Posted on 03/17/2008 4:47:42 PM PDT by jdm
The Huffington Post sends us this essay by Frank Schaeffer claiming that Republicans have acted hypocritically in scolding Barack Obama over Jeremiah Wright — because the GOP embraced him and his father. His father is “Religious Right leader Francis Schaeffer”, which around here might combine up with a buck to buy a bag of donut holes. Schaeffer fils has repented of his conservativism — hence the appearance at HuffPo — and spends most of it spanking his dad:
Take Dad’s words and put them in the mouth of Obama’s preacher (or in the mouth of any black American preacher) and people would be accusing that preacher of treason. Yet when we of the white Religious Right denounced America white conservative Americans and top political leaders, called our words “godly” and “prophetic” and a “call to repentance.”
We Republican agitators of the mid 1970s to the late 1980s were genuinely anti-American in the same spirit that later Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson (both followers of my father) were anti-American when they said God had removed his blessing from America on 9/11, because America accepted gays. Falwell and Robertson recanted but we never did.
My dad’s books denouncing America and comparing the USA to Hitler are still best sellers in the “respectable” evangelical community and he’s still hailed as a prophet by many Republican leaders. When Mike Huckabee was recently asked by Katie Couric to name one book he’d take with him to a desert island, besides the Bible, he named Dad’s Whatever Happened to the Human Race? a book where Dad also compared America to Hitler’s Germany.
The hypocrisy of the right denouncing Obama, because of his minister’s words, is staggering. They are the same people who argue for the right to “bear arms” as “insurance” to limit government power. They are the same people that (in the early 1980s roared and cheered when I called down damnation on America as “fallen away from God” at their national meetings where I was keynote speaker, including the annual meeting of the ultraconservative Southern Baptist convention, and the religious broadcasters that I addressed.
Has anyone heard of this guy? I mean, besides Mike Huckabee?
Even getting beyond the arrogance, Schaeffer sets up at least a couple of straw men in this argument. Has anyone of significance accused Rev. Wright of treason? We’ve certainly accused him of America bashing and of conducting hate speech from the pulpit, but neither of those are treason. We have also questioned whether Obama’s description of him as a “spiritual adviser” and as a political mentor means that Obama shares the view that God should damn America and that it should be called the US of KKK-A. Given that Obama explicitly campaigns on his claims of better judgment, shouldn’t we look at his judgement in associating with that kind of hateful rhetoric — especially when he has so little else to offer?
Second, we are told that he “had lunch with the Fords, stayed in the White House as their guest, he met with Reagan,” and was a “frequent” guest of the Kemps, although Schaefer doesn’t exactly give that any context. So he met once with Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, and stayed overnight with the former — who wasn’t exactly enamored with evangelicals anyway. One supposes that Jack Kemp probably arranged the meetings, but it doesn’t sound as if either President found him or his rhetoric attractive enough to have a second meeting. That’s both quantitatively and qualitatively at the far end of the spectrum from Obama’s relationship with Jeremiah Wright. He sat in that church for 20 years, bringing his children to hear Wright speak and donated over $20,000 in 2006 to support Wright.
Also, I just checked, and Jack Kemp isn’t running for President in 2008. Reagan and Ford aren’t either, although some Republicans did everything but dig Ronaldus Magnus out of his grave in the primaries. \
Schaeffer undermines his own argument in the passage above, too. He notes that Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson made inflammatory and downright stupid statements about the 9/11 attacks — and hell, Robertson has made foolish and objectionable remarks both before and since. Both, however, apologized for those remarks and retracted them. They didn’t do that because Democrats objected; they did it because Republicans denounced them for making those statements. Trent Lott similarly resigned from his leadership position in the Senate for saying a lot less than Wright uttered in the mildest of his sermons, and only after his fellow Republicans openly called on him to do so.
At least I know why I’ve never heard of either Schaeffer.
From the Os Guinness artticle...
Running away from boarding school at fifteen, Frank was bright and gifted, with talents that showed as clearly in his art then as in his writing now. But he bucked at all formal education and serious tutoring, and his claim that he then received a “’great books’ British university-level literature course” comes as quite a surprise to his tutor. Francis actually praised Frank’s dropping out of school to a friend of mine, arguing that “Christians should be like Bolsheviks.” Later, pushed far out of his depth by the momentum of his and his father’s activism, Frank found himself propelled into becoming the arrogant, pompous, and hollow young fraud that, to his credit, he came to loathe and then repudiate. Frank himself is where the con artistry came into the story.
One of Schaeffer’s books is assigned for a religion class my son has this semester at Hampden Sydney College in VA. Francis Schaeffer is a magna cum laude graduate of HS-C class of 1935.
I also read someplace that Franky was home educated by tutor for a time. His mother’s and sister’s books are quite popular among homeschoolers today.
I am wondering about the religious affiliation ofg his sisters. IIRC one of them became Anglican and Franky is Orthodox, wonder what the other 2 are?
I would assume they would be (or were, anyway) PCA. Francis and Edith were associated with the (then) Reformed Presbyterian Church denomination prior to their births. That denomination eventually merged with the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA, not the PCUSA). From what I've read, Francis and Edith were still members of the PCA as of his death in 1984.
One of the telltale signs that Frank(y)'s engaged in half-truths about his parents, is the constant references to them as being evangelicals and fundamentalists. Franky knows better than to use those terms in reference to the PCA. He's just playing to his liberal/Democrat audience.
The professor, Jerram Barrs, is described here in his bio:
Jerram Barrs Professor of Christian Studies and Contemporary Culture; Resident Scholar of the Francis A. Schaeffer Institute BA, University of Manchester (England); MDiv, Covenant Theological Seminary A disciple of the late Francis A. Schaeffer, Professor Barrs joined the Seminary faculty in 1989 after 18 years with L'Abri Fellowship in England, where he also served as a pastor in the International Presbyterian Church. Professor Barrs brings to his teaching a special sensitivity toward those outside the Christian faith and is in great demand as a speaker in the United States and abroad. Other interests include the arts and literature. His publications include Being Human, Shepherds and Sheep, Who Are the Peace-makers?, The Great Rescue, and The Heart of Evangelism, as well as the video series Building Up Bridges, Breaking Down Walls.
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