Posted on 10/07/2011 1:10:41 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Once a self-identified founding member of the American “religious right,” Franky Schaeffer now says that “religion is dumb” and “man made.” Although Schaeffer grew up among some of the most influential evangelicals of the twentieth century, and worked as one of them during much of his adult life, he now believes the Bible is a fraud and that Christianity teaches “misogynistic” practices.
Schaeffer, the son of the late evangelical theologian, philosopher, and founder of the L’Abri Fellowship, Francis Schaeffer, discussed his newest book at the Kansas City Public Library on September 27, 2011. His recent book, Sex, Mom, and God: How the Bible's Strange Take on Sex Led to Crazy Politics--and How I Learned to Love Women (and Jesus) Anyway tells the story of Schaeffer’s conservative Christian upbringing, and how his mother, Edith Schaeffer, is “a woman who’s better than her theology.” Her theology is that of the “religious right” that Schaeffer now hates and the book tells the story of how the religious right has supposedly ruined America, as politics have “been folded into ‘bring America back to God.’” More broadly, he said, the book’s message is to “not make generalizations about each other,” because there are many people just like his mother among evangelicals.
The problem, Schaeffer explained, is belief with certainty. “Certainty kills,” he explained,“no one ever bombed an abortion clinic or a mosque after yelling ‘but I could be wrong.’” That example he said, “sums up the difference of my philosophy now and where I would have been speaking 35 or 40 years ago to you about all my certainties of who the bad guys are and who the good guys” are. Now he believes, with seeming certainty, that the Bible is the “unauthorized [biography] about the deity” written by “bronze age schmucks who were finding ways to control their wives and daughters ... who in hindsight were trying to say ‘see? God made us do it so it’s ok.’”
“Life is not long enough to conclude anything, it’s only enough to try your best along the way,” Schaeffer said, and further, “if salvation is correct doctrine, then everyone is lost.” To those who hold religious beliefs he said, “believe me, you will someday reach a point where you know that was dumb.” Schaeffer said his life, “for better or worse, worse mainly, happens to intersect the rise of the the religious right in America, which also happens to have ruined the United States.” He believes a deity exists, and accepts some select moral teachings from Christianity but, “Jesus had to be separated in my mind from a political movement before I could even consider looking at the teaching again as anything but an appendage of a system that failed.”
Schaeffer presented his views as an alternative to the opposing views of “new atheists” such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, and orthodox Christians. “Secularism” is not the answer, he said, it “is not what it’s cracked up to be,” but also, “it’s not God’s fault that there’s dumb stuff in the Bible.” According to Schaeffer, we are not “stuck with the stupidity of Christianity,” but are free to create our own conception of God, reality, and morality. Not believing in the Christian God “doesn’t mean that a God that loves me … and created love and personality and relationships in a universe that otherwise would be dark and cold isn’t out there.”
For many years a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Schaeffer believes that “the God of the Bible [is] distinct from any deity that might be out there, he, she or it.” It is dogmatic belief in the Bible and the God of the Bible that, according to Schaeffer, has ultimately caused “the rise of the religious right and the decline of the country it has so impacted.” He claimed there is a “direct relationship between the religious right” and “what’s happening worldwide with our economy right now,” because “the people who are in Congress are ideologues” driven by “theologicized politics.” This is problematic because “when you put a theological twist on anything, the person who disagrees with you is therefore lost” and in disagreements, “you’re not mistaken about abortion or tax policy, you’re an agent of Satan.”
Schaeffer claimed he neither sides with the right or the left because he has “seen the same blood in your eye fundamentalist zeal in both camps.” In the end of his talk, he was at least somewhat consistent, and said “if you disagree with me, you’re not going to hell, you’re probably right!”
Schaeffer has always made his money off his dad. When that stopped coming in, he thought he could get money being anti-dad.
Ignore him. He’ll go away quickly.
Apparently, he’s broke.
I think the two verses above 2 Cor. 5:16 answers the question regarding knowing no man, not even Christ NOW after the flesh.
"For the love of Christ constraineth us: because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again." And verse 16: "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away: behold all things are become new."
We are in the flesh as long as we are on this earth, but we are spiritually seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. We are in Christ, and He is in us. Spiritually speaking.
We worship in Spirit and in truth. It is all spiritual, during Christ's physical absense from this earth. When He walked this earth, he was known after the flesh, bones, and blood. When He ascended to His Father in heaven, it was a glorified body of flesh and bones, without His blood, which had been sacrificed for our sins. Just as we will have one day. When He returns to set up His kingdom, He will return in His glorified Body of flesh and bones.
During His absence, how could we possibly know Him after the "flesh", His walk on earth amongst people? We can ONLY know Him now after the Spirit. He is in heaven. Without His blood. Which is another problem with the Eucharist. His blood has already been sacrificed. Every last drop. There is no more blood to be turned from wine.
"This do in remembrance of Me." 1 Cor. 11:24. NOT "This do to partake of My Body."
But I already know, we disagree..:)
here's the entire passge:
[15] And Christ died for all; that they also who live, may not now live to themselves, but unto him who died for them, and rose again. [16] Wherefore henceforth, we know no man according to the flesh. And if we have known Christ according to the flesh; but now we know him so no longer. [17] If then any be in Christ a new creature, the old things are passed away, behold all things are made new. [18] But all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Christ; and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation. [19] For God indeed was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing to them their sins; and he hath placed in us the word of reconciliation. [20] For Christ therefore we are ambassadors, God as it were exhorting by us. For Christ, we beseech you, be reconciled to God.
What St. Paul is talking about is the spiritual nature of a Catholic Christian man, which exceeds considerations of carnal nature, familiy ties, ethnic kinship and so forth. He is not saying that Christians should abandon their sense of vision, hearing, etc. but rather that their material life has been sanctified in Christ: "behold all things are made new", and continues to be sanctified through the ministry of confession, which St. Paul calls "reconciliation".
The ministry of confession is what Paul calls reconciliation? And what you got from this Scripture is that the Catholic Christian man's material life has been sanctified in Christ?
This is what you've got?
I feel the same way, How someone can ignore such a tremendous legacy is disheartening.
But what if professed Christ earlier in life and has now turned apostate? Is there still hope?
. . . . .[You say, "NOT 'This do to partake of My Body.'"]
But St.Paul says, "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?"(1 Corinthians 10:16)
Yes, Lord; certainly, Lord.
. . . . .[You say: During His absence, how could we possibly know Him after the "flesh"?]
I think it's easy to get tripped up by that phrase "after the flesh", since -- as was explained --- St. Paul is not saying that Christians should abandon their sense of vision, hearing, etc. but rather that their material life has been sanctified in Christ. So St. Paul uses this phrase, not to refute Christ as "the Word made flesh," not to refute the Eucharist as the Body and Blood of Christ, but to refute OUR narrow materialist logic--- the limitations of OUR carnal minds.
. . . . . Again: [You say: During His absence, how could we possibly know Him after the "flesh"?]
You really think he left us with no way to partake in His Body and Blood, no way to have Communion with the true, whole, and living Christ??
Your faith leads you to really believe in the True Absence?
I'll be out for much of the rest of the day, so I say Bye, my dear smvoice,and may God bless you.
Yes, that is what St. Paul is talking about in 2 Corinthians 5:15-20. Where do you see my exegesis differ from the inspired text?
The ministry of confession is what Paul calls reconciliation?
So does everyone. "Confession" is a colloquial term for the Sacrament of Reconciliation referring to the whole by its part, where the penitent confesses (tells about) his sins. Other parts are absolution, petition for mercy, and doing penance.
Obviously. He who believes with the heretics that the gifts of bread and blood do not become the Truly Present Christ in the Eucharist is a believer in the True Absence and a denier of the recorded words of Our Lord Jesus Christ. He, by accepting the Protestant theological fiction, has made the first step toward complete apostasy of faith.
Good term, I'll use it.
There is no "ministry of confession" there. It is God who is reconciling man to Himself, not man reconciling himself to God by confession.
Indeed, and that is happening in the presence and the prayer of the priest who has the "ministry of reconciliation". This passage (as well as the following chapter) describes the Catholic sacrament of reconciliation, of which I partake with regularity, not anything your Protestant mind imagines.
The Alter Christus?
Schaeffer, the son of the late evangelical theologian, philosopher, and founder of the L'Abri Fellowship, Francis Schaeffer, discussed his newest book at the Kansas City Public Library on September 27, 2011. His recent book, Sex, Mom, and God: How the Bible's Strange Take on Sex Led to Crazy Politics--and How I Learned to Love Women (and Jesus) Anyway tells the story of Schaeffer's conservative Christian upbringing, and how his mother, Edith Schaeffer, is "a woman who’s better than her theology."
Francis, his father was the prolifer
Franky, his son, has always been an ass***e.
As the Father hath sent me, I also send you. [22] When he had said this, he breathed on them; and he said to them: Receive ye the Holy Ghost. [23] Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained. (John 20:21f)
“The supreme arrogance of religious thinking: that a carbon-based bag of mostly water on a speck of iron-silicate dust around a boring dwarf star in a minor galaxy in an underpopulated local group of galaxies in an unfashionable suburb of a super-cluster would look up at the sky and declare, ‘It was all made so I could exist!’”
— Peter Walker
It appears that Mr. Schaeffer was corrupted by logic. What a shame. Our friend in the sky is going to send his soul to hell now. (which is also completely illogical, but those silly logical people don’t know about our jesus magic!)
“Certainty kills” huh? I don’t know what happened to him. Maybe he has experienced teen-aged rebellion late in life because he sure opposes everything his father stood for. The God Who is There. He can be known through His revealed word. This is the starting point that western civilization and its laws were based upon. As this concept was eroded, civilization came apart at the seams. Can anyone look around us and not see the truth in this? And to pitch his tent with Barak Obama.
One post in your posting history and it’s to a two and a half year old thread? What is up with that?
Oops. I read it wrong. You resurrected this old thread. Just curious as to why?
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