As Schaeffer grew more stridentand political, his son was his right-hand man. and got increasinglymixed up with conservative political causes. The older Schaeffer was a hippie-ish evangelical intellectual who movedto Switzerland and founded a haven for young philosophical seekers, andpeppered his writings with honest engagement with existentialist philosophy and70s drug culture.
His father, the late Francis Schaeffer, probably didmore than any other author to give the nascent religious right an intellectualbacking. Then there’s Frank Schaeffer, the black sheep amongpurported black sheep. However noble their intentions, both groupsare for the most part intellectually shallow, and neither is much inconversation with spiritual traditions outside the ones they grew up in.They’re self-styled rebels who define themselves against Billy Graham’s breedof Christianity. As for the New Christians,instead of arguing about God’s existence, they mostly try to atone for theprevious generation’s mistakes by creating a more hospitable church environmentwith a more transparent leadership. Neither side has contributed much to the literature onreligion and belief, though they have revealed a lot about the evangelical subculture.The New Agnostics seem to retain a cartoonish notion of God as a Homeric beingwho created the universe in a single temporal event.
0 kommentar(er)
