Family Values

‘Just Repackaged Misogyny’: Frank Schaeffer on ‘Real’ v. ‘Fake’ Family Values

Josiah Reedy on December 10, 2021

Frank Schaeffer, son of the renowned Francis Schaeffer, strongly denounced his evangelical heritage, calling for “real family values as opposed to fake family values.” He said, “What we were pitching in the 70s was really just repackaged misogyny. Women had their role, men were supposed to be in charge, no to abortion, contraception, childcare; women were supposed to stay in the home and not have careers… That was the view to which we contributed a huge impetus.”

Schaeffer was speaking at the Wild Goose Festival, a self-described “festival at the intersection of justice, spirituality and art.” Promoting his new book Fall in Love, Have Children, Stay Put, Save the Planet, Be Happy, Schaeffer spoke alongside the Rev. Jacqui Lewis, a Presbyterian Church (USA) ordained clergywoman serving as Senior Minister for Public Theology and Transformation at New York’s Middle Collegiate Church. Lewis discussed the themes of her recent book, Fierce Love.

One prominent theme throughout the conversation was the importance of self-love. Lewis put it this way, “We have God inside us. It’s almost blasphemous not to love ourselves.” She also referred to loving yourself as “the most important family value” and to doing so “with an unconditional regard.” And Schaeffer gave his definition of “success” as “the fierceness of love you experience from others and give to others, and that includes yourself.”

Another focus was Schaeffer’s frustration with the culture of popular evangelicalism that he was raised in. He mentions by name Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and James Dobson, and alleges, “All these luminary pastor-leader evangelicals were so uncharitable and such unkind people and such fraudulent folks in the way they dealt with people, raised money, and so forth.” Regarding his upbringing, he adds that he is “someone who comes out of a domineering, testosterone-driven background, a male raised to be an asshole by divine right because my Reformed theology demanded that I be ‘head of the home.’”

Schaeffer also devoted much attention to the assertion that love and morality emanate primarily from humanity’s evolutionary history. He says, “Morals do not come from sages like Jesus, Martin Luther King Jr., Muhammad, whomever. Morals are evolved in us.”

He adds, “When it comes to this evangelical idea that they’re more moral… they’re departing from the evolutionary structure of who we all are, which is not to stand in judgment of other people but to reach out and care for them. That’s the natural thing to do. And then when Jesus comes along and puts it into words, the only reason it resonates is that’s who we evolved to be.”

Schaeffer and Lewis did articulate some admirable and poignant ideas over the course of the conversation. For instance, they discussed the lessons learned through being with their families so constantly during the pandemic, the importance of gradually helping children see themselves as world citizens (especially in the modern age), and the need for better paid family leave solutions.

However, their call for “authentic” family values falls short of Biblical, Christlike family values. Imitators of Christ, rather than prioritizing love of self, must first of all be radically selfless, just as Christ “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:6-7). Imitators of Christ must embrace men’s leadership in households as a testament to the self-sacrificial love of Christ for his bride (Ephesians 5:22-33). And imitators of Christ know that love does not come naturally to all people; on the contrary, “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

If Schaeffer and Lewis draw a line wherein the fierce love and radical care-giving which should characterize people is not extended to the unborn – those who most desperately need it, perhaps it is their family values which are inauthentic, not those of traditional evangelicals. Real family values do not turn a blind eye to the plight of the helpless and cold-shoulder the vulnerable simply for the sake of reviling a complementarian outlook.

Churches must seek for families to value and uphold human dignity in all respects, including the sanctity of unborn life, not because it is the evolutionarily advantageous thing to do, but rather out of worship for a Savior who departed the very throne room of heaven to clothe himself with humanity. This Christmas season, instead of decrying the supposed failures of evangelicalism and defining a morality in opposition to that, let’s be reminded to teach children about the selfless miracle of the incarnation, and about what the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ means for them.

  1. Comment by Bill B on December 10, 2021 at 9:39 am

    I’m so disappointed…again. Frank Schaeffer is harming his father’s legacy and dishonoring him. I get that he’s making a living off of being an ex-vangelical as are many right now, but it is a shame. What happened to this generation? Why are they so selfish and self-focused? Why are they so intent on destroying everything? I think it’s like the guy recently who tried to smoke the snakes out of his house and in the process burned it down. Be careful when you burn everything down to get rid of a few problems, there won’t be much left but ashes and smoke. Francis Schaeffer deserved better.

  2. Comment by David S. on December 10, 2021 at 10:20 am

    It is of no great surprise to this now former, PC(USA) Presbyterian that Ms. Lewis “[draws] a line wherein the fierce love and radical care-giving which should characterize people is not extended to the unborn”. Under the current Stated Clerk, Mr. J. Herbert Nelson II, the PC(USA)’s pronouncements regarding abortion have increasingly taken a pro-abortion stance, while cloaked in the language that the denomination is officially pro-choice. Prior to Mr. Nelson’s election as Stated Clerk in 2016 (and coincidentally the adoption of the 2014 amendments to the Book of Order regarding marriage and ordination), the pronouncements generally acknowledged both sides of the abortion debate. The pronouncements also strove to demonstrate areas of common ground…the old Clintonian language emphasizing rare, and either implicitly or explicitly emphasizing support for women-in-need who carry through pregnancies and adoption as an alternative. Since those two incidents and with the departure of a number members, particularly following the BO amendments, the PC(USA) has taken an increasingly pro-abortion turn even as it denies such. The fact that Mr. Nelson’s office and related committees (and individuals such as Ms. Lewis) cannot bring themselves to acknowledge what abortion really and truly is and why people object, merely adds one more nail in the coffin of the assessment that they and people like them are servants of the enemy masquerading as angels of light and wolves in the fold masquerading as sheep . (Mr. Nelson with his pleasant demeanor is the best example of either that I have seen in a long-time as opposed to the, at times, patently obvious demeanor of the Prosperity preachers, such as Osteen, Copeland, and Dollar.) May God have mercy on their souls for the evil that these false preachers and teachers have promoted with their deceptive smiling faces.

  3. Comment by Kevin on December 10, 2021 at 3:17 pm

    Schaeffer’s autobiography was titled “Crazy for God”. That title is two words too long.

    I’m not sure what happened to him or exactly when it happened. He seemed to change radically, though, during the Iraq war. (His son served there as a Marine.)

  4. Comment by Thomas F Neagle on December 10, 2021 at 5:27 pm

    Frank Schaeffer has more straw men than Iowa in June.

  5. Comment by Jimmie on December 11, 2021 at 4:59 pm

    His ideas are just “puffs of wind” that will blow hither and there. God Chooses who will join Him in His Spiritual Journey with us ! If those who want to create a religious fantasyland as he does , then will “reap the whirlwind “ and have no safe place to go. The shame is, he is leading others to destruction with him.
    To compare Jesus as a “ sage” is blasphemy and will reap what he sows!

  6. Comment by Mike on December 12, 2021 at 4:44 am

    “We have God inside us. It’s almost blasphemous not to love ourselves.” Wow. Really? Because we are Christians and God (really, the Holy Spirit, which is God) has come into us to guide and heal us, we have become like God and must therefor love ourselves or else its (wiggle word) almost blasphemy. Sounds like the serpent talking to Eve in the garden of Eden.

  7. Comment by John Smith on December 13, 2021 at 5:37 am

    Jesus is a sage, god is within us, by loving ourselves we love god, we determine morals, etc. There is nothing new under the sun, the old heresies just get repackaged.

    OTOH I’ve no objection to him calling for an examination and evaluation of “beloved” leaders. We should not accept his criticism without reservation but their flaws should be held up with their virtues and examined. How else will we learn? After all Matthew and Luke weren’t always kind to Peter.

  8. Comment by Joe M on December 14, 2021 at 12:23 am

    Francis and Edith Schaefer’s works still inspire. Frank… If I didn’t respect the memory of his parents, I might think he was a jerk. The less said the better.

  9. Comment by Gregg on December 14, 2021 at 6:37 pm

    Just look at that picture of Frank. And realize it was hand selected by him and his agent for publication. He is sour and angry, and wanted it to be immortalized in a photograph for all to see. Frank: get some help. He who dies with the most righteous indignation does not “win.”

  10. Comment by Jonathan Lenzi on June 7, 2022 at 1:23 am

    I agree… Franky Schaeffer is a self-absorbed pompous disgrace. As far as reaping the whirlwind, if he doesn’t repent that will be an understatement.
    This is what he had to say ‘back in the day.’ Oh how I long for those days regarding him.
    THIS IS WHAT MY WIFE, Trish Lenzi,
    accomplished in raising & educating our five children, all of whom are very successful adults & more importantly each one is a follower of Jesus Christ!
    “The greatest hope in this society in terms of the people who will actually change something are the women, and men too, but especially the women who have decided not to listen to the feminist propaganda of self. The people who are putting the raising of children first are molding the future of this country in a way that has been dropped in a completely irresponsible manner by the people who are putting other things first. And the fact of the matter is this, if there is any hope for the United States, it’s in the return of many intelligent, articulate women to an understanding that raising children is not placing them in daycare centers, but is a Christian ministry. If that is all they ever do, they have done more than every neuropsychologist laid end to end from here to the moon. And to me, the most radical thing you can do in the United States of America today is not to bomb an abortion clinic, but THE most radical thing that will set you apart as a raving revolutionary is to be a woman at home with your children, bucking the whole system of materialism, bucking the whole system of secularism, and essentially just thumbing your nose at it and saying, ‘Stick it in your ear. My children are more valuable than your games. I’m not interested in me, myself, and I, my body, and whatever, whatever. I’m interested in eternal things because that is what these children are. They are the only things in this life that I can take with me to Heaven. And so they are worth the investment.’ These radical women and their husbands, if they support them radically, are pursuing the family not only as a career but as a political statement saying, ‘Here we are and we are not going to be steamrolled into smashing all the most valuable things in life. We refuse to be coerced through fashion. We refuse to be coerced through propaganda. We refuse to be coerced through these false role models on television.’ And just say, ‘Look, no, we don’t care where society is going, we’re going to be different,’ whether you’re the only person in the neighborhood doing it. This is revolution. And as the years go on and I travel around as a Christian activist, increasingly my lists get shorter and shorter in terms of priorities of what you should do. And more than ever the number one priority is, ‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR OWN KIDS???’”
    (James Dobson’s “Focus on the Family” radio broadcast 1986 interview with Franky Schaeffer.)

  11. Comment by Guest on July 17, 2023 at 4:44 am

    He told the truth about some of those Evilgelicals who are as opposite of Jesus as East to West because he had the inside scoop. Shameful.

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