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.
During the first Gulf War my husband was in an armor unit.
Moving forward in the night, they found themselves in the middle of a mine field. They halted until morning when they could identify the mines and move on safely. Dangerous.
It came to me that even in the midst of a huge battle where 100’s or more could lose their lives in a single action...we pass into eternity and God’s presence one by one.
All our excuses for rejecting God will be useless. At some point everyone of us is personally responsible for what we think of Christ. The rest is garbage.
Is this a hit piece on Michelle Bachmann ?
“But to millions of evangelical Christians, the Schaeffer name is royal”
Admittedly I’ve only been a Christian 6 years now but I’ve never heard of the man.
OK, so the kid of Christian Evangelicals grew up to be a hypocrite. I’m not sure why anyone would buy his book, unless they just want to feed their already established prejudices against Christians.
Quick to talk about how the Francis Schaeffer name made it possible for him to make money, I suspect the same is going on here. If he can’t get cash supporting dad, then he’ll get cash bad-mouthing him.
Has Frank ever been born again? His answer to this question will clear up a lot, I think.
If this is a hit piece on his parents, then this is a sad piece. He lived too close to the trees to see the forest. In other words, he can’t see the good that his parents did in other people’s lives.
Kinda reminds me of Ron Reagan, son of our President Reagan.
IIRC he is an Orthodox Christian having converted to Greek Orthodoxy.
>>> Francis railed against the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, Charles Darwin and abortion.
No point in getting into the latter two here, but anybody who rails against the first two or thinks the world prior to the Renaissance and Enlightment was a better place is completely insane.
Every 4 or 5 years, Frank Schaeffer comes up with some hateful screed against the religion of his father, and the anti-religious media suck it up...
Frank somehow thinks he is relevant. He isn’t. He merely provides an echo chamber for those leftists who already hate evangelicals.
The son has become a lefty. That is his main problem. He had a son fight in Iraq and he almost turned a corner. Almost. He wrote a book and I saw him on C-span. He was trying to talk about patriotism and his son and his support of the War and the military. But he did not make the turn. He just touched it and has since got caught by his hate of Christianity unless it is the lefty dribble kind of social gospel. It says something, something not good about a child who makes headline news running down his parents. Sad.
I watch an episode of How Shall We Then Live? every Friday night. Narrated by Francis Schaeffer, the series is from like 1977. 10 episodes, they rotate down the line each week. It is an EXCELLENT series that can fit totally into your life today. Timeless.
I always liked “How Shall We Then Live?”
My wife just turned 75 this past Friday (8-19-11), we celebrated our 53rd anniversay last March 8. We met at church in Indianapolis (her home town).
Her testimony, at the age of about 13, her parents sent her to a summer church Bible camp in southern Indiana. She did not want to go.
The Schaffers were not known at that time, but they were teachers at the camp. Linda accepted Christ as her Lord & Saviour while attending the Bible camp.
Over the years we received letters from and about their work, and their family. They were a blessing to both of us and our children.
We both read most of his writings and loved them, I guess its time to re-read them.(Especially:”The Mark of a Christian” and “How Then Should We Live?”
As to the left media: They are a dying breed, they would delight in a making a hero of the first man born into this world, Cain,some would try to prove: “Judus never got a fair shake!”
The other night I heard one of the sons (I really can’t remember who it was), describe it not as nepotism but “generational leverage.” If it wasn’t a sin I’d swear to it.
At bare minimum Mr. Schaeffer is not honoring his father and mother. Not the mark of a disciple of the Master.
Washington Post, 7/10/11 | Jane Smiley
“[Schaeffer’s] memoirs have a way of winning a reader’s friendship… Schaeffer is a good memoirist, smart and often laugh-out-loud funny… Frank seems to have been born irreverent, but his memoirs have a serious purpose, and that is to expose the insanity and the corruption of what has become a powerful and frightening force in American politics… Frank has been straightforward and entertaining in his campaign to right the political wrongs he regrets committing in the 1970s and ‘80s… As someone who has made redemption his work, he has, in fact, shown amazing grace.”
“Part memoir, part exploration of evangelical views.”
PoliticusUSA.com, 5/16/11
“A work that alternates from heartwarming to thought provoking to laugh out loud funny… Schaeffer brilliantly guides the reader through an exploration of the Bible’s strange, intolerant, and sometimes frightening attitudes about sex, and how these Biblical teachings, through the evangelical grassroots of the Republican Party, have come to dominate the GOP stance… Schaeffer’s writing style combines intelligence, warmth, humor, depth and insight… Sex, Mom, and God is hands down one of the best non-fiction books of the year.”
Huffington Post, 6/13/11
“Intelligent and easy to read; it transitions smoothly back and forth between story-telling and point-making prose… In his portrayal of Edith Schaeffer, Frank is able to call out the nuttiness of the religious right and to humanize conservative and Evangelical Christians in the same narrative. It is the deft work of a talented writer practicing his craft… It is a bit of wisdom our entire nation-hell, the whole world-needs to hear.”
The Daily Beast, 6/24/11
“Intriguing… [Schaeffer’s] privileged view of the Christian right’s sexual weirdness makes his account particularly interesting, and helps explain why the aggressively pious so frequently destroy themselves with sex scandals.”
http://www.frankschaeffer.com/
Frank Schaeffer (born August 3, 1952) is an American author, film director, screenwriter and public speaker. He is the son of the late theologian and author, Dr. Francis Schaeffer. He became a Hollywood film director and author, writing several internationally acclaimed novels depicting life in a strict, fundamentalist household including Portofino, Zermatt, and Saving Grandma.
In 2007 Schaeffer published his autobiography, Crazy for God: How I Grew Up As One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back
Schaeffer has written: “In the mid 1980s I left the Religious Right, after I realized just how very anti-American they are, (the theme I explore in my book Crazy For God).” He added that he was a Republican until 2000, working for Senator John McCain in that year’s primaries, but that after the 2000 election he re-registered as an independent.
On February 7, 2008, Schaeffer endorsed Senator Barack Obama for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, in an article entitled “Why I’m Pro-Life and Pro-Obama.” The next month, prompted by the controversy over remarks by the pastor of Obama’s church, he wrote: “[W]hen my late father — Religious Right leader Francis Schaeffer — denounced America and even called for the violent overthrow of the US government, he was invited to lunch with presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush, Sr.”
On October 10, 2008 a public letter to Senator McCain (and Sarah Palin) from Schaeffer was published in the Baltimore Sun newspaper. The letter contained an impassioned plea for John McCain to arrest what Schaeffer perceived as a hateful, and prejudiced tone of the Republican party’s election campaign. Schaeffer was convinced that there was a pronounced danger that fringe groups in America could be goaded into pursuing violence. “If you do not stand up for all that is good in America and declare that Senator Obama is a patriot, fit for office, and denounce your hate-filled supporters ... history will hold you responsible for all that follows.”
Soon after Obama’s inauguration, Schaeffer criticized Republican leaders for the course on which they had taken his former party:
How can anyone who loves our country support the Republicans now? Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley and Ronald Reagan defined the modern conservatism that used to be what the Republican Party I belonged to was about. Today no actual conservative can be a Republican. Reagan would despise today’s wholly negative Republican Party.
In February, 2010, Schaeffer criticized President Obama’s critics for being racist.