The Dude: Ah, that must be exhausting.
Posted on 10/07/2011 1:10:41 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Once a self-identified founding member of the American “religious right,” Franky Schaeffer now says that “religion is dumb” and “man made.” Although Schaeffer grew up among some of the most influential evangelicals of the twentieth century, and worked as one of them during much of his adult life, he now believes the Bible is a fraud and that Christianity teaches “misogynistic” practices.
Schaeffer, the son of the late evangelical theologian, philosopher, and founder of the L’Abri Fellowship, Francis Schaeffer, discussed his newest book at the Kansas City Public Library on September 27, 2011. His recent book, Sex, Mom, and God: How the Bible's Strange Take on Sex Led to Crazy Politics--and How I Learned to Love Women (and Jesus) Anyway tells the story of Schaeffer’s conservative Christian upbringing, and how his mother, Edith Schaeffer, is “a woman who’s better than her theology.” Her theology is that of the “religious right” that Schaeffer now hates and the book tells the story of how the religious right has supposedly ruined America, as politics have “been folded into ‘bring America back to God.’” More broadly, he said, the book’s message is to “not make generalizations about each other,” because there are many people just like his mother among evangelicals.
The problem, Schaeffer explained, is belief with certainty. “Certainty kills,” he explained,“no one ever bombed an abortion clinic or a mosque after yelling ‘but I could be wrong.’” That example he said, “sums up the difference of my philosophy now and where I would have been speaking 35 or 40 years ago to you about all my certainties of who the bad guys are and who the good guys” are. Now he believes, with seeming certainty, that the Bible is the “unauthorized [biography] about the deity” written by “bronze age schmucks who were finding ways to control their wives and daughters ... who in hindsight were trying to say ‘see? God made us do it so it’s ok.’”
“Life is not long enough to conclude anything, it’s only enough to try your best along the way,” Schaeffer said, and further, “if salvation is correct doctrine, then everyone is lost.” To those who hold religious beliefs he said, “believe me, you will someday reach a point where you know that was dumb.” Schaeffer said his life, “for better or worse, worse mainly, happens to intersect the rise of the the religious right in America, which also happens to have ruined the United States.” He believes a deity exists, and accepts some select moral teachings from Christianity but, “Jesus had to be separated in my mind from a political movement before I could even consider looking at the teaching again as anything but an appendage of a system that failed.”
Schaeffer presented his views as an alternative to the opposing views of “new atheists” such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, and orthodox Christians. “Secularism” is not the answer, he said, it “is not what it’s cracked up to be,” but also, “it’s not God’s fault that there’s dumb stuff in the Bible.” According to Schaeffer, we are not “stuck with the stupidity of Christianity,” but are free to create our own conception of God, reality, and morality. Not believing in the Christian God “doesn’t mean that a God that loves me … and created love and personality and relationships in a universe that otherwise would be dark and cold isn’t out there.”
For many years a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Schaeffer believes that “the God of the Bible [is] distinct from any deity that might be out there, he, she or it.” It is dogmatic belief in the Bible and the God of the Bible that, according to Schaeffer, has ultimately caused “the rise of the religious right and the decline of the country it has so impacted.” He claimed there is a “direct relationship between the religious right” and “what’s happening worldwide with our economy right now,” because “the people who are in Congress are ideologues” driven by “theologicized politics.” This is problematic because “when you put a theological twist on anything, the person who disagrees with you is therefore lost” and in disagreements, “you’re not mistaken about abortion or tax policy, you’re an agent of Satan.”
Schaeffer claimed he neither sides with the right or the left because he has “seen the same blood in your eye fundamentalist zeal in both camps.” In the end of his talk, he was at least somewhat consistent, and said “if you disagree with me, you’re not going to hell, you’re probably right!”
Book pimping.
“Certainty kills,” he explained
Is he certain of this?
“Life is not long enough to conclude anything, it’s only enough to try your best along the way,”
Is he certain of this? And, what was his statement if not a conclusion (two)?
“if salvation is correct doctrine, then everyone is lost.”
Say what? If salvation is correct doctrine, then those who follow the doctrine are saved. If not, then they are lost. Is Schaeffer babbling here? Or is the babbling being committed by the writer of this piece (Kristin Rudolph)?
“To those who hold religious beliefs he said, “believe me, you will someday reach a point where you know that was dumb.”
That’s what Atheists say. Nothing new here.
“Schaeffer said his life, “for better or worse, worse mainly, happens to intersect the rise of the religious right in America, which also happens to have ruined the United States.”
The “religious right,” as it ultimately came to be known, was a product of the Eighties in response to the phenomenal rise of Ronald Reagan, and Christianity’s growing awareness that they could not continue to ignore the increasing attacks launched against them by Atheists and other Progressive Socialists.
How Schaeffer can pin the “ruin” of America on the “religious right” escapes all comprehension. Christianity (much less the “religious right”) has had precious little influence on American institutions for over seventy years.
“Schaeffer claimed he neither sides with the right or the left”
Snort! Yet he spouts the standard schtick of the Left’s playbook.
>> Franky Schaeffer now says that “religion is dumb” and “man made.”
Christianity is not a religion, Schaeffer, you damn idiot.
Yes he was a strong pro-lifer long ago. His arguments in one of his books are why I am as pro-life as I am today. It is sad to see, and puzzling.
he isn’t being very logical.
Give me a good atheist like Hume any time.
Amen & Amen!
“But to as many as received Him to them gave He the power to become the Sons of God.” (John 1:12)
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)
Schaeffer presented his views as an alternative to the opposing views of “new atheists” such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, and orthodox Christians. “Secularism” is not the answer, he said, it “is not what it’s cracked up to be,” but also, “it’s not God’s fault that there’s dumb stuff in the Bible.” According to Schaeffer, we are not “stuck with the stupidity of Christianity,” but are free to create our own conception of God, reality, and morality. Not believing in the Christian God “doesn’t mean that a God that loves me … and created love and personality and relationships in a universe that otherwise would be dark and cold isn’t out there.”
The mishmash in his head is probably typical of quite many, if not the majority, of secularized Americans. The only news here is the late Calvinist thinker Francis Schaeffer failed to pass on his faith to his son.
There is no “dumb stuff” in the Bible, only “dumb people” who refuse to rightly divide God’s truth so they won’t be ashamed as workmen for the Lord. Those are the people who end up in cults, believing there is more than God’s Word to mankind. They want a little more. Something extra. Something that they can touch, smell, taste, hear, or see to satisfy them.
True. Frankie's mistake is easier to make for a Protestant who does not understand the typology of the Old Testament.
Something that they can touch, smell, taste, hear, or see
That is why Christ came incarnate rather than in a book form.
NOW we know Him by the Spirit. Not in things we can SEE, HEAR, SMELL, TASTE, or TOUCH.
What kind of certainty is he talking about? Is this pre- or postmodern science?
So the guy never accepted Jesus as his Savior and doesn’t have a clue about things of the Spirit but yet he’s an authority on Christianity...Does any one really listen to this guy???
The only reason he gets any attention at all is because of who he is biologically related to, not for any accomplishments of his own.
“And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.” Luke 24:51.
I feel so sorry for Franky that he has lost his way. But if he comes to the point of acknowledging he is a sinner and claims Christ’s forgiveness, he can yet be saved and become useful to God.
The Dude: Ah, that must be exhausting.
Is he certain of that?
Yes!
THEREFORE (Because He was carried up into heaven)
"Wherefore HENCEFORTH know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet NOW HENCEFORTH know we him NO MORE." 2 Cor. 5:16.
He cannot be known NOW by what we feel, taste, hear, smell or see. Which seems to include the Eucharist. And visions and apparitions. And crosses with Christ hanging on them. And so on.
"Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh"
It doesn't just say we don't know Jesus Christ in the flesh, but that we don't know anybody ("no man") in the flesh. Now obviously, we can know people by what we feel, taste, hear, smell or see. We all know people through our senses. So what does St. Paul mean when he says we know "no man" in the flesh? Clearly he does not mean that we are all now disincarnated. We have bodies. We are not disembodied. And neither is Christ disincarnated or disembodied. He arose bodily; He ascended bodily.
Where is Christ? He is now at the right hand of the Father in His glorious, resurrected body.
He is also in the Eucharist, for He said "This is My body."
He is also in us, and we are His body. We are the mystical body of Christ.
We now know "no man" in the flesh: we do not think of ANY person in an exclusively mechanistic/materialistic manner anymore. We do not think of persons as limited to matter and energy, time and space. We are embodied spirits: enspirited bodies. We not just "things".
When we imagine persons as just "things" bound by the laws of time and space, we are thinking in the flesh.
Don't you believe that we are the Body of Christ; and the bread He blesses is the Body of Christ (as He said "This IS My Body"); and He is in heaven, having risen in the flesh, and is seated at the right hand of the Father?
He is capable of doing this. Of course He can. Goodness gracious, even electrons and protons can bilocate (LINK!).
And that's just a material phenomenon. It's not even spiritual. It's mere quantum mechanics. And do you think that Jesus Christ, in His totality, His body, blood, soul and divinity, could not even do what an electron can do, and be two places at once??
He is so much greater than what we can grasp in our carnal minds.
P.S. This is coming to you from don-o's account, since I am using my husband's computer right now. [I am not bilocating :o) ] But if you care to respond, please ping it to Mrs. Don-o.
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