Frank Schaeffer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Frank Schaeffer (born August 3, 1952) is an American author, film director, screenwriter and public speaker. He is the son of the late theologian and author Francis Schaeffer. He became a Hollywood film director and author, writing several internationally acclaimed novels depicting life in a strict fundamentalist household including Portofino, Zermatt, and Saving Grandma.

Life and career[edit]

In 1990 Schaeffer became a member of the Orthodox Church, which he said "embraces paradox and mystery".[citation needed] He converted in 1992 at a Greek Orthodox church in Newburyport, Massachusetts.

In 2006 Schaeffer published Baby Jack, a novel about a U.S. Marine killed in Iraq. He is also known for his non-fiction books related to the Marine Corps, including Keeping Faith: A Father-Son Story About Love and the United States Marine Corps, co-written with his son John Schaeffer, and AWOL: The Unexcused Absence Of America's Upper Classes From Military Service and How It Hurts Our Country, co-authored with former Bill Clinton presidential aide Kathy Roth-Douquet.

In 2007 Schaeffer published his autobiography, Crazy for God: How I Grew Up As One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back, in which he goes into much more detail regarding what it was like to grow up in the Schaeffer family and around L'Abri. In 2011, he published another memoir, called Sex, Mom, and God, in which he discusses growing up with his parents and their role in the rise of the American religious right and argues that the root of the "insanity and corruption" of this force in U.S. politics, and specifically of the religious right's position on abortion, is a fear of female sexuality.[3]

The two memoirs form the first and third book of what Schaeffer calls his "God trilogy". The second one, Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don't Like Religion (or Atheism) (2010), describes his spirituality as it exists since abandoning conservative evangelicalism. The first half contains critiques of both the New Atheists and of Christian fundamentalism.

Political views[edit]

Schaeffer has written: "In the mid 1980s I left the Religious Right, after I realized just how very anti-American they are, (the theme I explore in my book Crazy For God)."[4] He added that he was a Republican until 2000, working for SenatorJohn McCain in that year's primaries, but that after the 2000 election he re-registered as an independent.[4]

On February 7, 2008, Schaeffer endorsed Senator Barack Obama for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, in an article entitled "Why I'm Pro-Life and Pro-Obama."[5] The next month, prompted by the controversy over remarks by the pastor of Obama's church, he wrote: "[W]hen my late father -- Religious Right leader Francis Schaeffer -- denounced America and even called for the violent overthrow of the US government, he was invited to lunch with presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush, Sr."[6]

After the 2008 Russian-Georgian War, Schaeffer described Russia as a resurgent Orthodox Christian power, paying back the West for its support of Muslim Kosovar secessionists against Orthodox Serbia.[7]

On October 10, 2008, a public letter to Senator John McCain and Sarah Palin from Schaeffer was published in the Baltimore Sun newspaper.[8] The letter contained an impassioned plea for McCain to arrest what Schaeffer perceived as a hateful and prejudiced tone of the Republican Party's election campaign. Schaeffer was convinced that there was a pronounced danger that fringe groups in America could be goaded into pursuing violence. "If you do not stand up for all that is good in America and declare that Senator Obama is a patriot, fit for office, and denounce your hate-filled supporters ... history will hold you responsible for all that follows."[8]

Soon after Obama's inauguration, Schaeffer criticized Republican leaders:

How can anyone who loves our country support the Republicans now? Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley and Ronald Reagan defined the modern conservatism that used to be what the Republican Party I belonged to was about. Today no actual conservative can be a Republican. Reagan would despise today's wholly negative Republican Party.[4]

Books[edit]

• Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God: How to give love, create beauty and find peace, self-published, 2014. ISBN 978-1495955013
• And God said, "Billy", Colorado: Outskirts Press, 2013. ISBN 978-1-478-70001-2
• 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, Cambridge: Da Capo Press, 2011. ISBN 978-0-306-81928-5
• Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don't Like Religion (or Atheism), Cambridge: Da Capo Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-306-81854-7
• How Free People Move Mountains: A Male Christian Conservative and a Female Jewish Liberal on a Quest for Common Purpose and Meaning (with Kathy Roth-douquet), New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2008. ISBN 978-0-06-123352-4
• Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back, New York: Carol & Graf Publishers, (September) 2007. ISBN 978-0-7867-1891-7
• Baby Jack: A Novel, New York: Carol & Graf Publishers, (October) 2006.
• AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America's Upper Classes from Military Service—and How It Hurts Our Country (with Kathy Roth-Douquet), New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2006. ISBN 978-0-06-088859-6
• Voices From the Front: Letters Home From American's Military Family, New York: Carol & Graf Publishers, 2004. (Third of Military Trilogy) ISBN 978-0-7867-1462-9
• Faith of Our Sons: Voices From the American Homefront — The Wartime Diary of a Marine's Father, New York: Carol & Graf Publishers, 2004. (Second of Military Trilogy)
• Zermatt: A Novel, New York: Carol & Graf Publishers, 2003. (Third of Calvin Becker Trilogy) ISBN 978-0-7867-1259-5
• Keeping Faith: A Father-Son Story About Love and the U.S. Marine Corps (with son John Schaeffer), New York: Carol & Graf Publishers, 2002. (First of Military Trilogy)
• Saving Grandma: A Novel, New York: Berkley Books, 1997. (Second of Calvin Becker Trilogy)
• Letters to Father Aristotle, Salisbury, MA:Regina Orthodox Press, 1995.
• Dancing Alone: The Quest for Orthodox Faith in the Age of False Religion, Brookline, MA: Holy Cross, 1994.
• Portofino: A Novel, New York: Macmillan, 1992. (First of Calvin Becker Trilogy) ISBN 978-0-7867-1716-3
• Sham Pearls For Real Swine, Brentwood, TN: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, 1990.
• Is Capitalism Christian? (Editor), Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1985. ISBN 978-0-89107-362-8
• Bad News For Modern Man as Franky Schaeffer, Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1984.
• A Modest Proposal (with Harold Fickett), Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1984.
• A Time For Anger: The Myth of Neutrality, Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1982.
• Addicted to Mediocrity: 20th Century Christians and the Arts, Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1982.

Films[edit]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

Notes

1. ^Schaeffer, Frank (2008). Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back. Da Capo Press. p. 26. ISBN 0-306-81750-0. 
2. ^ abcFrancis Schaeffer at the Internet Movie Database
3. ^Smiley, Jane (July 8, 2011). "Jane Smiley reviews Frank Schaeffer’s ‘Sex, Mom, and God’". Washington Post. 
4. ^ abcSchaeffer, Frank (March 8, 2009). "Open Letter to the Republican Traitors (From a Former Republican)". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 2009-03-09. 
5. ^Schaeffer, Frank (February 7, 2008). "Why I'm Pro-Life and Pro-Obama". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 2008-09-17. 
6. ^Schaeffer, Frank (March 16, 2008). "Obama's Minister Committed 'Treason' But When My Father Said the Same Thing He Was a Republican Hero". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 2008-03-17. 
7. ^Schaeffer, Frank (August 12, 2008). "Why Russia Invaded Georgia: Payback Time from the Orthodox World to the West". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 2008-09-17. 
8. ^ abSchaeffer, Frank (October 10, 2008). "McCain's attacks fuel dangerous hatred". baltimoresun.com. Retrieved 2008-10-10. 

External links[edit]