Photo: Greenbelt
'He was born in the mid 50’s and raised in a Swiss fundamentalist evangelical commune.'

Lev Eakins listens to former fundamentalist Greenbelt speaker Frank Schaeffer

Frank Schaeffer is a very funny, self-deprecating, ex-fundamentalist, powerfully reflective, Greek orthodox worshipping international American grandfather.

His history is as complex and intoxicatingly fascinating as his identity.

He was born in the mid 50’s and raised in a Swiss fundamentalist evangelical commune, whilst rubbing shoulders with his father’s titanic evangelical American celebrity peers; the kind of super preacher who shows up in Switzerland in his own private jet to see his father minister to the unreachable youth.

Hearing Frank explain this at Greenbelt, whilst attempting to describe how he rejected his evangelicalism and the lessons he learned from it, was a pleasure and a joy.

Balanced

His honest and creative delivery, which at times became rambling and chaotic, is mercifully balanced by his powerful American wit and humour.

Frank grew up believing that if you didn’t have the right ideas, the right theology, you weren’t a proper Christian.

He explains that the curse of theology is an illusion that you can get enough right that makes you right about everything.

Looking back, he says, unless you occasionally end a sentence with “I could be wrong” you quickly become an intolerable ideologue.

He could only find freedom from this by finally admitting he could be wrong in his fundamental beliefs, and his freedom was understanding that no matter how wise we are in some areas, our wisdom and knowledge is not only incomplete, but desperately incomplete.

His story hangs on this premise, that actually we can’t be certain about any fixed ideas; that you can’t be saved through ideological purity, but by embracing God in a relationship, rather than a proscribed theological framework.

Mystery

This is the mystery Frank has learned of ‘being’ rather than ‘knowing’, and it is a heartfelt reality that has been powerfully borne in on him as time has gone by.

Frank has learned to recognise that cutting to the chase, realising our relationship to the “thing” itself, is more important than having the correct words or theology.

He recalls a conversation he had with a monk in a Greek Orthodox monastic community. He asked how he could give the Eucharist to a newborn child without it realising the significance? He was asked in return if he understood the significance.

By humbly accepting the limits of his own wisdom and understanding he could not only appreciate the power of this answer, but also the power of God.

Why does a mother whisper, “I love you!” to her newborn baby? Her child cannot possibly comprehend these words in an intellectual sense, but the mother’s love is ‘being’ rather than ‘knowing’ to her child.

The child will sense this love, rather than understand it intellectually. The mother’s love is so powerful that it is articulated in both needless words as well as heartfelt expression.

Emotionally and soulfully this is the love we share with our God – regardless of whether it all makes sense or not.

Home

Frank wraps up his story by explaining why he has adopted Greek Orthodoxy as his religious home.

Having been a fundamentalist, he needed to get all “the ringing of sounds and human voices out of my ears.”

He needed to replace them with simple formulations that are as smooth as pebbles found on Brighton Beech, smooth because they are old and have travelled far.

He flinched from a complex and individualistic religious service, but to pick up and walk along an ancient and well-travelled path.

Frank’s powerfully delivered and amusing testimony is a shot in the arm for any liberal Christian, or an open invitation to warmer waters for anyone wrestling with fundamentalist evangelicalism.

His own assessment of the polarised world of Christendom offers a refreshingly articulate perspective of one who has travelled from one end to the other.

• Visit www.frankschaeffer.com

• Listen to Frank’s Greenbelt talks

• Buy Frank’s book Crazy for God

• Back to Greenbelt index