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Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don't Like Religion (or Atheism)

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In the summer of 1962, I was a 19 year old Evangelical/Fundamentalist who spent a week at L'Abri, the Presbyterian Mission in the Swiss Alps that was founded and led by Frank Schaeffer's parents -- Francis and Edith Schaeffer. At that time Frank was a kid who -- in spite of an atrophied leg as a byproduct of a bout with polio -- demonstrated guts and determination in the pickup football games he relished playing with and against much older competitors such as me and my traveling companions.
In 1962 I studied the Bible and had theological discussions with Frank's father Francis, and his mother Edith, and didn't think to ask young Frank's views on such matters.
In 2009 I am a 67 year-old Presbyterian Church (USA) minister, who finds himself resonating more strongly with Frank's views of life and matters of faith, than with the harsh Fundamentalism that was espoused by Frank's parents (and mine). Thus I have found his books "Crazy for God," and "Patience with God" to be inspirational manifestos which reflect the human capacity to speak the truth in love regarding the limitations of our "rearing," and to promote what are hopefully healthier, and more gracious images of faith and life. I admire Frank's ability to express profound love for his parents, while acknowledging their shortcomings when it came to their lack of attention to his own education and development.
"Patience with God" breaks new ground in pointing out that the "new atheism" represents every bit as much of a tendency to be "fundamentalist" as any restrictive religious point of view. More importantly, it provides insights into ways Frank has found God, faith, family, friends, and love to be enduring necessities for healthy human living in the midst of attempts to label such things as "unnecessary" in an enlightened age.
One doesn't have to agree with everything that Schaeffer says. I certainly don't. But to let one's discomfort with some of his exposes or ideas keep one from celebrating the vast reach of this man's perspectives on religion, art, literature, philosophy, relationships, et al, is to miss the gifts Frank has to share.

The Rev. Dr. William D. Peterson, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

I can't help but smile when I read Frank Schaeffer. He simply doesn't seem to care what people think of what he writes. If he does care, he doesn't let that get in the way of him sharing his heart and his experiences.

In his last book, Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back, Schaeffer pulls no punches as he puts pen to paper in describing his religious journey in his famous, Christian family. It was shocking to some, frustrating to others and was possibly seen as fuel to those who make it their pastime to denounce Christianity. I found his narrative valuable and worth reading. I wish more people had actually read his book instead of just only talking about it.

In his new book Schaeffer turns his eagle-eyed gaze from his religious past and focuses on the New Atheists- Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris & Dennett. The first six chapters will be used in Christian universities across the nation as Schaeffer picks apart the atheists' own religious stands and intolerance. But just in case the evangelical Christians celebrate too much in the spanking being given to the atheists, Schaeffer uses to the following two chapters to put a couple of sharp, stinging whacks across the backsides of some of today's popular Christian leaders and their fear-based teachings that produce hate, hypocrisy and intolerance.

Schaeffer expends most of his angst in the first half of the book; in the second he settles in to share what he sees could be a living middle-ground, a place where people can journey together in peace, energized by love. He writes using stirring stories from his past and his present, showing that there were some really good things he hasn't let go of and that there is still room to evolve, in love.

Frank Schaeffer is a thoughtful and talented writer and I'm glad that he continues to share his journey with us.

I, like Frank, grew up in an evangelical minister's family. I, like Frank, saw and heard things done in the name of God that seemed not only unethical but immoral and evil. I, like Frank, spend some of my early years in Europe and developed a love of intellectual pursuits that allowed room for both faith and reason. I . . . Well, I like Frank.

Sadly, many readers (particularly those who know his parents' books and teachings) will look for reasons to discount the ideas in "Patience With God." This is not a book to be held up like a battle herald for believers or atheists. It's an attempt--and a very good one--to bridge the gap between spirit and mind, between theology and science, between purpose and progression. Yes, Frank is candid about his parents' shortcomings, both domestically and spiritually, but he is equally candid about his own. He pulls no punches. He points fingers at those on both sides of the fence, but in particular those who claim to know it all--whether they be right-wing fundamentalists or the atheistic, self-proclaimed "Brights." Over the years, I've found myself struggling to reconcile the mostly good-intentioned but poor behavior of both sides. I appreciated some of Pat Robertson's early ideas, for example, but cringed when he put himself in the place of God and declared God's purposes in natural tragedy. I also appreciated Bill Maher's early years of candor and humor, but find it increasingly mean-spirited and--ironically enough--narrowminded in its accessment of religion.

Do I agree with all that Frank says here? No. And he and I are fine with that. We could sit and discuss these ideas logically, even passionately, but never lose sight of our love for God, life, and each other. That's the beauty of embracing the paradoxes of which he writes. We don't all have to subscribe to one narrow brand of faith, cutting others off or discounting everything they say because of nitpicky differences over End Times theology or evolutionary theory--or whatever the argument du jour may be. Personally, I love God and believe in the Jesus of the Bible. I hate the directions American Christianity has taken, turning the "milk of the Word" into smorgasbord affairs that masquerade as nutritous spiritual meals. It seems that, in many venues, Christians choose to hunker under the "safe" and "protected" bubble of their own beliefs, rather than relating to those around them with the love that Christ personified, living "dangerous" and "prepared" lives in the trenches of the real world.

"Patience With God" will challenge Christians, Muslims, and New Atheists. It will cause thinking readers to reevaluate and reconsider. It is sane and logical, while never dismissing the possibilities of faith and feelings. It accepts the concepts of a loving and gracious Jesus, while never confining Him to a particular evangelical bent. Some will find that threatening. Some will prefer to remain "safe" in their bubbles of religious or scientific thinking. Others, hopefully many, will admit the paradoxes on both sides.

For those who are tired of hateful atheism or exhausted by self-righteous religion, "Patience With God" offers a meeting place in between, a place where discussion can be honest, intelligent, and kind. The two extremes--thank God!--are not the only options. I always knew that. It's just nice to know that I'm not alone.

Dear Frank:

I read your book. I think it is important that you know my immediate reaction. It is more important than my academic one.

I devoured this book. It has been so long since I found reading material that hit my soul as this did. Your thoughts and observations have rattled around inside me in an incoherent fashion for years. Your book gave them structure and voice.

But I think you would be more interested in what happened when I tried to write you an e-mail in response to your book. What a torment it is to the "detached scholar" to be set in turmoil by a mere book!

Attempt One: Started writing a detached review of your book. By paragraph three I was writing about myself. Delete.

Attempt Two: Decided to write a paragraph about myself to get it out of my system before reviewing your book. One hour later I have a biography, again about myself. Delete.

Attempt Three: Sat in front of an empty screen trying to write. Decided not to. It would end up like attempt two. Delete

Rest and Reflection: Gave manuscript to wife to read. Wife becomes hopelessly absorbed. Still is. (My wife Gwen is Roland Bainton's granddaughter)

More rest and reflection.

Attempt Four: Decided to write a response in a Word document. I can edit it, delete my personal biography crap, and be the nice, proper scholar Miami University trained me to be. Seven pages later, once again, primarily about me, I save it to my "Personal-Crap-No-One-Will-Ever-See-File.

More Rest and Reflection. Damn you Schaeffer!

And now, my blurb...or a part of it. I had to clear my mind and figure out what was going on. I originally thought that your book awakened some kind of slumbering egomaniac in me. This has never happened before. Usually when I review a book (for publication), it is a process that I completely control. Let's say its a book on the collapse of the bronze age or on Pompeii or church history or a textbook on world history. I review it, categorize its strengths and weakness, compare it to existing literature, assess its accessibility to a variety of students types, look at the resources assembled for its bibliography, judge the author's bias, and make a recommendation: to buy or not to buy (or assign). I am the detached voice. Invisible. You sure screwed up that process.

What you did, Frank, is validate a part of my life I wanted desperately to forget. The pain, the struggle, the embarrassment, the utter desperation of being without a spiritual country. I saw myself. Your book was a mirror. Whether you are talking about atheists (I think you are really speaking about fundamentalists in a disarming way: targeting them by talking about something else: a parable if there ever was one!)or your own past, or the limitation of fundamentalist intellectual honesty, it comes around to the personal. This book is essentially my journey too. It is, in another form, the journey of a multitude of wounded Christians who have been divorced from the mystical, the allegorical, and the real faith for a long time. You gave us voice. You validated our experiences. We're OK, and not damned or compromised or not dedicated to Christ enough.

In other words, your narrative opens us up. I can talk and write about myself because you have. You have started a conversation. One that has been needed for a long, long time. And conversations make us want to reply. You talk intently about your experiences. We, the readers want share ours. But we can only do this because you shared first. So thanks.

John F. DeFelice
Associate Professor of History
University of Maine at Presque ISle

Even though I am a retired librarian who understands the necessity of due dates, such requirements have almost always put me off from checking out materials for personal use. I do it, and like for the following title I do it once in a while in order to see if the item is something I want to own. In the current case, I have already ordered the book. In what follows I will explain some of my reasons for wanting it on my shelf. (BTW, the book is due tomorrow.)

Frank Schaeffer, theologically and politically astute, has bit off a huge problem - how can the majority of people in especially the Western English-speaking world understand and then respond to two vitriolic, fundamentalist, and yet opposing camps? Indeed, when confronted with either the "New Atheists" or the evangelical/fundamentalists, most of us prefer not to be associated with them. Their certainties seem to be absurdly unproven in light of their respective "scriptures," and we wonder if that may be the reason their vitriol seems to be not only exaggerated but also aimed to inflame.

From p. 153 of Patience with God, comes this - "The public that evangelical/fundamentalist religion and the New Atheists cater to want to believe that there really are knives that will never need sharpening! They want that "lifetime warranty, " never mind that deep down they know that there is nothing that can hold an edge without sharpening, no matter what the theological or philosophical or scientific equivalent of the "amazing knife set offer" for "just three easy payments of only $19.95" claims. But as Darwin discovered, claims of absolute truth, without a nod to inconsistency, are made to be abandoned."

One of the telling descriptions of the New Atheists is the one where Schaeffer tells of the Scarlet A lapel pin sold on Richard Dawkins' website, the purpose of which pin is to start conversations between the atheist wearing it and anyone s/he buttonholes into observing and asking about it. Hilariously, Schaeffer described his mother's gizmo to tempt passersby to ask about being saved - she used a walnut out of which she pulled a tricolored ribbon. Black came first to describe the person's soul before Jesus; red came next to describe Christ's blood shed for the person; and white followed to indicate the outcome of the person's personal encounter and acceptance (once for all) of Jesus and one's personal savior.

With similar telling parallels Schaeffer proceeds through eight chapters discussing and "outing" the fundamentalists with their various certainties - Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, Rick Warren, Jerry Jenkins, and Tim LaHaye. One of my quibbles with this part of the book (even though Google is an excellent resource to find them) is the omission of citations to websites and/or books. (I guess my librarian is coming out.)

I have long argued that the only difference between the fundamentalists is directional - both camps start from the same depression (that is, the pit of certitude) but go in opposite directions. Schaeffer does a wonderful job of elucidating that very observation.

The concluding eight chapters are predominantly memoir wherein Schaeffer presents what he sees as his basis for a living faith - the certainty of no god is as ridiculous the certainty of the literal understanding of the Bible. His telling stories and analogies present more of what faith, indeed of what life, is all about than all the certainties described in the first eight chapters.

A book well worth reading, re-reading, and therefore owning - Frank Schaeffer, Patience with God : Faith for People Who Don't Like Religion (or Atheism), Da Capo Press, 2009, $25.

I just finished reading Frank Schaeffer's book titled "Patience with God." It is excellent. It is somewhat autobiographical and is a heart-felt testimony about Frank Schaeffer's journey from once being an arrogant fundamentalist evangelical to where Mr. Schaeffer is now theologically-- a man of faith who embraces the sacred as well doubt and paradox. Mr. Schaeffer takes no prisoners. He is equally merciless on the so-called "New Atheists" and the Christian fundamentalists. But Mr. Schaeffer does not stop there. He offers a real, sensible way of looking at faith issues in the post-modern world in which we live. I do not agree with everything that Mr. Schaeffer says-- if I did, I get the sense that he would not be pleased as one of his pet peeves seems to be people who do not have the fortitude to make up their own minds and decide for themselves. But I have to say that I do agree with the manner in which Mr. Schaeffer approaches complex issues of faith-- he leaves room for mystery. For him, that mystery, (which is most evidenced by the love that he feels for his granddaughter, his wife and all of his family) surpasses all human understanding is not merely a series of chemical reactions as many atheists would describe it. I highly recommend this book to anybody who has become disenchanted with the church and organized religion. There is an alternative. Frank Schaeffer certainly did not discover that alternative, but he did articulate it in a unique and refreshing way.

If you are a Christian from the Fudamentalist or conservative Evangelical wing of Christianity you will love this book. In short, it will allow you to maintain your Christian beliefs without the bagage of such absurd positions. You can actually be a believer in Christ without believing those positions brought forth by these rightwinged persons who place ecomonic, political and religious beliefs in absolute terms and definitions. The book will help you escape such condemnation and illogical positions which quite frankly are not supported by Church History nor by Church Theology nor by Scripture. Buy the book and read it!

Mark from Moreno Valley, ca

I had recently rediscovered Frank (whom I knew as ' Franky' Schaeffer -author of Addicted to Mediocrity) via his interviews on the Rachel Maddow Show. He has been saying some thing that really resonated with me and Patience with God resonates with me as well. Frank points out the fallacy of an either or faith , be it Evangelical or Atheist. He takes both sides to task for wanting people to choose which side is right rather than encouraging them to discover Faith through Love. I found this to be an enjoyable read and an easy one. The book is part essay, part memoir, all relevant.

"Patience With God" fearlessly examines both the notion and the nature of Faith. Fearless because Mr. Schaeffer seems willing to risk losing his own faith in order to truly find it. The depth and breadth of his exploration of atheism, science and religion combined with his first-hand experience as a prior evangelical/fundamentalist perpetrator could very well have resulted in yet another "listen-to-ME-I've-got-the-ANSWER" book; yet "Patience With God" is very much the opposite.
Mr. Schaeffer exposes the parallels between extremists of any ilk, but also illuminates the similarities to be found at the ideological middle ground.
There is an uncommon honesty about this book. It is an honesty that challenges those of us that open the book with predisposed convictions regarding the "unknown", regarding "purpose", regarding theory, fact, certainty and universal mystery. In the end, I found that Mr. Schaeffer's honesty also offers a degree of comfort to those of us who have lived our lives in varying degrees of torment over our eternal fate due to parental and/or environmental indoctrination.
In this era of political (us v. THEM) separatism in America, Frank Schaeffer is a (fairly unlikely) voice of reason. Whatever you may think of him politically, I challenge you to read this book. I think you will be delighted to find that 100% agreement is NOT required to appreciate this piece of work.

The main point of this book is that both fundamental Christianity and the "New Atheism" are too extreme in their rigidity. Schaeffer spends more time trying to tear down atheism than on his rejection of the fundamentalism in which he was raised. Perhaps he feels more threatened by atheism than he would like to admit.
There is a fundamental problem that is much wider than this book, and it also infects the books of the atheists. The root of atheism is "no god", as is well known. But this assumes that there is a definite concept of "god". I often ask atheists, "Which god do you not believe in?" There is obviously no way that god can be defined. This namelessness is beyond any human description. While people certainly have experiences and glimpses of something well beyond themselves, it is rather arrogant and egotistical to claim that you have the correct and full knowledge of "god". There are many different thoughts about this unnamable something (it is way too restrictive to use the word "entity"). I think that in a way everyone is an atheist in the sense that he/she does not believe in a concept of god that someone else may have. While I was reading the last half of Schaeffer's book, it occurred to me that he was rejecting the "bearded father in the sky" image, and thus an atheist himself for that god. I certainly reject this form of theism. So do many others, such as Bishop John Shelby Spong.
That said, the "New Atheists" go too far by rejecting all religion just because they don't like the "bearded father in the sky". I was once there. My training was as a physicist. It took me quite a while to realize that there are other paths to understanding than only science.
So on the whole, I found this book an interesting examination of where religion might be going. I recommend it for those with an open mind. I would have liked it if Schaeffer had been a little more definite about what the faith promised in the subtitle (Faith for People Who Don't Like Religion {or Atheism}) was. I came away with the idea that we should have faith in love. Nothing wrong with that. But is it enough? I feel that there is something more.
I think that he spends too much time in the last half of the book on details of his childhood and his love for his granddaughter. While there were lessons that he learned, these lessons could have been presented much more briefly. Several times I wondered where his ramblings were going.