Frank Schaeffer Quotes & Sayings

The Theonomists - otherwise known as Dominionists; in other words, people who believed in taking "dominion" over society and the world in the name of Jesus - believed in restoring American law to its strictest Puritan origins. They wanted to make America into a modern-day Calvin's Reformation Geneva. They were our version of the Taliban. They were antitax, antigovernment libertarians (when it came to economics), but on social issues were working to replace secular law with Old Testament biblical law. The — Frank Schaeffer

Dad and I were mixing with a new set of people who had not known much, if anything, about my father. If they had even heard of Dad before he came on the pro-life scene in the mid-to-late seventies, they probably hadn't liked the sound of him. These people included Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, James Kennedy, and all the rest of the televangelists, radio hosts, and other self-appointed "Christian leaders" who were bursting on the scene in the 1970s and early '80s. Compared — Frank Schaeffer

Acceding to researchers in the field of epigenetics, traumatic experiences produce fearful memories that are passed to future generations. A study carried out on mice in 2013 found that they could produce offspring with an aversion to actions and events associated with their parents' negative experiences. Nature and nurture turn out to be interrelated. — Frank Schaeffer

Labels don't mean anything. Who cares about labels when someone is slapping you in the face? Who cares about labels when someone is saving you from drowning? Who someone is and what they do is all that matters. — Frank Schaeffer

Let's imagine I happen to be writing some sort of truth here. By the time you read this, I might have changed my mind. Ten years from now, I would likely put it differently. By then I may regret that I wrote this. And regardless of how I feel then, I'll bet that if you reread my book twenty years from now, you'll have changed, so the book will have changed, too. So much for changeless truth. — Frank Schaeffer

There is nothing more profane than the image of an atheist with tears in his eyes conducting the glory and passion of Handel's Messiah. — Frank Schaeffer

North Korea and evangelical empires have the same principle of leadership: nepotism to the nth degree. You may not get the call, but you inherit the mailing list. — Frank Schaeffer

VII of Denmark, he became regent of Denmark when the king's life-long mental illness grew extreme enough to create a power vacuum. Struensee's dramatic social reforms included universal health care, limits on the totalitarian power of the Church, abolishing torture, removing censorship of the press, revoking privileges for nobles, — Frank Schaeffer

Scientists and theologians can't offer better than circular arguments, because there are no other kinds of arguments. Bible believers quote the Bible, and scientists quote other scientists. How do either scientists or theologians answer this question about the accuracy of their conclusions: In reference to what? — Frank Schaeffer

We were busy judging everyone's spiritual state. We had a lot to do. Only God might be able to see their hearts and innermost thoughts, but we had a pretty good idea of how it was going to go for plenty of folks on the Judgment Day. Not so well. — Frank Schaeffer

Science can't predict what stories my children's great grandchildren will tell. The ultimate story about the experience of our journey into consciousness is a closed book to theologians and scientists alike, but it is not a book without promise. At this point we've barely cracked the introduction, and already smartass scientists and theologians pretend they know not just how the story started but how it ends - and worse - what it means or doesn't mean. — Frank Schaeffer

Evangelical Christians are not sincere. It is all about making money. — Frank Schaeffer

We will never find a "good" solution to the question of abortion. What we need to do is to back away from the idea that there is an ideological "fix" to every problem. Then again, that's just one opinion. And I could be wrong. I often am. — Frank Schaeffer

I also happened to sincerely believe in my father's message, though "believe" is perhaps the wrong word. Rather, I had not yet begun to question my indoctrination. — Frank Schaeffer

If you are a Church Of One, do you trust your congregation? When you want to be inspired by an icon representing something bigger than yourself, don't you ever get tired of just looking into the mirror? — Frank Schaeffer

On all levels and in every aspect of our society, the poor are rejected, mistreated, and forced more deeply into their poverty. Christianity should have taken up the cause of the poor; better yet, it should have identified with the poor. Instead, during almost the entire course of its history, the Church has served as a prop of the powerful and has been on the side of exploiters and states — Frank Schaeffer

Dr. Ockenga had been a student of Machen's at Princeton University and followed him out. But then Ockenga, like Dad, became a critic of the fundamentalist's endless civil wars and started looking for a new way to present a friendlier evangelical faith (and face). He helped invent a movement called the New Evangelicals. Their mascot was Billy Graham. Other figures like Carl Henry, founder of Christianity Today magazine (and a man who became bitterly jealous of my father in later years), criticized fundamentalism's failure to address the world's intellectual and social needs. A movement was born - modern evangelicalism, a fundamentalism-lite where everyone could more or less do their own theological thing, as long as they "named the name of Christ" and paid lip service to the "inerrancy" of the Bible. On — Frank Schaeffer

By then, Dad and I were both saying that evangelicals who would not take a stand on abortion had denied their faith. By the early '80s, most evangelical leaders (who wanted to keep their jobs) came over to our side on "the issue" or were intimidated into silence if they still had doubts. But the spiritual-versus-political debate was over. Billy Graham might be maintaining his nonpolitical stance, but we activists had won. Evangelical Christianity was now more about winning elections than about winning souls. After — Frank Schaeffer

People are not as one-dimensional as the stories about them. — Frank Schaeffer

Our best hope is not found in correct theology, the Bible or any other book, but in the love we express through action rather than words. Our best hope is that love predates creation and thus that the Creator sees us as ever young. Our hope is that when we look at God through the eyes of the loving Christ we will see who God really is. Our ultimate hope is that God will be looking back at us as we'd like to be seen. — Frank Schaeffer

The problem with the evangelical homeschool movement was not their desire to educate their children at home, or in private religious schools, but the evangelical impulse to "protect" children from ideas that might lead them to "question" and to keep them cloistered in what amounted to a series of one-family gated communities. — Frank Schaeffer

who is actually delusional? Who is actually following Jesus: fundamentalist Christians rejecting gay men and lesbians' right to marry, or atheist humanists treating men and women with love and dignity? Fact-based, enlightened atheists sometimes treat people like shit, and delusional fundamentalists sometimes miss a book event in order to help a lonely hotel maid. Labels don't mean anything. Who cares about labels when someone is slapping you in the face? Who cares about labels when someone is saving you from drowning? — Frank Schaeffer

Priscilla has made it a mission to disabuse the students who still come to L'Abri of the Schaeffer mythology. She makes no secret of her nervous breakdowns, her dependence on Prozac, her depression and anxiety attacks, her alcohol-related struggles. She will tell anyone who asks that being a Schaeffer child - and the pressure from Mom to be part of the ministry and, above all, from strangers to live up to their "Schaeffer expectations" - didn't help. When I called her to ask if she would allow me to write about her problems, and she gave me the okay, she also said "Mom drove me crazy, but in fairness I would have suffered from stress and depression anywhere. I would push too hard in L'Abri, then crash. If I had been doing something else just as intense, it would have happened, too." Susan — Frank Schaeffer

It seems to me that a spiritual sensibility is built into human nature. Formal religion may or may not disappear but art, love and a desire to find beauty will remain. — Frank Schaeffer

You Republicans are the arsonists who burned down our national home. Now you have the nerve to criticize the 'architect' America just hired - President Obama - to rebuild from the ashes. — Frank Schaeffer

The last thing I crave is to be exposed to the sort of grandstanding preachers that so many evangelical churches seem to breed with the ubiquity of maggots appearing in road kill. The last thing I want is a new and improved "worship experience." The last thing I want is for the service to be socially and politically relevant — Frank Schaeffer

Dad seemed lost in a depressed daze. He had recently been saying privately that the evangelical world was more or less being led by lunatics, psychopaths, and extremists, and agreeing with me that if "our side" ever won, America would be in deep trouble. But by then Dad was dying and knew he had very little time left. There was no time to change his life or his new "friends." All — Frank Schaeffer

Since science is fashionable today, it allows its fraternity to propose cloddish monstrosities as a solution to man's problems in many fields. Fashion rules and, anyway, who but the experts can even dare to speak up? — Frank Schaeffer

religion is a neurological disorder for which faith is the only cure. — Frank Schaeffer

Fewer than 5 percent of Danes attend church. In godless Denmark, the national government funds a high quality education for all children, rich and poor alike, while in God-fearing America, education is funded through local property taxes, so neighborhood and income dictate a child's educational opportunities. Add in race and ethnicity factors to create a perfectly stratified school system segregated by educational opportunity. — Frank Schaeffer

Dad and Mom had a lesbian couple living in our chalet for several years in the early 1970s. One was Dad's secretary, the other Mom's helper. They shared a room. Fortunately, my parents were hypocritical and acted as if, no matter their official religious absolutes, the higher call was to ignore what the Bible said in favor of what they hoped it meant. Thus, without ever saying it, it seems to me my parents were affirming that the Bible should be read as if Jesus was the only lens through which to see God. The result was that Francis and Edith Schaeffer were nicer than their official theology. — Frank Schaeffer

I realize that life is not a step to a better place: life IS the better place, right here and now. It's too good to be true - and it's real. — Frank Schaeffer

The secular humanist, although he would never dream of committing the social faux pas of calling a black man a negro, feels perfectly free to castigate Christians and their leaders in any way he likes. — Frank Schaeffer

My liberators in Silicon Valley have freed me to write for you directly and to say what I want to say to anyone I want to say it to. The Internet and its innovators are doing more to facilitate the reemergence of content-laden, craft-rich, hands-on art, individuality and perhaps even spirituality, than all the galleries, agents, critics, churches and publishers combined. — Frank Schaeffer

The theological battles of the 1920s and 1930s shaped Dad in the same way that political battles would shape the Vietnam generation in the 1960s. Passions forged in those battles became part of a personal identity that was difficult for people who did not share the passionate and polarizing experiences to understand. When — Frank Schaeffer

Muslim, Jew, Hindu or Christian, you are that because of where and when you were born. If you are an atheist, you are that because of a book or two you read, or who your parents were and the century in which you were born. Don't delude yourself: there are no good reasons for anything, just circumstances. Don't delude yourself: you may describe yourself to others by claiming a label of atheist, Jew, evangelical, gay or straight but you know that you are really lots more complicated than that, a gene-driven primate and something more. Want to be sure you have THE TRUTH about yourself and want to be consistent to that truth? Then prepare to go mad. Or prepare to turn off your brain and cling to some form or other of fundamentalism, be that religious or secular. — Frank Schaeffer

Evangelicals are experts at adopting heroes, since their community produces so few with both moral standing and intellectual firepower. — Frank Schaeffer

The Republican base is now made up of religious and neoconservative ideologues, and the uneducated white underclass with a token person of color or two up front on TV to obscure the all-white, all-reactionary, all-backward, 'there-is-no-global-warming' rube reality. Actual conservatives, let alone the educated classes, have long since fled. — Frank Schaeffer

A church split builds self-righteousness into the fabric of every new splinter group, whose only reason for existence is that they decide they are more moral and pure than their brethren. This explains my childhood, and perhaps a lot about America, too. The United States is a country with the national character of a newly formed church splinter group. This is not surprising. Our country started as a church splinter group. The Puritans left England because they believed they were more enlightened than members of the Church of England, and they were eager to form a perfect earthly community following a pure theology. — Frank Schaeffer

America still sees itself as essential and as destiny's instrument. And each splinter group within our culture - left, right, conservative, liberal, religious, secular - sees itself as morally, even "theologically," superior to its rivals. It is not just about politics. It is about being better than one's evil opponent. We don't just disagree, we demonize the "other." And we don't compromise. — Frank Schaeffer

education and money. I go to church with the kids for the same reason Genie and I play our grandchildren classical music and litter the floors and chairs all over our home with open art books. Jack, age three, eats his lunch with a big Goya book propped in front of him asking for the — Frank Schaeffer

Those of us raised in the Christian tradition need to choose to either see God in Jesus or to continue to let the Bible define God. Our tradition says that Jesus is God. Maybe we should act as if we think he is instead of worshipping a book. Maybe we should be brave enough to admit that we are compelled to either become blinded ideologues or we need to forthrightly pick and choose what we follow in the Bible. Most Christians do that anyway, many just don't admit it. — Frank Schaeffer

We're living in an acquisitive capitalist society that is fundamentally anti-family and fundamentally uncomfortable with just enjoying being human. We'd rather shop than live, acquire than love and stare into a screen than hold each other. — Frank Schaeffer

You will always be more than one person. You will always embody contradiction. — Frank Schaeffer