Half a cheer each for Phil and Justin
December 15, 2008
While we're in a Dutch auction of mutual appreciation, I'll lower the bar yet further....
Here's a further link to a Frank Schaeffer's response to Os Guinness. And, just for good measure, a link to an article on the Huffington Post by FS on Mormonism which gives pause for thought on issues of co-belligerence here.
I doubt that I'll regret getting the book. I know it's probably nuts, and full of the kind of spin that one has come to expect of FS; but at the very least, it will be useful as an artefact of recent Christian history.
The whole thing raises a series of different questions:
How do we write Christian history/biography/memoir in a way that is not uncritically hagiographic nor mindlessly iconoclastic? Too often, the phrase `he/she had his/her faults and was not perfect' operates as kind of throat clearing before a narrative which excuses, whitewashes, relativises, or simply ignores said faults. And anyone who raises such questions is frequently subject to accusations of distortion, rationalism, selling out etc etc. Witness the response in the Banner of Truth in the mid-90s to Harry Stout's biography of Whitefield. Or the response to anyone who offers any criticism of Martyn Lloyd-Jones.
How do children of Christian public figures such as pastors, teachers etc. handle their parents faith? My own kids have certainly struggled at times with the kind of `Christian' nutjobs who scream about their dad on the internet. Nice. Well, Frank Schaeffer grew up in an enviable -- and uneviable -- situation. Being messed up by that is not entirely unexpected. Indeed, perhaps the one thing that makes me grateful to have grown up in a non-Christian home is -- whatever else has screwed me up, it isn't the religious world of my parents.
Then, finally, it strikes me that the anger at Frank Schaeffer predates his novels and books about his parents and goes back to his switch to Greek Orthodoxy. It always seems starnge to me that evangelicals like Frank Schaeffer and even Francis Beckwith who lose their evangelical faith and move consistently with that to non-evangelical churches are subject to more criticism from the evangelical constituency than those who lose their evangelical faith but still remain within the Pale of evangelicalism because it is their power-base, the place that makes them big shots.
Above all, Frank Schaeffer's case reminds me of two prayers I need to pray every day: Lord, may I finish well; and Lord, whatever else it is that damages my children, may it not be my religion.
Here's a further link to a Frank Schaeffer's response to Os Guinness. And, just for good measure, a link to an article on the Huffington Post by FS on Mormonism which gives pause for thought on issues of co-belligerence here.
I doubt that I'll regret getting the book. I know it's probably nuts, and full of the kind of spin that one has come to expect of FS; but at the very least, it will be useful as an artefact of recent Christian history.
The whole thing raises a series of different questions:
How do we write Christian history/biography/memoir in a way that is not uncritically hagiographic nor mindlessly iconoclastic? Too often, the phrase `he/she had his/her faults and was not perfect' operates as kind of throat clearing before a narrative which excuses, whitewashes, relativises, or simply ignores said faults. And anyone who raises such questions is frequently subject to accusations of distortion, rationalism, selling out etc etc. Witness the response in the Banner of Truth in the mid-90s to Harry Stout's biography of Whitefield. Or the response to anyone who offers any criticism of Martyn Lloyd-Jones.
How do children of Christian public figures such as pastors, teachers etc. handle their parents faith? My own kids have certainly struggled at times with the kind of `Christian' nutjobs who scream about their dad on the internet. Nice. Well, Frank Schaeffer grew up in an enviable -- and uneviable -- situation. Being messed up by that is not entirely unexpected. Indeed, perhaps the one thing that makes me grateful to have grown up in a non-Christian home is -- whatever else has screwed me up, it isn't the religious world of my parents.
Then, finally, it strikes me that the anger at Frank Schaeffer predates his novels and books about his parents and goes back to his switch to Greek Orthodoxy. It always seems starnge to me that evangelicals like Frank Schaeffer and even Francis Beckwith who lose their evangelical faith and move consistently with that to non-evangelical churches are subject to more criticism from the evangelical constituency than those who lose their evangelical faith but still remain within the Pale of evangelicalism because it is their power-base, the place that makes them big shots.
Above all, Frank Schaeffer's case reminds me of two prayers I need to pray every day: Lord, may I finish well; and Lord, whatever else it is that damages my children, may it not be my religion.
