Saturday, June 11, 2005
FYI; on Francis Schaeffer, Jr., Fundamentalists to the Right, Fundamentalists to the Left...
About a week ago, a dear friend of mine sent the following email to a list I'm on, along with the following article...I've included my own response below the article...
***thoughts of a friend, Alice, followed by the article***
For the fans of Francis Schaeffer you can read about his son Franky's conversion to Greek Orthodoxy (now what would Dad think about that?). I guess Francis Schaeffer raised a son who can think for himself! He is a homeschool advocate, but then after reading this I wonder if he has respect for the radical movement that started the homeschool movement? I believe his father was a deep thinker and a prolific theologian, but you probably already guessed I definitely didn't agree with him on some things! So why I am sending this article out?
I just thought that people who were fans of the father and who may just buy a book based on their love of his father's writings would at least like to know what the books are about. I only just came upon this information so I really don't have much of an opinion. So this is just an FYI type of post. He seems genuinely nice, and smart, but I am not sure we are on the same page. I will read more as it appears.
Maybe I just find it interesting what the product of Francis Schaeffer's offspring is, but to be honest I was really disappointed in this article. I didn't see anything mentioned about pro-life in this political battle he discusses.
So this is just for those who like Francis Schaeffer.
***article***
Fundamentalists to the Right, Fundamentalists to the Left What my hate mail tells me about Christian factions today.
By Frank Schaeffer
I abandoned Protestant Christian fundamentalism many years ago for Greek Orthodoxy. I converted because the Orthodox tradition embraces paradox and mystery. For someone raised in a strict Calvinist home, relief from absolutist certainty was most welcome. But Christian fundamentalism has not abandoned me. It's come back to haunt me in both liberal and conservative forms. I find myself a minor lightning rod in the culture wars: apparently, I haven't chosen sides well enough. You see, I write novels and nonfiction for a living. My novels describe a boy growing up in Switzerland as the son of American Calvinist missionaries. In these books, I take what I hope is an empathetically amusing insider's look at what it's like to grow up in a home run by zealots who make it their life's work to separate themselves from the World.
My most recent nonfiction work, "Keeping Faith, A Father-Son Story About Love and The United States Marine Corps," I co-wrote with my son John. It's about the aftermath of his 1999 decision to join the U.S. Marine Corps.
So now I'm swimming in a vortex of indignant e-mail from members of both the "Christian right" and the "Christian left." Some Christian evangelical/fundamentalists who disliked my earlier novels find my latest one particularly offensive. They've written to me that they hate everything about it, starting with its "pornographic" cover (a bra and postcard of the Matterhorn are featured). In the book, the fourteen-year-old protagonist is torn between his volcanic burgeoning sexuality and a fundamentalist family so strict that he has never seen a movie, watched television, or danced (read an excerpt).
Apparently, some fundamentalists recognize themselves in the parents portrayed in the book and don't like looking in the mirror. They also don't like sex. The gist of their angry letters is: Take a number, God will kill you soon.
On the other side of the fence, my liberal readers assume I must be "some sort of right-wing war monger" because the book I wrote with my son expressed admiration for the Marine Corps. They accuse me of being the sort of imperialist who would stone Jesus to death if given the chance.
These two groups of Christians presumably don't like one another, but from where I'm sitting, they are more alike than different. To these members of the religious right and left, there seem to be only two choices: for or against their dogmas. And, like certain fundamentalist Muslims much in the news of late, they too seem to have no concept of the separation of art, culture, and religion. Dogmatic purity must be adhered to in all endeavors and the slightest deviation is a serious offense. Moreover, no one with a sense of humor about religion (let alone sex!) need apply.
I know something about fundamentalism. I'm the son of a fundamentalist evangelist. My late father, Francis Schaeffer, was a guru/prophet to his evangelical followers. Almost 20 years after his death, thousands of his books still sell each year. My father was very influential in the beginnings of the so-called Religious Right. Through his voluminous writings, he provided intellectual underpinnings for the views of tens of thousands of fundamentalists on such issues as a literal interpretation of scripture.
The Christian fundamentalists who stumble across my novels because of the family name detest them because they're about religious people and are set in Europe, where my parents had their mission. Some evangelical readers take them as biographies and are offended that the parents in the stories are portrayed warts and all, thus besmirching the memory of Francis Schaeffer. Other fundamentalists just don't like anything that pokes fun at the narrow legalistic Christianity in which they have invested themselves and with which they are inflicting their children.
Meanwhile, one liberal reader e-mailed me about my Marines book: "You seem not to understand the simple purpose and message that was Christ's life... I, for once, am gladdened that MY [Catholic] church has demonstrated the backbone to speak against this criminal invasion [of Iraq]... Yes, Jesus was/is a radical and you seem to be the kind of person in the crowd throwing stones at him for challenging the status quo." Never mind that my son and I wrote our decidedly personal, non-political account before the Iraq war was even on the horizon -- in fact, before 9-11.
And, in a letter that appeared in the Los Angeles Times (April 17, 2003), another reader suggests that my problem is that not only that am I pro-Marines but that I'm white. "Schaeffer obviously suffers from guilt based on perceived privilege of class and race. (He is white, of course.) It is the use of young people like his son for imperialist projects in the invasion of Iraq that is the shame here, not a rejection of military service..." You get the idea.
Then a reader who liked the Marine book but hated my latest novel wrote: "WHY did you write these novels? Are you trying to insult the evangelicals? If so, you are succeeding... I admonish you, remove these books from the marketplace." Then this from a fan who used the fact that my son is currently deployed in the Middle East to amplify his critique: "In your 'Zermatt' you get cheap laughs at fundamentalists who actually believe in avoiding fornication even as your own 'heart,' your son, is in harm's way. Frank, God isn't mocked. A friend of mine just died of a massive stroke Friday night. Repent before it's too late. It isn't going to matter what Publisher's Weekly said about you back in 2003 when you stand before God's throne...."
So I'm caught in the shrinking space between two calcified political doctrines of the left and right. My correspondents seem so certain of everything -- especially that God is on their side.
I hope there is still room in our polarized country for Christians like me, who don't subscribe to any one-dogma-fits-all. It seems to me that life is too short, sweet, and mysterious for us to be able to exhaustively "explain" anything much, let alone explain everything with certainty.
For those of us who write, the choice these days seems to be between picking an ideological side (and learning to see things in black and white), or being wanderers unwelcome in either hostile camp. Come to think of it, that is not a bad place to be, at least for someone who believes in paradox and mystery. (end of article)
***my response***
Well, I'm certainly no strict Calvinist by any means (nor am I a strict Armenianist- I do like what our pastor once said, "they're like different sides of the same track"), so do/would certainly depart from many views held by the Schaeffers (Srs.) in that respect. But what their son Frank here seems to have missed is that you CAN be a funadamentalist WITHOUT being a legalist! *WHA?* yes, indeed! I can comfortably talk about sex, look at a bra ('ol Frankie sure is flippant w/his ridicule of that reader's complaint there, missing the point I think (though I sure wouldn't go so far as to call it porn)..it's not the bra itself that's the issue of indecency or offense, but it's being strewn alongside a Marine's postcard, blatantly implying the disregard for propriety. Yet, I too am amazed anyone would take the time to write to complain over such pettiness, esp. when the author hasn't professed anything requiring otherwise...
Anyways, we do joke around with our kids in good sport (but certainly modesty and sexual purity are no joking matters), and we do believe that there is a time for war and a time for peace...we'll watch t.v. from time to time- and videos regularly, but we don't want/have cable hooked up to our t.v., but have lots of Christian friends that do...I do however find it hard to have a sense of humor over religion...I guess b/c to me it's just such a serious issue of eternal life and death for all of us involved...certainly some differences within Christiandom are laughable, ((NOTE: I'm not offended by what I'd refer to as self-depricating, light-hearted humor...like I said, there's plenty of laughable issues within Christiandom and the areas of religion...it's when one, through humor, makes light of the fact that Christianity is a necessary religion...as if to equalize the playing field between all the religions, w/their varying modes of redemption, THAT *bothers* me! Just a pet peeve of mine. I have no prob. w/anyone being able to laugh at themselves...actually, I think that's a necessary quality. We certainly must NOT, any one of us, take ourselves too seriously, right?! ))
*ANYWAYS!* But Biblical purity (not "dogmatic purity" or"political" as he has conveniently labeled it) is not something to be deviantly poking fun at, or trite about, in my humble opinion, and it is harder and harder (if possible even) to really find it within the Church in its unadulterated glory...the Spirit of the Law is not legalistic, but points to the Messiah (in fact sits in direct opposition to legalism) ...YET, my/our take on the Bible is, as Christians, literal, it's fundamental to every issue of our lives.
And for what it's worth, I don't know anyone who has claimed to be able to "explain everything"emphatically...does that mean we're not fundamentalist Christians? NO! Most of the Protestant fundamentalists I know (myself included) are in neither of these camps/sides he attests to. Truly though, I'm even aghast at times at some of the liberality and indecencies which some of my"evangelical/supposedly fundamentalist" Christian friends have embraced/allowed w/in their homes, for the sake of "not being legalistic". Yet they certainly wouldn't fit in the liberal/anti-war camp Frank here points to either. I have read and heard tell of those though, who probably would be. But sheesh!, this poor man sounds to have truly lost his compass...what I don't understand is how he's found solace and refuge in Greek Orthodoxy,which is known for its staunch legalism...apparently he's embraced a mystical faction, or likes that he can have his "religion", and eat it too? Guess I'm clueless?! Definitely sounds like he'd comfortably find a seat in aUnitarian/Universalist congregation (as would many others I know these days). And he definitely implies here that any fundamentalist Christian cannot intrinsically find it within themselves, nor within the parameters of their religion, to believe in paradox and mystery, yet I find that the Bible is indeed full of both...and that concept is as old as the Hebraic scriptures which I do so treasure.
Yes, certainly, many Christians (myself included) have been guilty of trying too hard to have all the answers...but I'd dare say Frank's guilty here of doing the very thing he's so despised others' doing to him....as my Dad used to say..."I WILL NOT go to church, b/c everyone there just puts me in a box as soon as they see me (with his long hair)" and yet, I now see that true as that may have been *most* of the time, he just did the same thing right back to them in return...had them all in a "church-goers" box...truly with the same measure we use it is measured back to us...ouch!
I found this article interesting, and *typical* of our times I think, maddening to me (in a good way). So many voices, so many wanderers....like sheep without a shepherd, truly. I simply think he oughtto be a bit more careful as we all *will* give account for every idle word, and he does seem to make sport here of slandering the Church in general. But then, he also seems to mock the idea of the "judgement of God" anyways, just another fundamentalist idea kicked to the curb I guess. I do think that his complaining readers have made the mistake of holding him accountable to a belief system which he's obviously (to me anyways) not even embraced, so their efforts to chastize him will/have inevitably fallen on deaf ears and become sport for a mocking tongue. I have just recently begun to read some of the writings of Edith and Francis Schaeffer, and will do so now with even keener interest even... this so sad to me, for them, and for the Kingdom.
>>Frank; I hope there is still room in our polarized country for Christianslikeme, who don't subscribe to any one-dogma-fits-all. It seems to me thatlife is too short, sweet, and mysterious for us to be able toexhaustively "explain" anything much, let alone explain everything withcertainty. >>
I agree, but let us look to the Bible together, and not sway from it...he seems to have forgotten to mention that...and I'm afraid that his GreekOrthodox brethren will not be the ones to remind him... Indeed, "life is too short, sweet, and mysterious for *US* to be able to exhaustively explain anything much", but God, in His Word has left a path for those willing to follow Him, and a foundation on which to build for those willing to dig (study) down to the ROCK! I know, I know, I'm preachin' (ranting even?!;)) to the choir here. *smiles* Thanks for listening...
Blessings, Beth...all fired up over here...and continually puzzled by all the people (some of which are in my own immediate family) who want to consider/label themselves Christians, but vehemently disregard the qualifications thereof...according to the Bible, why is this? What are they afraid of...what lends itself to this phenomenon, of which I did even, in highschool and college, used to be a part? *sighs* ... I think I'd better just lighten up and go mingle with the little people and stuffed animals in my kids' forts they've spent this entire morning building w/sheets and blankets in their rooms. Now there's a safe refuge!;)
***thoughts of a friend, Alice, followed by the article***
For the fans of Francis Schaeffer you can read about his son Franky's conversion to Greek Orthodoxy (now what would Dad think about that?
I just thought that people who were fans of the father and who may just buy a book based on their love of his father's writings would at least like to know what the books are about. I only just came upon this information so I really don't have much of an opinion. So this is just an FYI type of post. He seems genuinely nice, and smart, but I am not sure we are on the same page. I will read more as it appears.
Maybe I just find it interesting what the product of Francis Schaeffer's offspring is, but to be honest I was really disappointed in this article. I didn't see anything mentioned about pro-life in this political battle he discusses.
So this is just for those who like Francis Schaeffer.
***article***
Fundamentalists to the Right, Fundamentalists to the Left What my hate mail tells me about Christian factions today.
By Frank Schaeffer
I abandoned Protestant Christian fundamentalism many years ago for Greek Orthodoxy. I converted because the Orthodox tradition embraces paradox and mystery. For someone raised in a strict Calvinist home, relief from absolutist certainty was most welcome. But Christian fundamentalism has not abandoned me. It's come back to haunt me in both liberal and conservative forms. I find myself a minor lightning rod in the culture wars: apparently, I haven't chosen sides well enough. You see, I write novels and nonfiction for a living. My novels describe a boy growing up in Switzerland as the son of American Calvinist missionaries. In these books, I take what I hope is an empathetically amusing insider's look at what it's like to grow up in a home run by zealots who make it their life's work to separate themselves from the World.
My most recent nonfiction work, "Keeping Faith, A Father-Son Story About Love and The United States Marine Corps," I co-wrote with my son John. It's about the aftermath of his 1999 decision to join the U.S. Marine Corps.
So now I'm swimming in a vortex of indignant e-mail from members of both the "Christian right" and the "Christian left." Some Christian evangelical/fundamentalists who disliked my earlier novels find my latest one particularly offensive. They've written to me that they hate everything about it, starting with its "pornographic" cover (a bra and postcard of the Matterhorn are featured). In the book, the fourteen-year-old protagonist is torn between his volcanic burgeoning sexuality and a fundamentalist family so strict that he has never seen a movie, watched television, or danced (read an excerpt).
Apparently, some fundamentalists recognize themselves in the parents portrayed in the book and don't like looking in the mirror. They also don't like sex. The gist of their angry letters is: Take a number, God will kill you soon.
On the other side of the fence, my liberal readers assume I must be "some sort of right-wing war monger" because the book I wrote with my son expressed admiration for the Marine Corps. They accuse me of being the sort of imperialist who would stone Jesus to death if given the chance.
These two groups of Christians presumably don't like one another, but from where I'm sitting, they are more alike than different. To these members of the religious right and left, there seem to be only two choices: for or against their dogmas. And, like certain fundamentalist Muslims much in the news of late, they too seem to have no concept of the separation of art, culture, and religion. Dogmatic purity must be adhered to in all endeavors and the slightest deviation is a serious offense. Moreover, no one with a sense of humor about religion (let alone sex!) need apply.
I know something about fundamentalism. I'm the son of a fundamentalist evangelist. My late father, Francis Schaeffer, was a guru/prophet to his evangelical followers. Almost 20 years after his death, thousands of his books still sell each year. My father was very influential in the beginnings of the so-called Religious Right. Through his voluminous writings, he provided intellectual underpinnings for the views of tens of thousands of fundamentalists on such issues as a literal interpretation of scripture.
The Christian fundamentalists who stumble across my novels because of the family name detest them because they're about religious people and are set in Europe, where my parents had their mission. Some evangelical readers take them as biographies and are offended that the parents in the stories are portrayed warts and all, thus besmirching the memory of Francis Schaeffer. Other fundamentalists just don't like anything that pokes fun at the narrow legalistic Christianity in which they have invested themselves and with which they are inflicting their children.
Meanwhile, one liberal reader e-mailed me about my Marines book: "You seem not to understand the simple purpose and message that was Christ's life... I, for once, am gladdened that MY [Catholic] church has demonstrated the backbone to speak against this criminal invasion [of Iraq]... Yes, Jesus was/is a radical and you seem to be the kind of person in the crowd throwing stones at him for challenging the status quo." Never mind that my son and I wrote our decidedly personal, non-political account before the Iraq war was even on the horizon -- in fact, before 9-11.
And, in a letter that appeared in the Los Angeles Times (April 17, 2003), another reader suggests that my problem is that not only that am I pro-Marines but that I'm white. "Schaeffer obviously suffers from guilt based on perceived privilege of class and race. (He is white, of course.) It is the use of young people like his son for imperialist projects in the invasion of Iraq that is the shame here, not a rejection of military service..." You get the idea.
Then a reader who liked the Marine book but hated my latest novel wrote: "WHY did you write these novels? Are you trying to insult the evangelicals? If so, you are succeeding... I admonish you, remove these books from the marketplace." Then this from a fan who used the fact that my son is currently deployed in the Middle East to amplify his critique: "In your 'Zermatt' you get cheap laughs at fundamentalists who actually believe in avoiding fornication even as your own 'heart,' your son, is in harm's way. Frank, God isn't mocked. A friend of mine just died of a massive stroke Friday night. Repent before it's too late. It isn't going to matter what Publisher's Weekly said about you back in 2003 when you stand before God's throne...."
So I'm caught in the shrinking space between two calcified political doctrines of the left and right. My correspondents seem so certain of everything -- especially that God is on their side.
I hope there is still room in our polarized country for Christians like me, who don't subscribe to any one-dogma-fits-all. It seems to me that life is too short, sweet, and mysterious for us to be able to exhaustively "explain" anything much, let alone explain everything with certainty.
For those of us who write, the choice these days seems to be between picking an ideological side (and learning to see things in black and white), or being wanderers unwelcome in either hostile camp. Come to think of it, that is not a bad place to be, at least for someone who believes in paradox and mystery. (end of article)
***my response***
Well, I'm certainly no strict Calvinist by any means (nor am I a strict Armenianist- I do like what our pastor once said, "they're like different sides of the same track"), so do/would certainly depart from many views held by the Schaeffers (Srs.) in that respect. But what their son Frank here seems to have missed is that you CAN be a funadamentalist WITHOUT being a legalist! *WHA?* yes, indeed! I can comfortably talk about sex, look at a bra (
Anyways, we do joke around with our kids in good sport (but certainly modesty and sexual purity are no joking matters), and we do believe that there is a time for war and a time for peace...we'll watch t.v. from time to time- and videos regularly, but we don't want/have cable hooked up to our t.v., but have lots of Christian friends that do...I do however find it hard to have a sense of humor over religion...I guess b/c to me it's just such a serious issue of eternal life and death for all of us involved...certainly some differences within Christiandom are laughable, ((NOTE: I'm not offended by what I'd refer to as self-depricating, light-hearted humor...like I said, there's plenty of laughable issues within Christiandom and the areas of religion...it's when one, through humor, makes light of the fact that Christianity is a necessary religion...as if to equalize the playing field between all the religions, w/their varying modes of redemption, THAT *bothers* me! Just a pet peeve of mine. I have no prob. w/anyone being able to laugh at themselves...actually, I think that's a necessary quality. We certainly must NOT, any one of us, take ourselves too seriously, right?! ))
*ANYWAYS!* But Biblical purity (not "dogmatic purity" or"political" as he has conveniently labeled it) is not something to be deviantly poking fun at, or trite about, in my humble opinion, and it is harder and harder (if possible even) to really find it within the Church in its unadulterated glory...the Spirit of the Law is not legalistic, but points to the Messiah (in fact sits in direct opposition to legalism) ...YET, my/our take on the Bible is, as Christians, literal, it's fundamental to every issue of our lives.
And for what it's worth, I don't know anyone who has claimed to be able to "explain everything"emphatically...does that mean we're not fundamentalist Christians? NO! Most of the Protestant fundamentalists I know (myself included) are in neither of these camps/sides he attests to. Truly though, I'm even aghast at times at some of the liberality and indecencies which some of my"evangelical/supposedly fundamentalist" Christian friends have embraced/allowed w/in their homes, for the sake of "not being legalistic". Yet they certainly wouldn't fit in the liberal/anti-war camp Frank here points to either. I have read and heard tell of those though, who probably would be. But sheesh!, this poor man sounds to have truly lost his compass...what I don't understand is how he's found solace and refuge in Greek Orthodoxy,which is known for its staunch legalism...apparently he's embraced a mystical faction, or likes that he can have his "religion", and eat it too? Guess I'm clueless?! Definitely sounds like he'd comfortably find a seat in aUnitarian/Universalist congregation (as would many others I know these days). And he definitely implies here that any fundamentalist Christian cannot intrinsically find it within themselves, nor within the parameters of their religion, to believe in paradox and mystery, yet I find that the Bible is indeed full of both...and that concept is as old as the Hebraic scriptures which I do so treasure.
Yes, certainly, many Christians (myself included) have been guilty of trying too hard to have all the answers...but I'd dare say Frank's guilty here of doing the very thing he's so despised others' doing to him....as my Dad used to say..."I WILL NOT go to church, b/c everyone there just puts me in a box as soon as they see me (with his long hair)" and yet, I now see that true as that may have been *most* of the time, he just did the same thing right back to them in return...had them all in a "church-goers" box...truly with the same measure we use it is measured back to us...ouch!
I found this article interesting, and *typical* of our times I think, maddening to me (in a good way
>>Frank; I hope there is still room in our polarized country for Christianslikeme, who don't subscribe to any one-dogma-fits-all. It seems to me thatlife is too short, sweet, and mysterious for us to be able toexhaustively "explain" anything much, let alone explain everything withcertainty. >>
I agree, but let us look to the Bible together, and not sway from it...he seems to have forgotten to mention that...and I'm afraid that his GreekOrthodox brethren will not be the ones to remind him... Indeed, "life is too short, sweet, and mysterious for *US* to be able to exhaustively explain anything much", but God, in His Word has left a path for those willing to follow Him, and a foundation on which to build for those willing to dig (study) down to the ROCK! I know, I know, I'm preachin' (ranting even?!;)) to the choir here. *smiles* Thanks for listening...
Blessings, Beth...all fired up over here...and continually puzzled by all the people (some of which are in my own immediate family) who want to consider/label themselves Christians, but vehemently disregard the qualifications thereof...according to the Bible, why is this? What are they afraid of...what lends itself to this phenomenon, of which I did even, in highschool and college, used to be a part? *sighs* ... I think I'd better just lighten up and go mingle with the little people and stuffed animals in my kids' forts they've spent this entire morning building w/sheets and blankets in their rooms. Now there's a safe refuge!;)
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