By

Frank Schaefer

Designed by

Earnest James Gregg II 

A review by Mel Hathorn

Frank Schaeffer’s latest book, Letter to Lucy: A Manifesto of Creative Redemption–in the Age of Trump, Fascism and Lies, is a study of the relationship between art, the modern world and Schaeffer’s life. For example, the reader can tap a work of art and have it expand to fill the screen that will allow the reader to study the painting or sculpture in greater detail. The reader can view a video that clearly explains Schaeffer’s point. Schaeffer uses art to expose on many levels the barrenness and banality of modern culture. 

At one point he says,

“The term neoliberal as used here describes the ideas associated with laissez-faire economic ‘liberalism.’ Under conditions of neoliberalism which favor the unregulated, unchecked reach of huge multinational corporations into every area of our lives, art and music and the people who produce them all become merely marketable commodities. In this global market the real raison d’être of the museums of contemporary art is not to make art accessible to the public but to show the art in a prestige museum and thus earn it the stamp of approval that fixes its dollar value in the global art market...

Today’s One Percent wants to buy history along with everything else. They want to shortcut the old way that the art canon came to be. In other words, they want to compress time. Putting their work in museums is the best bet for creating an instant un-time-tested “canon” of “great art…It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, a way to buy your way into a club. Money shortcuts the process of history, the time it once took for successive generations to “vote” with their love of an artwork, thereby providing it with longevity and a place in history.”

At another point Schaeffer continues,

“Because of the neoliberal takeover of art museums and universities (including their art departments, which are little more than feeder-incubators providing a direct line to the top galleries these days), the intrinsic value of art—as something spiritually essential and long-lasting—has been replaced by an Ayn Randian market model of instant ‘aesthetics.’

Owning a Jeff Koons, or a 123 foot yacht, or art locked in a tax-free vault… it’s all one and the same as a rube upper class flaunts its wealth. In other words, the same utilitarian malady that afflicts grade school—teaching to the test in order to “produce workers for the future economy”—afflicts the museums”

Schaeffer also uses art and the modern world to relate to the reader some of the story of his own life. He intersperses comments about art and culture with his personal story—For those who are unfamiliar with Schaeffer’s background, Schaeffer was raised in an evangelical family that strongly influenced some of the poor choices he made as a young man—He writes with what seems sincere regret how he followed the wrong path. In a poignant passage he accepts personal responsibility for the rise of the Christian Right.

I’d assisted in fomenting the looming destruction of our garden (not to mention millions of other gardens, cities and entire countries) by helping to foment the religious right. In the 1970s Dad and I set out to “save babies” and wound up doing nothing more tangible than further empowering America’s corporate masters. We got religious people riled up about “moral issues” in ways that (ironically) eventually made them side with the Republicans and their Wall Street pro-growth masters in thrall to Ayn Rand. We evangelicals went along with the oligarchs and their earth-destroying greed with the belief that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. This happened because with Dad’s,—Schaeffer’s Father was Francis Schaeffer, the founder of L’Abri, a place for the questioning to seek answers to life’s problems—Dr. Koop’s, and my collusion (not to mention the collusion of many other religious leaders from Dr. Falwell to Dr. James Dobson) the Republicans became officially the antiabortion party. And on that basis they convinced a vast blue collar and middle class swath of voters to vote against their own economic interests. The so-called rise of the religious right was actually little more than a way for moral outrage to be translated into a bait and switch vote for another agenda entirely…What began with a moral crusade in the 1970s became, by the 2016 elections, all about personal economics, rage and suspicion of the “other.”  

As a result of his dramatic turnabout, Schaeffer suffered much financial and personal loss. Former friends and influential people turned on him. He has been trolled, tormented and condemned by the “Christian” right. Yet even knowing what would come he nevertheless spoke out. Lucy is the latest of his many books describing his change.

There is a concept from Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell that I often refer to in my classes. Both men felt as do I that we are all on A Heroes Journey through life. Schaeffer had the courage to leave a prosperous life and risk everything for the chance to “speak truth to power.” His acceptance and acknowledgement of his personal responsibility in creating the Christian right makes him in my view a hero. 

This is especially demonstrated by the powerful last chapter of Lucy. The reader is stirred and moved by the description of his Mother’s death and his discussion of embracing contradictory assumptions including his acceptance of who he is.

Lucy is not only a good read but is also a good experience. In this multi-presentation, One can not only read a good book, but experience it as well.

Excerpts From: Schaeffer, Frank. “Letter to Lucy.” v1.1. Letters to Lucy, LLC, 2017. iBooks. 

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