Unfortunately, not unheard of.
In the 1970s, Mr. Schaeffer’s eccentric, relatively obscure family became wealthy and influential. Books like “The God Who Is There,” published in 1968, made his father a hero to American evangelicals, including future political activists like Jerry Falwell.
With such a son, who needs enemies? To be sure, Frank tries to nuance the conclusion: "I once thought Dad's ability to present two very different faces to the world—one to his family and one to the public—was gross hypocrisy. I think very differently now. I believe Dad was a very brave man," one who simply had to "carry on"—the victim, presumably, of his own unresolved but inadmissible inner tensions. Yet there is no way round it. Francis Schaeffer, in his son's portrait, lacked intellectual integrity. There was a lie at the very heart of the work of L'Abri, and the thousands of people who over the decades came to L'Abri and came to faith or deepened in faith, were obviously conned too.I challenge this central charge of Frank's with everything in me. I and many of my closest friends, who knew the Schaeffers well, are certain beyond a shadow of doubt that they would challenge it too. Defenders of truth to others, Francis and Edith Schaeffer were people of truth themselves.
For six years I was as close to Frank as anyone outside his own family, and probably closer than many in his family. I was his best man at his wedding. Life has taken us in different directions over the past thirty years, but I counted him my dear friend and went through many of the escapades he recounts and many more that would not bear rehearsing in print. It pains me to say, then, that his portrait is cruel, distorted, and self-serving, but I cannot let it pass unchallenged without a strong insistence on a different way of seeing the story. There is all the difference in the world between flaws and hypocrisy. Francis and Edith Schaeffer were lions for truth. No one could be further from con artists, even unwitting con artists, than the Francis and Edith Schaeffer I knew, lived with, and loved....
- Os Guinness, "Fathers and Sons", a review of Frank Schaeffer's book Crazy for God.
“He found the television pastor Pat Robertson and some of his colleagues to be “idiots,” he told me last week, when we met for coffee in western Massachusetts.”
Say whatcha want ‘bout his book, AM; he’s sure got this part right.
Thank you for posting the Os Guiness review. A very important rebuttal to Frank Schaeffer’s criticism of his father. It really is a shame how all that turned out.
Unfortunately, not unheard of.