by Frank Schaeffer
Full Disclosure
A response to Os Guinness.
Close personal connections would usually disqualify someone from writing a review of a book if what he writes is to be presented by a serious and normally scrupulously fair publication. To put it mildly, Os Guinness ["Fathers and Sons," March/April 2008] is not objective.
Readers of Crazy for God can decide for themselves about what Os says. (And those who've read only the article by Os might read Betty Smartt Carter's review from the previous issue of Books & Culture to get a second opinion.) Nevertheless, when an author writes a review/essay/ad hominem attack on the work of another author, there are certain common courtesies without which the whole process becomes suspect. Foremost is to come clean—up front—about personal history that colors what is being said. Os failed to do this.
First, in Crazy for God I make a less than flattering reference to Os, recalling his habit of girl–chasing while he was working at L'Abri. The girls being chased were the students coming to L'Abri. I mentioned this in the context of my hormone–driven bad behavior. I was fifteen, Os was thirty or so. Looking back, I'm sure Os feels plenty of embarrassment, an emotion that would hardly endear my book to him.
Second, Os has built a career on an evangelical reputation based in part on his association with my late father, Francis Schaeffer. Os has a continuing stake (in every sense of that word) in the Schaeffer brand name.
Third, I'm a person who converted to the Greek Orthodox Church, a regular blogger for the lefty Huffington Post, a critic of the evangelical world, etc., so there is some ideological distance between Os and me. Rather than dealing with our differences forth rightly, Os instead chooses to psychoanalyze me.
I note that other people a bit closer to my parents than Os—my two sisters Debby and Prisca, who were L'Abri workers for most of their lives and who also contributed sections to my book—have supported Crazy for God, as have two of my father's closest associates, my brothers–in–law Udo Middelmann and John Sandri. They (and many others of the past and present "L'Abri family") take a rather different view of Crazy for God than Os does. Some even feel that it enhances my father's reputation as a courageous human being working out his salvation with fear and trembling like the rest of us.
Having been oddly psychoanalyzed on the page by Os, I think it's only fair that readers ask whatmight havemotivated this attack cloaked as a review.The answer may have more to do with Os than with me.
Frank Schaeffer is the author most recently of Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back (Carroll & Graf).
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Os Guinness replies:
I am honestly not sure what Frank is referring to as my motive. I was not the slightest bit offended at anything he wrote about me in the book. He spelled my name wrongly (as he always used to, endearingly), he wrongly called me a "Schaeffer clone" and put me in the "Be–cool–for–Jesus" crowd, he added several years to my age (I was actually 27 and single), and he made another point or two. But those were minor matters. I replied to his book for one reason only: His portrait of his parents was wrong and destructive. It left me alternately grieved and outraged, and I wanted to witness to the truth as I see it before God. I hope one day we can sit down and talk it over amicably
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CHRISTY PULLIAM
I'm fine with Frank Schaeffer joining the Greek Orthodox church. I'm fine with him writing for the Huffington Post. I am not fine with him proudly dishonoring his parents. It makes him seem like a teenager who never grew up. We all have to reckon with our parents and how they raised us. If he is still trying to prove how and when they were wrong he seems to be unable to find his own self because it is so wrapped up in his parents, and he can't detach himself from it. This makes Frank's message whiny and destructive rather than useful to others. If only he had the courage of Jeannette Walls, who wrote the Glass Castle, a fantastic memoir of her crazy childhood, devoid of bitterness and self-pity. That's what you call a grown-up.
F Vrij
After hearing Frank Schaeffer state, that the apostle Paul should be screwed and because I together with my wife used to visit L'Abri in the 80's, I got curious: What is going in here? - I looked Frank up on internet, where I heard him ranting against orthodox christians, such as Michelle Bachmann. I wanted to know more about Frank. I read his trilogie about the young boy, Calvin. The trilogie is autobiographical and Frank depicts his parents in a ........, what shall I say? Frank depicts his father as an hypocritical evangelist, a kind of maniac, who is addicted to pornography, etc. etc. etc. Subsequently I read 'Grazy for God'. Who are 'grazy for God'? Well, according to Frank then, his parents: Edith and Francis Schaeffer. In the book Frank Schaeffer gives a depressive picture of his parents, actually the contrary of what I always understood Edith and Frank Schaeffer to be. It is almost as if Frank Schaeffer turns his parents upside down and wants to destroy their lifework and cannot accept, that Edith and Francis Schaeffer willingly and voluntarily devoted their lives to Christ. Frank Schaeffer, the son, who turned against his parents. Because of this, I agree with Os Guiness, when he uses the word 'destructive', referring to Frank Schaeffer. After seeing Frank Schaeffer perform and after reading a few books of him, I wondered: Is this man actually sane?- I find his fierce, personal attacks suspicious. In his reply (: Full disclosure) to Os Guinness he attempts to besmirch Guiness in the same way he does those whom he considers to be orthodox christians. By the way, his parents were orthodox christians too. In his reply to Guiness he claims the support of two of his sisters and two of his brothers-in-law for his book ´Grazy for God´. It have serious doubts, if this is true. Frank Schaeffer, cut it and come to your senses! F. Vrij
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