Being Frank
As I have been immersing myself in the life and work of Francis Schaeffer lately, his son Frank's memoir Crazy for God came to my attention in early November. From my extensive search for book reviews, I understood the book to accomplish two things: A) an unexpurgated revelation of the elder Schaeffer's flaws B) a venting of Frank's spleen toward all things Evangelical. My initial reaction, before I'd read the first page, was revulsion. But a curious thing happened during my trip through the book. The revulsion remained (and was even reinforced), but a certain amount of understanding, agreement, and sympathy arose. In the end I think it a poor book, and needlessly damaging to many, but I can't dismiss it completely.
There were three things in this book that resonated with me. The first was Frank's reaction against the lack of openness about and acknowledgement of human weakness in much of American Christian life. He rejects disgust at phony piety, hidden sins (that are not even that well hidden), and the masks worn to impress and intimidate. I loathe the same things in others, but even more in myself. The second is the way Christian groups use social control to enforce an oppressive conformity to Pharisaical rules made by men. I'm with Frank in resenting those who would bind our conscience on their own authority. The last was the temptation to pride that haunts those who think theology is important. Here is Frank commenting on his parents' involvement in the endless denominational splintering Presbyterians have engaged in over the past century:
A church split builds self-righteousness into the fabric of every new spliter group, whose only reason for existence is that they decide that they are more moral and pure than their brethren. This explains my childhood, and perhaps a lot about America, too.
I believe there is some truth there, but Frank neglects to explain how conflicted his father was over the rancor and ill-will all this splitting caused, and how much it informed his approach to ministry.
On the other hand, his portrait of his parents spares no detail, no matter how degrading to their dignity. He expresses some respect, admiration, and affection for his father, which puts the negative anecdotes in some context. It is his mother Edith, who really suffers at her son's hands. He portrays her as vain, conceited, extremely spiritually prideful, condescending, mildly devious, impressed by wealth and social position (a "respecter of persons" sums it up), and much given to using spiritual language on any and every occasion. In the end she comes across as slightly mad (which I don't think is an exaggeration given he labels her "a nut" more than once, and the book's title). I was forced to credit these extreme assertions by the evidence he presents, including a sample of one of her letters to him.
But assuming the truth of all this, there is something missing here, which brings me to the first criticism. Frank does not tell us what about his parents that brought thousands and thousands of people over forty years to a difficult-to-reach Swiss village to sit and listen to an intellectual defense of Christianity. There is no glimpse into what people really saw in Francis and Edith, their attraction, their magnetism. From my reading and study, I know it wasn't just his Father's brilliance. Edith was popular in her own right, both as an author and as worker at L'Abri. Aside from a throw-away line about his mother working late scrubbling floors, we get no idea of the passion, the empathy, the charisma this woman and her husband must have exuded. From this standpoint, the book is extremely unfair. But setting aside the unfairness, he had no business publishing these details to begin with. I understood Francis was imperfect before I read this book (for instance, his father's temper was no secret and is acknowledged even by his most ardent admirers). Frank justifies it with a lame appeal to artistic truthfulness, which is worth a couple of blog posts in itself. In a way, all these backfired with me and in some ways had the opposite of their intended effect. Francis Schaeffer was a depressive (even suicidal), introverted, bad-tempered man who woke every morning determined to place himself at the service of strangers in an effort to advance the Gospel. And I'm supposed to admire him less?
There is something else entirely missing from this book, and the cover curiously hints at it. It shows a picture of a child on his father's shoulders. But it's not Frank. It's his sister. And I believe this highlights how unaware and unsympathetic Frank is to his parents as parents of a self-admitted jackass. He shows no empathy at all for their position as his parents, the father and mother of a very, very difficult child. He doesn't seem at all curious about his father's state of mind after discovering his son in flagrante with a female L'Abri guest, just relief that he wasn't hassled. Frank self-importantly attributes his father's involvement in right-wing politics to his own persuasion. Can't he see at least the possibility that his father might have been encouraging a wayward son to particpate in something worthwhile? This seems to me, is a blindspot on Frank's part, though he is hard on himself in numerous other respects.
I approached the book with the idea that Frank was trying to get back at his parents for subjecting him to an unconventional and difficult childhood. After getting about half way through it, I realized that all the gossip was included for a different reason. This is a hateful book, and the hate is directed at Evangelical Christians, and tarnishing a couple of Evangelical heroes is just another way Frank can stick it in the eye of right-wing Christian America. There are many, many pages just oozing baleful condescension toward everything about conservative Protestant Christianity in America - the way they look, talk, walk, pray, worship, believe, write, sing, and on and on. The book contains a lot of profanity, but most of it comes at the end, when he's discussing his involvement with the Evangelical political movement in the early '80's. It's as if he can't restrain himself any longer, and his bile boils over. It is also during this second part of the book when the editing process broke down under his tirades:
And I learned that if you talk "too fast," all those huntin', fishin', shootin', lifetime-NRA-member types, the ones that worry about the United Nations, have their eyes too close together, and have wives caked with about forty pounds of makeup per square inch, start to look at you funny.
This really hurt:
I learned that the worst audiences, like talking to a roomful of pickled fish wearing down parkas, were in Minnesota.
His hatred of Evangelicals puts Frank in a bit of a bind, but it's hard for him to reconcile his respect for his father with his father's theological commitments. Frank's solution is to claim his father was not as committed as he seemed, and that he was sort of tragic figure - trapped by his own success in a cul-de-sac of fundamentalist dogma. Frank claims over and over that his father was not really happy in the role he found himself in and would have been better off as an art historian or philosopher. I find this the least persuasive part of the book and attribute it to wishful thinking on the son's part.
The saddest and most unintentially poignant part of the book comes at the end, when it becomes evident that Frank has learned nothing important from his father. Here he is at a museum, and he remarks about the exhibits:
and many of those artifacts - from Syrian gods to Italian Virgin-and-Childs - reflect the fact that we humans take hope in the irrational.
It's hard to think of a statement more at odds with Francis Schaeffer's legacy.
There were three things in this book that resonated with me. The first was Frank's reaction against the lack of openness about and acknowledgement of human weakness in much of American Christian life. He rejects disgust at phony piety, hidden sins (that are not even that well hidden), and the masks worn to impress and intimidate. I loathe the same things in others, but even more in myself. The second is the way Christian groups use social control to enforce an oppressive conformity to Pharisaical rules made by men. I'm with Frank in resenting those who would bind our conscience on their own authority. The last was the temptation to pride that haunts those who think theology is important. Here is Frank commenting on his parents' involvement in the endless denominational splintering Presbyterians have engaged in over the past century:
A church split builds self-righteousness into the fabric of every new spliter group, whose only reason for existence is that they decide that they are more moral and pure than their brethren. This explains my childhood, and perhaps a lot about America, too.
I believe there is some truth there, but Frank neglects to explain how conflicted his father was over the rancor and ill-will all this splitting caused, and how much it informed his approach to ministry.
On the other hand, his portrait of his parents spares no detail, no matter how degrading to their dignity. He expresses some respect, admiration, and affection for his father, which puts the negative anecdotes in some context. It is his mother Edith, who really suffers at her son's hands. He portrays her as vain, conceited, extremely spiritually prideful, condescending, mildly devious, impressed by wealth and social position (a "respecter of persons" sums it up), and much given to using spiritual language on any and every occasion. In the end she comes across as slightly mad (which I don't think is an exaggeration given he labels her "a nut" more than once, and the book's title). I was forced to credit these extreme assertions by the evidence he presents, including a sample of one of her letters to him.
But assuming the truth of all this, there is something missing here, which brings me to the first criticism. Frank does not tell us what about his parents that brought thousands and thousands of people over forty years to a difficult-to-reach Swiss village to sit and listen to an intellectual defense of Christianity. There is no glimpse into what people really saw in Francis and Edith, their attraction, their magnetism. From my reading and study, I know it wasn't just his Father's brilliance. Edith was popular in her own right, both as an author and as worker at L'Abri. Aside from a throw-away line about his mother working late scrubbling floors, we get no idea of the passion, the empathy, the charisma this woman and her husband must have exuded. From this standpoint, the book is extremely unfair. But setting aside the unfairness, he had no business publishing these details to begin with. I understood Francis was imperfect before I read this book (for instance, his father's temper was no secret and is acknowledged even by his most ardent admirers). Frank justifies it with a lame appeal to artistic truthfulness, which is worth a couple of blog posts in itself. In a way, all these backfired with me and in some ways had the opposite of their intended effect. Francis Schaeffer was a depressive (even suicidal), introverted, bad-tempered man who woke every morning determined to place himself at the service of strangers in an effort to advance the Gospel. And I'm supposed to admire him less?
There is something else entirely missing from this book, and the cover curiously hints at it. It shows a picture of a child on his father's shoulders. But it's not Frank. It's his sister. And I believe this highlights how unaware and unsympathetic Frank is to his parents as parents of a self-admitted jackass. He shows no empathy at all for their position as his parents, the father and mother of a very, very difficult child. He doesn't seem at all curious about his father's state of mind after discovering his son in flagrante with a female L'Abri guest, just relief that he wasn't hassled. Frank self-importantly attributes his father's involvement in right-wing politics to his own persuasion. Can't he see at least the possibility that his father might have been encouraging a wayward son to particpate in something worthwhile? This seems to me, is a blindspot on Frank's part, though he is hard on himself in numerous other respects.
I approached the book with the idea that Frank was trying to get back at his parents for subjecting him to an unconventional and difficult childhood. After getting about half way through it, I realized that all the gossip was included for a different reason. This is a hateful book, and the hate is directed at Evangelical Christians, and tarnishing a couple of Evangelical heroes is just another way Frank can stick it in the eye of right-wing Christian America. There are many, many pages just oozing baleful condescension toward everything about conservative Protestant Christianity in America - the way they look, talk, walk, pray, worship, believe, write, sing, and on and on. The book contains a lot of profanity, but most of it comes at the end, when he's discussing his involvement with the Evangelical political movement in the early '80's. It's as if he can't restrain himself any longer, and his bile boils over. It is also during this second part of the book when the editing process broke down under his tirades:
And I learned that if you talk "too fast," all those huntin', fishin', shootin', lifetime-NRA-member types, the ones that worry about the United Nations, have their eyes too close together, and have wives caked with about forty pounds of makeup per square inch, start to look at you funny.
This really hurt:
I learned that the worst audiences, like talking to a roomful of pickled fish wearing down parkas, were in Minnesota.
His hatred of Evangelicals puts Frank in a bit of a bind, but it's hard for him to reconcile his respect for his father with his father's theological commitments. Frank's solution is to claim his father was not as committed as he seemed, and that he was sort of tragic figure - trapped by his own success in a cul-de-sac of fundamentalist dogma. Frank claims over and over that his father was not really happy in the role he found himself in and would have been better off as an art historian or philosopher. I find this the least persuasive part of the book and attribute it to wishful thinking on the son's part.
The saddest and most unintentially poignant part of the book comes at the end, when it becomes evident that Frank has learned nothing important from his father. Here he is at a museum, and he remarks about the exhibits:
and many of those artifacts - from Syrian gods to Italian Virgin-and-Childs - reflect the fact that we humans take hope in the irrational.
It's hard to think of a statement more at odds with Francis Schaeffer's legacy.
Labels: Books, Christianity, Schaeffer
posted by Jeff Burton at
10:30 AM
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