[W]hen the family business is religion, it is especially perilous. That is one of the central laments, anyway, of “Sex, Mom, & God,” a new memoir by Frank Schaeffer. To secular Americans, the name Frank Schaeffer means nothing. But to millions of evangelical Christians, the Schaeffer name is royal, and Frank is the reluctant, wayward, traitorous prince. His crime is not financial profligacy, like some pastors’ sons, but turning his back on Christian conservatives.
Hmmm…
“I had been home-schooled,” Mr. Schaeffer told me. “I had no education, no qualifications, and I was groomed to do this stuff. What was I going to do? If two lines are forming, and one has a $10,000 honorarium to go to a Christian Booksellers Association conference and keynote, and the other is to consider your doubts and get out with nothing else to do, what are you going to do?”
Groomed… That’s a very interesting take on his upbringing and it fits quite nicely. This sounds like an interesting book for sure.
The linked article is a bit baffling in light of all the stuff Frank wrote in Crazy for God about boarding schools and prep schools. He was homeschooled in a lot of significant ways but he was also sent to several schools, too. So he was definitely partly or mostly home-schooled but I’m surprised the article seems to take at face value “home-schooled” without any significant reference to Frank Schaeffer’s detailed stories in the earlier memoir.