Not that I haven't enjoyed reading the book and found it illuminating, but I'm juggling a few other projects, too. Since the blog title indicates a yen for non-Spanish classical guitar music I might as well 'fess up and say that sometimes writing new music for guitar is more interesting than blogging.
Way more interesting, especially given some of the stuff I've managed to write lately. So it's not that I plan to abandon my likely rarely read blog, but artistic life takes precedence over blog life every time. I'd rather be an accomplished composer and musician than an accomplished blogger, all things considered. Not that I can't blog up something but there's enough bloggers out there.
Actually, to touch on that matter for a moment, part of why I feel many of the critiques of Frank Schaeffer's books end up being so daft is precisely because they're liable to, effectively, blog about it. Even though I respect Os Guinness' right to sound off on the strengths and weaknesses and the rights and substantial wrongs of Crazy for God as Frank published the book ... the very fact that the rebuttal/reprimand/interpretation is happening within the same context steals the thunder, or gives it away. I don't mean for Guinness' comments, which I thought were still insightful, I mean bloggers who bloga bout Frank Schaeffer not having the right to say this or that about his dad when they say without qualms any number of things about him. Romans 2, bloggers, go read it.
For my part, I don't have any compelling interest in either assuming everything Frank wrote is true (especially since he dumped a huge disclaimer at the front of the book for me and other readers) or false, which is more than I think some bloggers have managed to do regarding their own work.
I want to give Frank the benefit of the doubt, that he is writing in good faith and that even where he seems wonky that I would ask him to give me the benefit of the doubt. I don't have to believe everything he tells is the truth to trust that his intent is to tell the truth as best he understands it and admits that how he perceives things may be wrong. It's foundational to any honest communicative enterprise.
Of course the difference here is that in a book by the time everything gets fact-checked and people get a chance to ask you what you mean (if ever that arrives) so much water under the bridge has flowed, so many feathers are ruffled, and so many egos may be bruised that it's harder to step back and say, "Well, uh, what I was trying to say was X and not Y." So Frank can, understandably, be stuck with a few things in there that now that the book has gone to print he may change his mind about a few years later.
Even Augustine of Hippo published a book called Retractions. I can't vouch that he retracted diddley or squat, actually, as I haven't read that book of his, just Confessions and a decent chunk of City of God (which, trust me (those of you who've read the book) can be a startlingly small part of said book).
If Frank changes his mind I'm sure he'll write a book. That is, in the best sense of my understanding of this book's scope, the whole point of Crazy for God. Christopher Hitchens once wrote a long article recounting Winston Churchill's acidic ways, his cruel views on race and class and involvement in military matters in foreign lands. Hitchens painted this unflattering portrait with a particular rhetorical and historical point in mind. Churchill was not a hero because he was a good man or because he spent much of his life holding what Hitchens would consider good or right views. Hitchens' point was more this--that when the chips were done and the fate of millions upon millions was at stake Churchill changed his mind and changed his mind all the way, all the way enough to decide that the National Socialists needed to be stopped regardless of the cost.
At the risk of making an absurd comparison that invites the legitimate chard of Godwin's law, I invoke Churchill precisely because Frank seems to, in his own way, invite that precedent. Frank is writing a lengthy apology for playing his part in founding, shaping, directing, and promoting the Religious Right that he believes (obviously) has betrayed the principles and best qualities of his father and his father's legacy; capitalizing on those things for the sake of raw and unmitigated political battles; and transforming Francis Schaeffer from a real flesh and blood man who loved God and his family into an evangelical Protestant's variation of an idol.
So, there you go, my probable violation of Godwin's law indirectly by invoking WInston Churchill as written about by Christopher Hitchens (probably in the Atlantic Monthly some six or seven years ago and since the Atlantic Monthly is on-line and you don't have to pay money to search the archives anymore someone can go spend some time looking that up and telling me how full of crap I am for blogging about an article that may just possibly have not been written in the Atlantic Monthly by Christopher Hitchens about Winston Churchill). Go ahead, prove me wrong, that is, after all, part of what blogging is about. In any event, the analogy seemed useful for some reason so accept it for what it is, an analogy. It's partly to show that Schaeffer's comments can sometimes seem a bit overboard. Then again, the comments of the Religious Right and Left can be pretty overboard.
I wonder if the prophets of old were simply preparing the way for highly charged political rhetoric. Seems like it sometimes. But now, truly, I digress.
See, I ended up blogging about the book anyway. One of these days I'll have to blog about something like music or something else again.
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