“So much baggage has been piled on the deck of this ship we call ‘church’ that we are going to sink it,” said Frank Schaeffer in an interview with Chris Yaw of ChurchNext on May 2nd, 2012. Schaeffer told Yaw, an Episcopal minister, that he believes churches will be more successful if they operate as a “zone of protection … where people can just meet as human beings.” Schaeffer and an eclectic mix of “mentors,” ranging from Anglican theologian N.T. Wright, to Emergent Church guru Brian McLaren, have told the “success stories behind their ministries” in online interviews for ChurchNext. According to their web site, “ChurchNext builds healthy congregations by connecting passionate Christians with experienced mentors.”
Son of the prominent Evangelical leaders and founders of L’Abri, Francis and Edith Schaeffer, Frank Schaeffer has made a career out of his disagreements with the orthodox theology and conservative politics of his parents. Through books, articles, and speaking engagements, Schaeffer has established his opposition to the “Religious Right” that he “helped create” with his parents. “When you look at the politicizing of religion in America, I think it’s the single most damaging thing that has happened to religion,” Schaeffer said in the interview.
Schaeffer’s problem with the “Religious Right” goes beyond politics, however. Although a member of an Eastern Orthodox church, his beliefs are far from orthodox. “When you start out with the idea that the path toward God is paved with correct ideas; the right prayer when you accept Jesus, the correct view of the Trinity … [or] correct liturgy or ritual if you go to an Orthodox church like I do … we are all doomed,” he claimed. “You’re not saved through correct ideas, but through actually imitating Christ to the best of one’s ability – which is never very good,” Schaeffer explained.
Beliefs and theology are “not what matters to God, God only cares about who you are,” Schaeffer asserted. “Surely the message of Christ is ‘I could be wrong … before you take the speck out of your brother’s eye look at the beam in your own,’ isn’t that the basic message of how we look at others that comes from Christianity loud and clear?” he asked rhetorically. Schaeffer told Yaw, churches should: “Do what Christ did, and that is to receive everyone who comes to you with love and compassion, point toward the loving God and let them find their own way … Don’t be so hubristic as to think that correct theology saves you.” He added: “Everything we’ve been doing for 2,000 on the theological side has been a waste of time.”
According to Schaeffer, church is “that one place you go where you’re not going to be judged or hated … it’s just where [you] are loved … [but] of course when you get outside the church you’ve got to look at your conscience.” He explained that “church isn’t the place to make people be right, the church is the place to say ‘he who is without sin in here cast the first stone.” Schaeffer lamented how Christians should be about “forgiveness, tolerance, [and] reaching out to people,” but “this spirit has been so lost through the politicizing of … ‘our movement.’”
Just days after this interview where he espoused ideals of tolerance, acceptance, and “hope after certainty,” Schaeffer delivered some decisively judgmental remarks on MSNBC. On May 3rd, 2012, he appeared on Rev. Al Sharpton’s show, Politics Nation, to discuss the controversy surrounding the appointment and resignation of an openly gay foreign policy spokesman for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. Schaeffer claimed: “The majority of American people believe in gay rights.” He explained, “Sooner or later Romney is going to have to say ‘I’m with the people on these issues’ or ‘I am going to allow this fringe [the Religious Right] to run everything I say.” Ultimately, Schaeffer declared, “Romney is such a moral coward” for surrendering to “bigots of various types.”
Schaeffer also recently wrote a lengthy article titled “Colson: An Evangelical Homophobic Anti-Woman Leader Passes On,” in the days after Charles Colson’s death. He accused the Evangelical leader of Prison Fellowship and other ministries, of playing “dirty tricks” and “[launching] the current Republican Party war on women and gays.”
These are only recent examples of Schaeffer’s usual bitter and accusatory style. Closing out the interview, he told Yaw: “The only way you’ll get closer to God is being kinder … this is what Christ taught.”
No comments yet
Leave a Reply