Frank Schaeffer: Is He a Huckabee Hater or Father Hater?

-By Dr. Don Boys

Frank Schaeffer has major problems as illustrated in one of his articles titled, “The Huckabee Win is America’s Loss.” Now, he has every right to criticize any candidate and take any position on any issue he wants, but his column is filled with factual errors, twisted logic, and indications of major emotional and spiritual problems. Frank seems to be running from his famous father.

Schaeffer is the son of Presbyterian, Dr. Francis Schaeffer, one of America’s great Christian leaders of the last generation. His father was the main person to call evangelical and fundamentalist Christians to repentance for failure to oppose the wholesale slaughter of babies in America. We all cared greatly about children once they were born, insisting on them being taught, trained, and treated well, even to the expense of putting them in Christian schools; however, they first had to overcome the butchers in the abortatoriums. We were strangely silent about that, but then the Roman Catholics were taking care of that problem—without much success.

While I did not agree with all Dr. Schaeffer’s theological positions, I had enormous respect for his convictions, commitment, and courage. Frank, when discussing his dad, seems immature, impulsive, and indignant. Following his father’s death in 1984, Frankie (as he was known) joined the Greek Orthodox Church which he says, “embraces paradox and mystery.” It also embraces error since it is a denomination of salvation by works. An unkind wag said that it is a denomination for those who failed Latin.

Frank shows how far he has come from his evangelical past by the use of crude four letter words. This shows others how much he has “grown.” He is now in line with the culture and is “cool,” maybe even hip. (Whatever that means.) I think maybe his daddy would wash his mouth with soap even at his age.

Frank has garnered good success as a writer and produced four low-budget Hollywood movies that flopped. Maybe he simply could not live in the shadow of his father and be whatever God wanted him to be, but he was not required to be a clone of his famous father.

He denigrates his father’s memory when he writes about his faith: “I seem to have caught [it] like a disease.” No, faith is not caught or inherited but is a gift from God and through it, men are saved by grace. He admits that his life was one of “all-consuming faith, not my faith, but the faith of others.” Maybe his father is not his core problem, but his faith or lack of it.

Frank exposes additional warped thinking in an interview with the Dallas Morning News (12-4-07) when he characterized himself as being “A Christian with questions and one who doesn’t believe that in this life you can be sure of anything.” There’s that faith problem again. He declares that truth is “illusive”; however, by its definition truth cannot be deceptive or false. What a dumb statement!

If his daddy were still alive, he might say, “Son, we can be sure as Peter said in John 6:69 ‘And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.’ And with Paul who wrote in II Titus 2:19, ‘Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure.’” However, Frank has “moved on” and “grown” to where he can’t be sure about anything. How sad.

He writes that he is still trying to find out what God wants, so evidently he was not paying attention in school or catechism class if he is still in doubt about that. An unassuming, uneducated, unsophisticated Christian knows that God wants men to trust Him in forgiveness of sins, obey Him and serve Him forever.

In assessing zealots, Frank charges, “you express your zeal by lying.” What a stupid, general statement! Generally, we are fools when we generalize! He tells us that if we are certain then we are lying. There you have a symptom of the left: They distain, dispute, and denigrate certitude. It is all right to say, “I think,” or “I suppose,” or “It may be” but to say, “I am sure” or “This is the right way,” all drives the radical leftists up the wall.

Frank regrets the part he played in getting Christians involved in political battles that “morphed into the so-called religious right.” I think Frank is regretting too much, for in my opinion he was not that important. If his last name had been Jones, he would probably have driven influential people to protest rallies or cleaned up after rallies. That may be part of his problem.
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Dr. Don Boys is a former member of the Indiana House of Representatives, author of 13 books, frequent guest on television and radio talk shows, and wrote columns for USA Today for 8 years His most recent book is ISLAM: America’s Trojan Horse! His websites are www.cstnews.com and www.Muslimfact.com.)