Posted on 12/29/2014 9:25:13 AM PST by Olog-hai
I am a white, privileged, well-off, 61-year-old former Republican religious right-wing activist who changed his mind about religion and politics long ago. The New York Times profiled my change of heart saying that to my former friends I’m considered a “traitorous prince” since my religious-right family was once thought of as “evangelical royalty.”
You see, only in the Mafia, the British Royal family and big time American religion is a nepotistic rise to power seen as normal. And I was good at it. And I hated it while hypocritically profiting from it—until, that is, in the mid-1980s, I quit. These days I describe myself as an atheist who believes in God. […]
The leaders of the new religious right were gleefully betting on American failure. If secular, democratic, diverse and pluralistic America survived, then wouldn’t that prove that we were wrong about God only wanting to bless “Christian America?” If, for instance, crime went down dramatically in New York City, for any other reason than a reformation and revival, wouldn’t that make the prophets of doom look silly? And if the economy was booming without anyone repenting, what did that mean?
What began to bother me was that so many of our new “friends” on the religious right seemed to be rooting for one form of apocalypse or another. …
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
Just got done with Frank’s book Patience With God.
He’s a man wandering about the middle of the battle field. He had bad experiences with the goofiness of high-profile Evangelicals, and then noticed that there is an equal and opposite intolerant fundamentalism on the Dawkins/Hitchens end of atheism. He committed Ham’s sin against his father Noah, revealing too much about his parents, Francis and Edith.
The book was full of I/me/my/mine sentimentality, a grandfather just trying to write his own definitions of philosophical balance. I don’t think he has found ‘it’ yet. The ‘it’ is Jesus.
I give, who is this guy and why does he think he is important?
If you become an ‘icon’ in Christianity and your name isn’t Jesus Christ or “The Pope” (this current ‘thing’ we have aside), then you likely got that way through non christian means.
See also Roberts
Swaggart
Bakker
This idiot was Francis Shaeffer’s son. He no longer deserves that title. He is a complete psycho who is a disgrace to his great father and all things that are positive and good.
None of the TV preachers ever really believed what they say anyway.
Exactly.
I don’t think this guy and I have been living in the same country for the last 30 years.
So Frank is more comfortable with the secular Global Warming-type apocalypses of the Godless Left?
It’s one thing to lose faith, I would know first-hand. But if you never believed, like the above-mentioned con men, or what you do believe in is all lies(like Schaeffer) then there’s not much else that can be said.
This guy’s ONLY claim to fame is apostasy.
He starts off lying.
Yes, you can’t get anymore dissonant than this ...
” These days I describe myself as an atheist who believes in God.”
Sorry, Charlie, come back when you’ve figured it out.
Who is this fool, and why should I care?
"Ceterum censeo 0bama esse delendam."
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
How many reruns does he get on this?
WOAH! Those 61 years have not been kind to him! If he’d been 81, I would have thought he looked fairly good for 81.
I’ll grant that there are some people who want the worst case scenario to come to pass, you’ll find that on the left and right, nothing new here, sadly. The references to himself couched in such romantic terms “traitorous Prince”... really?!... seems a bit, much. The fact is that people have voted for the GOP in droves because after long and fairminded deliberation they decided that they did not like what the democrats were selling. That is to say, open borders and all the joys that brings, that militant lunatic nurse and Ebola, angry young spincters left/right/center, there were beheadings and Saddam’s people reconstituted into ISIS (or ISIL, guess they couldn’t go by the name of an ancient female deity), really the foreign policy is the gift that keeps on giving. We had Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, I’m sorry but I don’t think ANYONE is ready for Hillary anymore.
The country has moved on, hopefully commonsense voices will prevail in the GOP. Thing is a lot of those commonsense voices are among the religious right, who weathered the silliness that this man profited on and have come out the other side, older, wiser, and with their values intact. Christianity is not for wimps.
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