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Last Thursday I drove to Omaha, Nebraska to hear Frank Schaeffer, author of Crazy for God and lots of other really great books dealing with the crazier end of the Christianity spectrum, speak.  He did not disappoint.  You can hear his talk at this link.  If you start at about eleven minutes you can skip the introductions, although the minister of the church where Frank talked does give a brief, but interesting account of his own visit to L’Abri, the famed Swiss mission where Frank grew up in the first few minutes.

Frank spent the first half of his talk re-stating much of the material he covers in his book.  It wasn’t until about half way through that he began to venture into territory that was new to me – that being his own faith, what exactly he believes and how he maintains it.  The title of his talk was…

THE CASE FOR SPIRITUALITY
IN THE AGE OF DOUBT:
How Both Atheism and Christian Fundamentalism
Miss the Mark on Faith

but he did not really cover this topic.  His comments on fundamentalism centered on his personal experiences as both a child of missionary parents and as a leader of the religious right.  His opinion of virtually every well-known evangelical pastor that he knew during his time as a rising star among evangelical ministers is piss poor.  He uniformly regards them as power hungry, money grubbing warts on the world.  For his inside stories on James Dobson, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, read his book Crazy For God (which I am giving away today.)  In general he seemed to regard most fundies as sort of addle brained people who just don’t have the capacity to reason things out very well.  He also was careful to mention that many fundamentalists are good people in spite of their terrible belief system.  In regards to atheists, Frank spoke of a few e-mail conversations he had with the late Christopher Hitchens wherein Hitch berated him for continuing in his beliefs in spite of his first hand knowledge of the vagaries of Christianity.  Frank referred to Hitchens in a warm manner stating that the brusqueness of his e-mails were what was to be expected from Hitchens and later went on to say that he felt that atheists could be moral and good people without the parameters of religion governing their life.

My favorite moment of the evening came during the question and answer time when a pinch faced lady in the congregation demanded that Frank explain how his orthodox priest (Frank attends the Greek Orthodox church) could give him communion.  Excerpt follows…

Pinch Faced Fundy – I am not sure why your priest would give you communion when you don’t even hold the faith that Christ is risen.  Orthodoxy means right belief!

Frank – Sure.  But one of the basic tenants of orthodox belief is that the only person’s salvation you worry about is your own.  And I didn’t say I didn’t believe Christ is risen, I said I don’t know.  Nor did Thomas.  Nor do you.

He then went on to talk about astrophysics and whether or not the chair the lady was sitting on really existed and I sort of tuned that out because astro-what?  But he continued to skewer her for the next few minutes and I have to say that I immensely enjoyed it.  If you want to listen to the skewering yourself it starts around 1:24 in the video.

During the Q and A, I asked Frank if the film Portofino was ever going to be released.  He said that it didn’t actually ever get made.  The German financiers pulled out of the project before filming began.  Later I asked him a few more questions while he signed the mountain of books that I had brought with me.  I asked him if he was ever going to return to the Calvin Becker stories who is the protaganist in my favorite Schaeffer books Portofino, Saving Grandma and Zermatt.  He said that he did plan to write more Calvin Becker books and very soon too (yay!).  Next I asked him how much of the Becker books were true stories from his life.  Frank shrugged and said none of them.  He admitted that all of the things that happened in the book are connected to things that happened in real life, but insisted that the Becker family characters are fictional.  I then asked him if the Elsa Becker character was anything like his mom, specifically referring to the unrequited love affair in the book Portofino and the actual unrequited love affair that Edith Schaeffer had for the rich Californian whom Frank talks of in his book Sex Mom and God. Edith’s relationship with the rich Californian was mutual and even resulted in a marriage proposal which Edith Schaeffer declined in spite of being married to an abusive evangelist (Francis Schaeffer) at the time.  Frank nodded his head saying that the events were connected, but that the specific incident that happens to Elsa Becker while vacationing in Italy did not happen to his mother.

And then Frank signed my books and I brought one home for a giveaway!  If you would like an autographed copy of Crazy for God, leave a comment.  If you don’t know what to say in your comment, might I suggest an answer to the question – What is Frank thinking???  For if you look at the photo at the top of this post of Frank and I standing together, Frank certainly appears to be thinking something.  Maybe he is worried about the deranged woman standing next to him who has been peppering him with questions about his books.  Maybe he is wondering if she is a dangerous stalker.  Maybe he is worried that she is going to kidnap him and take him to a creepy farmhouse in the middle of Nebraska where she will torture him until he writes a new Calvin Becker book.  Feel free to contemplate his thoughts in the comment section.  I am very interested in your theories!  And may the best booky win!

Jack had a class musical at his school tonight and I thought he should dress up for it. You would think that a house with four sons would have loads of dress shirts for a boy to choose from. Oddly enough, the smallest one I could find was a size twelve which was a bit big on Jack, but it looked okay. Then we fished through a box of his brother’s outgrown pants and managed to come up with a pair of ten slim khakis that just barely fit. Lastly, I found a worn pair of black dress shoes in a box in the back of the closet. Giving up going to church has created a dearth of dress clothes in this house.

After Jack had his ensemble on, I told him he was going to need to tuck his shirt in and put on a belt. From the way Jack responded to this statement he must have thought I told him that I was now going to drive nails up his arms and into his eyeballs. His resistance was profound. I should be used to this by now. I raised four of the strongest willed children on the planet. Compliance is futile and yet I never fail to be shocked by their stony resolve. I stand there blinking at my child wondering how such a unmoving being could ever have emerged from my womb as I am the world’s biggest pushover. How is it that I have children who are such bulwarks of forged iron? Especially my oldest and my youngest. The two middles are at least somewhat accommodating as they often see giving into their mother as a chance to manipulate me with their contrived obedience. I am not sure which is worse.

So later Jack comes downstairs and of course he doesn’t have either his shirt tucked in nor his belt on. The CD is getting a little testy by now because we are on the verge of being late and he ever so gently reminds Jack to GET HIS BELT ON RIGHT THIS INSTANT OR ELSE! So Jack tromps back up the stairs and takes nineteen years to get his belt on and the CD is losing his mind at the bottom of the stairs and I just want to hurl my body in between the two of them and make it all go away and regret that I ever even purchased a belt for my son when Jack finally comes down the stairs all tucked in and belted up and of course very upset and crying that his parents are such horrible monsters who are forcing him to wear a belt and tuck in his shirt!

He cried about half way to the school and then he forgot about it. After we dropped him off at the door to the school and went looking for a parking place, we took bets on whether or not he would have his shirt tucked in and his belt on during the performance. Everyone bet against Jack being tucked in except for me. I lost. Jack appeared on stage – shirt untucked, belt hidden. We counted the boys who had tucked in shirts versus those who did not. It was about fifty/fifty.

Then a kid passed out.

Some kid on stage who was fortunately seated at the time, fell backwards off his chair and laid on the ground. It kind of looked like he might be having a seizure. The music teacher could not see him from her position on the stage, but the entire audience could and when the music kept on playing with about half the kids singing and the other half gawking at their fallen classmate, a local state trooper who was there to see his son jumped on the stage. I elbowed my husband in the ribs, hard, harder and then really, really hard until he also walked to the stage and climbed up. By then the music teacher had realized what was going on and she called a few people to come help her. They all stood around looking at the kid. The state trooper and the CD kneeled down by him. Eventually the kid was walked off the stage and the musical continued.

When the CD re-appeared at my side, I asked him what happened. He said that he thought the kid just fainted, but everyone else in the group thought he had a seizure and since the CD was significantly out-numbered, it was determined that the kid did indeed have a seizure and was on his way to the emergency room to get his brain “nuked”. At this point in the CD’s story I started freaking out because HELLO! Why is medicine a vote and why are they nuking brains at the local ER? Then the CD said that there has been a lot of concern over children getting too many X-rays starting at a young age and the current thought is to limit them as much as possible, but since the boy who fell over on stage was determined to have a seizure via a vote by the crowd of people who examined him in spite of an MD’s resistance to the idea, his dosage of X-rays was almost certain.

I asked the CD why he thought the boy fainted and he said, “Boredom. If that kid hadn’t passed out, I am pretty sure that I would have.” Jack’s musical wasn’t exactly titillating. And then the show was over. We walked out to the hallway to pick up Jack. He had carefully re-tucked his shirt into his pants as if we wouldn’t have noticed that he had un-tucked it during the program, displaying a lame attempt at crafty deviousness that made me kind of proud.  We all ridiculed him for tucking his shirt back in and then we went and got some ice-cream at the Kreem Kup to celebrate surviving another school program.

Sometimes listening to an atheist decimate Christianity is such a delightful balm.