Comments on: Interview with a Sell-Out

By: Vesper

Vesper — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:03:35 +0000

LoY, thanks so much for the link to that great article by Guinness.

LoN, your post deserves a much more thoughtful response, but I will say that the good ol’ argument for “fight it but keep it legal” begs the question: How’d that work out for slavery?

By: Loy

Loy — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 04:27:59 +0000

Read Os Guinness on Franky — very eye-opening to what is really going on: a spoiled, pseudo-scholar who was foisted upon readers due to family connections, and no real inner excellence on his own part.

Here’s the link: http://www.christianitytoday.com/global/printer.html?/bc/2008/marapr/1.32.html

God bless

By: Alexander M. Banias

Alexander M. Banias — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 13:32:44 +0000

The first sentence of the aforementioned article pretty much sums up Frank S. Not only is he a sellout but a turncoat of the highest order, and I truly feel sorry for the man. This is the man who eloquently but vehemently wrote his masterpiece, “Dancing Alone,” flying the flag of Orthodox Christianity. Next, in his first book about the Marine Corps, “Keeping Faith,” a piece of whiney drivel replete with unnecessary expletives about his son’s experience on Parris Island, clearly divulged Frank’s inner conflict and penchant for the dramatic. His new cause was flying the flag of the Marine Corps. This inconsistent unstable “little Napoleon” now is flying the flag of his new Messiah, Barack Hussein Obama. Not only that, but he can’t shut up and continues to whine about those opposing the almighty Obama. Frank, as the other writers so astutely mentioned, needs a lot of help. And where are his church leaders in all of this? Not a peep from the leaders of the church that claims, it seems with pride, as “the best kept secret?”

By: Scott Pursley

Scott Pursley — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 11:11:47 +0000

I don’t care much about Franky’s political views. Its the departure from Christianity that is disappointing. I stopped one day while hanging out at Barnes and Nobles and picked up his latest book and it sounded like he had completely given up on anything resembling orthodoxy. It sounded like he wasn’t much sure any longer if any of it was really true.

I think about Francis and his breakthrough work in the area of Christian world and life view. I remember that it was Francis’s attempts to think about how Christianity applied to all of life that was so formative to Ray Nethery. What a tragedy that part of his unintended legacy is a son who diminishes him with bitterness and unbelief.

By: jeffrey demarco

jeffrey demarco — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 03:49:00 +0000

I like the fact that he calls himself Frankie and not Frank. Frankie is a kids name … you know… Frankie, dinner’s ready! Frankie wanna play catch? or Frankie, if you keep whining like a little brat, I’m going to spank you. Yup… Frankie is pretty fitting. Hopefully he will repent and realize that he had humans for parents, heal his inner child and grow up. At that point, I would look forward to hearing what Frank Schaeffer had to say. Until then, I’m not going to waste my time.

By: Lon

Lon — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:05:32 +0000

Over the past year or so I’ve read a fair number of Franky Schaeffer’s columns on the Huffington Post website, so his views are pretty familiar to me. What he says in the “Fresh Air” interview is not all that different from his columns – if anything, it’s less strident. I find that Schaeffer’s material is worth reading if for no other reason than to get a sense of what happens when a leader gets profoundly disillusioned. Admittedly, much of what he has to say these days is a rant against the alliance between Evangelicals and political conservatives, but he frequently makes some good points. Most of what I found problematic in the interview was its the gossipy character and attribution of sinful motives to many leaders of evangelical ministries. For example, as distasteful as I find Dr. Dobson’s politics, I doubt that he deliberately stirred up folks against the lesbian/gay agenda to raise money for the Focus on the Family ministry, or to increase his influence in the evangelical world. (For the record, I revere Dobson’s ministry, from which our family has benefited greatly.) The same can be said with regard to folks like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. And while they may have said in private some extraordinarily stupid or nasty things, I don’t think it’s fair or appropriate to air those things in a public forum. I especially find what he said about his father to be problematic. If such matters need to be discussed, it should be with his pastor or similar counselor, not the press.

On the other hand, I think that I disagree with your characterization of Franky Schaeffer as an apostate, and I don’t think that he’s badmouthing orthodoxy in either the interview or his columns. And while I think that his current views on abortion are problematic (fight against it but keep it legal), I don’t think that he’s sold out, at least not how I understand the term. One of the things that he has stated in one of his recent columns (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/changing-the-failed-strat_b_145858.html) is that the efforts of orthodox Christians to legislate against abortion, illegalize gay marriage, and enact a raft of similar laws based on Judeo-Christian morality are doomed to failure because the surrounding culture has already shifted. He argues that we need to change the culture, not the laws, and he actually gives a reasonable strategy for doing so (although in the absence of a full blown revival, I think that his proposed strategy would fail as spectacularly as did the political strategy).

I suppose that I have at least a partial understanding of where he’s coming from because it mirrors some of my own experience. I ventured fairly deeply into political conservatism in the 1980s because I thought I had to in order to be a good Christian. A bit of self-examination and further study in the late 1980s showed me where I had made some wrong turns, and I became much more of a centrist (although Katie tells me that it depends on the issue – on some matters I?m still arch-conservative, and on others I’m to the left of Ralph Nader!) More recently, I’ve been studying the origins of Christian political involvement, and I’ve found that much of how folks approach such societal change depends very much on their underlying theology. Calvin had a very high view of the role of the civil authorities in extending the Kingdom of God; it is therefore no surprise that a staunch Calvinist like Francis Schaeffer would advocate for a political approach to changing society, and it’s no surprise that his son (at least initially) would take the same approach.

In conclusion, I think that main problem with Franky Schaeffer isn’t that he’s a sell-out or an apostate or a heretic. I think that he’s a deeply disillusioned man who has forgotten a lot of the lessons of living in Christian community. And while repentance will very likely play a role in his life, I think that healing is is his primary need.