Shows
Webworm with David FarrierThe Child Psychologist Who Loved ComplianceToday on Webworm I wanted you to share a conversation between two New Zealanders raised by parents who embraced Focus on the Family. Because Focus on the Family travelled far beyond America. It went global — and during the 80s and 90s in particular, millions of kids were raised in the ways of Dr James Dobson. Michael Frost and Shane Meyer-Holt are my friends, and run a podcast called In The Shift, in which they discuss coming to terms with exiting a very certain breed of Christianity. They are still Christians, just not the breed you find at the churches I...2025-03-0414 min
Flightless BirdFocus on The FamilyThis week on Flightless Bird, David looks at Dr James Dobson and Focus on the Family, a Colorado Springs based fundamentalist Christian group formed in the 70s. Using his status as a child psychologist, Dobson wrote over 30 parenting books, creating a media empire that changed how many parents raised their kids. With a very strong focus on discipline and breaking the will of the child, Dobson’s ideas travelled far and wide, ending up in places like New Zealand. With hundreds of millions of dollars in donations, Dobson turned his focus to lobbying, extremely angry that females and gay people we...2025-03-041h 23
In the ShiftAnother Level Part 1: The Megachurch Playbook [REISSUE]Episode 80: This is a first for In the Shift - a reissue of an older conversation! But in light of more stories, documentaries, investigations and interrogations of the megachurch story here in NZ, Australia and across the world in recent months, we thought it might be helpful to reissue the first podcast episode on our megachurch series - originally aired as Episode 55 in April 2022. Shane and I began talking about this because we both had history in these spaces, and there were stories hitting the mainstream about coercion, manipulation, burnout, abuse of power and just a litany of stories...2023-06-121h 13