Posted on 04/23/2005 1:37:59 PM PDT by Destro
Evangelical heavyweight Schaeffer turned to Orthodox Christianity
04:54 PM CDT on Friday, April 22, 2005
By ROBIN GALIANO RUSSELL / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
Frank Schaeffer is a "trophy" Orthodox convert. His father was the renowned evangelical theologian and philosopher Francis Schaeffer, who founded L'Abri Fellowship, a Christian center in Switzerland where individuals can seek answers to spiritual questions.
He's often asked to speak at conferences, such as the Festival of Orthodox Christianity sponsored earlier this year by Dallas-area churches. He is outspoken, articulate and funny, with the kind of biting wit that comes from having been an insider in evangelical circles.
Mr. Schaeffer says he spent the 1970s and 1980s as a "sidekick" to his famous father, directing evangelical films, speaking and writing books for the Christian market.
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
Some maintain their integrity, he said, like Billy Graham or his father; many do not. He began to be dissatisfied with a tagalong ministry.
"I could have had a career in that, as the mantle-passed Francis Schaeffer heir. I was good at it, but I didn't have a calling. I would have lost my faith and I would have lost my integrity as a writer," he said.
Mr. Schaeffer felt evangelical worship had moved away from its biblical origins and become entertainment-oriented, with "all those bells and whistles keeping people amused." Megachurches that measured their success in numbers and dollars felt too much like the Hollywood film industry he worked in, he said.
In the mid- to late 1980s, he began to dissociate himself completely from that world, seeking a faith that would be his own, instead of being tied to his career as a Christian filmmaker or his father's reputation. He began studying church history and attending Roman Catholic and Episcopal churches.
But he couldn't reconcile the idea of the papacy, and the modern, stripped-down Catholic services he attended, with their "happy, clappy nonsense," felt less liturgical and even more Protestant than the services he grew up with.
At the urging of a friend, he visited an Orthodox church, where he said he found authentic Christian worship. In 1990 he was chrismated, or anointed, into the church as a member.
Though his journey to Orthodoxy began before his father died, Mr. Schaeffer said his father would not have disagreed with his conversion. In fact, Francis Schaeffer's last book was The Great Evangelical Disaster.
"He and I agreed on the critique that led me out of it. He was a stern critic, and was very much not an American evangelical at the end of his life. He described himself as a historic Christian instead," Mr. Schaeffer said.
His father also had a friendly relationship with Mother Teresa and British author and journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, who became Roman Catholic. Those friendships, said Mr. Schaeffer, were in stark contrast to how the elder Schaeffer might have responded earlier in his Reformed Presbyterian life: "He would have said they were going to hell."
He finds it amusing that the Christian right holds his father up as a hero. He insists his father would have disagreed with much of modern evangelicalism. (Then again, evangelicals also revere C.S. Lewis, a British writer and Christian apologist, who was a high-church Anglican.)
"The evangelical movement doesn't have many 20th-century heroes," he said.
Mr. Schaeffer has been a writer and novelist for several decades. He and his wife launched Regina Orthodox Press to publish books about the Orthodox Church for people who are unfamiliar with the faith.
His semi-autobiographical and humorous novels center on growing up in an evangelical family (his fourth is due out next year) and he's written two nonfiction books about his son in the military, including the best-seller Keeping Faith.
His son's experience in Iraq gave him an appreciation for the discipline of the U.S. Marine Corps. Not unlike the Orthodox Church, in fact.
"No one is going to come in and do it their own way. And you have to acquire the humility to walk the same path others have walked before you. Orthodoxy does not meet you halfway."
Ping
Ouch!
Yes, but we had that coming.
Interesting. A RC Priest who ministers to those in the Soho district of England remarked on EWTN Radio that the RC U.S. Soldiers were the best catechized young men he'd ever encountered.
What'll be neat is that many "non-orthodox" folks will be in heaven too. :-)
No doubt about it.
You should click and read the link I provided.
Ouch!
I agree, but... well, I think that there's Catholic, and then there's CATHOLIC.
I bet Schaeffer would have liked a mass done by JPII. I think that he might like one by Pope Benedict XVI, as well, or any of a number of Eastern European, or African or Chinese... etc., priests.
The problem is with the anti-Christian liberals who dominate the Catholic Church in the US and Europe (along with the liberation theology clique of Latin America) who place politics ahead of God. The same pernicious problem has invaded many of the Protestant churches as well. I attended a church as a teen where the minister (who later headed the uber liberal World Council of Churches) told my older sister, when she was confused about the notion of The Trinity, "don't worry about it, God is just a myth, anyway."
I, personally, think that there are Mosques where God is revered and truly loved, along with Buddhist Temples and Jewish Synagogues. Anywhere God is truly loved is a holy place, suitable to worship Him. If allowed, I would praise His Name in any of those places.
Billy Graham (whose ministry I served as a 14 year old youth counselor in 1969 at Shea Stadium) and Mother Theresa have presented that true love. I think the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu (regardless of my political differences with them) have as well. My late uncle William's evangelical ministry after World War II (he made a promise to God on the Normandy Beaches that he would serve Him if he lived through the war, and both kept the deal) still serves as a model for real American evangelicals (tapes of his sermons are still used in teaching).
I have another uncle (by marriage, thank The Lord) who was kicked out of Bob Jones for being too "out there" and "fundamental" (now that's extreme). I was caned while a teenager by a teacher at the evangelical school he founded (on an abandoned Nike missile base, of all places) for daring to suggest that Evolution and Genesis might not contradict each other. Truly worshipping God wasn't part of their agenda (making inflammatory statements was part of mine, however, even if I didn't realize it)
Jimmy Swaggert ain't in the right place either. Neither was the Ayatollah Khomeni, nor the US Catholic Bishops and Cardinals who spent more time covering up the homosexual seminaries than protecting their parishioners from pedophile priests.
The Orthodox Church also has it's political/heretical priests. Think about their pro-Arab and anti-Jew aid to the PLO terrorists over the last 30 years. It's not the church, it's the intent of the people involved.
I am personally fascinated by the pre-schism Celtic Orthodox Christianity of people like St Columba and St Patrick. I am also fascinated by the devotion, unto torture and death, of people like De Molay and his brothers, who have stood as condemned heretics for more than 700 years, yet whose only real crime was in opposing a French King who murdered two Popes and raped the Catholic Church. Yet the Catholic Church still condemns De Molay and his order and acknowledges the anti-Popes the French King imposed on the Catholic Church, even though one of the murdered Popes had excommunicated the King.
Real Politik in the service of God.
In the end it's really only about God, not denomination.
No question about it. I know I shouldn't probably say this, but I will anyway, I'd go even farther and assert that many don't even really believe in God. That they are real, true atheists, no matter their protestations. They're like a plague.
... "don't worry about it, God is just a myth, anyway."
And this is a great illustration of my assertion about their atheism. The liberation theology guys were no different. Also, they aren't stupid. They recognize the power that comes with acquiring a historical pedigree. They could never accomplish their goals starting from the ground up. Never!
I was caned while a teenager by a teacher at the evangelical school he founded (on an abandoned Nike missile base, of all places) for daring to suggest that Evolution and Genesis might not contradict each other. Truly worshipping God wasn't part of their agenda (making inflammatory statements was part of mine, however, even if I didn't realize it)
A bit of tit for tat here, but I was forced to shovel a very small part of a driveway, on my hands and knees, with a teaspoon. Me and another girl who were throwing a few snowballs around. We were both 10. Strangely enough, I don't resent it. My friend and I were yuking it up while we were out there. Inventive type of punishment, don't you think? I swear a couple of my Nuns were Marines at heart.
I am personally fascinated by the pre-schism Celtic Orthodox Christianity of people like St Columba and St Patrick.
I can see why. Don't let anybody fool you though, St. Patrick was really Roman. :) As an Italian, I'm always undeservedly ready to glom on to the glory of a fellow tribesman.
God bless!
Thanks, Destro. I really appreciate it.
The Communist hammer also fell on the Orthodox and they survived and prospered. The reason the Orthodox did not go into soul searching in the areas of temporal vs. spiritual is because the seperation of Church from assuming temporal kept it alive and enduring.
There's a good book available called "Coming Home", the story of a dozen or so former ministers from various protestant denominations who have discovered the truth of Orthodoxy. (Available through www.conciliarpress.com )
As am I.
Happy St. Patrick's Day! Orthodox Christianity in the Celtic British Isles
I am an evangelical (Methodist) who is fascinated by Columba, Patrick, and Aidan. Our roots, of course, connect to these celtic orthodox via the Anglicans -> Celtics.
Nonetheless, my being impressed with these Christians should be viewed no differently than my being impressed by modern saints who expend so much for the Lord. Shaeffer is short-sighted and insulting to me by claiming my regard for them is "hero" worship. I believe that I, too, can discern such things. I believe that many of my fellow evangelicals can as well.
Also, what he calls "happy clappy" is generally designed to attract interested unbelievers to look a little deeper.
The mega-churches have some solid success with it in our culture.
The great contribution of Patrick and Aidan was their insight into using the culture of the natives as a springboard to getting them to listen.
Yes, they are heroes of mine. "Heroes of the faith."
http://battle1066.com/intro.shtml
This battle of hastings site has many religious links that were precursors to William the Conqueror. One of William's intended tasks in the invasion was to gain England for Roman style Christianity.
You might find it interesting.
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