It was published last year, but I did not notice it until last week. It is a memoir by Franky Schaeffer, the son of the famous Evangelical philosopher, Francis Schaeffer who founded L'Abri. It is entitled Crazy for God and it is an important book on many levels. If you're looking it up, he is actually using the mature version of his name now, Frank Schaeffer and the publisher is Carroll & Graf, New York.
In 1955, L'Abri began as a retreat center in Switzerland. The elder Schaeffer had gone as a missionary to Europe in 1947 from a small, conservative Presbyterian denomination. He started by organizing youth ministries in many European cities and then split with the ultra-fundamentalist leader of his denomination. In the 1960s, L'Abri became a destination for activist students and hippies who wanted to explore the spiritual possibilities in traditional Protestantism. By 1970 some of the elder Schaeffer's dialogs with young adults were turned into books that pioneered a new approach (for conservative Protestants) to apologetics and evangelism. His mix of theology, philosophy and culture in the format of conversations rather than preaching or teaching became a major turning point for Evangelicals.
Franky was born and raised in this environment. His three sisters are all several years older; the last got married when he was 12. He was home-schooled in a very informal way and at a young age became a serious artist, producing paintings that were given serious showings and for which people paid real money. Although an American citizen, he was really raised as a European.
As a young activist Franky popularized the anti-abortion cause among Evangelicals. (Believe it or not, when Roe v Wade was decided in the early 1970s, the Southern Baptist Convention actually endorsed it.) As his dad got older, he became more and more concerned about the degenerating morality of Western civilization and Franky introduced to Evangelicals the concept of a video seminar, creating a medium for his father's preaching to be distributed far and wide. When his father returned to the U.S. about 1980, he was greeted with great reverence by Jerry Falwell, Jim Dobson, etc., and became the prophet of what was later to be named "the Religious Right." Franky played a key role in all of this because the elder Schaeffer actually came home for cancer treatment, a battle he lost in 1984 at age 72, and needed a young, vigorous son to cover speaking appointments, help him travel, etc. When his father died, Franky was already used to be surrogate and continued to keep the Schaeffer name in the cause.
Eventually he saw through the moral pretension of the Religious Right, used his success with Evangelical films to get a movie director job in Hollywood and left the faith. He quickly burned out on Hollywood and credits the rock-solid faith and undying love of his wife for bringing him back to God. He has become a very successful, secular novelist and returned to his first love--painting.
This is a highly readable volume. The earthy, loving behind-the-scenes descriptions of his parents, his siblings and their husbands (all key figures in L'Abri and Evangelicalism), as well as the famous are enjoyable as well as edifying. This is the raw stuff of history prepared by a great writer. But it is important for more than the insights into how Christianity got off in the culture wars. It is also the story of a the spiritual journey of a now middle-aged son of the first generation of Evangelical aristocracy. It is a fascinating journey in which Christ wins out, but you can never be certain until the last page. It describes so well the more mature, yet fully Evangelical faith that so many Baby Boomers need now that they are burned out on both the secular and self-righteous.
PS: Preachers, it is full of great quotes and well-crafted descriptions!
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