Reconstructionism

I’ve been waiting for this. Robert P. George is an excellent thinker and astute cultural critic. He writes from the Roman Catholic tradition and there is much with which the Orthodox can find agreement (“Clash Of Orthodoxies: Law Religion & Morality In Crisis” is an excellent read). Frank Schaeffer, well, what can you say. I know the man and have been keeping up with his writing, not the books so much which are so-so for the most part — adequate but not memorable except perhaps for his scathing and unseemly criticism of his parents. (No parent is perfect, and no parent, except perhaps a rank abuser, deserves to have his failings pilloried in public by his children).

I knew both of his parents tangentially. A friend and I started the Students for Life group at the University of Minnesota many moons ago (the only accredited Feminist Studies program at any American university at the time) and invited Francis Schaeffer to speak at “Pro-Life Week” that we organized — the feminist studies department dutifully protested in full force. Later I got to know Edith Shaeffer. I was ordained at the time and spent a day with her on the day Frank got chrismated and explained what Orthodox Christianity was (she was relieved to find out it was not a cult). She is a very gracious and generous woman.

Later I got to know Frank a bit better (full disclosure: I was a co-editor of Dancing Alone: The Quest for Orthodox Faith in the Age of False Religion) and thus was alarmed with what appears to be a drift from the moral tradition towards libertine liberalism — moral parity for homosexuals is his new cause). I keep up with his writings on the Huffington Post but find the slide into temporal moralizing almost intolerable — lot’s of self-assured finger-wagging, no serious thinking. I only check it every few months now.

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HT: Mirror of Justice

“Natural Law” and “far right Reconstructionist extremism!”
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