By Michael Redmond Lifestyle Editor
“The public image of the leaders of the religious right I met with so many times … contrasted with who they really were. In public, they maintained an image that was usually quite smooth. In private, they ranged from unreconstructed bigot reactionaries like Jerry Falwell, to Dr. (James) Dobson, the most power-hungry and ambitious person I have ever met, to Billy Graham, a very weird man indeed who lived an oddly sheltered life in a celebrity ministry cocoon, to Pat Robertson, who would have had a hard time finding work in any job where hearing voices is not a requirement …”
— Frank Schaeffer, from ‘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’
Ouch, right? I mean, that level of rhetoric has got to be some kind of tactic to achieve some kind of end. He can’t really mean it. Except that Frank Schaeffer does mean it, every word of it, and it’s not about settling old scores, but telling the truth as he knows it. It’s about, well, witnessing, a word and a concept that would be familiar to the community he once belonged to and did much to shape — American evangelical Christianity, as it was known in the days of its innocence; “the Christian right,” as we know it today.
Frank Schaeffer is a New York Times best-selling author whose latest book, “Crazy for God,” tells of his experience growing up as the son of Francis A. Schaeffer (1912-1984), the eminent theologian, philosopher and Presbyterian pastor who, galvanized by Roe v. Wade, became the intellectual godfather of the American evangelical movement.
Except that Pastor Schaeffer was, well, a genuine intellectual — a man of deep learning and high culture, a nuanced thinker, some of whose books will survive — who lived long enough to find himself surrounded by admirers and opportunists with one thing in common. They thought only in black and white.
“Before Dad died, he had become disgusted with he leaders of the then-new religious right, who were gleefully betting on American failure,” Mr. Schaeffer writes in response to e-mailed questions.
“If secular, democratic, diverse and pluralistic America survived, then wouldn’t that prove that we (the religious right) were wrong about God only wanting to bless ‘Christian America?’ If, for instance, crime went down dramatically in New York City, for any other reason than a reformation and revival, wouldn’t that make the prophets of doom look silly? And if the economy was booming without anyone repenting, what would that mean?
“Falwell, Robertson, Dobson and others would later use their power in ways that would have made my father throw up. Dad could hardly have imagined how they would help facilitate the instantly corrupted, power-crazy new generation of evangelical pubic figures …
“And after 9/11 the public got a glimpse of the anti-American self- righteous venom that was always just under the surface of the evangelical right. Robertson, Falwell and others declared the attack on America was a punishment from God. And after the war in Iraq began, some loony group of fundamentalists started picketing the funerals of killed soldiers and screaming at bereaved fathers and mothers that God was punishing ‘faggot America.’ What they shouted openly was what the leaders of the religious right were usually too smart to state so bluntly — but it is what they had always said in private.
“What began to bother Dad and me was that so many of our new ‘friends’ seemed to be rooting for one form of apocalypse or another. In the crudest form, this was part of the evangelical fascination with the so-called End Times. The worse things got, the sooner Jesus would come back. But there was another component. The worse everything got the more it proved that America needed saving — by us!
“To my own and Dad’s lasting discredit, we didn’t go public with our real opinions of the religious right leaders we were in bed with. We believed there was too much at stake, both personally, as we caught the power-trip disease, and politically, as we got carried away by the needs of the pro-life movement. And however conflicted Dad and I were, like the other religious right leaders, we were on an ego- stroking roll. We kept our mouths shut.”
Mr. Schaeffer knows what he’s talking about. He was there, and his book lays it all out, chapter and verse, including the weaknesses and failings of his parents, who were “human beings just like everybody else. And I say some pretty unflattering things about myself, too.”
On Sunday, Feb. 22, Frank Schaeffer will appear at Nassau Presbyterian Church in Princeton as the featured speaker at the Westminster Foundation’s annual benefit dinner. His topic will be “Inclusive Spirituality in an Exclusive World — Beyond Certainty, Finding Comfort in Doubt.” The foundation supports Presbyterian ministry and fellowship at Princeton University.
Mr. Schaeffer’s appearance is open to the public. Tickets to the lecture and dinner are $60 per person, and can be obtained by writing to Chaplain Rev. Tara Woodard- Lehman at [email protected]. And yes, “Crazy for God” will be available for purchase.
While Mr. Schaeffer became radically disaffected from the evangelical community, he did not lose his Christian faith, beginning a journey that led to his startling conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy, that ancient communion of churches that is little known and little understood in the United States. Unless one uses the word “Greek” or “Russian,” most American Christians have no idea what church you’re talking about, even though it’s the second largest denomination in the world, with more than 300 million adherents.
Still, for those who know something about Orthodox Christianity, “inclusive spirituality” and “finding comfort in doubt” don’t sound, well, particularly orthodox.
“I’m with Kierkegaard when he says of Christianity that ‘one neither can nor shall comprehend it.’ Kierkegaard’s view was shared by the Fathers of early Christianity. For those who think that Christianity was fundamentalist from the beginning, the writings of the Fathers should be a shocking wakeup call,” Mr. Schaeffer writes.
“For instance, St. Evagrius Ponticus (A.D. 345-399) wrote … ‘Do not … define the Deity: for it is only of things which are made or which are composite that there can be definitions.’ The Apostolic Fathers were far from (biblical) literalists. They interpreted Scripture according to a functional hermeneutic — in other words, they applied the text as a living document to their own situations, often without regard for the original context, much as the Supreme Court justices are accused of doing today by legal fundamentalists , i.e. ‘strict constructionists.’
“ … St. Clement became the leader of the Alexandrian school in A.D. 190. He said that the literal meaning of Scripture is a ‘starting point … suitable for the mass of Christians,’ but there was, he said, a ‘deeper meaning.’ St. Augustine (A.D. 354-430) agreed with the Alexandrian approach and put forth the idea that Scripture could be interpreted as follows: (1) literal; (2) allegorical; (3) moral, and (4) analogical. St. Basil the Great said that Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition are ‘equal in value, strength, and validity,’ and have the ‘same power where piety is concerned.’”
Mr. Schaeffer’s critics, and they are legion in some quarters, basically argue that “Crazy about God” is about the author’s personal problems, not about issues of genuine religious, social and cultural import.
“What does it say about the nature of a faith that when a former believer — say a former evangelical like me — questions his or her faith, and there are otherwise reasonable people out there so threatened that they actually take the time to call down God’s judgment on the questioner?
“I think it comes down to the fact that most of us take comfort in safety in numbers. So the man or woman who depletes the number of the faithful is resented, shunned, even killed — literally, in the case of Muslim ‘apostates,’ or as in character assassination …
“To answer the question of why someone questions and then leaves a faith, the remaining faithful could A) consider the backslider’s reasons, or B) dismiss him or her and do everything possible to discredit that person so as to avoid actually having to deal with why the backslider has questioned what he or she used to believe. This is how the usual response goes as I’ve experienced it: It can’t be that our Truth is lacking! It must be that the person doing the questioning is a bad person!”
Your next book?
“I’m working on a book about faith, doubt and the ‘New Atheists,’” he replies.
O boy.
In addition to his many other projects, Mr. Schaeffer blogs on The Huffington Post. Anyone interested in what he has to say to his former co-religionists in light of the rout they experienced in November should search there for “Changing the Failed Strategy of the Religious Right into a Winning Formula that Helps Heal Our Country” (Nov. 23, 2008).
On the Web: www.frankschaeffer.com.
