Frank Schaeffer

Frank Schaeffer (born August 3, 1952) is the son of American Christian theologian and philosopher, Francis Schaeffer. He has authored several books and has criticized American Christian Conservatives which he claims to have helped create. These claims are rejected by evangelicals, like Os Guinness, who were also witnesses at the events Schaeffer recounts.

Os Guinness, who lived with the Francis and Edith Schaeffer and was Frank's best man, wrote in a published review of "Crazy for God", that Frank Schaeffer is a typical example of a spoiled kid who is now dishonoring his parents as revenge for not getting the attention he craved as a child. "The real truth is that Franky, as he then called himself, was spoiled. He was more like a poster child for Benjamin Spock than the son of "fundamentalist missionaries." . . . He was rarely challenged, disciplined, or denied. As a result, he grew up a "little Napoleon,". . .In sum, the combination of neglect, guilt, nepotism, and spoiling was a toxic brew."^[1]

By the early 1990s he turned from Christian conservatism and became out-spoken in his criticism of evangelicalism and the "religious right", out-outspokenness that gained him attention from PBS and other such out-lets, giving publicity to his books. He is used as an example of an "ex-evangelical" and "ex-right-winger" by main-stream news out-lets. He was a public supporter of Barack Obama in 2008.

Although he claims to have converted to Eastern Orthodoxy in the early 1990s, by 2012 he was professing agonsticism regarding the central tenets of Christianity and even the usefulness of faith itself, all while still attending and taking communion in an Orthodox church. He said, “to be a Christian is not to believe in Jesus in terms of who he was, whether he is the Son of God, rose from the dead or not, it is to believe in that life as an example. . . . Belief is useless … but doing is very difficult.”^[2]

References[edit]

1. ↑ Os Guinness, "Fathers and Sons, On Francis Schaeffer, Frank Schaeffer, and Crazy for God", Books and Culture, Christianity Today, March/April 2008.http://www.booksandculture.com/articles/2008/marapr/1.32.html
2. ↑ http://www.theird.org/page.aspx?pid=2285