FOR ROBIN WILLIAMS. MAY THE LORD HAVE MERCY

Thousands if not millions have been deeply troubled by the suicide of Robin Williams--a comic most of us have been entertained by for years.  Especially since just a few years ago Williams had done a public service announcement urging those complicating taking their own lives to seek help and that there was always hope. 
 

Williams, so we are told, was beset with financial problems, the loss of his TV series, and the news he had Parkinson's disease.  Enough to trouble any man.  Professional failure, the possible loss of all he built during his carrier, and a disease that would eventual render him a shadow of himself may have been what sent him into fatal depression and loss of hope.
 

Most of us treasure both his comic movies (Mrs. Doubtfire) and his dramatic roles (Dead Poets Society).  (Personally, I thought his dramatic acting was woefully underappreciated.)  In public appearances, he seemed so joyous and on top of the world.
 

But those who work with comedians tell us that in fact very few are happy.  Being funny ironically is an outgrowth of their pain.  Perhaps Robin Williams had that in common with his fellow humorists.  Williams himself revealed he was bipolar a few years ago.
 

Still, most do not understand.  Deep, clinical depression cannot be understood by most people--for which they be grateful.  But one who suffers from the disease simply are in another world.  They cannot "snap out of it".  Fun activities with others only make them feel worse because their inability to enjoy and share them brings them to feel isolated from the rest of us.
 

I have had more than enough experience with deep depression. The thing to remember is that it takes over your whole life. Depression has a nasty habit of distorting one’s perceptions—everything is not as it appears. Friends and family will express their concern for you and tell you that they love you—but YOU CAN’T HEAR IT. It all seems so beside the point.
 

Lastly, deep depression saps (for a lack of a better phrase) your psychic energy. Everything is such a struggle. At one point, I could not make simple decisions and could not even summon the strength to lie.  When friends and family ask what they can do for you, it sends one into a panic because it is a burden one cannot answer as you have no idea what they can do.  It is not that others do not want to understand.  They CAN'T understand.  They have no real reference to comprehend the dark world the depressive lives in.
 

The pain is so great that finally you will do anything to make it stop. Sadly, for many, taking one's own life seems the only way out.
 

When those unfortunate people take their lives, we (especially Christians) fear they are doomed to Hell.  Indeed, some Churches teach so.  But is that true?  All we can do is pray. Maybe this is one thing we are not to know and should not be so quick to judge.  All that is left to us is to pray.  We Lutherans are instructed we cannot pray for the dead--they are beyond anything we can do for them.  But maybe we should pray--at least if for nothing else to release the dead from our hearts into the care of the Lord.  And trust in our Father's mercy.

FRANK SCHAEFFER ATTACKS THE "FRAUDS"--ONCE AGAIN

Frank Schaeffer

Every once in a while, we come across the case of Frank Schaeffer; the son of the evangelical intellectual powerhouse Francis Schaeffer.  One time a firm member of evangelical Christianity, who moved away from his roots and converted to eastern orthodoxy--in a way.  In fact, Frank Schaeffer moved from his near fundamentalist beliefs to the liberal side of the ledger--more congruent with the enthusiasms of mainline Christianity. 

Frank Schaeffer was an integral part of his father's work and life within his father's L'Abri community in Switzerland.   Francis Schaeffer opposed theological modernism and promoted a more historic Protestant faith and a presuppositional approach to Christian apologetics, which he believed would answer the questions of the age.  Thousands from around the world came to visit L'Abri and some lived there at times.  L'Abri was meant to be a sort of intellectual learning center established to lend vitality to classic Evangelical discussions many of which had gone dormant in the twentieth century.  To say Frank had been his father's acolyte would be something of an understatement if those who had been a part of L'Abri are to be believed.  According to many, it was Frank himself who goaded his father into making his more strident, public statements and political activities in the mid-1970's to his death in 1984.  It was during this time, Frank Schaeffer says he was instrumental in the formation of the religious right in America.  (Many inside conservative and the "religious right" circles have said that Schaeffer grossly overstates his role in the establishment of the righteous right and its subsequent activities in American politics.)

Schaeffer says that by 1990 he completely dropped out of the Evangelical leadership--later to be admitted into the Greek Orthodox Church in 1992.  Much but not all of his animus against the Christian right seems to stem from the attacks and criticisms Senator John McCain suffered from conservatives during his unsuccessful 1990 campaign for the Republican nomination for the Presidency.

(Much of conservative opposition to Senator McCain stems from his sponsorship of distinctly "non-conservative" measures in Congress and his habit of grasping defeat from the jaws of victory by teaming up with Democrats and moderate Republicans to form "compromises" which blocked Republican measures working their way through the legislative process.  The practical effect being McCain carrying the Democrats' water for them.)

Francis Schaeffer

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--a sort of "tell all" book.  In Crazy for God, Schaeffer savagely attacked his father and mother, L'Abri, those associated with L'Abri ,  other ministers and many conservative politicians--describing all as frauds and hypocrites. 

In a nutshell, Schaeffer tells us that many in the Evangelical leadership really don't believe what they are saying.  A few don't even believe in God.  But the prime motivation in fabricating their poison swill is money--pure and simple.  Opposition to abortion--the major cause of the religious right--has nothing to do with concern of the unborn but rather  a corrupt and ugly fear of female sexuality.  In addition, Schaeffer has become an ardent champion for Barak Obama--in the extreme.  Schaeffer grants  only the very basest of motives for any opposition and criticism toward Obama and his policies. 

One time friend and confidant, OsGuinness, responded to Crazy for God thus:

Frank Schaeffer unquestionably adored his father, just as his father passionately adored him. Having lived in their home for more than three years, I have countless memories of this, including the sight of the two of them wrestling on the floor of the living room of their chalet, and ending with a fierce hug. Yet no critic or enemy of Francis Schaeffer has done more damage to his life's work than his son Frank—a result that one might not be able to infer from many reviews of the memoir, including that which appeared in the previous issue of Books & Culture.

The problem is not so much that Frank exposes and trumpets his parents' flaws and frailties, or that he skewers them with his characteristic mockery. It is more than that. For all his softening, the portrait he paints amounts to a death-dealing charge of hypocrisy and insincerity at the very heart of their life and work. In Frank's own words, his parents were "crazy for God." Their call to the ministry "actually drove them crazy," so that "religion was actually the source of their tragedy." His dad was under "the crushing belief that God had 'called' him to save the world." Because of this, his parents were "happiest when farthest away from their missionary work." Back at their calling, they were "professional proselytizers," their teaching was "indoctrination," and it was unclear whether people came to faith or were "brainwashed" and "under the spell" of his parents. Frank's own arguments in their support, he now says, were a kind of "circus trick."

Commenting on the time when Francis Schaeffer went through his watershed crisis of doubt in 1951, which he claimed was pivotal to his faith and work, Frank says it was never resolved with any integrity: "Somehow he convinced himself to still believe." His father's "stunted" theological convictions "he held on to more as emotional baggage … than for any intellectual reason." Really? "Left to himself, Dad never talked about theology or God … . God and the Bible were work." And he was different when away from L'Abri altogether: "Dad never said grace over meals. It was as if Dad and I had a secret agreement that away from L'Abri, we were secular people."

And so it goes. With such a son, who needs enemies? To be sure, Frank tries to nuance the conclusion: "I once thought Dad's ability to present two very different faces to the world—one to his family and one to the public—was gross hypocrisy. I think very differently now. I believe Dad was a very brave man," one who simply had to "carry on"—the victim, presumably, of his own unresolved but inadmissible inner tensions. Yet there is no way round it. Francis Schaeffer, in his son's portrait, lacked intellectual integrity. There was a lie at the very heart of the work of L'Abri, and the thousands of people who over the decades came to L'Abri and came to faith or deepened in faith, were obviously conned too.

I challenge this central charge of Frank's with everything in me. I and many of my closest friends, who knew the Schaeffers well, are certain beyond a shadow of doubt that they would challenge it too. Defenders of truth to others, Francis and Edith Schaeffer were people of truth themselves.

For six years I was as close to Frank as anyone outside his own family, and probably closer than many in his family. I was his best man at his wedding. Life has taken us in different directions over the past thirty years, but I counted him my dear friend and went through many of the escapades he recounts and many more that would not bear rehearsing in print. It pains me to say, then, that his portrait is cruel, distorted, and self-serving, but I cannot let it pass unchallenged without a strong insistence on a different way of seeing the story. There is all the difference in the world between flaws and hypocrisy. Francis and Edith Schaeffer were lions for truth. No one could be further from con artists, even unwitting con artists, than the Francis and Edith Schaeffer I knew, lived with, and loved.

Crazy for God unquestionably has its humorous passages. It also has some pages of lyrical beauty and poignancy in which Frank describes his wife Genie and his daughter Jessica. I have no problem with a picture of Francis Schaeffer "warts and all." I knew him well, and could have added one or two stories myself. He was always open about his flaws, just as he was compassionate toward those of others. I had my own disagreements with him. My wife and I actually left L'Abri in 1973 for principled reasons, grieved but certain that we, along with several others, needed to break with a community that we believed was missing its way—mainly because of the direction Frank was intent on taking it.

Yet despite all that, for those of us who were part of the story of L'Abri in the late '60s and early '70s, the better qualities and the legitimate revelations in the memoir are overwhelmed by a blindness and bitterness that cannot be excused. No one who witnessed the stature and diversity of the thousands who came to L'Abri's 50th-anniversary celebration in 2005 could doubt the depth of quiet, enduring gratitude that thousands owe to Francis and Edith Schaeffer. For many of us, they changed our lives forever and set us off on the strenuous and costly path we are still pursuing decades later with no reservations and no regret.

Are there other problems with the book? First, Frank's portrayal of his mother is cruel and deeply dishonoring, monstrously ungrateful since she poured herself out for him far more than his workaholic father. Edith Schaeffer was one of the most remarkable women of her generation, the like of whom we will not see again in our time. I have never met such a great heart of love, and such indomitable faith, tireless prayer, boundless energy, passionate love for life and beauty, lavish hospitality, irrepressible laughter, and seemingly limitless time for people—all in a single person. There is no question that she was a force of nature, and that her turbo-personality left many people, and particularly young women who tried to copy her, gasping in her slipstream. To many of us she was a second mother, and in many ways she was the secret of L'Abri.

Yet Frank describes his mother as a "high-powered nut," who was "best at the martyrdom game." He mocks her with vitriol in several of his books, and her incredible and justly celebrated passion for beauty and excellence he dismisses with a postmodern sneer as a mission that was "nothing less than repairing the image of fundamentalism." Several times I saw her reduced to tears in private after his barbs against her. But now in her nineties, with her failing memory, she neither fully knows nor is able to respond to all he has written about her. "If I read it," she said to me about one of Frank's earlier books, "it would probably break my heart."

Second, Frank's descriptions of other people and events are often equally irresponsible and wildly inaccurate. He rightly disavows the immaturity of his early books and films. He was as "addicted to mediocrity" as anyone he attacked. But for all his improved writing style, his manner of sneering dismissals is unchanged. Sometimes he is ludicrously negative, as in his remarks about Billy Graham and Carl Henry. Sometimes he is self-servingly positive, citing compliments from people—such as Malcolm Muggeridge—who were well known for their overall scathing dismissals of both Francis and Frank. Sometimes he is just plain cruel, as in his description of the woman assigned to be his home school tutor—and as in most cruelty, he is worst when mocking those unable to reply.

Third, Frank's broad dismissals of faith different from his own are often absurd, and his portrayal of recent Christian history is woefully ignorant. On the one hand, he routinely conflates evangelicalism with fundamentalism, or disdainfully dismisses evangelicalism as "fundamentalism-lite," the child of an older fundamentalism. The reverse, of course, is true. Fundamentalism is the recent movement, and evangelicalism pre-dates it by centuries. On the other hand, he inflates his own role in founding the Religious Right, even if out of self-flagellating disgust.

Frank says he was "the prime mover and shaker when it came to making sure that Dad got truly famous within the evangelical subculture," and that he and his father were "amongst the first to start telling American evangelicals that God wanted them involved in the political process." Yet Francis Schaeffer's international recognition came far earlier than the Religious Right, and calling Schaeffer "the father of the religious right" overlooks the far more crucial early role of such players as Ed McAteer, Paul Weyrich, Richard Viguerie, and Jerry Falwell, who were the real fathers of the movement.

Apart from these flaws, and above all the central one mentioned first, Frank Schaeffer's memoir raises other grave issues for me. For a start, I am dismayed by the responses to the book. It has understandably given perverse comfort to those who already dislike the Christian faith, or evangelicalism, or conservatism. More troubling is how many evangelical reviewers and readers have betrayed symptoms of the postmodern disease in their response. The book's revelations are taken as gospel and the book is judged in terms of its style rather than its substance. Our postmodern age is a free schooling in cynicism, so nothing is ever what it appears to be and there are no heroes once you see what really makes people tick. But no one should take Frank's allegations at face value.

Schaeffer seems to fancy himself as a gadfly toward evangelicalism; but it seems to me his role is more like being a dick.  It is doubtful Evangelicals bother themselves to pay attention to him these days--his real audience being fellow liberals who enjoy listening to an apostate spill the beans about what happens behind the curtain which cloaks the goings on in world of the evangelical leadership.  The picture he paints is not a pretty one; but having been behind that curtain himself he feels this gives him a great deal of credibility.  It certainly does among liberal audiences.To get a flavor wider Schaeffer's point of view, peruse the titles for some of his recent writings:

Christians’ Constitutional Religious “Right” to Discriminate and Abuse Post-Hobby-Lobby, Wheaton and Gordon

Gordon College Expels Dietrich Bonhoeffer Because He’s Gay — Christianity Today Magazine Won’t Hire Him Either

Dear Mr. President, As the Executive Editor of Christianity Today Magazine I Demand A Religious Exemption For Burning Witches Our Freedom As Christians is at Stake (No Pun)

Gordon College Believes That Religious Liberty is the Right to Persecute Gays or as Westboro Puts it “FAG MARRIAGE DOOMS NATIONS”

The Can and Can’t LIST of the Religious Right

Wheaton College Becomes a Tool of the Far Right Obama-Haters and Seals the Fate of the Evangelical Community’s Reputation for a Generation.

Hobby Lobby Verdict is a Victory For Ultra-Right Roman Catholic Co-Conspirators With Chuck Colson’s Ghost

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is like Some Mafia Thug, Actually Worse

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to my Execution for Heresy…

“Iraq in Flames” What the F#@! Happened? Answer: Idiot Evangelicals and The Fool They Elected Broke Iraq and the Middle East and the World. Period

Dietrich Bonhoeffer Was Flamingly Gay– Deal With It -

Rubio is a Traitor to the Human Race & a Willful Fool Pandering to Stupid Evangelicals by Denying the Evidence on Climate Change

World Vision: It’s Never Too Late To Hate

The Only Difference between the Late Fred Phelps and the Evangelical Establishment (Not to Mention Christianity Today Magazine) is that Fred had the Guts to Act on His Evangelical Convictions

Do Evangelical Leaders Really Believe Their Own BS? -

There Are No “Absolutes” So Honor the Ethical Evolution of Our Species by Changing Your Religion

I Ended Up in the Greek Orthodox Church and Found I Was Just as Dumb as Before

When Billy Graham Dies, What Circus Has Franklin Set Up to Profit, Given What He Did With His Mother’s Body?

One Look at American Christians and I Figure Jesus Must Have Hated Women– Right?

(If you wish to investigate deeper for yourself, each one of these articles can easily be found on the internet.)

At first blush, one makes allowances that Schaeffer is merely exercising the columnist's art of snarking hyperbolae.  But, after a while, one comes to the uneasy conclusion that he really believes what he writes and means it exactly as he writes it. 

Edith Schaeffer with husband Francis

In the very last part of March, I almost wrote about an article Schaeffer wrote about his mother--an article rather indelicately titled "My Mother Is Dead  (reproduced  in other locations with the more respectable title "Goodbye Mom, Edith Schaeffer 1914 – 2013 RIP").  But at the time, I thought better of it--concluding it wasn't worth the effort. 

I am a Lutheran--not an Evangelical.  I don't even think Evangelicals would have me.  (My years in college and in "ecumenical" youth groups kind of brought that home to me.)  And why should they?  The fact of the matter is that there is a long list of theological issues of intense interest among Evangelicals that are not that interesting or pertinent to the Lutheran walk of faith.  If not about the "first things", then for the second order of things Lutherans came to different conclusions a long time ago--beginning with Luther's own theology itself.  So who am I to weigh in on one of their inter-family squabbles?

That is until I began to sense that a number of Lutherans were getting a bit of schadenfreude watching old Schaeffer giving the what for to those backward Evangelicals.

The occasion in question is an open letter Schaeffer published entitled "Dear Evangelical Establishment...".   It comes in the guise of "friendly advise" to the Evangelical community; but it is in fact merely a collection of Schaeffer's familiar battleaxes sure to warm the hearts of liberals everywhere.  And it is sure to be mostly read by liberals--confirming all the worst stereotypes liberals have about conservative Evangelicals.  But too many won't just stop thinking this way about Evangelicals; they assume in one way or another the same is true of all Christians and Churches--especially those who get in their way and refuse to practice their faith in private.  (That the private sphere seems to be getting smaller and smaller each year is of little moment in their view.)

Among all the articles and books Schaeffer has written, these is several annoying characteristics. 

The first is Schaeffer's penchant for self promoting his previous books--constantly reminding us of his break from the religious right and his knowledge of what goes on behind Evangelical closed doors--often distracting from the subject.  It is like Schaeffer can't help himself in turning every issue to be about him.

Schaeffer also ascribes a conspiratorial character to those of religious and politics different from his.  Especially those whose Christian faith different from his, he deems that they are either brainwashed fools or insincere.  Schaeffer apparently believes the truth of his faith is self-evident.

Schaeffer also claims he has received thousands of letters from Evangelicals who secretly agree with him--but keep their thoughts and doubts to themselves for fear of the evils that would befall on them from their own congregations and shunning from their own families.  Schaeffer scandalously claims his mother entirely agreed with him and fully supported him in his campaign to reveal the truth.  Something which cannot be confirmed or denied now that she is dead.  (If his mother in fact gave her full support, it would be news to those who were closest to her.)

Lastly, Schaeffer constantly sets himself up as a martyr.  He constantly anticipates attacks and sufferings which are to follow each time he reveals some inconvenient truth about the right.  He sometimes expresses amazement when no such thing happens.  Instead, he cites all the positive reviews his books receive and the positive reception he gets from the public--especially from individual Evangelicals who react with a sigh of relief that--damn it--somebody finally somebody said it.

As of late, Schaeffer cloyingly darts about whether he still regards himself as a Christian.  At the very least, Schaeffer holds on to a version of the "the ethics of Jesus/the religion of Paul" trope.  His latest book, Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God: How to give love, create beauty and find peace., significantly muddles the water.  Describing himself as a Christian atheist,  writes:

That killing was done “for God” and yet didn’t lead to a complete re-think about the theological “approach” to a relationship with God is simply insane. Yet this madness persists today. Every time a sermon is preached where someone says “the Bible says God says” the lie continues to be spread. The answer to all such claims is a loud “Says who?”

David Fischler on the Standfirm website notes (Frank Schaeffer: Off His Meds Again)

Frankie doesn’t like “correct” belief. He prefers incorrect belief, evidently. What he actually means is, “I object to anyone claiming that what they believe is correct, except me. I am correct, which is why I can say as many slanderous and/or foolish things about people I disagree with as I want, because I can guarantee that I will never get violent, except rhetorically.”…. It’s an approach taken by virtually no one except a handful of extremely fringe rationalists, but Frankie is convinced that all of Western Christianity is nothing more than a reflection of hyper-intellectual hyper-Calvinism.

So what does Schaeffer write in Dear Evangelical Establishment ?  Here is a sample:

… please read this “open letter” to you to understand what’s been done to you. I’m not your enemy. Your neoconservative “friends” are your enemy.

Your real enemies are not progressive Christian/Atheist/Backsliders like me. Your real enemies are some of the influential people who pretend to be your friends. They are your Nemesis.

I’ll bet the board members of Gordon College, Wheaton College and Christianity Today have no idea about the real reasons behind a bad set of choices they were duped into making in order to serve a purely political agenda masquerading as a “religious liberty” issue. They’ve been had. -

A day is fast approaching where ordinary evangelicals will be cursing Wheaton College, Gordon College and the other evangelical establishment bastions that demanded the right to discriminate against women and gays as a matter of “religious liberty

So many evangelicals live in bubbles that they have no idea how the real world functions. They are going to find out that outside the comfortable inner circle of home-school, Christian school, Christian radio, TV and publishing, churches and Bible study groups, to the larger world people who want to discriminate against gays and women are weird outcasts to be shunned.

And what self-respecting secular, moderate or even ordinary tolerant religious organization will associate with people who write letters to the president demanding the right to discriminate against gay men and women — just for being gay?!?!

What college will play a sports team from Gordon College if Gordon succeeds in gaining the “legal” right to discriminate against gay men and women? Who will hire a Gordon grad from “that place that discriminates against gays?

What academic association will want to work with faculty from Wheaton College, now that Wheaton has “won” a Supreme Court case giving it the right to withhold contraceptive insurance coverage from women?

The argument will soon be made that if Christians can “legally” discriminate against gays and women then secular institutions should be able to exercise their consciences and discriminate against evangelicals. Just wait.

Major evangelical institutions have been talked into becoming part of the Tea Party attack on President Obama in particular and progressive America in general. They are “winning” some battles. But they will lose this war.

With the election of America’s first black president, the advent of the Tea Party and the shift of the GOP to the right, it seems that the major evangelical institutions are launching initiatives that Falwell would have loved. Why?   Short answer:  Evangelicals were manipulated

 

A long history of behind-the-scenes activities to move the evangelical base rightward are paying off. I’ll bet most evangelicals don’t even know they have been duped by neoconservative Roman Catholics and a few others, into a war where they’re just cannon fodder in a larger political battle.

Mainstream evangelical leaders like Wheaton, Gordon and Christianity Today used to set themselves apart from the likes of Falwell. No more. They have now become willing co belligerents of the far-right GOP leadership seeking to discredit Obama.

That is all this “religious liberty” shtick has really been about. And it is going to isolate and damage the evangelical cause. Do the words “Scopes Trial fallout and loss of credibility” ring a bell?

This is no accident. The anti-Obama shift by the evangelicals has been the aim of some dedicated activists. Their work is paying off. But they never did care about the likes of Wheaton and Gordon and would find the journalism of Christianity Today Magazine, let alone the religion of the big pastors that went along, laughable.

The late evangelical leader (and former Nixon hatchet man) Charles Colson was the evangelical Judas that sold his brethren for a mess of political pottage. He sold them to the religious right via Roman Catholic activist Professor Robert George of Princeton, and George’s friends on the Court (Justice Antonin Scalia and the other Roman Catholic members). George helped create The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the legal group at the heart of arguing the Supreme Court “religious liberty” cases.

The neoconservatives have played the evangelicals like a violin. I say “played” because after the 1950s evangelicals never were anti-contraception– until recently that is when aroused on the “religious liberty” issue. And believe it or not many evangelicals, say most teachers at Gordon, never woke up in the morning asking themselves how they could find new ways to hurt the feelings of their gay students by inflicting them with Medieval Roman Catholic “Natural Law.”

Neoconservative activists like George and his Beckett Fund, and Colson helped set the stage for the Tea Party and what should be called the Biblical Patriarchy Restoration Movement. They gave a gloss of intellectual respectability to what was a theocratic wish list targeting gays and women as a means to target President Obama and the Democratic Party. That’s the real game. It is a game worthy of Karl Rove, in fact it is his game…

The aim was not freedom for religion but a chance to deliver a blow against a president that many evangelicals have never accepted as legitimate but that the racist Republican establishment hates. The result risks fulfilling Justice Ginsburg’s “minefield” prediction where the rule of law and equal protection fade into chaos.

The larger American community will not stand for this. Most evangelicals won’t either. They are good  loving people. Wheaton, Gordon and Christianity Today Magazine et al are mere tools in a larger fight. Now they are marked as bastions of intolerance. They will pay a heavy price. They have been abused. That is a shame. Evangelicals deserved better. The cause of Christ did too.

If you doubtful…thinking perhaps I've taken these comments out of context, I invite you to read Schaeffer's letter in full and make your own judgment.

(It should be pointed out that the Supreme Court's ruling on the Hobby Lobby case was actually a quite narrow one.  The fact is Hobby Lobby does provide contraceptive coverage under its healthcare plan.  What Hobby Lobby objected to was four specific medications which are not contraceptives at all but rather are aborficants.  In other words, they don't prevent conception, they destroy the new life after conception.  What the Court will rule in the matter of Catholic institution who do not provide coverage for contraception at all will be decided latter--perhaps years from now.)

Schaeffer letter asserts a conspiracy (neoconservatives and right wing Roman Catholics) which has drawn Evangelicals to make the moral decisions they have.  Moral decisions no decent and fair minded person of good will would make.  Evangelicals have been drawn into a "culture war" whose hidden real agenda is to restore a Biblical Patriarchy in American law and customs and defeat President Obama. 

Because Schaeffer believes the religious right's battles against abortion and advocacy for religious liberty are only a smoke screen for more nefarious purposes, he feels no need to directly take on the debates over those issues.  If they are
"fake" issues, why give them the honor of paying attention to them?  Why fight all the crocodiles when you can just drain the swamp?

But, if Schaeffer's neoconservative/Roman Catholic conspiracy theory is just a product of his imagination, is painting Evangelicals as duped fools and refusal to take moral issues seriously fair?  Not only to Evangelicals; but also to the American civil forum?

Is Schaeffer's mean-spiritedness a merely reflection of that he attributes to so many Christian leaders all over the world?  

LET'S YOU AND HIM FIGHT

Ever since I was in junior high school (1965-1966). "evolution vs. the Bible" has been a staple of in-class student discussions and debates.  (To be sure, it had been a standard dispute in previous years for class discussions long before I got there.)  I grew tired of the whole matter by high school; but that didn't stop regular classroom clashes.  Sometimes teacher instigated.  Sometimes  spontaneous.  These arguments varied between mere skirmishes to agitated pitched battles.

To my surprise, "evolution vs. the Bible" continued in college as well--although mostly in dorm room bull sessions rather than in the academic classrooms. The arguments put forth by each side may have had a bit more sophistication; but they essentially they were the same ones used in those first experienced in junior high.


In general, at least at my liberal arts college, the acceptance of the theory of  was more than a foregone conclusion in the hard, natural sciences (especially biology).  Questioning "evolution" had all the rationality of rejecting arithmetic in physics or the alphabet in English composition. 

The further one got from majoring in the hard sciences, however, one generally found students, with the exception of the atheists,  pretty much believed in evolution but also believed in varying degrees in the possibility of divine purpose guiding the direction of evolutionary change.

As we come to the present day, the evolution vs. creationism dispute still has makes its periodic appearance in the popular media.  While coverage is heavily tilted in favor of the theory of evolution, still champions of each party took their appointed roles in slugging it out.  Most of the time, it appears that these are instances of "let's you and him fight" for entertainment purposes rather than matters to be taken seriously.

In all this, we, who have no trouble synthesizing evolution with faith handed down from the
saints, behold in shirking embarrassment fundamentalists who insist that every word in Scriptures is literally true and therefore evolution is a lie.  Worst of all, these fundamentalists take to the battle ground and fight for the teaching of creationism in the schools.   To the extent evolution must be taught, they insist that it should be emphasized that evolutionary theory is just that:  a theory.  Gee, we say to ourselves, don't these "uneducated rubes" realize that their passionate machinations only  become cannon fodder for those (especially those pesky "new atheists")  who regard all religion the province of dupes and fools?   They're giving us sophisticated Christians a bad name because we will invariably be lumped in with them.

The late paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould proposed a way this issue could pacified between to two warring camps.  The solution to the supposed conflict between science and religion he called it the thesis of non-overlapping magisteria. 

A magisterium refers a domain of teaching authority.  And Gould's thesis maintains that "the magistium of science covers the empirical realm:  what the Universe is made of (fact) and why does it work in this way (theory).  The magisterium of religion extends over  questions of ultimate meaning and moral values.   According to Gould, since these two magisteria do not overlap there is no real conflict (or at least there should be) between science and religion.  As Gould envisioned it,  science studies how the heavens go and religion studies how to go to heaven.

Gould's peaceful world for science and religion pleases some and some are less than convinced.

One of the practical problems is just where would this magistium be located among all the religions found on earth.  It is doubtful each would accept one central magistium.  The likelihood is that each would maintain their own teaching authority.  And each has its own concept of how the "heavens go" and man's place in them.  Likewise, as in Christianity, progressives get many of their cues from science--a sort of syncretism in which the faith is harmonized with modern science which in the least has implications in morality and the propose of the faith.

Others such as  Richard Dawkins, the world-renowned evolutionary biologist and "new atheist", has little patience for religion.  If humanity is be guided then it must be done exclusively by science and not the dead hand of the primitive superstitions of the past:

[I]t is completely unrealistic to claim, as Gould and many others do, that religion keeps itself away from science's turf, restricting itself to morals and values. A universe with a supernatural presence would be a fundamentally and qualitatively different kind of universe from one without. The difference is, inescapably, a scientific difference. Religions make existence claims, and this means scientific claims.

Indeed, many if not most atheists and scientists believe that the demonstration that earth is not the center of the universe as many faiths had taught invalidates them entirely.  This world is in a remote corner in the vast expanse of the universe and is not even the center of its own galaxy.  The earth is a minor speck among the great heavenly bodies--lost in the cold hollow space.  By direct implication,  mankind itself is not the center of the universe.  Thus no imaginary supernatural being could have any overarching interest in the destiny of mankind.  And given that now know how the universe came into being through natural means and we understand a lot of how works, no supernatural being is needed to explain creation, the laws by which it operates, and how mankind came to be.  All the great questions of religion and philosophy which have bedeviled mankind in its brief history have been answered--obviating the need for either.

This summation of the wisdom of science is nothing more than radical materialism.  It is also philosophical naïve in that it acts as if philosophy has never explored these contentions long before Galileo and his invention of the telescope.  It would be as if no music existed before Elvis.

Nevertheless,  it should become clear that many have another agenda in the teaching of evolution in schools.  They believe the theory of evolution would free children of religious superstitions which shackle their lives--leading them to a freedom of a world guided by reason.  (That one doesn't necessarily follow the other is a real life reality which strikes them as a logical impossibly.)

Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan

Fundamentalists in their own way sense this underlying schema amidst claims of merely restricting religion to outside the classroom so that teachers could keep an uncluttered focus on the education of their students.  Education belongs in the classroom.  The inculcation of religion belongs in the Churches and homes.  What concerns fundamentalists in many other ways along with the teaching of evolution is that the schools are covertly subverting the authority of their faith by which they are raising their children.  In the theology shared by most fundamentalists, the Bible is without error and if one item in the Bible is not true then the Bible can no longer be trusted.  If the schools are successful in convincing their children that the theory of evolution is true--that men and women were not created by God as they are now--then the axe has been laid to the root of the tree.  The children's faith would be on its way to being killed.

Most Lutherans outside the Missouri and Wisconsin Synods have little sympathy for this "all or nothing" theology of the Bible.  We have been taught what the Bible is and what it is not.  That is, the Bible is not a science or history text.  The concerns of the ancient writers of the books of the Bible were many and varied but living up to our modern concepts of science and history were not among them.   Those modern understandings didn't exist and it would be unreasonable to expect the Scriptures to reflect the ideas, concepts, and standards of our time--contemporary notions which themselves are in constant flex.

Still, what does all this add up to?  Why do the proponents for the teaching of evolution press so hard?  By far the lion's share of students will never hear about the problems of harmonizing quantum mechanics with Einstein's theory of reality.  I would say that a few would ever hear about string theory or its implications.  Real life experience shows that many successful professionals and craftsmen can excel and contribute to the advancement to their chosen fields and not believe in evolution.

On the other hand, why do those who resist the teaching of evolution (or at least demand "creationism" be given equal time) fight so hard?  Again, real life experience shows that many, many Christians believe in evolution (or at least tolerate it being taught to them) yet also stick to "otherwise" orthodox Christianity.   In actual practice, evolution doesn't appear to be all that threatening to the spiritual life of Christians.

I would suggest that the conflict over evolution is actually a proxy war over a much deeper issue.  Both the champions and opponents of the teaching of evolution know something most of us choose to ignore or (most likely) deny.  We tend to believe that the primary business of schools is education.  It isn't.  The chief task of our K-12 schools is socialization and enculturalization.  This means more than bringing up our children to be good, contributing, knowledgeable citizens.  It is about making our children aware of the nature the world they live in and what moves that world. 

The real issue is this:  are we simply products of necessity and chance?  Or are we beings created by an all-powerful and loving God?  The affirmative answer to either of these questions is not a piece of trivia among all the other issues and choices.  They have a direct bearing of how decisions are made and how life is to be lived.  Even only by implication, the answer we impart to our children is destined to shape their entire beings.

The belief that the theory of evolution means there is no God is shared by a number larger than you would expect.  For many of us, this is a false dichotomy--one does not follow the other.  But the basic question on the true nature of reality is one we cannot afford to pass over.  What we teach our children does matter and it means we have to consciously decide what that will be.  Beings by chance and necessity or beings created by a loving God?  There is little neutral ground between the two.  At the same time, atheism or theism, neither are the natural default positions in instruction.

We can stand back and laugh at how the champions and opponents of the teaching of evolution wrestle with this question from the wrong end of the bull.  But we are gravely mistaken to think there is no bull.

AS FOR THE UNBELIEVING LIVING AND DEAD…

For historical and cultural (not to mention theological) reasons, Lutherans do not fit neatly within the American Evangelical community.  Indeed, many for the controversies which so agitate Evangelicals have little interest for Lutherans.  Thus, for the most part, the raucous squabble occasioned by one Rob Bell's particular departure from typical conservative Evangelical views for more the enlightened view common in progressive Christianity barely has taken little notice within the American Lutheran communion. 

For those unfamiliar with the matter of Rob Bell, here is a brief summary:

After receiving his  M.Div. from Fuller Theological Seminary, Rob Bell spent some time under the mentorship of Dr. Ed Dobson--one time executive at the Moral Majority and  Dean of Men at Jerry Fallwell's Liberty University--established Mars Hill Bible Church  in  Grandville, Michigan which grew the one of the largest mega-churches in the country.  It seems clear that Bell himself with firmly within the moderate mainstream of American Christianity by the time he started Mars Hill and preached many of the standpoints which would get him into trouble years later. After it was published, his book Love Wins led to a fallout with the congregation and forced him on a "search for a more forgiving faith.   In September 2012. Bell left Mars Hill.

The particular subject within Love Wins which has led to Bell's estrangement from the Evangelical community is his belief that it is quite possible and logical that no one shall be condemned to spend an eternity in Hell.  While Bell says he is not a universalist, he has put out several strong arguments in its favor and concludes "Whatever objections a person may have of [the universalist view], and there are many, one has to admit that it is fitting, proper, and Christian to long for it."

The Evangelical community has found it difficult to believe that such a successful Christian minister could say such a thing.  Albert Mohler, John Piper, and David Platt have been Bell's most vocal critics with Mohler saying that the book was "theologically disastrous" for not totally rejecting universalism.  Other such as  Brian McLaren, Greg Boyd and Eugene Peterson have spoken up in Bell's defense but they represent a minority.

For the vast majority of the Lutheran laity, pastors and theologians, the "Bell tempest" has been of scant interest.  Universalism has little purchase historically among Lutherans and one knows Martin Luther would have had little patience for Bell--although for more subtle reasons than one might suppose.  Nevertheless, universalism has gained a foothold among some Lutherans in recent years.

Otherwise orthodox theologian Carl Braaten in 1983 suggested all mankind (both the living and the dead) would eventful be reconciled to God in his book Principles of Lutheran Theology.  Braaten made this proposition somewhat gingerly and has largely avoided any further comment since.  Still, many if not most his fellow orthodox Lutheran clergy and theologians expressed disappointment that Braaten included this speculation in his otherwise excellent text.  Indeed, Braaten was somewhat vague on how universalism can be harmonized with the classic, historical teaching of the Church on salvation.  What his comments do bring to mind are Pope John Paul II remarks in which he firmly insisted on the existence of Hell, admitted that there was very little indication in the Bible or Catholic tradition all would escape eternal damnation, but it was perfectly acceptable within Christian piety to pray that Hell would be empty.

In a similar fashion, Pastor Peter Marty made a more insistent avocation for universalism in the March 2014 issue of The Lutheran.  Marty never uses the word "universalism" itself and he does not exactly come out and say there are many ways in other religions to receive salvation; yet he uses in his fashion many of the same historic objections to the singularity of Christianity.  To his credit, Marty does not use the prophylactic weasel word mode so many theologians employ to avoid charges of heresy. 

What is especially offensive in his article Who gets saved? Marty compares the belief in the exclusively of Christianity to the images of a Jesus bouncer admitting only to select people into a velvet-roped VIP entrance of a popular, celebrated night club.  And those holding onto the orthodox, historical teaching of the Church are selfishly believing they and they alone as Christians have the ticket into heaven.

Marty goes on to write: What you are hearing is some version of the idea that if you practice religion in a particular way, you will be saved. Yet no religion can save us. God alone saves. We Christians do not believe in Christianity. We believe in God. God alone has the truth. God is truth. No religion possesses the whole truth on God. In our best moments, we know that Jesus is larger than any single religion.

Note that no Lutheran worth his salt would say that if you practice religion in a particular way, you will be saved.  Yet it is this pejorative straw man image employs throughout his article.  Likewise, those who pay attention to their catechism would maintain that we don't possess the truth--rather the Truth possesses us.  This is a vital distinction Christianity teaches us, yet Marty gives no credit to orthodox Christians sharing in believing thus.

Marty then goes on to write:

God loved the world enough to gift this world with God’s son. That’s the claim of John 3:16. We may be tempted to believe that God so loved Christians, that God gave all who name Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior exclusive rights into a special club. But Jesus is universal Lord and Savior, not just my personal Lord and Savior. He saves the whole world, and this doesn’t happen through tribal membership.   [Emphasis mine]

Without using the word "universalism", this is an outright admission that Marty is in fact a universalist.  Exact how Christ is to save those who are not his disciples--and those who do not believe in God at all--is not explained.  One wonders about what Christology is implying; but it cannot be harmonized with Luther's Theology Of The Cross.  Just where does the cross come in this universalism?

At this point, Marty begins to offer a heterodox interpretation of John 14: 6:  “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”.  Marty does this by asserting Jesus was merely comforting His disciples in the face of His soon to be suffering and crucifixion.  That Jesus was not disclosing any cosmic truth beyond that loving reassurence. 

We are not given permission to shrink the cross to suit our own version of God. This may not be easy medicine for some in the Christian fold to swallow. Yet, the apostle Paul writes, “In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19). This is not the Christian world that God is putting back together through Christ. It is the whole world. “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth,” says Jesus of his pending death and resurrection, “will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32). Not some people. Not Christian people. All people  [Emphasis his own].

Marty begins his conclusion by repeating a familiar, sentimental objection to the particularity of Christ in a man's and woman's eternal destination:

I happen to have been born in Chicago into a Christian family. I didn’t ask to be born into this family that practiced the Christian faith; I just was. Someone else was born in Delhi, India, on the same day I was born, but into a Hindu family. That kid didn’t ask to be born into his Hindu-practicing family; he just was. Surely we cannot claim that God privileges certain ones of us with an eternal home because of our birthplace or cultural background. Nor would we want to argue that we receive a club access card because we uttered a theological formula about Jesus. 

Marty concludes stating that God is bigger than our imaginations and bigger than any one religion. 

His ways are not our ways and how He saves all is beyond our understanding.  Our job as Christians is to trust ourselves in Christ and testify to the sweet sunlight that comes with loving Him.  Note that that testifying doesn't necessarily mean going out into all nations making disciples.  Or does it?  The ambiguity of these words leaves it up to question--and doubts.

If these notions were entertained by a few in the Lutheran fold, this would cause little concern except for those individuals themselves.  But it appears that these notions are exactly uncommon among Lutheran clergy and theologians.  Especially troubling is the fact that Marty's article appears in the ELCA's flagship publication.  And The Lutheran has a habit of floating teachings that may be coming down the pipe to laity from where the ELCA leadership wants to go.

The image of orthodox Christians as snotty insiders is an insult to the martyrs of the past and present who suffered for the sake of Christ.  What exactly did they suffer for if a particular Christ was not alone the way, the truth, and the light?  Was the Church simply wrong all those centuries to preach that it is only in Christ that we are to find our hope?

What about the "unfairness" of the damnation to those faithful to other gods?  Isn't it unjust for God to condemn those who never heard the Gospel?  For that matter, isn't unreasonable for God to send to an eternal Hell those who had heard the Gospel and rejected the faith based on a single decision made in this lifetime?  It seems to "our" notion of justice that a truly loving God would not cast them into the outer darkness.  Or is this rationalizing what we feel is right?

The testimony of the apostles was the same as that of Peter as he stood before the rulers, the elders and the teachers of the law of Jerusalem:  "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”  (Acts 4:12)  Are we to believe that what Peter testified wasn't exactly what he meant?

Consider Hebrews 4: 1-3:  Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. ² For we also have had the good news proclaimed to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because they did not share the faith of those who obeyed. ³ Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said,

“So I declared on oath in my anger, They shall never enter my rest.’”

It is clear that apart from faith all is sin.  God is a holy God and He will allow no unclean thing into His presence. 

Let us end on a slightly different note.  The aforementioned Rob Bell made the claim that Luther was open to the idea of the universal salvation of all men and women.  But this is what Luther actually said:

If God were to save anyone without faith, he would be acting contrary to his own words and would give himself the lie; yes, he would deny himself. And that is impossible for, as St. Paul declares, God cannot deny himself. It is as impossible for God to save without faith as it is impossible for divine truth to lie. That is clear, obvious, and easily understood, no matter how reluctant the old wineskin is to hold this wine–yes, is unable to hold and contain it.

It would be quite a different question whether God can impart faith to some in the hour of death or after death so that these people could be saved through faith. Who would doubt God’s ability to do that? No one, however, can prove that he does do this. For all that we read is that he has already raised people from the dead and thus granted them faith. But whether he gives faith or not, it is impossible for anyone to be saved without faith. Otherwise every sermon, the gospel, and faith would be vain, false, and deceptive, since the entire gospel makes faith necessary.    (Works, 43, ed. and trans. G. Wienke and H. T. Lehmann [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1968], 53-54; WA 10.ii, 324.25-325.11)

That God may give the unbelieving dead a "second chance" and faith will be given to all is only unsupported speculation.  It attempts to look into the "left hand" of God--that which He does not disclose to us and remains hidden from us.  That which God has hidden will not be discovered.  And speculation is a dangerous thing and many times has led the Church down evil and regrettable paths.   Speculation has led many away from the faith.

As for the unbelieving living and dead…to the living we are to proclaim the Gospel and make disciples in His name.  As for the dead, we leave to God, His mercy, and His justice.