Quotes from Frank Schaeffer

Donald Trump is not a very bright or nice man. Bad combination.

I just think the way (for instance) evangelicals talk about God or Jesus, as in "Jesus says" or "the Bible says" points up a lack of honesty.

You Republicans are the arsonists who burned down our national home. Now you have the nerve to criticize the 'architect' America just hired - President Obama - to rebuild from the ashes.

Evangelical Christians are not sincere. It is all about making money.

North Korea and evangelical empires have the same principle of leadership: nepotism to the nth degree. You may not get the call, but you inherit the mailing list.

Science "says" nothing. People say things and knowledge changes.

Beliefs should be like the rest of life, and real life isn't rules but learning and adaption.

I don't think anyone sees truth for a simple reason: we aren't static.

religion is a neurological disorder for which faith is the only cure.

Luckily for the people she helped, my mother was gloriously inconsistent. She lived according to the more enlightened parts of the Bible and ignored the rest. For instance, no matter what she claimed the Bible taught about homosexuality, Mom acted as if being born gay was just another way to be human. She provided refuge, love and compassion to many gay

To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow

Christianity should have taken up the cause of the poor; better yet, it should have identified with the poor. Instead, during almost the entire course of history, the Church has served as a prop of the powerful and has been on the side of exploiters and states.

America still sees itself as essential and as destiny's instrument. And each splinter group within our culture—left, right, conservative, liberal, religious, secular—sees itself as morally, even "theologically," superior to its rivals. It is not just about politics. It is about being better than one's evil opponent. We don't just disagree, we demonize the "other." And we don't compromise.

John knew that if you push the so-called Sola Scriptura Calvinist approach and the "inerrancy" ideas to their absurd limit, all real study of the Bible stops. It becomes a magical text. It is no longer open to interpretation. Dogma replaces study, because scholarship can only be meaningful when you are allowed to ask real questions and let the chips fall where they may. It

Let's imagine I happen to be writing some sort of truth here. By the time you read this, I might have changed my mind. Ten years from now, I would likely put it differently. By then I may regret that I wrote this. And regardless of how I feel then, I'll bet that if you reread my book twenty years from now, you'll have changed, so the book will have changed, too. So much for changeless truth.

My liberators in Silicon Valley have freed me to write for you directly and to say what I want to say to anyone I want to say it to. The Internet and its innovators are doing more to facilitate the reemergence of content-laden, craft-rich, hands-on art, individuality and perhaps even spirituality, than all the galleries, agents, critics, churches and publishers combined.

Science can't predict what stories my children's great grandchildren will tell. The ultimate story about the experience of our journey into consciousness is a closed book to theologians and scientists alike, but it is not a book without promise. At this point we've barely cracked the introduction, and already smartass scientists and theologians pretend they know not just how the story started but how it ends—and worse—what it means or doesn't mean.

education and money. I go to church with the kids for the same reason Genie and I play our grandchildren classical music and litter the floors and chairs all over our home with open art books. Jack, age three, eats his lunch with a big Goya book propped in front of him asking for the

The theological battles of the 1920s and 1930s shaped Dad in the same way that political battles would shape the Vietnam generation in the 1960s. Passions forged in those battles became part of a personal identity that was difficult for people who did not share the passionate and polarizing experiences to understand. When

The last thing I crave is to be exposed to the sort of grandstanding preachers that so many evangelical churches seem to breed with the ubiquity of maggots appearing in road kill. The last thing I want is a new and improved "worship experience." The last thing I want is for the service to be socially and politically relevant

It seems to me that a spiritual sensibility is built into human nature. Formal religion may or may not disappear but art, love and a desire to find beauty will remain.

If you are a Church Of One, do you trust your congregation? When you want to be inspired by an icon representing something bigger than yourself, don't you ever get tired of just looking into the mirror?

Evangelicals are experts at adopting heroes, since their community produces so few with both moral standing and intellectual firepower.

We bestow meaning rather than discover it.