His Father's Critic

A review of Patience With God by Frank Schaeffer

Last weekend I drove from San Diego to Tucson and back to visit my daughter Darcy and grandson Nick, and to meet Nick's new wife and her family. On the way, I listened to Patience With God: Faith for People Who Don't Like Religion (or Atheism), written and read by Frank Schaeffer, son of Francis Schaeffer in whom I have taken some interest because he was the patriarch of a famous sort of commune called L'abri, in Switzerland and I, an old hippie, retain a fondness for the idea of communal living.

Frank grew up at L'abri -- which he seems to remember as a sort of alien place where his parents spent far more time and effort evangelizing than raising or teaching him -- and at a boarding school where he truly began to learn and grow. As a young man, he followed his father into the business of religion and, as what he calls an evangelical fundamentalist, spent lots of years as a speaker and writer in that realm. If he experienced a particular revelation or episode that prompted him to break free, I must have missed the mention of it. I frequently find myself lost in space, most frequently in the desert.

By the time he wrote and published this book, a dozen and some years ago, he had shifted and become a fiery critic of every sort of fundamentalism including the Christian evangelical brand with which he had so long identified.

The defining purpose of these Christian evangelicals is to enlist followers by promising that to accept Christ as their savior, commonly at a church altar or in front of a crowd at a crusade, will guarantee eternal life. As far as I could tell, Mister Schaeffer has no complaint against this motive except an opinion that its message is probably oversimplified.

He mostly reserves his complaints for fundamentalists, meaning those who profess to have all the answers and who don't accept any disagreement. They can be atheists, Jews, Moslems, Christians, Zoroastrians, Communists, scientists, or whatever.

Mr. Schaeffer lobbies against all fundamentalism because he believes, as do I, that none of us humans have all the answers. He would argue that our knowledge is limited by the natural constraints of sense perceptions and the finite boundaries of our intelligence. So, he would have us reject any form of fundamentalism as not only misguided but also potentially dangerous, since it promotes the us vs. them mentality that permits leaders to turn followers into fanatics capable of even murder or genocide.

Most of us would agree we should be on guard against fundamentalists who represent faiths or philosophies other than our own. But how should those who take the Christ story seriously respond toward those who maintain the Bible is the actual dictated word of God, that everything in it should be taken literally, and that people who believe any differently are doomed to eternal punishment?

Mr. Schaeffer would have us walk away. In fact, he holds this suggestion out to the host of Christian leaders he suspects are aware that fundamentalism is misguided but who feel stuck in their jobs lest they lose their livelihood.

Though I understand his position, I also recognize that walking away from a way of life is for those with more courage than many good folks possess. These people, like Simon Peter, may ask, "Lord, then where would we go?"

Good question, to which I would do a disservice by giving a brief answer. One of these days when I feel at peace about offering a proper answer, I will. In Patience With God, Mr. Schaeffer,  a fine, passionate, and compelling writer, doesn't exactly answer the question, only points us in a general direction.

A clue to his theological attitude is that each of the book's chapters is prefaced by a quote from Soren Kierkegaard, who argued that an institutional church is a contradiction to what Christ stood for. Christ was an outsider, and so should all true Christians be. Meaning, if we attend a church, we should not commit to its dogma or common opinions.

Here's a post I wrote some years ago regarding Kierkegaard and Francis Schaeffer, Frank's father.

At times, Frank Schaffer's passion rises into a kind of anger. Anyone who considers a church their home can feel personally threatened. Professional Christians may well feel attacked, perhaps legitimately and perhaps unfairly. It's not an easy book. The spiritually comfortable should beware, as should those who want all the answers. But readers on the lookout for thought-provoking stuff should put it on the top of their stack.

Happy forever,

Ken