I had a lengthy discussion with a friend on the Frankie Shaeffer assertions comparing his father to J. Wright. As a result, I did a little research into it. If you’re interested, read on… Otherwise, just hit the delete key! I wrote all this to put up on a blog I’m working on.
Transcripts and audio here, providing all the context we need to judge the good reverend’s loopy elocutions… And the context is worse, if anything, than the original quotes.
Is there really anything this incendiary from Francis Shaeffer?
Some quotes made by son Frankie from Francis Shaeffer’s A Christian Manifesto:
If there is a legitimate reason for the use of force [against the US government]… then at a certain point force is justifiable.
Would like to see more context… Maybe I’ll get a copy of the book, I’m curious. But, on it’s face, it’s true, is it not? Though I suspect the context when the brackets enclose the US government reference….
In the United States the materialistic, humanistic world view is being taught exclusively in most state schools… There is an obvious parallel between this and the situation in Russia [the USSR]. And we really must not be blind to the fact that indeed in the public schools in the United States all religious influence is as forcibly forbidden as in the Soviet Union….
This is essentially true, is it not?
There does come a time when force, even physical force, is appropriate… A true Christian in Hitler’s Germany and in the occupied countries should have defied the false and counterfeit state. This brings us to a current issue that is crucial for the future of the church in the United States, the issue of abortion… It is time we consciously realize that when any office commands what is contrary to God’s law it abrogates it’s authority. And our loyalty to the God who gave this law then requires that we make the appropriate response in that situation…
Again, I harbor some suspicion at the elipsis … Used to associate phrases that may not be so clearly associated in the text.
On the other hand, what would Reinhold Neibuhr have to say about abortion? I wonder.
I’ve often thought that the church’s rhetoric on abortion doesn’t match its action, as far as that goes. If there was a place in Victorville where I knew that people could take their four year olds in to be murdered, and it was legal, and people were actually doing it, I would be a good deal more active than I am in fighting abortion (in which I am somewhat active… We can talk about that sometime). I don’t see the people who say “abortion is murder” doing the same things they’d be doing if the murder of 4 yr olds was legal and common and advertised in the yellow pages.
The question for me: is this failure to act because of lack of courage, or because we don’t really believe what we say?
One of Frankie’s own statements in his Huffington article, including my inserted responses in CAPS
Every Sunday thousands of right wing white preachers (following in my father’s footsteps) rail against America’s sins from tens of thousands of pulpits. They tell us that America is complicit in the “murder of the unborn,” [IT SURE IS] has become “Sodom” by coddling gays [IT’S MOVING QUICKLY IN THAT DIRECTION, SOME WOULD SAY QUITE FAR ALREADY], and that our public schools are sinful places full of evolutionists [UH… THEY ARE] and sex educators hell-bent on corrupting children [WELL… NOW THAT YOU MENTION, THEY ARE]. They say, as my dad often did, that we are, “under the judgment of God.” [I’M AFRAID THAT MIGHT BE SO…. I HOPE FOR REDEMPTION, BUT WE HAVE SURELY SQUANDERED MANY OF OUR BLESSINGS]
I guess, from my point of view, the paragraph above, even though stated in the most incendiary way possible, is arguably true. I didn’t say that it is absolutely demonstrably true, but a reasonable person could make the argument that it is, and have quite a bit of evidence to make the claim.
Here is the transcript link again for Wright:
In contrast: Jeremiah Wright tells vile lies mixed in with some truth, and those few truths give the lies the sheen of believability. Yes, America has been racist, but it is less so all the time. Yes, some awful things have been done. On the other hand, America has done a great deal of good, which he doesn’t mention. But: absolutely no credible person can try to make (apparently gullible) people believe that the US government invented AIDS to kill blacks. (Although the love of abortion by Margaret Sanger and her ilk has certainly helped keep the black population down.) His anti-military rhetoric is inexplicable… Without the Civil War, he would have been a couple of generations closer to being a slave (assuming the South would have been shamed into ending it sooner or later). Pacifist blacks in general always stun me on this point…. His comparison of Al Queda to the USA as morally equivalent is simply repugnant, an assertion that could only be made by a moral idiot, or worse. He tells the big lie that the war is “about oil”, but we haven’t had a drop from Iraq yet… We surely could have, if we chose. He makes the most vile assertions imaginable about all kinds of people and institutions, and because about 10% of them might be true, his audience laps it up. I won’t go through all the lies here… Read it yourself, if you wish, it’s at the link above. The thing is, he’s consistent, at least, since this is all the straight liberation theology rhetoric, slanted for American blacks of a certain ideological stripe.
He teaches hate and encourages class warfare and jealously and anger, pure and simple.
I don’t think you can say that about Francis Shaeffer.
And I think the fact that Obama calls this man his mentor and “spiritual leader” (even as he backpedals recently) tells me all I need to know about what animates Obama… And really helps to explain why Obama’s wife is proud of America for the first time THIS YEAR… Because Barack is doing well in the primaries. Her statement makes perfect sense in the light of the ideology she apparently bathes in.
I’m willing to make a bet: that in all of Francis Shaeffer’s recorded speeches, sermons and books, you won’t find anything even close to this stuff from J. Wright.
It is a bit sad that Frankie Schaeffer can’t tell the difference between assertions backed by evidence and plain lies. The Orthodox are big believers in rationality, along with their mysticism, having imbibed a good deal of the Greek philosophical tradition… It seems not to have sunk in. Frankie Shaeffer can’t tell the difference between a criticism of the USA and a simple lie about it. Francis criticized, accurately, from an ideological perspective that one may disagree with, but can’t totally discount as non-factual. Wright simply tells lies… BIG ones, evil ones, guaranteed to make his parishioners angry (if they believe him) and to distort their attitudes towards white people and the USA in general.
Wright knows it isn’t true, of course….. I’m sure he’s a smart guy. The mere fact that he’s still around running his mouth is proof of the benign intentions of the government he so calumnies.
