{"id":8786,"date":"2013-06-13T12:45:24","date_gmt":"2013-06-13T19:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/?p=8786"},"modified":"2020-02-13T18:26:35","modified_gmt":"2020-02-14T02:26:35","slug":"frank-schaeffer-is-a-christian-atheist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2013\/06\/frank-schaeffer-is-a-christian-atheist\/","title":{"rendered":"Frank Schaeffer is a ‘Christian Atheist’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Frankby Kristin Rudolph –
\nUsually Frank Schaeffer\u2019s talks follow a predictable pattern in which he describes how he followed in the footsteps of his prominent evangelical father, Francis Schaeffer, became disillusioned with the \u201cReligious Right,\u201d and now learns about God mostly through his relationship with his grandchildren. Recently, however, Schaeffer candidly<\/a> discussed his personal theological views\u00a0at Revolution NYC, an emergent congregation in Brooklyn, NY.<\/p>\n

Over the past couple decades, Schaeffer has distanced himself from his family\u2019s evangelicalism, and describes himself as Eastern Orthodox. But during his talk, Schaeffer told Jay Bakker, pastor of Revolution NYC and son of former televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker: \u201cI describe myself as a Christian atheist.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat describes the arc of my feelings in any given day \u2026 Why can\u2019t you be an atheist some days and love God other days?\u201d He attempted to explain this contradictory statement with an analogy: \u201cThere are days I\u2019m married, there are days I\u2019m not married. There are days I love my wife, there are days I fight with my wife \u2026 Why when it comes to theological questions, certainty is given a premium when nothing else in life works that way?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Frank<\/p>\n

As a \u201cChristian atheist,\u201d Schaeffer subscribes to a very limited version of \u201cChristianity.\u201d He described his low and selective view of scripture:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you take the Christian teaching seriously that Jesus is the son of God, then obviously his life is the lens through which you read the rest of scripture and pick and choose what you will do and not do because he said there are parts of the law that are bull****. [Jesus said] \u2018The law says [do this,] but I say don\u2019t do this.\u2019 So therefore, read the Bible expecting to edit it and get rid of the crap and stick with the stuff that fits with the life testimony, which ends with Jesus saying \u2018Forgive them for they know not what they do.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To Schaeffer, \u201cEvil is only evil because it\u2019s ugly. There is no such thing as bad actions there\u2019s just ugly actions \u2026 When we say evil, it\u2019s not a constant \u2026 we\u2019re at a primitive way station on the way to something else.\u201d He continued: \u201cThe answer to evil is not now. The answer to evil is in the future that you can\u2019t see and that\u2019s where I think faith comes in.\u201d<\/p>\n

He views Jesus as a hopeful example toward which humans may evolve and emulate. According to Schaeffer, \u201cwho we believe Jesus is is not the point\u201d Instead, \u201cWe are on a way station, on a journey that God is also traveling as a creator. This is not \u2018it.\u2019 We\u2019re only getting the first glimmers of \u2018it.\u2019 The first real sign post for me is \u2018Forgive them for they know not what they do.\u2019 That\u2019s a new command.\u201d Schaeffer told the congregation: \u201cThere really is ethical evolution \u2026 Follow that path of ethical evolution that will eventually get us to an intended end point.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Schaeffer, the real problem is certainty about any belief. He derides<\/a> both Christian \u201cfundamentalist\u201d and atheists for holding their beliefs with conviction. To avoid the appearance of inconsistency, he admitted: \u201cThat\u2019s my personal view, I can\u2019t prove any of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

HT:
\nJuicy Ecumenism<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Kristin Rudolph – Usually Frank Schaeffer\u2019s talks follow a predictable pattern in which he describes how he followed in the footsteps of his prominent evangelical father, Francis Schaeffer, became disillusioned with the \u201cReligious Right,\u201d and now learns about God mostly through his relationship with his grandchildren. Recently, however, Schaeffer candidly discussed his personal theological … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":497,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[72,74,5,35,123],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leftism","category-leftist-lunatic-fringe","category-orthodox-christianity","category-philosophy","category-religious-left"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/497"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8786\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}