Dear Editor,
I’m writing about Luke Barr’s interview with Frank Schaeffer about his father Francis Schaeffer in the March issue of en, mainly because, back in 1980, I edited the British edition of the pro-life book Whatever Happened to the Human Race? by Schaeffer and Dr Koop, and also helped to arrange their book and film tour of the UK .
Luke suggests that Francis Schaeffer got tainted by his involvement with the American culture wars and the ‘Religious Right’. I feel he overly relies on Frank’s somewhat partial views.
Arguably, the American culture wars were started by Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement and hopefully we don’t have a problem with that. Then came the anti-Vietnam war protests, a bit more tricky, but I was there outside the American Embassy in London. Then came the dysfunctional liberal turn to dismantle the family and promote abortion and gay rights, etc., and something needed to be done – by evangelicals.
The person who got evangelicals re-engaged in politics was Francis Schaeffer, as he did on the subject of the arts and culture generally, including the issue of the environment – remember his book Pollution and the Death of Man. He did this by insisting on the sovereignty of God over everything, as well as more practically in the political sphere, by his pro-life book and film Whatever Happened to the Human Race?
Now when you are involved in politics you sometimes have to hold your nose to get things done and unless you think the pro-life issue peripheral, things have been achieved and that’s reflected in the current composition of the US Supreme Court, about which many have high hopes. Moreover it’s worth remembering that in the UK before Schaeffer, evangelicals were indifferent on abortion, it was a Catholic issue, but after him things changed and I could point to the huge encouragement he gave to CARE, the Christian Institute and Christian Concern on the pro-life issue and more generally in representing a Christian view in the public square. His influence was crucial. I can’t imagine Luke has a problem with that.
What would have been interesting is to see how Francis Schaeffer would have dealt with the American ‘Religious Right’ had he not died of cancer. I suspect some things he would have agreed with and others not – quite forcefully.
Yours sincerely,
Ian Cooper By email
