Here is the memoir of the son of well-known evangelical personalities Francis and Edith Schaeffer. It is an account of his spiritual journey to date. Some would say it is brutally honest. I found myself liking this man the more I read through it though pretty amazed at his explicit writing. Critical, wistful, crude in places, instructive, negative and cynical, all these words and more could be used to describe the book. He was a rising evangelical star in the American church scene and mixed with a number of the other famous Christian personalities in that firmament. He does not hold back on his assessments of them and what he says will not please many, especially those who revere the names he mentions. However, there is much with which to sympathize in the way he snipes at aspects of the right wing evangelical church. There is little he does not touch on, it seems he met many on his orbit through the scene whilst himself wrestling with faith. This book arrives at no conclusions. Some of the happenings he alludes to concerning the manner of the life of his parents, the life at the famous L’Abris community in Switzerland that they founded and his own candor about himself will shock those looking for neat explanations and a well boxed Christian faith. He writes of sexual matters, uses obscenities and generally takes the lid off Christian work as he remembers it and experienced it. I doubt that this will be sold in many Christian Bookshops and it is sure that no Christian publisher has taken it on. He writes well and has become a successful secular author regarding his earlier evangelical writings as being mere propaganda and of poor quality. That Schaeffer became alienated by the false in the church world in which he moved is obvious and we can perhaps agree with his view up to a point. Certainly I can do so. I was aware that his journey and search is not ended, it certainly has been varied and a real odyssey up to this point. He has struggled, he has been outspoken and continues to be, he has lost and gained, was once hailed as ‘the best speaker in America’ at a huge rally of the Moral Majority in the mid eighties and then reduced to stealing pork chops from a supermarket in California for a while, partly resulting from his desire for personal integrity. It’s a thought provoking read and not one for the faint-hearted but if you try it remember that there are two sides to every story and a writer does come from his own perspective as he remembers it. I think I will try to get one or two of his novels and have a go at them.
