It must have come as a shock to Dad to be plunged into the heart of the American evangelical scene in the 1970s and 1980s, and to suddenly see just
who
he was urging to take power in the name of returning America to our “Christian roots.” Who would be in charge? Pat Robertson? Jerry Falwell? Gary North? Dr. Dobson? Rousas Rushdoony? And what sort of fools would “our people” elect as president or for Congress, given that they had so easily been duped by the flakes, madmen, and charlatans they were hailing (and lavishly funding) as their spiritual leaders?
55
I
had such a reputation as a hard-assed pro-life fundamen talist that in the early ’80s, the editors of an evangelical satirical youth-oriented magazine,
The Wittenberg Door,
put a picture of a mud-throwing child labeled “Franky Schaeffer” on their cover. What they were accusing me of (accurately) was that I had been attacking other evangelicals for their lack of commitment to the pro-life cause. For instance, I had been going after
Christianity Today
magazine in a series of articles in my newsletter
The Christian Activist
—we had about 150,000 readers—that generated hundreds of critical letters to the
Christianity Today
editors. By then, Dad and I were both saying that evangelicals who would not take a stand on abortion had denied their faith.
By the early ’80s, most evangelical leaders (who wanted to keep their jobs) came over to our side on “the issue” or were intimidated into silence if they still had doubts. But the spiritual-versus-political debate was over. Billy Graham might be maintaining his nonpolitical stance, but we activists had won. Evangelical Christianity was now more about winning elections than about winning souls.
After I read the
Wittenberg Door
cover article, I sent the editors a photograph of myself throwing fistfuls of mud while
dressed the same way as their mud-throwing cover model. They ran the picture, along with an editorial comment that my sense of humor surprised them.
Their surprise was a wakeup call. I’d never thought of myself as some kind of square jerk that other people would presume had no sense of humor! What, or who, was I turning into?
I was at the annual Christian Booksellers Association convention (CBA). Dad was very ill. (I think this was in 1983.) I had recently delivered a keynote address at the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB). I was at CBA signing copies of my evangelical books for eager bookstore managers and their wives, who were lined up for several hundred yards at the Crossway Publishers’ booth.
Everything was for sale. Everything was copied from the secular world but made bizarrely religious. Everything was taste-in-your-ass horrible, including the evangelical version of the “Budweiser” towel, a rip-off of the then-popular Budweiser commercial “This Bud’s for You!” There was a lookalike beer can on it with two crucified hands and the logo, “This
Blood
’s for You!” being offered at the convention. It was very popular.
A few days after my book signings at the CBA, I wrote a scene for some future movie I was thinking of making. It reflects the split personality I had developed. One moment I was meeting and greeting, and the next scribbling a poisonous little fantasy about the people I was such a hero to who, in my mind, I was calling “the low IQs.” I was referring to myself, and other evangelical leaders, as the “Famous Christian of the Hour.” The fictitious conversation takes place between Allison and Andy. Andy has never been to an NRB or CBA, and Allison is explaining these evangelical trade fairs to him:
“Okay, Andy,” Allison said, “I’ll explain it all to you. At the National Religious Broadcasters, the point is the herd of low IQs try and get
close
to the Famous Christian of the Hour, like people do sucking up to movie stars. And then there is this dance number where the ‘little people’ low IQs surge around the Famous Christian and tell the asshole how great he or she is. And the Famous low IQ has to
pretend
he is
just so glad
to see each and every precious nobody low IQ and pretend that he is in no hurry to get away from the scum, and back to his six-room, luxury hotel suite. So his ‘people,’ the little knot of assholes around him, are forced to keep tearing the Famous Christian of the Hour away from the flock of nobody low IQ ass-kissers, that he keeps hugging like they’re his mother, because the Famous Christian of the Hour still has fifty meetings to do that day upon which the fate of the Lord’s work on this earth depends, in other words whether or not the Famous Christian of the Hour gets his syndication deal renewed for another year on a thousand Christian radio and TV stations.
“See in most trade shows they’re only trying to sell you some regular harmless shit, computers or guided missiles, whatever. But at the National Religious Broadcasters and/or the Christian Bookseller’s Association, what’s getting sold is God. And since God won’t show up and get franchised, the assholes with the booths have to kind of make up a bunch of God-awful shit to sell in his place.”
56
W
hen Dad died, Ronald Reagan wrote this note to Mom:
Nancy and I express our deep sympathy to you and your family on the death of your husband. We want you to know that you are in our thoughts and prayers.
While words are inadequate to console you on your loss, you can take comfort in knowing that Dr. Schaeffer will be greatly missed by all who knew him and his work. He will long be remembered as one of the great Christian thinkers of our century, with a childlike faith and a profound compassion toward others. It can rarely be said of an individual that his life touched many others and affected them to the better. It will be said of Dr. Schaeffer that his life touched many and brought them to the truth of their Creator. In June of 1982, Francis last wrote to me and enclosed a copy of an address he had just given which described in moving terms that “final reality” which is God. Dr. Schaeffer drew all his strength and spirit from that source and shared that message with a waiting world. Now he has found his final home.
May God grant you his peace in serenity which is only His to give. With our sincere condolences.
Sincerely, Ronald Reagan,
The White House, May 17, 1984
Author, former editor of
Punch
magazine, and Dad’s friend Malcolm Muggeridge wrote: “Francis was a great Christian doing a great Christian work. I’m glad to think that the last time we saw one another—at the great pro-life rally at Hyde Park in London—perfect harmony and affection united us.” (Dad and Muggeridge had led a pro-life rally in Hyde Park a year or two before Dad died.)
Sir Bernard Brane, Member of Parliament, wrote: “On behalf of the British pro-life members of Parliament, and peers of the realm, we join in paying homage to the memory of Dr. Francis Schaeffer, who did more than any individual throughout the world to rally the Protestant conscience on abortion. We salute him.”
Bill Buckley, writing in the
National Review
magazine (June 15, 1984), said “It was his commitment to the truth of scripture that made him such a foe of totalitarianism and relativism, and caused him to champion freedom and the sanctity of human life.”
Jack Kemp inserted this in the Congressional Record (May 15, 1984): “Wherever he went, Dr. Schaeffer had a profound influence on people. Dr. Schaeffer was not an ‘Ivory Tower’ theologian but a great prophet and a great Christian leader.”
Time
called Dad a “leading evangelical scholar,” in their obituary.
Dad’s funeral embodied all the chaos, make-it-up-as-you-go insanity of evangelicalism. It was to funerals what “personalized” weddings are to marriage, ones where the young couple
compose their own vows while some friend “really like into guitar” provides the music.
There is a good reason we humans take refuge in the collective wisdom accumulated over time as expressed in liturgies and cultural habits of long practice. And the arrogance of the Protestant notion that one’s individual whims are equal to all occasions manifests itself in innumerable bad hair moments and in dreadful church services, let alone at innumerable do-it-yourself weddings. But funerals are supposed to be serious. Creativity isn’t always good.
How do you bury a Protestant pope? There was nothing to fall back on. When Mom decided to use his funeral as a “witness,” throw open the doors, and turn the-burying-of-Francis-Schaeffer into what amounted to a farewell seminar/trade show, no one could stop her. How do you say no to a grieving widow? Only Mom wasn’t grieving. She was folding Dad’s death into The Work, and rather cheerful about the whole thing.
Dad was our “holy tradition.” He was bigger than any church. We set trends; we didn’t follow them. As Mom said, “He meant so much to
all
Christians, it just wouldn’t be
fair
to have the funeral in any one particular denomination or with any one particular pastor.” So we rented a high-school gym in Rochester, Minnesota, where Dad died. What other building could hold the throng? And we didn’t ask a pastor to officiate. Who would be good enough? We would make this up as we went along, and showcase our family.
“Mom, how about a private funeral?” I asked.
“Of
course
we can’t do that! We can’t waste this opportunity! Besides, these are
our
people!”
There was a parade of family, friends, and associates, high-powered leaders, and many hundreds and hundreds of
groupies and assorted hangers-on—“our people.” The atmosphere was a cross between a farewell Beatles concert and a more solemn than usual NASCAR event. An episode of
How Should We Then Live?
was shown—“How nice he got to preach his own funeral sermon!” (Ruth Graham)—and my brothers-in-law all spoke. I declined Mom’s urging me to “use this great opportunity.” (Though I did say a few shaky words at the grave when the crowd had shrunk to a mere fifty groupies and a dozen or so L’Abri workers.)
In the gym, the coffin was placed between looped-back ropes on a basketball parquet floor and lined up with the three-point line. A local baroque music ensemble of semiprofessional Mayo Clinic doctors’ wives played, and played, for so long it seemed as if we were in a concert. The music was not helped any by the high-school gym “acoustics,” or the socks, sweat, and sperm locker-room smell.
Movies, music, and rambling freelance tributes from Dad’s sons-in-law were punctuated by tributes read out loud, seemingly forever, that had poured in from the White House, Congress, and every semifamous evangelical in the world, interspersed with yet more music from the ubiquitous quartet. And Mom was greeting all the you-have-no-idea-what-your-books-mean-to-me throng.
It was a nightmare.
Ten years later, the first Greek Orthodox funeral I went to filled me with envy. I decided that whatever else happened, I didn’t want to die as a member of a religion that has no clue about what to do with the most sacred moments of life, and death.
The Greek Orthodox do what they have always done. The open casket faces the altar feet first. The priest performs the short and solemn liturgy. The ancient prayers of the Church
are prayed, and everyone knows what will happen next. The family is not on display but folded into the seamless tradition of mourning, one their great-great-grandmothers would know as well as they do, one that has long since been worn smooth as the path between a playground and a road made by thousands of feet.
I had said my good-bye to Dad a week before he died. We were alone in St. Mary’s Hospital. I would have stayed to be with him, but it conflicted with an “important” speaking engagement (I forget where) that Dad had told me to take in his place. I helped Dad shave, then clambered up beside him. We sat side by side and talked about skiing.
“Remember, Dad?”
He had seemed so strong, so absolutely trustworthy, so permanent when I followed him down the slope. About the second or third day of the Zermatt vacation, we would skip breakfast and leave at first light, heavily muffled against the cold. Because we stayed in Riffelberg, a few miles above Zermatt, we could ski right out the door before the lifts opened and be on our way to the valley where the big cable cars were that would take us up the mountains.
We had to be extra careful. The bluish predawn light flattened out all the contours of the
piste.
What looked smooth might be a series of bumps that would unexpectedly send me spinning out of control, legs thumping up and down like pistons as I flew over ridges. But Dad went ahead. He would call back a warning if he hit ice or deep ridges.
We skied in silence. The only sound was made by the metal edges of our skis slicing into the icy slope. By the time we arrived in the Zermatt Valley, the wool mufflers in front of our mouths were crusted white with moisture from our frozen
breaths. Soon, my father and I were waiting at the cable car station, munching on the chocolate bar Dad always brought.
Dad told me not to turn back at his hospital room door. He wanted no maudlin parting. We hugged and then shook hands.
“I love you, Dad.”
“I love you, boy.”
“Good-bye.”
57
I
still regard abortion as an unmitigated tragedy. But I no longer think that it should always be illegal. On the other hand, I don’t think abortion should always be legal either.
Evangelicals weren’t politicized (at least in the current meaning of the word) until after
Roe v. Wade
and after Dad, Koop, and I stirred them up over the issue of abortion. More than thirty years after helping to launch the evangelical pro-life movement, I am filled with bitter regret for the unintended consequences.
In 2000, after a close and disputed contest, settled by the Supreme Court, we elected a president who claimed he believed God created the earth and who, as president, put car manufacturers’ and oil companies’ interests ahead of caring for that creation. We elected a “born-again” president who said he lived by biblical ethics but who played the dirtiest political games possible, for instance in the filthy lies his people spread to derail Senator John McCain’s presidential primary bid. We elected a pro-life Republican Party that did nothing to actually care for the pregnant women and babies they said they were concerned for, but rather were corrupted by power, and took their sincere evangelical followers for granted, and played them for suckers.