Monday, May 07, 2007

Frank Schaeffer - Over the Cliff...

Frank Schaeffer. What in the world happened to this man? The son of Francis Schaeffer, a voice that stirred a generation, seems to have completely cut all ties to his father.

There may be a few good reasons, at the risk of trying to psychoanalyze someone I don't know. He was raised in a home that had the influences of 1950s fundamentalist behavior codes, which is true of most anyone born in the 1950s. He was sent off to boarding school while his father's fame and influence took off. Francis is known to have had a temper.

On the other hand, the rigid fundamentalist tag seems a difficult one to make stick. No one, twenty to thirty years ago was more in favor of engaging the culture than Francis Schaeffer. Few were as critical of legalistic insistence on unbiblical absolutes, of being "absolutist about everything". Few were more supportive of Christian involvement in the arts, in simple citizenship, in the full spectrum of living a life as if all things were God given gifts. All the things Franky accuses fundamentalists of depriving him of, his father supported. Odd.