How evangelical media ministry Focus on the Family fueled lies and insurrectionists (2024)

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(ANALYSIS) St. Paul told believers to pray for “all those in authority,” but in the days before Joe Biden’s inauguration, few Trump-loving evangelicals could find it in their hearts to ask God’s blessings on the Catholic, pro-abortion—and in their minds, illegitimate — incoming president.

Jim Daly, the CEO of Focus on the Family for the last decade, stepped up, leading the ministry’s Inauguration Day of Prayer 2021 livestream that Wednesday morning.

“It dawned on me that no one is organizing corporate prayer for inauguration day,” said Daly, who acknowledged long ago that voters chose Biden, “and it’s really important for us as Christians to pray for our country.”

But one livestream viewer, Mauricio Almeida, banged out a grammatically-challenged imprecatory prayer, which was quickly deleted: “Lord convict Joe Biden of his sin that he had stollen the elections, make him confense of this sin infront of every one.”

Focus founder James Dobson won’t be joining Daly in prayers for President Biden. Dobson founded Focus in 1977 and left in 2010 to found Family Talk, renamed the James Dobson Family Institute in 2017. Dobson has repeatedly said that “after God, his greatest loyalty is to his country!” and is now telling his followers that the outcome of the presidential election remains “unresolved.”

“Sadly, the highest court in the land didn't review a word of the overwhelming volume of evidence,” wrote the 84-year-old Dobson, whose former employee, Jenna Ellis, was a member of Rudolph Giuliani’s “crack legal team” that sought to overturn election results in dozens of unsuccessful cases.

In the months since the election, the Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family has regularly provided election skeptics with plentiful ammunition and has embraced men and women in Congress who voted to overturn state election results. Meanwhile, Focus’s partner organization in Washington, D.C., the Family Research Council, continues to claim the election was stolen, and that Antifa—not Trump supporters—may have caused the Capitol attack on Jan. 6. There is no evidence to suggest Antifa led the attack, while FBI investigations have linked several militia and far-right extremist groups to the violence.

One day after the Capitol attack, Perkins did not blame Trump, but said, "There are those who will say that the real villains of the siege were Antifa or some other fascists in disguise. And that may be true. Over the next few days, it'll be up to law enforcement to make those determinations.” In the four weeks since, Perkins hasn’t clarified who the real villains were.

Another Focus partner organization, the Family Policy Alliance, coordinates with a network of State Family Policy Councils, many of which endorsed members of the Senate and Congress that voted not to certify Electoral College results.

Powerful political machine

When Daly took over leadership of Focus in 2010, he pledged to “re-focus” the ministry toward a more engaging, less combative tone. He defended Colorado’s Democratic Gov. Jared Polis’s handling of the COVID crisis, while health-and-wealth preacher Andrew Wommack sued Polis over crowd restrictions and branded him “openly hom*osexual and anti-Christian.”

But Daly never planned on dialing back the well-oiled political influence machine that Focus founder James Dobson helped create. Before the election, Focus, Dobson and their numerous affiliated organizations promoted Trump. After the election, these organizations have promoted unfounded claims of election fraud. And after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, they’ve remained silent about the politicians they’ve endorsed who participated in or encouraged the insurrectionist mob by spreading false claims about voter fraud.

Focus is among dozens of evangelical ministries that have legally claimed they are churches to get around IRS regulations requiring ministries to file a Form 990 that reveals information on major donors. Alliance Defending Freedom, the Christian legal advocacy powerhouse founded by Dobson and other conservative leaders in 1994, will argue a case before the Supreme Court — Thomas More Law Center v. Becerra — that could further weaken oversight of nonprofits.

Focus’ income peaked at around $150 million in 2008, two years before Dobson left. In 2019, Focus took in nearly $100 million, and spent $16 million — or about 20% of its $84 million program budget — on advocacy and citizenship activities. Dobson’s ministry had income of $7.5 million in 2019.

Focus’s VP of communications declined to provide responses for this article, but Kay Cole James, a former Focus board member and former executive at the Family Research Council, is speaking out. James, president of conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, called the Capitol attack “a repulsive display of evil” and warned, “Unless we get serious about debunking conspiracies, refocusing on solutions, and winning more minority votes, we will continue to be a minority Party.”

All-in for America’s ‘most pro-life president’

Focus’s pro-Trump tilt in the lead-up to the election was evident in The Daily Citizen, a partisan news site that uses a URL that’s distinct from the main Focus web site. The Daily Citizen bills itself as “your most trustworthy news source” and claims it “offers readers news and analysis on cultural and public policy issues… all from a biblical worldview.” But in an interview last fall, Daly acknowledged to me that many Daily Citizen articles don’t address any biblical or Christian teaching.

For example, Focus is legally prohibited from campaigning for candidates, but that doesn’t keep Daly from hailing Trump as the “most pro-life president of my lifetime,” or prevent Focus’s Daily Citizen from calling the Biden-Harris ticket the “most-pro-abortion-campaign-in-history.”

Daly and Dobson were all-in for four more years of Trump, who placed Focus friends and supporters in high places (Mike Pence to vice president, Betsy DeVos to Secretary of Education, Mike Pompeo to Secretary of State, Ben Carson to Secretary of Housing and Urban Development), and richly rewarded his evangelical supporters with hundreds of judicial appointments, adopted pro-life and pro-family policies, and rolled back environmental regulations. (Focus claims environmentalism is a form of paganism, and contributed to a curriculum series for churches entitled “Rescuing People from the Cult of the Green Dragon.”)

Focus’s Daily Citizen reported on Joe Biden’s declining “current mental acuity” while applauding President’s Trump nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize. A report on the first presidential debate didn’t mention Trump’s 70-plus interruptions, but described Biden as “contentious.”

While Christianity teaches that all people sin and fall short of the glory of God, The Daily Citizen promotes heresy: only liberals sin. Reports about Democrats violating their own COVID restrictions (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and California Governor Gavin Newsom) are a regular feature. Only libs engage in political violence (“12-Year-Old Boy Assaulted by Woman for Pro-Trump Sign, Police Say”).

Pro-family politicians or insurrectionists?

In a blog post, Daly decried “rogue individuals” who took part in the Capitol attack. Those rogue individuals include Derrick Evans, a newly-elected Republican member of the West Virginia House of Delegates, who pledged, “Once elected, I will spend every day fighting for Christian values!” Evans, who filmed himself entering the Capitol, had received the endorsem*nt of the Family Policy Council of West Virginia, one of the 30+ Focus-related State Family Policy Councils created by Focus and James Dobson. Evans has since resigned.

And yet, Family Research Council’s political advocacy arm, FRC Action, has given its 100% approval rating to many Republicans in Congress who have supported challenging the election results without evidence of widespread fraud.

Sen. Mo Brooks (R-AL) spoke at the Stop the Steal rally that preceded the Capitol attack (“Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass,” he said) and is now the subject of a censure resolution.

The organizer of the Stop the Steal rally said Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) gave him a tour of the Capitol building the day before it was breeched. Gosar is endorsed by the Family Research Council, the Center for Arizona Policy (a Focus-related State Family Policy Council), and the American Family Association, even though he has strained relationships with his own family. Six of Gosar’s siblings endorsed his Democratic opponent in 2018, and three of his siblings reached out to Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) asking him to help get their brother expelled from Congress after the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol they blame him for helping to instigate.

Trump asked Mike Johnson (R-LA) to rally Republicans in Congress to join the Texas Attorney General’s case that asked the Supreme Court to allow Republican legislators in four battleground states to choose their own Electoral College delegates.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who pop singer Taylor Swift famously called “Trump in a wig,” spoke at the Stop the Steal rally via video. “Hey there, all of you happy warrior freedom fighters,” Blackburn said. “We’re glad you’re there standing up for the Constitution, for liberty, for justice.”

Focus also embraces Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Colorado’s new pistol-packing freshman representative, who tweeted that the Capitol attack was a “1776” moment. The Daily Citizen praised Boebert in a December profile, “Newly Elected CO Representative Lauren Boebert Embodies the American Dream.” The article did not address Boebert’s alleged interest in QAnon, her photos with militia members, her failures to appear in court for minor crimes, or even her Christian faith. The article did note her pro-life, pro-gun agenda. After Boebert’s gun set off metal detectors installed to protect the Capitol after the attack, Daily Citizen had her back the next day: “Democrat-Led Congress Introduces Metal Detector in Capitol, Pro-Gun Representatives Frustrated.”

Amanda Chase, a state senator in Virginia who is running for governor, attends an Assemblies of God congregation in Midlothian and has the endorsem*nt of the Family Foundation of Virginia, which is not affiliated with Focus.

In a January speech to the Virginia Senate, Chase praised the insurrectionists who attacked the U.S. Capitol: “These were not rioters and looters. These were patriots who love their country and do not want to see our great Republic turn into a socialist country.” After the Virginia Senate censured her, she doubled down. “I’ll wear it like a badge of honor, raise a boatload of money, and I will take out whichever Democratic candidate wins the nomination, and I will be the next governor of Virginia.”

None of the pro-family groups has criticized the politicians they’ve endorsed for their role in the Capitol attack.

Focus does not have an affiliated state organization in Georgia, but Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who introduced articles of impeachment against President Biden the day after he was inaugurated and called Black Lives Matter flags “Hate America flags”, said she “has a strong Christian faith” and claims her “number one policy goal is to end abortion in America.”

Standing by Hawley

Sen. Josh Hawley’s (R-MO) decision to lead the Senate effort to overturn the Electoral College results for Biden have cost him supporters and even a book contract. His hometown paper said he “has blood on his hands” and asked him to resign. But Focus is standing by their man, along with his wife Erin, an attorney who clerked for Supreme Court Justice John Roberts. Focus published a book for moms by Erin Hawley and has featured her on its radio programs. She has worked for the elite law firm, Kirkland & Ellis, but the firm scrubbed her name and bio from its website the day of the Capitol attack.

Josh Hawley has received regular coverage in Focus’s Daily Citizen, and the day before the attack, Daily Citizen published an article about a protest at Hawley’s home, quoting Hawley’s tweet: “Antifa scumbags came to our place in DC and threatened my wife and newborn daughter.”

Daily Citizen condemned the anti-Hawley protesters for “terrorizing innocent people and children,” writing, “The right to protest has been enshrined in the Constitution, but not the right to harass family members of our elected officials.” But a police report said that while the 15 protesters were loud, they left when police asked them to, and committed no vandalism.

Focus failed to show any sympathy for Michigan’s Governor Gretchen Whitmer—or any other Democratic politicians who suffer similar fates. Focus did not cover the protest that took place outside Whitmer’s home while she and her children were decorating a Christmas tree. Readers who depend on Daily Citizen alone may have never heard about the FBI’s arrest of more than a dozen men who planned to kidnap Whitmer. Instead, the Daily Citizen echoed Trump’s pleas to “Liberate Michigan!” from overly harsh COVID restrictions: “Michigan’s governor faces severe backlash after introducing aggressive and nonsensical new stay-at-home order guidelines.”

Nor has Focus sympathized with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, other state officials and their family members who have received death threats because they stood by their state’s election results. Instead, Focus amped up the invective in a video segment featuring MyPillow founder Mike Lindell that was filmed at Trump’s falsehood-filled rally at Dalton, Ga.

“He’s the biggest liar,” Lindell said of Raffensperger. “He should be put in prison for treason. I know the stuff. And (Governor) Brian Kemp. They’re corrupt there in Georgia. I never bad-mouth somebody unless I’m 100% right.”

Covering an insurrection

Just before the Capitol attack, Focus was attacking Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a favorite target. Bowser had requested 340 National Guard troops before the Trump rally, “a contrast from her response in early June, when President Trump called the National Guard into the city during protests over the death of George Floyd.” By Inauguration Day, some 25,000 National Guard troops would be guarding the Capitol area.

During its live coverage of the Stop the Steal rally, Focus reported, “Many of the protesters were kind and considerate to our team, even though we were a part of the media.” The Associated Press wasn’t so lucky. Protesters destroyed their camera equipment.

Focus also used stark language to describe the violence of 2020 protests for racial justice: “Horrific.” “A war zone.” “Violent rioting.” “Rioters who are destroying our communities” and “destroying our way of life.” And the Daily Citizen regularly condemns various dangerous mobs (the transgender mob, the social media mob, etc.)

But coverage of the Capitol attack has been muted, with one report calling it a “break-in”. Daly did describe the attack as “a stunning and sickening display of mass lawlessness,” but he seemed more incensed last September when protesters harassed him and others leaving Trump’s GOP National Convention event held on White House grounds. Daly described the “maddening maelstrom” as “mobs of individuals behaving in a vile and vicious manner” began “harassing and haranguing departing attendees.” As he wrote, “Tragically, America is awash in these types of toxic attacks these days.”

Focus blamed last year’s violence on “radical Marxists, Black Lives Matter, Antifa, the socialist Left, George Soros, the French Revolution, and “paid protestors who are committed to sowing discord and division from sea to shining sea,” but never conservatives or White supremacists, as “mainstream media and left-leaning outlets” contend.

Neither Focus nor its partners have suggested Trump had any role in the Capitol attack. So who gets the blame?

The Daily Citizen, which often serves as an echo chamber for conservative media, took its lead from a Sean Hannity Fox News segment and blamed Anderson Cooper along with other snobs in the liberal media: “If the media could be trusted to report the facts, not opinions or a liberal spin, would this chaos have happened? Maybe, but maybe not.”

Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins blamed the Capitol attack on American godlessness: “It's what happens when God is ejected from schools, courts, politics, and polite conversation— and you allow rioting and looting and burning to take over our cities unchecked.”

One Capitol protester featured in a Daily Citizen video blamed Capitol police and federal law enforcement: “It was peaceful, 100%. When they started shooting us, that’s when people started going up on the steps. That’s when you get in this country now for being a patriot.”

Ironically, Dobson launched his pro-family career by railing against “cataclysmic social upheaval” caused by those who lack respect for authority, law and order in his 1970 book, Dare to Discipline. “Without it there is chaos, violence, and insecurity for everyone,” he wrote then.

Dobson did not even mention the Capitol attack in his February letter to supporters.

Voice of the Resistance

During Trump’s final days, Focus continued to praise him. One article, “What President Donald J. Trump Did Right,” thanked Trump for “substantial gains the Trump administration made in the areas we care about so deeply: marriage, parenting, sanctity of human life, religious liberty, the importance of male and female, the courts, Israel, and peace in the Middle East.” Additionally, Trump’s alleged accomplishments include lowering America’s divorce rate and decreasing income inequality. “Thank you President Trump, to your entire family, and Administration.”

As Trump promoted his big lie of election fraud, The Washington Post’s Fact Checkers database concluded that he had made 30,573 false or misleading statements as president, making him the most dishonest president by a mile. But The Daily Citizen said Trump was not “worse or more insidious than others,” writing in a “culture” article: “To act like Trump’s lies are somehow worse or more insidious than others is a falsehood meant to slander the men and women who were hired to do a job under the direction of President Donald Trump.”

Scholar Susan B. Ridgely studies children and religion and has written a book about Focus. She said the ministry’s “alternative news” creates a “closed media community” that positions itself as a protective “bulwark against the sinful world” of feminists, hom*osexuals and liberal elites.

“Focus became one of the earliest comprehensive alternative news networks in the United States, helping to create the conditions necessary for the success of later incarnations of alternative media, such as Fox News and Breitbart,” said Ridgley, Director of Religious Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Trump weaponized these alternative news networks in ways that resonated with a large Focus audience who had been primed toreceive its messages as true since childhood or young adulthood.”

Now that Biden has hit the ground running, Focus has settled into its normal role during Democratic administrations: voice of the aggrieved opposition. The Daily Citizen criticized “so-called objective journalists” in the article, “Media Gushes Over Joe Biden’s Inauguration. Here are the Ten Most Over-the-Top Remarks.” The article conveniently neglected to mention that Chris Wallace of Fox News called Biden’s speech “the best inaugural address I ever heard” during the 60 years he’s covered them.

The Daily Citizen is also making hay out of the fact that Twitter and You Tube are removing some of its content, including coverage of Trump’s Dalton rally and an article that describes Dr. Rachel Levine, Biden’s transgender nominee for Assistant Secretary for Health at Health and Human Services as “a man who believes he is a woman.”

“We believe Twitter’s blocking of this tweet and lockdown of our account discriminates against Focus on the Family’s The Daily Citizen on the basis of our religious affiliation,” said Focus in its appeal of Twitter’s ban.

Steve Rabey is a Colorado journalist and author who has written more than 50 books on religion, spirituality, and culture (including three published by Focus on the Family). He has covered Focus since the 1980s, and his articles on religion have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and dozens of Christian publications. He is a former instructor at the U.S. Air Force Academy and at Fuller and Denver seminaries.

January 6th

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