PBS has a new miniseries God In America that seeks to get “Inside the tumultuous 400-year history of the intersection of religion and public life in America.” Later, the series will look at the so-called “Religious Right” and none other than evangelicalism’s favorite self-appointed prodigal son Frank Schaeffer has an interview explaining how it all went wrong.
It is doleful to read, not because we might think he has lost his way or resents his upbringing, but because he is so self-referential. Consider the following question and answer:
Describe L’Abri for me.… L’Abri itself was a tough place to grow up, because while my parents had this great open-home policy and terrific generosity toward other people, [they were] like so many very driven, very motivated, ambitious parents who are into high-powered careers. …
I was being home-schooled, which meant sort of no school, because I was running around a bit forgotten. My parents were dealing with young adults and teens, and to be a child with everybody around you being older than you are, it was kind of different.
And then the discussions were all incredibly serious. I was into my 20s before I realized that not all kids grew up hearing discussions of who people like [Swiss Reformed theologian] Karl Barth were or other theologians, or parsing what [German Lutheran theologian and member of the German Resistance] Dietrich Bonhoeffer really meant in one of his books, or what had happened during the Enlightenment. …
I couldn’t have named one [U.S.] state capital, but I could have told you all about the tribe of Dan and what had happened between Jacob and Esau. So talking about specialized knowledge [of] a fundamentalist childhood, essentially you live in a parallel universe of biblical, not just teaching but biblical geography, biblical names, places and all the rest of it. …
When you mix into that that we were waiting daily for the return of Christ and the Rapture and would see any event in the Middle East in terms of Israel, or the establishment of the state of Israel as the beginning of the end of times and the fulfillment of prophecy, … as a child, you just kind of accept all this.
At a certain point in your life, you look up and you say: “This is really weird! What on earth did my parents have in mind raising me in this environment? How about just baseball? How about collecting bottle caps? How about something a little less heavy than waiting for the apocalypse?”
You start saying, “If I feel a little strange and alienated and out of sorts with the rest of this world, maybe it has something to do with this background.” And of course when you look at other people, and you realize that you have so many people raised in fundamentalist backgrounds, you understand why they feel very alienated from the culture around them.
Whether they still believe what they believe or not, they were raised so differently in this alternative reality, sort of a non-fact-based reality, a faith-based reality, that it leaves you alienated from your culture, which is what I think a lot of the anger from the right comes from, a sense of alienation. …
Notice how this is not so much a description of L’Abri, but a description of Schaeffer’s childhood, something that is described over and over again with each successive question (the word “childhood” comes up six times).
What is (always) interesting about Schaeffer’s account is the confused picture he gives of his father. On the one hand, he wants to build him up as a Tough-minded, compassionate man who would welcome anyone with open arms, and reject the baleful American fundamentalism that never took root in Europe. On the other hand, the elder Schaeffer is a narrow-minded conservative fool who got roped into the culture war over abortion. Schaeffer’s intellectual clout provided the foundational substance for the right-wing political agenda that co-opted his faith in the “Moral Majority” of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. In Frank’s words, his father was the “intellectual architect” of the religious right.
Who was it that roped the venerable Francis Schaeffer into this nefarious plot? Why none other than the prodigal son himself: Frank Schaeffer. After convincing his father to make a movie about the abortion issue, and after everyone in evangelicalism watched it and responded to its call to action (!), Frank Schaeffer looks back on himself as being a part of the cause of birthing Leviathan.
To be sure, there is a lot criticize in this analysis, and it is too bad that someone like Mark Noll or George Marsden was not interviewed to comment on the rise of the Religious Right. Maybe such revisionism would have been avoided. But the curious thing about Frank Schaeffer’s self-referential account is that he does not seem able to live with himself as the result of it. The gospel he seems to deny now is the only thing that could really bring him to a place of forgiveness and peace. Like everything else he has produced in the past five years this interview comes across as sad, resentful, and angry. The profile picture tells the story all in itself.
Perhaps in another world conservative Christianity would have been shaped into the welcoming atmosphere of his father’s L’Abri ministry. He would have been able to walk into a chalet just as he is and converse with others without hostility the problems and doubts that fester in the soul. But that cannot be. And no matter how many repentant HuffPo articles he writes, true atonement for his sins will never come.
October 12th, 2010 | 1:20 pm | #1
…true atonement for his sins will never come.?
may never come perhaps.
October 12th, 2010 | 1:49 pm | #2
It may… if he learns that Jesus Christ, and not his father, is the grand architect of our salvation.
October 12th, 2010 | 2:32 pm | #3
I liked the post, it was just the conclusion that made me say “what????”
October 12th, 2010 | 3:30 pm | #4
I think Adam got it right; the absolution at PBS, NPR and HuffPo is certainly provisional. Recently I commented somewhere on the FT site about Shaeffer in connection with an article someone wrote regarding another “escape,” in that one it was from the Catholic Church.
It is galling because Schaeffer is now Orthodox and is using his fame and his bully pulpit to say some rather un-Orthodox things. At any rate, his “bad-childhood” whining (about a childhood lived in one of the more pleasant environs available on planet earth) is tiresome.
October 12th, 2010 | 3:44 pm | #5
“…How about just baseball? How about collecting bottle caps? How about something a little less heavy than waiting for the apocalypse?””
Waiting for Christ to return is a joyous thing for the people of God. It’s not heavy.
The truth of God’s wrath is what it is. And His redemption of us from His wrath is marvelous and beyond all belief!
Sad this man is so mixed up in his head.
There certainly is the bad theology of “right wing” teachers. But that is no reason to reject the Gospel.
I appreciate this post. I will have to pass on this program.
October 12th, 2010 | 4:51 pm | #6
I am curious as to how one can describe a childhood as “fundamentalist” when previously he says the following: “not all kids grew up hearing discussions of who people like …Karl Barth were or other theologians, or parsing what … Dietrich Bonhoeffer really meant in one of his books, or what had happened during the Enlightenment…”
The enlightenment, Karl Barth and Bonhoeffer are hardly markers of fundamentalism in any sort of fundamentalism with which I am familiar.
Franky Schaeffer has joined the long line of inadequate and insecure folks who have decided that they only way to make ones bones is patricide.
Sad.
October 12th, 2010 | 5:04 pm | #7
btw in the post above I did not mean that I judged Schaeffer “inadequate and insecure” myself but rather that because of who his parents were, he seems to have come to feel that way about himself.
October 12th, 2010 | 5:22 pm | #8
There is much that could be said about how annoying I find Frank Schaeffer. But it would all be easier to swallow if all the self-flagellation was not based on credit he takes to himself that he does not deserve, for the current status of the religious right, for good or for ill. Are we SERIOUSLY supposed to believe that as a teenager following in his father’s footsteps, it was he, and not his father and his father’s intellectual and personal work, that brought all the things that he deplores to pass? The mind boggles at the mental gymnastics necessary for such a delusion.
October 12th, 2010 | 5:55 pm | #9
Pentamom, your right that with Franky there is that element of the rooster believing the sun rises in response to his morning crow but here is an interesting take from another quarter that sheds a different light on the tack that Franky seems to have taken:
When Schaeffer wrote “Crazy for God” a couple of years ago, there was a pretty significant takedown of the book in Books and Culture Journal by (the brilliant and gentlemanly) Os Guinness (who lived with the Schaeffers at L’Abri for 3 years). Guinness makes the basic argument that Franky – far from being the deprived child of uptight fundamentalists was simply (and sadly) spoiled: “He was more like a poster child for Benjamin Spock than the son of “fundamentalist missionaries.” Having been born well after his sisters, and having survived polio as a child, he was rarely challenged, disciplined, or denied. As a result, he grew up a “little Napoleon,” as some of the L’Abri students called him. He would boast that he could twist his parents around his little finger, and time and again he proved it.”
Guinness concludes: “In sum, the combination of neglect, guilt, nepotism, and spoiling was a toxic brew. Some sons of famous Christian fathers are pushed by their fathers into following in their footsteps, and they respond with a slow-burning resentment that comes to cast a shadow on their fathers’ reputations. In Frank’s case, he chose to steer his father’s steps for his father’s sake, so he is responsible rather than resentful. But he is responsible for what he now acknowledges was a horrible outcome, so he turns on his entire upbringing to excuse his role.”
October 12th, 2010 | 7:30 pm | #10
Schaeffer writes:
This strikes me as very odd indeed. As confessional Presbyterians, I should have thought that the Schaeffers would eschew the very notion of a rapture, which is hardly in accordance with a solid understanding of the Reformed confessions. Is this more revisionism on the part of the son? Or is there something I am missing about his family’s particular brand of Reformed Christianity?
October 12th, 2010 | 8:36 pm | #11
David, Francis Schaeffer was a minister in the Bible Presbyterian Church, a small denomination which was formed over just such disagreements in eschatology with the rest of Presbyterianism (as well as, I believe, some other issues.)
So while it’s somewhat strange for a Presbyterian, it fits with the Schaeffers. And yet, I wouldn’t be surprised if Frank’s recollection and/or portrayal of it is somewhat inaccurate and reflects non-Reformed pop eschatology more than the Schaeffers’ actual beliefs.
October 12th, 2010 | 8:39 pm | #12
David c, yes, I’d read the Guiness article before. That’s probably a legitimate take, but it’s still somewhat mind-boggling the way Frank wants to take “reverse credit” for something he was presumably, at best, an enthusiastic lieutenant of, hardly the leader or someone without whom it would not have happened.
October 12th, 2010 | 10:39 pm | #13
Frank Schaeffer created the religious right in much the same way that Stuart Sutcliffe created the Beatles.
There is, of course, nothing more enjoyable than to read Robby George’s skewering the Schaeffer: http://romereturn.blogspot.com/2010/07/robert-p-george-skewers-frank-schaeffer.html
October 12th, 2010 | 10:59 pm | #14
Yikes. I hope I never have to cross swords with Robert George!
October 13th, 2010 | 12:41 am | #15
I sort of like that Schaeffer describes L’Abri from his own unique experience. It’s honest, it’s personal, and it’s interesting–and it doesn’t attempt to be anything more. I wish more interviewees answered in this manner.
Frank Schaeffer is expressing a lot of regret, but who can deny that it’s honest and, as a sincere reflection and attempt at self-correction, legitimate? While it is entirely understandable, I think it is a shame that many evangelicals feel the need to dismiss or denigrate Frank Schaeffer, or to react towards him with defensiveness and antagonism.
October 13th, 2010 | 7:00 am | #16
My dad like many Christians in his generation spent a little time at L’Abri and his impression resonates with Os Guinness’ clear and careful rebuke of Frank Schaeffer.
Thinking about fathers and sons it’s a pity that Frank Schaeffer trades on his father’s name only to slag him off.
October 13th, 2010 | 7:26 am | #17
That does sound a bit harsh, it’s the cumulative effect of Frank’s efforts that gives that impression.
October 13th, 2010 | 8:01 am | #18
C Ehrlich,
The problem with Schaeffer’s account of L’ Abri is precisely that it is not honest (by many accounts) and ~does~ attempt to be something more — a(n) (absurd) claim that he is the originator of the Christian Right.
Schaeffer is an attention–seeking gadfly who has been circling around for years adopting one “controversial” pose after another. He seems to lack any core conviction other than that it is very hard to be him and we all ought to know it.
I think it’s a shame that Franky Schaeffer’s grandstanding attempts at ‘correction’ (both self and otherwise) have to come at the cost of trashing his parents reputation and life work.
October 13th, 2010 | 8:54 am | #19
So, it turns out, Franky Schaeffer was a PK (Preacher’s Kid).
October 13th, 2010 | 10:54 am | #20
Ohh boy! I just read Robert George’s comments. Talk about skewering.
October 13th, 2010 | 1:24 pm | #21
Adam Omelianchuk: “Yikes. I hope I never have to cross swords with Robert George!”
If you, as a staunch egalitarian, don’t insist that the Catholic Church is misogynist for not allowing women to become priests, then you probably won’t have to cross swords with Robert George.
October 13th, 2010 | 11:39 pm | #22
After reading the whole interview, I’m at a loss to understand what folks here find untrue or implausible about it. Is it implausible that Frank Schaeffer convinced his dad to pursue the abortion issue? Is it implausible that his dad in turn convinced Falwell?
While I understand why many people don’t like what Frank Schaeffer is saying in this interview, what falsehoods are you finding in it?
October 14th, 2010 | 9:59 am | #23
Francis Schaeffer, a Dispensationalist?
Oh, please God, don’t let it be true.
October 14th, 2010 | 11:25 am | #24
Wherever would one get the idea that Francis Schaeffer (a Reformed Presbyterian) was a Dispensationalist? That’s like his son’s description of him as a “fundamentalist” — simplistic to the point of idiocy and theologically incoherent.
October 14th, 2010 | 12:02 pm | #25
I don’t really get david c’s complaints. If we’re looking for comments “simplistic to the point of idiocy” I’d even offer as candidates david c’s own descriptions of Frank Schaeffer and the interview.
Don’t get me wrong. I understand why this is an emotional issue. I understand why we hate the things that Frank Schaeffer is saying. But please–let us at least make an attempt at objectivity.
October 14th, 2010 | 12:10 pm | #26
After reading the whole interview, I’m at a loss to understand what folks here find untrue or implausible about it.
The problem has more to do with the speaker than the implausibility of his account. Frank Schaeffer is a narcissist with a long history of extreme polemics, from his father’s time to the present, and he’s no more credible now than he was then. If you doubt me, read through some of what he’s written in his various incarnations, from his “Religious Right” days, through his Eastern Orthodoxy conversion to his current position as the Huffington Post’s resident religious right conspiracy theorist. The consistency throughout is his tendency to devolve into hyperbole and personal attack, with himself as the virtuous hero against a shifting array of dark powers.
To the extent that he had access to the leaders of the “Religious Right”, it was out of respect for his father, not because Frank was the prime mover in the process. It’s characteristic of him, however, to paint himself as the center of the action.
Plus, I think the program’s account of American Evangelical opposition to abortion was flawed, probably because it was derived from Schaeffer’s Frank-centric viewpoint. Historically Evangelicals and other conservative Protestants, as well as Catholics, have opposed legalized abortion. Neither Schaeffer nor his father, nor the “religious right”, for that matter, created that opposition. They gave voice to it.
October 14th, 2010 | 12:15 pm | #27
“After reading the whole interview, I’m at a loss to understand what folks here find untrue or implausible about it.”
Independent knowledge that it’s not the way it happened? Most of us have been familiar with Francis and Frank’s story and the controversy surrounding it for a while. If we were depending on the interview, it might be hard to make a determination. However, history doesn’t bear out what Frank says, THAT’s why people don’t believe it.
October 14th, 2010 | 12:19 pm | #28
Well said, halflight.
October 14th, 2010 | 1:04 pm | #29
Thanks for the feedback Halflight. While I realize that there are distinctions among ad hominem-that some aren’t as illegitimate as others–I think we must always proceed with extra care and caution whenever we find the problem “with the speaker” rather than in his actual words or argument. We’ve got to take even more care when the issue is so emotional–and when people are thereby already so disposed to denigrate and dismiss. Then, over and above these considerations, even if it is true that Frank Schaeffer has a strong tendency seek the spotlight, to favor polemical writing, and to change his own views considerably, it’s far from clear why these are good grounds for dismissing his position and arguments.
Remember: few readers of this blog require any extra encouragement to hastily dismiss Frank Schaeffer’s point of view.
October 14th, 2010 | 2:35 pm | #30
C Ehrlich,
For whatever reason, you have taken exception to my comments about Schaeffer and decided to take the ad hominem route yourself. Fine. Knock yourself out.
I too read the whole interview and found myself far less impressed than you apparently did. The account is much of a piece with what Schaeffer has been doing for the nearly thirty years during which I have been acquainted with him and his writings. Contra C Ehrlich I don’t have a problem with the messenger so much as with the message. It is shallow and occasionally just wrong in its historical understanding of the development of the streams that we now call “evangelicalism” and “fundamentalism” (and no they are not the same thing — part of the categorical error that Schaeffer makes). Second it is incredibly solipsistic. Third, it is a misleading account, at best, of who his father was. If that’s ad hominem, well I guess we just disagree as to the meaning of the term.
One final point. My comment about “simplistic to the point of idiocy” was probably overheated, and to the degree it obscured my point or offended, I apologize. That having been said, it was not a characterization of Franky or the interview as a whole as one can clearly read in my post above. Rather it was in reference to the specific question I asked — “Wherever would one get the idea that Francis Schaeffer…was a Dispensationalist?” which I said was very “like his son’s description of him as a “fundamentalist”. But for the reading challenged here it is again with less heat. Calling Francis Schaeffer as Dispensationalist is a theological/historical error along the lines of the categorical error his son makes in calling him a “fundamentalist”.
Both “dispensationalist” and “fundamentalist” are terms with specific historical and theological content. My problem with Schaeffer’s use of the latter term is that it seems to be largely ignorant of said history and theology in all but the broadest and most simplistic terms. In his mouth “fundamentalist” amounts to a dog whistle to all his Huffpo reading pals — shorthand for “oogah bogah, bitter clinger, christianist, fascistic, dopes”. It is, in fact the definition of ad hominem. To call someone in his current circle of fans a fundamentalist is to read him or her out of polite society. Frank is certainly smart enough to know this, and so too, I suspect, is C Ehrlich.
October 14th, 2010 | 3:11 pm | #31
I’ve read Frank’s book about conversion to Orthodoxy, his Calvin Becker novels, and his autobiography. I’ve also watched videos of him giving talks about becoming Orthodox and now about his turn to liberalism. The guy has issues. Is what he says true about L’Abri? I’m sure some of it is. However, it’s clear that Frank Schaeffer is very unsettled about what he believes and feels. Near the end of his autobiography he says he’s not even sure there is a God. I don’t think he’s speaking about epistemology. He’s saying he’s not sure what he thinks. He doesn’t represent evangelicalism and now he doesn’t represent Orthodoxy.
Frank is a very bitter man. Is that an ad hom? Perhaps. Better question: is it an apt description? I’m not a fan of Francis Schaeffer, so I have no dog in this fight. Frank totally lost my respect when he from defending the pro-life position in his book “Dancing Alone” to supporting the Democrat pro-choice platform.
October 14th, 2010 | 10:02 pm | #32
“Remember: few readers of this blog require any extra encouragement to hastily dismiss Frank Schaeffer’s point of view.”
And C. Ehrlich seems to need little encouragement to hastily dismiss the point of view of most readers and writers of this blog. You go right to the assumption that we’re operating on prejudice rather than having reasons not from the immediate context for our opinions, which seems like a hasty dismissal to me.
October 14th, 2010 | 10:17 pm | #33
David C.,
When you say that your comment was probably overheated, I agree. This is perhaps the main issue I’m calling attention to in this thread. It’s not really even an insight to point out that there’s a lot of emotionally-charged motivation around here for disparaging Frank Schaeffer and dismissing his point of view. It is this that we must guard against. When bloggers and commentators feed our biases, it’s good to occasionally confront them. I hope you can understand that.
On this general point, I’d encourage you to re-read your last comment alongside the prior discussion. See how your statements seem to continue in that same style which, perhaps from a more objective point of view, might still look a touch over-heated, and, consequently, even a bit skewed.
Please don’t feel the need to respond now; very likely it would be best for you to come back to this thread and re-read it at a later date, once emotions have had a chance to cool.
October 15th, 2010 | 8:58 am | #34
C Ehrlich,
As much as I appreciate the lesson in internet civility it rings just a wee bit hollow coming from someone who was willing to call a post of mine an exemplar of “simplistic …idiocy”.
This seems to the the way the game is played for you. You accuse the poster(s) of bad motives and then scold him or her for being uncivil or defensive rather than dealing with the substance of what he or she has said.
It’s tiresome and not really conducive to dialogue. Rather than coming after me or the others here about your perceptions of tone or demeanor, how about answering a question:
What do ~you~ see as the underlying “emotionally-charged motivation around here for disparaging Frank Schaeffer and dismissing his point of view”?
October 15th, 2010 | 10:55 am | #35
I’ve read two threads on this blog with C. Erhlich involving himself. Both times he gave the same advice to people who did not evidence needing it. I return the advice again to C. Erhlich … why don’t you take a blog break until you are better prepared to engage in civil discourse?
October 15th, 2010 | 12:43 pm | #36
Charlie: “I return the advice again to C. Erhlich … why don’t you take a blog break until you are better prepared to engage in civil discourse?”
I had a good laugh reading this sentence.
Particularly when I recall the multi-thread feud between C. Ehrlich and Tom Gilson.
October 15th, 2010 | 12:44 pm | #37
I think it is probably right that David C. cannot take suggestions from me. But to clear up a misunderstanding, let me just point out that the the only thing that brought David C. to realize that his “simplistic…idiocy” remark was “probably overheated” was my offering it back to him as a possible description of his own comments (#25). Perhaps I should have used a parable instead?
October 15th, 2010 | 12:58 pm | #38
Again the C Ehrlich m.o. — go after the posters rather than answer a direct question.
QED
October 15th, 2010 | 1:46 pm | #39
To the others here: on this or any thread, I’m happy to answer any questions directed to me that are legitimately related to the original post–on one condition: that there is some potential that we can discuss them in a non-”overheated” way.
October 15th, 2010 | 1:54 pm | #40
C Ehrlich writes,
“I’m happy to answer any questions directed to me that are legitimately related to the original post…”
Glad to hear it and in that spirit I will repeat the question. You have said here that you believe the criticism of Schaeffer comes from “emotionally charged” motives. What do you believe those emotional charges to be?
October 15th, 2010 | 5:17 pm | #41
The quote, from #33, is actually this:
Please notice that this statement does not entail that every criticism of Schaeffer comes from emotionally charged motives. With that misunderstanding removed, does anyone here dispute the statement?
As an indicator that I am not simply engaged in an overheated dual here, I’d be particularly interested to know if there is anyone here besides david c. who disputes the quoted statement. To advance the discussion, it might also help if those who object would articulate what it is, exactly, they find difficult to believe about the quoted statement.
October 17th, 2010 | 10:32 am | #42
Calling Franky sad or pathetic is not a prudent approach, I’d argue. Even if his endless fist-shaking at God and Edith deserves little respect. Better to ignore him. And laugh at the fact that no matter how much he’d like to run away from L’Abri, his hereditary mug is the unasked-for likeness of both mom and dad!
Forget your past, son, just don’t look in the mirror. Then there’s that name… Together they reminded me of the Bday card: Go ahead and make another wish. We will ALWAYS be your family.
October 18th, 2010 | 8:28 am | #43
[...] how extraordinarily diverse traditional Christianity is. Such differences are why, despite some thinking the “religious right” is a leviathan, we may never be a truly cohesive political force. Even the Mormons cannot hold it completely [...]
October 24th, 2010 | 4:20 am | #44
I understand where he is coming from. I’m ex-Christian myself. I don’t agree with the “anger driving the right” part, but Christianity as an entirely separate sub-culture with its own language and focus is right on. If anything he had it more rarefied than I did, by being the son of an intellectual.
At that level being a Christian is very much wrapped up in not being a part of the world, an alien and stranger to it, and that does affect a child. It can be a great consolation, but it also can alienate you like he mentioned. You can’t really believe that the world is an enemy to the things of God and not have it affect you even when you leave the faith-our views in youth make a lot of who we are.
I disagree with him in that I’ve made my peace with it, but I do get where he is coming from.
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