott: I just want to reaffirm that for all of our radio listeners: that your role in this is critical to advance the kingdom of God and advance the ministry of Christian broadcasting to reach more and more people.

Gary Bauer: It is indeed, Rich. I want to go back to something that you brought up a little while ago on the fact that America was built on an idea. You quoted in part the most important sentence in the American founding, which is in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence where it says, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator"—not by their government, but by their Creator. And then he goes on to talk about the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Rich, most American kids do not know that sentence. I discovered this all the way back in 2000 when I was visiting schools. I started asking classes or telling classes that if they could finish the sentence that began "We hold these truths to be self-evident," I would give the first student that could do that a $20 bill. I visited over 100 schools and I gave out $40. This is all the way back in the year 2000.

The reason I think they don't know it is because the liberal teacher unions don't believe it. The very beginning, "We hold these truths." Of course, the left and the secular left, they don't believe there's something called truth. And they certainly don't believe that liberty comes from God. America's doomed if we can't get back to that founding idea, particularly on our 250th birthday. I know you believe it, and Bott Radio is dedicated to it. Talk to us a little bit more about the necessity to understand that no man is the source of our liberty. It comes from God Himself.

Rich Bott: Justice of the Supreme Court Clarence Thomas recently gave a speech, and he talked about progressivism and the progressive movement and how the progressives do not believe that these truths are self-evident. Our founders believed that everybody knows this, but the progressiveist movement doesn't believe that these rights come from God.

They believe somehow they come from government, and what government gives, government can take away. But we believe in the Creator, like our founders, and that we are created in the likeness and image of God. God gave us these rights. They're God-given. Government cannot give them and cannot take them away, but government is designed to protect them.

I believe what Clarence Thomas said in his speech was that you cannot separate the Declaration of Independence, which declares these rights, and the Constitution, which is written to protect these rights. So governments are instituted to protect these rights that are given by God. That's a wonderful legacy that we've been given.

Christian radio should be used, in my view, to help to educate people about the Bible and how they need to preserve and protect the religious liberties that we've been bequeathed by our forebears. We need to be faithful in our generation so that we can pass on these liberties, these God-given liberties, to the next generation as well.

Family Talk is all about families and from one generation down to the next, raising the next generation up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. I appreciate the fact that Family Talk has also been such a big supporter of Christian education and homeschooling, and even supporting Christian teachers in public schools who have a rough go of it these days. That's such an important part of child-rearing, being faithful to raising the next generation up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, whether they're in public schools, private Christian schools, or even homeschooled.

Gary Bauer: Dr. Dobson, before he went home to be with the Lord, I feel blessed to be able to see many of the things that he promoted and believed in, like Christian education, Christian radio, educational choice, being able to have a voucher or get a tuition tax credit to help a family that wanted to avail themselves of that opportunity.

All that work that he did, we're getting a lot of the fruit of those labors now. It couldn't come at a better time when our country is so divided and there's a serious effort underway in America—Rich, I know you're aware of this—to not only reject the idea that our liberty comes from God, but literally to go in the direction of socialism and even godless Marxism. We're seeing political figures rise around the country that reject everything that Bott Radio has been devoted to, that Dr. Dobson devoted his life to, and that I've spent virtually all of my adult life in Washington, D.C., working against.

Rich Bott: Right. You know, Gary, you mentioned going into schools and saying, "We hold these truths to be self-evident," and students can't finish that. But I wonder how many students today could actually recite the Pledge of Allegiance. I imagine you grew up at a time like I did when you were in grade school and that was the way you started your school day: turning to the flag and, along with over the intercom, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. It’s such a tragedy that we have lost that, and that's why it's so important for parents to be able to instill that into children today.

Gary Bauer: Yes, and the critics would say the Pledge of Allegiance never made anybody a patriot and some little vague prayer in the morning never converted anyone to Christianity. First of all, I think both of those points are wrong. In addition to that, the lesson they taught by beginning the day with a little prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance was that adults thought that God and country were important enough that they wanted the child to focus on those two things at the beginning of the school day. So it's sad that those things have been thrown overboard. In many schools, the pledge is supposed to still be used, but in many schools there's a defiance and a refusal to do it.

Rich, you've got a tremendous legacy. I know your mom and dad are getting up in years, but they've got to be proud as you took over the reins of Bott Radio. Quite frankly, there are some other great networks out there, but I can't imagine all that's happened in the Christian world over these decades without the active involvement of Bott Radio and bringing these messages about the gospel but also about Christian citizenship to virtually uncountable millions of people if you added it all up over the years.

Rich Bott: Well, we'll never know until we get to heaven, and we're just trusting the Lord for that. We know that His word will not return void. So we're committed to using every technology that we can to advance His kingdom by proclaiming the word of God. We're blessed to partner with so many of God's choice servants and broadcast ministries, of which Family Talk is a key partner and has been from the very beginning.

Can I give one more shout-out? I want to thank Jim and Shirley Dobson, Dr. Dobson and Shirley, for bringing my wife to me. I was married late in life, and my wife was single, and she was married late in life to me too. It was Dr. Dobson and Shirley that brought us together. My wife, Faye, worked with Dr. Dobson at the broadcast ministry and then also with Shirley at the National Day of Prayer during the years when Shirley was in charge of that. That's the year I got my first invitation to come to the Washington event at the National Day of Prayer. I think my new friend that I had met was instrumental in that. So I just thank the Lord for the impact that Dr. Dobson and Shirley have had in my life in more ways than one.

Gary Bauer: You know, Rich, you surprised a lot of us. I was convinced you were a confirmed bachelor and for whatever reason. I thought it was a shame because you're a great family values guy. But then I got the opportunity to meet Faye around the time that you got married, and she's a wonderful lady and you make a great team. It's good to know that Jim and Shirley played a role in all of that.

Rich Bott: Yes, they sure did. People said, "Well, I thought you were a bachelor until the rapture." Well, no, that's not exactly it. I was just willing—I wanted to follow the Lord's leading in my life, and that's what I found in my wonderful wife Faye, and I'm so blessed to be married to her now.

Gary Bauer: Well, that's a wonderful way, Rich, to end our time with you. These shows have been fantastic. God bless you for all that you and the Bott family have done over many decades in defense of faith, family, and freedom. All of us at Family Talk and the James Dobson Family Institute are proud to be on the same team with you, and we look forward to many good days ahead for the gospel and for our country.

Rich Bott: Let me thank you, Gary, and the team there at Family Talk for continuing Dr. Dobson's legacy with this broadcast ministry. May God bless you and may God bless Family Talk. We're so proud to partner together with you. Thank you, Rich. God bless.

Roger Marsh: Three generations of faithful broadcasting. That's the incredible legacy of the Bott family and Bott Radio Network. On today's edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk, our own Gary Bauer, Senior Vice President of Public Policy here at the Dobson Policy and Culture Center, sat down with Rich Bott of Bott Radio Network to share more of that legacy.

To hear today's program again or to share it with a friend, visit drjamesdobson.org. Dr. James Dobson spent decades championing the family, the sanctity of human life, and the biblical principles this nation was built upon. When you support the James Dobson Family Institute, you're helping carry that legacy forward so the next generation can hear the same timeless truth that has strengthened families for decades.

We invite you to partner with us today at drjamesdobson.org. You can also call a member of our constituent care team at 877-732-6825. That's 877-732-6825. Well, I'm Roger Marsh, and on behalf of all of us here at Family Talk and the 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 trust for the family you love.

This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. With today's Dr. Dobson Minute, here is Dr. James Dobson.

Dr. James Dobson: You know, I'm told that when I was a very small child, maybe two years of age, my family lived in a one-bedroom apartment, and my little bed was located beside the bed of my parents. My father said it was very common during that time for him to awaken at night to a little boy who was whispering, "Daddy, Daddy."

My father would answer quietly, "What, Jimmy?" and I would say, "Hold my hand." He said later that the instant he had my hand firmly in his grasp, my arm would become limp and my breathing deep and regular. Until the day he died, I continued to reach for him, for his assurance, for his guidance, but mostly just to know that he was there.

A dad occupies a place in a child's heart that no one else can satisfy. So to all the men out there who are blessed to be called fathers, I urge you to be there for the little ones in your life who call you Dad. For more information, visit drdobsonminute.org.