Remembering Ed Dobson: By Stan Gundry
This post by Dr. Stan Gundry was originally published on the Bible Gateway Blog. Read the full article.
Edward G. Dobson, known as Dr. Dobson to some, as Pastor Dobson to others, as author to still others, and as Eddie to many close friends, died on December 26, 2015. I was his publisher, he was my pastor, but to me he was “Ed.” I have prayed for him many times since he was diagnosed with ALS in the year 2000, a disease that he fought valiantly but that finally got the better of him.
My first contact with Ed came in the mid 1980s, but given the nature of our contact, I would not have dreamed that we would ever be close. You see, at the time he was associated with Liberty University, involved with the Moral Majority, the right-hand man for Jerry Falwell, and Editor-in-Chief for the Fundamentalist Journal. In fact, my first contact with Ed came when he wrote me as Editor of the Journal and asked me to write an article for it. At the time I had little idea of who Ed was, but I did know that I was not Jerry Falwell’s kind of Fundamentalist (I am willing to be called a Fundamentalist, though, in the original sense of the term, that is, as one who believes and accepts the Fundamentals of the Christian faith). I do not even remember what Ed asked me to write about, but I do remember that I did not even bother to respond to his invitation.
Fast forward to 1987 when Ed left Liberty University and accepted the call to become the pastor of Calvary Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan where I live and work. I occasionally attended Calvary and was apprehensive about its future with Ed as pastor. I wondered if he would attempt to reshape the church in the image of Thomas Road Baptist Church and Jerry Falwell. But what I did not know was that Ed himself had become disillusioned with the rationale behind the Moral Majority that cultural and moral problems could be successfully addressed through the political process. So, while he remained a close and loyal friend of Jerry Falwell, Ed moved on and eventually we at Zondervan published the book he co-authored, Blinded by Might, a book that explores the futility, mistaken priorities, and temptations associated with what he had left behind when coming to Calvary Church...
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