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That Dangerous Radical . . . Marvin Olasky?

By Robert Stacy McCain on 11.21.09 @ 12:39PM

The late Francis Schaeffer was one of the most celebrated evangelical Christian writers of the late 20th century, the author of several influential books, including How Should We Then Live? Though less well-known than such figures as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, Schaeffer nonetheless played an important role in the rise of what is usually called the Religious Right.

Schaeffer's son, Frank, has in recent years begun to trade on his late father's legacy, asserting that Christian conservatives and the Republican Party have been bamboozled and hijacked by extremist charlatans. Chief among the charlatans, according to Frank Schaeffer, is Sarah Palin, whom he savages with a guilt-by-association attack involving Lynn Vincent, my longtime friend and co-author of Donkey Cons, who also happened to be Sarah Palin's collaborator on Going Rogue.

Among the telltale idiocies of Frank's attack is the way in which he cites a paragraph from Chapter 6 of Donkey Cons regarding Whittaker Chambers' revelations about Alger Hiss. This shows that (a) Schaeffer is getting his talking points from Media Matters, and (b) Schaeffer doesn't have any real comprehension of Chambers' significance in the history of American conservatism. Chambers' landmark memoir Witness was one of Ronald Reagan's favorite books, and Chambers interpreted his own experience through a religious lens. And it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that Chambers' exposure of Hiss was a turning point in world history. (Just in case anyone is curious -- I feel like Paul McCartney discussing his songwriting partnership with John Lennon -- Chapter 6 was largely Lynn's work.)

In his desperate desire to smear Palin, Schaeffer doubles down on idiocy by making Lynn the linkage for a second-degree guilt-by-association attack. Some such attacks -- including a misinformed outburst by Rachel Maddow a few weeks ago on NBC's "Meet the Press" -- have tried to use me as a stick with which to beat Palin, for having worked with Lynn, a "known associate" of such a terrible person as myself.

Schaeffer, however, chooses to focus his own guilt-by-association Palin smear on Marvin Olasky, who as editor-in-chief of World magazine was for many years Lynn Vincent's boss. (Readers are invited to smile with me at the irony of this. Would you wish to be held accountable for everything your boss ever said or did? And did I happen to mention that I spent 10 years working for The Washington Times, whose founder is the Rev. Sun Yung Moon?)

Schaeffer endeavors to convince readers that Olasky is a dangerous "far right" extremist, "who has been working to more or less turn America into a theocracy ever since the late 1980s and early 1990s," and whose work "was largely funded by far right banker" Howard Ahmanson. Generally speaking, I distrust any writer who, as Schaeffer does, insists on shoehorning three "far rights" into a single paragraph. Schaeffer earns compound interest on my distrust when, in support of his claim that Olasky is an advocate of "Bible-inspired totalitarianism/theocratic neofascism" (!) he cites Max Blumenthal, son of our old Clintonista acquaintance Sidney Blumenthal.

Most remarkably, Schaeffer does all this while posturing as a friend to Republicans and conservatives and -- further exposing himself as irony-impaired -- invoking another historic figure:

The chief characteristic of Palin's book is her trashing of the old cautious and respectable William F. Buckley-style Republican Party . . .

Buckley was among other things a close associate of that notorious extremist, Whittaker Chambers, but anyone familiar with Buckley's career knows that for many years the founder of National Review was regarded as anything but "cautious and respectable." Buckley's seminal book God and Man at Yale was famously denounced as "having the glow and appeal of a fiery cross on a hillside at night" (Saturday Review) and its author's methods described as "precisely those employed in Italy, Germany, and Russia" (New Republic).

By dint of his long and successful career, Buckley eventually obtained a stature that might be deemed "cautious and respectable," but to invoke Buckley's name as a means of denouncing an eminent conservative intellectual like Olasky as a "neofascist" is the act of a fool, which Frank Schaeffer most certainly is.

View all comments (14) | Leave a comment

Ken (Old Texican)| 11.21.09 @ 12:57PM

You know, Mr. McCain, at the end of the day, Sarah could care less about these heel biters.

She is likely to sell a ton of books, insure personal financial security, and help us get a decent congress in the process.

The "labels" just don't seem to be able to stick to her.
I have watched the series of interviews with her, and her filmed moments on the book tour. She just seems to grow every day.
One clue is her continuing growth of deftness to "bridge" stupid questions into meningful answers...heh... though not precisely the answers to the posed questions.
That is a tough ability to master from my own personal experiences on national TV over the years.

Richard Baker| 11.21.09 @ 2:09PM

Marvin Olasky, a far-right extremist? Somebody hasn't bothered to read anything he's written. Are they reading the Cliff's Notes version?

Bennett B. Wethered| 11.21.09 @ 2:54PM

FYI - According to the website for World magazine (http://www.worldmag.com/media/), Marvin Olasky is the current Editor-In-Chief.

Robert Stacy McCain| 11.21.09 @ 3:58PM

Thank you for the correction, Mr. Wethered. I had known that Dr. Olasky recently became provost of King's College in New York, and wrongly supposed that he had stepped down as World editor. This item will be corrected to reflect your catch.

Margie| 11.21.09 @ 7:25PM

I know godly men who have children that have grown up, after being taught both by example and Biblical teachings, to become reprobates. It doesn't at all surprise me then, to hear that Frank Schaeffer may not be anything like his Dad.
I mean, just look at Ronald Reagan Sr. and Ron Jr!
Anyhow, like Old Tex says~~ Sarah doesn't need any of these "heel-biters!"
~And I'm going to have to read Witness.

Thomas L. Knapp| 11.21.09 @ 8:01PM

"The 'labels' just don't seem to be able to stick to her."

That's not really true. The label "conservative" has stuck to her.

I don't know why -- in terms of actual record, she's a lot closer to Jerry Brown than to Ronald Reagan, to name other former governors -- but it does.

Ken (Old Texican)| 11.22.09 @ 6:21AM

Thomas,
You are completely daft, man.
Join Toddard, Bob, and Red in the dunce corner.

Joel Raupe| 11.21.09 @ 8:11PM

I don't know what happened to Franky Schaeffer, though as someone who was powerfully influenced by his father, it's great to discover I'm not alone in recognizing his influence. I have most, if not all, of Dr. Schaeffer and his wife Edith's books, all dog-eared and comfortable as a walking stick, a worn denim coat and boots that fit. He was a periscope up into reality.

And I have one of Franky's books here, too. It's "A Time For Anger," which was ahead of its time in advocating civil disobedience far beyond anything a modern Tea Party participant would dare at this point. That was from the mid-eighties, I guess, but I confess to being completely disinterested in what changed Franky into the philosophical shipwreck he became.

Though it was played down, wasn't Chambers proven ultimately to be correct, at every point, with regard to Hiss? I thought that old saw was taken out back and put out of its misery with a dull axe, when the KGB files were uncloaked.

Margie| 11.21.09 @ 8:14PM

^^ Ha ha ha! Yet another Libertarian trying to redefine conservatives.
Your own label maker must be malfunctioning, bud.
Jerry Brown? HA ha ha!

Francis Beckwith| 11.21.09 @ 10:08PM

Bob, thanks for this post. Frank Schaeffer has learned nothing. His penchant for extremist rhetoric has apparently gone with him from right to left. Too bad. He's a fine writer with a first class mind. So, he should know better. And that's what makes his current descent into trash talk so sad. Pray for the lad.

Robert Stacy McCain| 11.21.09 @ 11:45PM

Thanks for the comments, Mr. Beckwith and Mr. Raupe. I have no problem if somebody wants to change their opinions -- I'm an ex-Democrat myself. But Schaeffer is trying to do something dishonest, basically playing "concern troll," pretending to care so deeply about the GOP while continually slagging Republicans.

Why does he do this? Because if he ever declared, "I am a liberal Democrat," Schaeffer would become as irrelevant as Arlen Specter.

George Michalopulos| 11.22.09 @ 12:40AM

Robert, I actually know Frankie. I always thought he was a man of integrity, but he's definately gone over to the dark side. Like me, he's an Orthodox Christian. Unfortunately, several of us are appalled at the fact that he's giving aid and comfort to the neo-pagans. If you're interested in how many Orthodox feel, I'd be glad to send you an editorial I posted about his nonsense on the American Orthodox Institute website.

sincerely,

George Michalopulos

Curby Graham| 11.22.09 @ 5:12PM

Robert - great article. Spot on. Francis Beckwith's comments as well. I have met Dr. Olasky on several occasions and attended his Church in Austin while I was stationed at Ft. Hood. Calling him a neo-fascist is laughable. Frank Schaeffer apple has fallen hundreds of miles from the tree. Os Guinness wrote a very good article on Frank's book Crazy For God that gives a great deal of insight:
http://www.christianitytoday.c...../1.32.html

Sad to see how far gone he is.

Thomas L. Knapp| 11.23.09 @ 4:24PM

Margie,

"Redefine conservative?" Me? Ha.

Palin ran for mayor of Wasilla as an announced "progressive."

Once in office, her two main projects were to suck in as much federal pork as possible for the city (she even hired a lobbyist for the purpose) and to build an eminent-domain-enabled white elephant recreation center that put Wasilla millions of dollars in debt.

As governor, she was very even-handed on the subject of welfare -- half a billion in corporate welfare to subsidize "private" pipeline development, and a proposal to issue every family in the state a "debit card" for "free" gasoline on the government's tab.

If you call THAT "conservative," I submit that you should put down the crack pipe and pick up a dictionary.