Frank Schaeffer's Patience With God--Reaching Out to Fundamentalists

Frank Schaeffer's Patience With God raises this question for me: How can we reach out to fundamentalists?

Some of what Frank says makes this seem almost hopeless. On page xviii, Frank says, "Appeals to facts get nowhere with these folks because they don't trust any sources but their own and listen only to what emanates from an alternative right-wing universe. Arguments become circular. The more impartial the source, the more suspect it becomes."

The thing that seems almost hopeless here is that, when people believe that they represent the one right way sanctioned by God, there doesn't seem any possibility of building a bridge to talk with them. Anything that differs from their one right way is dismissed out of hand. So how can any conversation take place?

However, I do see hope in Frank's description of the intolerable conflict he himself felt when he was working as a fundamentalist--a severe conflict between his stated beliefs and his actual experience of reality. At a time when anyone observing Frank from the outside would have said, "This Frank Schaeffer is a hard-core fundamentalist," the truth is that Frank was extremely conflicted within himself and that it wouldn't be long before he would leave fundamentalism. Since fundamentalism IS so out of sync with reality, might this not be an increasingly intolerable conflict for some fundamentalist leaders, even though they APPEAR hard-core, just as it was for Frank. Could we not speak to that part of those leaders, those who feel (however dimly) this conflict?

Here are some of the things that fundamentalists, even hard-core fundamentalist leaders, must be feeling.

• The inability to have and express their own experience. Fundamentalism dictates what their experience should be, and they dare not contradict the fundamentalist declaration of truth.
• The pain of suppressing so much of their experience. It takes an extraordinary amount of energy to suppress the ever-present mis-match between reality and their beliefs.
• Fear. How can they continue to live if everything they have said they believe turns out to be a lie? And what will they do to earn a living when all they know how to do is to preach fundamentalism?
• Shame. They dread the shame of being shown up as wrong in the core areas of life and of being revealed as incompetent in finding meaningful work.
• Isolation. They must always project an image of being a correct fundamentalist. They can't say what they really think. Thus, they can't have an authentic conversation because they have to support the party line with fellow fundamentalists and to use all conversations with non-believers to find openings to witness to them.
• Loathing. I can imagine that they absolutely hate having to be so certain of totally crazy things about God. They must hate, on some level, having to make excuses for God's tyrannical behavior in the Bible.

I wonder if we might reach out to fundamentalists with compassion and understanding of this conflict, fear, and pain. I wonder if anyone reached out to Frank during those days of inner turmoil when he seemed so entrenched in fundamentalism yet was actually so conflicted about it? Did anyone say anything that helped him to leave? Is there something that helped or would have helped Frank that could also help other fundamentalists to acknowledge the conflict between fundamentalism and reality and to find their way out of fundamentalism and into a more open expression of Christian faith?

Frank Schaeffer's Patience With God--Fundamentalist Separation from Experience

On page xiii of Patience With God, Frank Schaeffer speaks of "the 'certainties' of the religious fundamentalists who claim their way is the only truth, which is another way to attack faith because it drives people away from experiencing God." To me, one of the most devastating consequences of fundamentalism is the way it cuts people off from their own experience. I was certainly cut off from my own experience in my fundamentalist days.

When you already know what God is like, you won't experience God. You already know, so what is there to experience? What you know determines your experience because there is absolutely no room for any divergent knowing in the fundamentalist system. Your experience of God MUST fit in with what you know of God as a fundamentalist. In other words, God is already determined and defined. Don't contradict what we already know about God with your experience!

I found this to create huge problems. As a Catholic child, I knew that God was male, witnessed everything that I did or said or thought, would send me to hell for eternity if I died with even one unconfessed mortal sin, and--oh, yes--this God loved me and I had better love this God back if I knew what was good for me. What a recipe for disaster! I experienced God as a cosmic tyrant whom I was commanded to love. I didn't trust God.

It wasn't until years later, after I had left fundamentalist beliefs behind, that I was able to hear how people from different belief systems experienced God and then to experience God on my own. I actually had to hear other ways of experiencing God before I was able to have my own experience. Then, I began to experience God as Mother as well as Father and as Opener of multiple perspectives.

Different perspectives, though, are absent from fundamentalism. Fundamentalism creates a homogeneous and monotonous world.

Frank Schaeffer's Patience With God--Problems of Integrity with Fundamentalism

In Patience With God, Frank Schaeffer goes to great lengths to illustrate the problems of integrity that plague fundamentalists. Frank understands these problems very well because he experienced them himself. In fact, the problems grew so intense for Frank that they eventually propelled him out of the fundamentalist fold. I also understand these problems because of my childhood experience on the fundamentalist side of Catholicism and later my membership in another fundamentalist Christian church some years ago.

Frank's message in the novels of his Calvin Becker Trilogy (Portofino, Zermatt, Saving Grandma), his memoir Crazy For God, and his most recent book Patience With God is that fundamentalist Christianity will drive you crazy. This is because fundamentalism does not match reality. The real world is based on paradox. Fundamentalism demands a certainty that is impossible. Thus, fundamentalists are constantly butting up against reality.

One huge problem is that fundamentalists are required to believe crazy things about God. The one that caused me the most problems in my Catholic childhood was trying to twist my mind inside out to hold these two ideas together--to believe that God loved me and that I loved God, and also to believe that God would clamp down immediately with harsh punishments for small infractions. After all, God demanded that a man be stoned for gathering sticks on the Sabbath as the Israelites wandered in the desert, God killed Uzza instantly for reaching out to steady the Ark of the Covenant on its way to Jerusalem, God would send me to hell for eternity if I missed Mass on Sunday or ate meat on Friday or had impure thoughts and then died before making a good confession, God sent people to hell for eternity if they denied God even in the face of excruciating torture. God was terrifying. I was terrified of God. But I had to believe that God loved me and that I loved God because it was a mortal sin not to do so. So I tried to convince myself that God loved me and that I loved God. The strain of trying to believe that a cosmic tyrant loved me and that I loved this tyrant was intolerable.

Another telling problem of integrity for fundamentalists is the way fundamentalists treat those among themselves who begin to question fundamentalist beliefs and who leave the fold. On page 26, Frank asks, "What does it say about the nature of faith in God that when a believer--say, a former evangelical/fundamentalist like me--questions his or her faith or changes it, there are otherwise seemingly sane people so threatened that they take the time to call down God's judgment on the questioner?" Frank points out that fundamentalists see themselves as a minority voice for "truth" in the face of a monolithic secular culture and that any depletion in their numbers frightens them. I also think that deserters suggest the intolerable idea that there may be holes in the fundamentalist belief system. To a fundamentalist, an unbeliever can be seen as ignorant, but a deserter KNEW. If fundamentalist truth is so compelling, how can an insider dissent? Could it be that fundamentalist faith has holes after all? Fundamentalists cannot face the thought that their belief system is not watertight, so they must destroy the deserter, whose very desertion suggests the possibility of holes.

Frank says that fundamentalists, particularly leaders, who continue in their fundamentalist beliefs end up in one of two ways. On page 147, Frank says that "they either go nuts . . . or they secretly quit believing but don't say so." Those who go nuts do so because, as Frank also says on page 147, "they are forced to try to reconcile the irreconcilable." They manage to stay in the fold, though, by strictly limiting their interactions to other fundamentalists, so that their beliefs, however crazy, receive constant reinforcement. Those who secretly quit believing are too frightened of life in the real world to voice their doubts openly. To leave the fold would mean having to find work in the real world and all they know how to do is to preach fundamentalism. Frank confesses that this is what kept him a fundamentalist for so long. Frank did finally leave because he courageously recognized that he was well on the way to losing his own soul if he stayed, for he was preaching what he knew to be a lie.

Tellingly, Frank says on page 100, "Making my final break with my evangelical/fundamentalist past was like turning on some sort of creative tap." On page 147, Frank says, "I started to treat Genie and my children better too. Unhappy men serving a weird, angry God make bad husbands, especially if 'serving God' provides an excuse for covering up (and thus never dealing with) one's faults in the name of protecting one's ministry." Also on page 147, Frank says, "And conversations became conversations rather than evangelistic ploys." In other words, when Frank left fundamentalism, things fell into place in terms of creativity and relationships.

I believe that this is another reason why Frank is so honest about his own failings in his books. I think that it is just such a sheer relief for him to tell the truth. As Frank says on page 105, ""As someone raised on the idea that my loyalty wasn't to the truth but to 'our faith,' writing the simple truth (as I understand it) still feels revolutionary. With my first novels it was such a relief to be writing whatever I wanted to write, where the point was to let the story's needs, rather than the needs of 'Christian' propaganda, let alone the rules of the Church Ladies (or even Orthodox propaganda), dictate the direction of my work."

Frank Schaeffer's Patience With God--Problems with Certainty

One of Frank Schaeffer's primary aims in Patience With God is to UNPACK fundamentalism. On page 147, Frank says, "How does one have faith in God after surviving an evangelical/fundamentalist background? One place to start discovering faith after the craziness is to try and unpack the misbegotten 'foundation' of what amounts to the evangelical madness."

Thus, to unpack fundamentalism, Frank names and articulates the craziness so that we can see it. Then, we can separate the craziness from actual faith in God, so that faith in God is no longer mixed with craziness. Patience With God accomplishes this unpacking.

• Frank defines fundamentalism.
• Frank illustrates how fundamentalism contradicts reality.
• Frank shows that fundamentalism is not limited to Christianity but exists across belief systems, including Atheism.
• Frank explains that fundamentalism is a very recent phenomenon.
• Frank details the problems of integrity that result for fundamentalists.

DEFINITION. Frank equates fundamentalism with certainty. On page 9, Frank says, "My definition of fundamentalism, religious or otherwise, is the impulse to find The answer, a way to shut down the question-asking part of one's brain. Fundamentalists don't like question marks. Fundamentalists reject both Christian humility and postmodern paradox."

OPPOSITION TO REALITY. Fundamentalist certainty is completely at odds with reality. As Frank says on page 8, "We are specks on a tiny planet and our concept of truth, time, and place is related to our limited perspective." We simply cannot have certainty. Ideas that we hold with rock-solid certainty may turn out to be untrue. There was a time when people absolutely knew that the earth was flat--only it's not.

Frank explains that the only proper response to a world of paradox, where science indicates that a particle can be in two places at the same time and where we embody contradictions within ourselves (for instance, on page xvi, Frank says, "I find both sides of the faith/no faith debate coexisting within me") is humility. On page 44, Frank says, "Life is too short to know, so religion's most basic lesson--humility--is not just a good idea but also logical. And humility is, I think, also the most basic lesson taught by science, which, by definition, illumines the vastness of our ignorance."

In addition, the devotion to "The answer" precludes thinking. Christian fundamentalists claim to take the whole Bible as God's word, with no picking and choosing. On pages 147-148, Frank points out that "picking and choosing is what thinking is." To refuse to pick and choose is to refuse to think. Frank also points out that Christian fundamentalists must pick and choose anyway: most Christian fundamentalists do not worry about wearing clothing of mixed material, nor do they stone adulterers, though the Bible prohibits mixed-material clothing and prescribes stoning for those who commit adultery.

EXISTENCE WITHIN ALL BELIEF SYSTEMS. Frank shows that the New Atheists are fundamentalists every bit as much as Christian fundamentalists are. In fact, every religious system can have a fundamentalist group. Frank illustrates parallels between Atheist fundamentalists and Christian fundamentalists.

• Atheist proselytizing tools, such as the conversation-prompting Scarlet A Lapel Pin offered for sale on Richard Dawkins's website
• Lists of answers to Christians' most frequent objections to Atheism, also on Dawkins's website
• After Atheist lectures, calls by the event organizer for those wishing to proclaim belief in Atheism to declare themselves, reminiscent of church altar calls
• During Atheist lectures, cries of "Yes!" and "Right on!" reminiscent of "Amen!" and "Preach it, Brother!" heard in churches

RECENT PHENOMENON. Frank speaks of two strands in Christianity. The more ancient strand is the mystical, questioning, community-oriented strand. The more recent strand is the factual, certain, Bible-oriented strand. Frank calls the former the apophatic strand, which recognizes that God's fullness is ultimately unknowable to us and that we can more profitably speak of who or what God is not rather than who or what God is. In other words, God cannot be defined but remains a mystery. The latter strand is the fundamentalist strand, which believes that God has revealed Godself to us, once and for all, through the Bible. Since God has told us exactly who God is in the Bible, we can have certainty that our knowledge of God is correct and that any differing views are wrong.

Here are some of the differences between the apophatic strand and fundamentalist strand.

• A living faith that is open to change versus a faith that is set in stone for all time
• A mystical view that opens to the mystery of God versus a dogmatic view that captures God
• Openness to myth as embodying deep wisdom versus confinement to factual truth
• Openness to questions and doubts as a path to growth versus a view of questions and doubts as sins against faith
• Emphasis on compassionate relationships versus emphasis on correct belief
• Living in love versus obeying rules
• Authority invested in the community of faith versus authority invested in the Bible
• Salvation as a process versus salvation as crossing a line at the moment of praying to accept Jesus as one's personal Savior
• Faith as a journey versus a sharp distinction between the saved and the damned
• Openness to nuance versus a black-and-white view of life and faith

It is important to add that faith is a continuum, not a polarity. Any given Christian will be at some point on the apophatic/fundamentalist continuum. There are extreme fundamentalists as well as fundamentalists with apophatic leanings, and vice versa. Frank Schaeffer points out that his parents were far more compassionate than their stated fundamentalist beliefs would lead one to think. On page 144, Frank says, "Mom and Dad were much better than their theology; in fact, they were nicer than the 'God of the Bible' they paid lip service to."

Furthermore, the point at which a given Christian finds him- or herself on the apophatic/fundamentaist continuum will change at different stages in that person's life. On page 19, Frank says of his father Francis Schaeffer, "And if you ask me, 'What was Francis Schaeffer about?' the only true answer would be for me to ask you what stage of his life, thinking, and work you were talking about. There were several 'Francis Schaeffers.'"

Even more, the whole apophatic/fundamentalist continuum exists at once within a given Christian, and his or her point on that continuum can change from moment to moment. Frank describes his own frequent movement on the faith/no faith continuum. Even though the faith/no faith continuum is different from the apophatic/fundamentalist continuum, the parallel is strong. Thus, on page 228, Frank says, "Some days I know that life has no ultimate meaning. Other days I know that every breath I take has eternal meaning. I also know that I'm crazy to believe these two opposites simultaneously. I'd feel even crazier denying them. I believe that both statements are true. Like that particle in a physics experiment, I am in two places at once."

Finally, Frank points out that the fundamentalist over-emphasis on factual truth to the exclusion of mythical truth is a modern aberration. From ancient times, people understood that God was a mystery and that myths told important universal (not factual) truths. Early Christians understood this, too. It has been only very recently that the fundamentalist strand has developed, with its insistence on limiting truth to facts.

PROBLEMS OF INTEGRITY. Fundamentalism results in problems of integrity for the fundamentalist. I will discuss this in my next post.