If asked what is the deepest relationship imaginable, many people would say it is between lovers, or between husbands and wives. The case can be made, however, that from a Christian perspective, no relationship is more mysterious and more wonderful, yet sometimes more troubling, than that of fathers and sons. The depth and wonder begin with all we know of the relationship of God the Father and God the Son, while the troubled aspects stem from the Fall. Consider Absalom's rebellion against King David in the Old Testament, Edmund Gosse's exposure of his father Philip, the Oedipal drive in the writings of Sigmund Freud—and now Frank Schaeffer's Crazy for God, a memoir that is his personal apologia at the expense of his famous father, Francis Schaeffer, who was the founder and leader of the worldwide network of L'Abri communities....[Hat tip to J.M.]
The problem is not so much that Frank exposes and trumpets his parents' flaws and frailties, or that he skewers them with his characteristic mockery. It is more than that. For all his softening, the portrait he paints amounts to a death-dealing charge of hypocrisy and insincerity at the very heart of their life and work.....
... 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....
... Frank's portrayal of his mother is cruel and deeply dishonoring, monstrously ungrateful since she poured herself out for him far more than his workaholic father.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Os Guinness vs. Frank Schaeffer: "With such a son, who needs enemies?"
Os Guinness, in "Fathers and Sons" (Books & Culture, March/April 2008), takes Frank Schaeffer to task for his treatment of his father in his new book, Crazy for God. Some excerpts:
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Frank Schaeffer has written more than one valuable critique of the Christian right. In many ways he is an admirable figure. His difficulties with his parents do throw some light on L'Abri. Some of us have tended to idealise Francis and Edith Schaeffer from what we read about them. (I never visited L'Abri myself, nor did I ever hear Francis and Edith speak publicly: two great regrets.) However, I think Frank Schaeffer is doing himself no good in the way he approaches faith issues. The very title of his blog, Why I Still Speak to Jesus in Spite of Everything, is banal. There's even a whiff of self-pity about it. In a recent blog (winter of 2014) he describes his good and bad Christmas memories. The bad memories were fairly bad, apparently; indeed 'toxic' is how he describes them. His mother wanted her children to have a perfect Christmas. Little Frank's stocking was overstuffed with presents. L'Abri was full of strangers who were being prayed for; poor unconverted souls. Yes, I can see how it would have overwhelmed a child. I can see how Frank has been reacting against his conditioning. It may have been suffocating. But aren't many childhoods? My own Scottish working-class mother wanted us to have a perfect Christmas too. My Catholic upbringing was occasionally suffocating. But I am grateful that Jesus is still 'talking' to ME. (Why do liberals under-value the mystery of prayer and speak of it in such blithe and casual terms? Why do they have so little awe and reverence for the holiness of God? The late Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones often drew attention to this sad fact.) I am grateful that I read Francis Schaeffer's The God Who is There, along with Os Guinness's The Dust of Death, when I did, in 1973. Those books enabled me to walk away from a nasty little cult run by the late Chinmoy Ghose. They also enabled me to engage with evangelical theology. And this has been an enormous help when I meet people who have come under the withering spell of so-called 'progressive' Christianity. Don Cupitt, Richard Holloway, Bishop Spong and the extremists of the Jesus Seminar have had a cancerous effect on the faith of many educated people. I enjoy introducing such people to the Puritans; giants like John Owen and Richard Sibbes, who make the Cupitts look like bitter, close-minded bigots. For all this I am grateful to Francis Schaeffer. Incidentally, one reads of emotional friction in the households of Karl Barth and Martin Buber; but I can't recall any of the children from those households writing a single embittered memoir. Only now at the age of 63 have I begun to understand my parents, and the World War ll generation out of which came the great government of Clement Atlee. Only now do I see what I owe that generation. Everything.(J HAGGERTY)
Franky Schaeffer was always a bit of a spoiled brat. In fairness, I suppose one could argue that he was neglected amidst the attention his parents lavished on all their guests, and as (I think) the youngest of his siblings, he probably fell through the cracks, so to speak. Nonetheless, he was insufferably narcissistic and, as the son of celebrity parents, always treated as special. I doubt he received much in the way of consistent discipline.
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