Tag Archives: Frank Schaeffer

funny stories, religion

Partial repost: Unsuccessfully making fun of Jack T. Chick with Pensacola Christian College alums…

A few days ago, I reposted a couple of book reviews about author Frank Schaeffer. As I was looking up those reviews on the old version of my blog, I noticed that I included Schaeffer in a post I wrote about cartoon religious tract artist Jack T. Chick. It so happens that Fundie Fridays also recently did a video about Jack Chick.

I enjoyed this video. I went through a Jack Chick phase myself about twenty years ago.

There is something fresh I’d like to write about this morning, but I’m not quite ready to put it into words yet. I think I need to talk to Bill a bit more before I’m ready to compose. But Jack Chick is always a fun topic and it IS Sunday, so here’s a partial repost of an article I wrote in February 2016.

When I was a graduate student, I had a surprising amount of free time on my hands.  Though I did not have as much free time in those days as I do now, as The Overeducated Housewife, I did have plenty of time for messing around.  I bought my very first personal computer in 1999.  I felt I needed to have it, even though the University of South Carolina had computer labs.  It was a good investment, especially since it ultimately led me to Bill.  Of course, I’ve already written that shocking story (which I will probably repost on 9/11).

Today, I want to write about the Christian evangelical comic book artist Jack T. Chick and how I came to learn of his existence.  I had never heard of him until 1999 or so, when I bought that first Gateway machine for $999.  I spent hours on the Internet, looking at everything that was available in cyberspace.  At one point, I landed on The Student Voice, a site for former students at Pensacola Christian College.  The site used to be http://www.pensacolachristiancollege.com, but it’s now defunct.  The school sued to get the URL released to them, but they lost. It looks like the guy who had the domain finally released it and now if you go to http://www.pensacolachristiancollege.com, you end up on the school’s official Web site.  I see a lot of the stuff that used to be on The Student Voice has been taken down.  That’s a real pity, though it’s still worth looking around if you’re interested in how weird PCC really is.  Here’s an article written by someone who experienced PCC and didn’t like it.

Apparently, the people who run PCC are extremely uptight folks.  They are very quick to give students the boot for not measuring up to standards.  If you choose to attend this college, you will be paying to be treated like you’re on house arrest.  Pensacola is near beaches.  PCC students are allowed to go to the beach, but they have to go to gender segregated ones… or, at least they did back in the early 00s.  Students were not allowed to be in mixed company and had to travel in groups.  They had to scan off campus and were only allowed to go to certain places.  They were only allowed to see G rated films.  And ladies, you can forget about wearing pants.  Indeed, women have to wear dresses and skirts of an appropriate length along with pantyhose.  Imagine how pleasant that is in Florida heat!  And guys are to wear ties, which are not allowed to be removed until the afternoon.

Man almighty, if I ever thought the rules were strict at Bob Jones University, BYU, or Liberty University, they were nothing compared to PCC.  Men and women had to use different stairwells and sidewalks and avoid touching or staring at each other for too long (making “eye babies”).  At night, everyone had to draw their blinds in a particular way to prevent peeping.  Books, magazines, and the Internet were strictly regulated and filtered.  Anything remotely suggestive was censored.  If you got sick, you had to check yourself into the infirmary.  And almost every student was required to live on campus, where, if they broke the rules, they could be grounded (campused).

I’m not sure if the rules are as strict today as they were twenty years ago, but back then, they were almost unbelievably strict.  What was really crazy in my view is that the students were all legal adults paying for this experience.  And the degrees they were paying for weren’t even accredited.  It’s my understanding that PCC now has some sort of accreditation designated for Christian schools, but I don’t think it’s the kind that is universally respected.  I, of course, found the whole thing fascinating and used to hang out on the Student Voice’s messageboard to get the dirt.  The stories were crazy and positively addictive.

Anyway, not being a particularly devout Christian, I had never heard of Christian tract artist Jack T. Chick.  Chick makes Bible tracts that many Christians pass out to others, leave in lieu of tips at restaurants, or litter with in parks and public restrooms.  They can be entertaining to read, even if some of the messages within them are hateful.  Basically, according to Chick, everyone who doesn’t live their lives in accordance with Biblical principles is going to go straight to Hell.

The PCC crowd had heard plenty about Jack T. Chick.  Some of them had handed out his tracts to innocent people.  Once I found out about Chick, I felt the insatiable need to find out more about him, so I continued my sleuthing and eventually came across a Web site called Weird Crap.  A guy named Psycho Dave had created several  parodies of Jack Chick’s tracts.  Most of the parodies are hilarious, even if they are also quite sacrilegious.  If you have an irreverent sense of humor and are not offended by blasphemy or extremely off color humor or language, I recommend having a look, especially after comparing them with Chick’s originals.  If you are at all sensitive about such humor, I recommend simply taking my word for it.  Also, be aware that the site is a bit wonky because it hasn’t been updated in ages.  Your patience will likely be required.

Psycho Dave wrote that he got a ration of shit from Jack Chick after he created his parodies.  He got phone calls and emails demanding that he take down his parodies because they were copyrighted.  I can’t help but get a huge kick out of the fact that the people at Weird Crap had loads of fun poking fun at Chick.  Their Web site kept me entertained for hours when I was in grad school and not able to chat with Bill.  And, as you can see, despite Chick’s saber shaking and harassment, Psycho Dave’s parodies are still online.  He says he’s ready to pass the Web site on to someone else, though.

A Chick tract in Dutch I found in Amsterdam.

I made the mistake of sharing the parodies with the folks on the PCC board.  I got quite the dressing down for that because even though a lot of them seemed to think Jack Chick is an asshole and they were a bit on the rebellious side, they didn’t like how Psycho Dave made fun of their holy book. I got chastised for being blasphemous.  Aside from that, they were pretty accepting of me, even though one person said I reminded them of Janine Garofalo (really?!).  I guess to them, I really was super liberal.  I’m definitely even more liberal now than I was back then.  

I can credit PCC folks for introducing me to the writer Frank Schaeffer, who was himself raised by famous Christian evangelists in Switzerland.  Schaeffer has written several very entertaining novels as well as a few non fiction books that I’ve enjoyed.  His son, John, joined the Marines against his parents’ wishes.  Schaeffer had never been exposed to the military and was against John’s enlistment, but later educated himself and wrote a few excellent books about different aspects of the military experience, including his experience as the father of a Marine.  When Bill came home from Iraq, I passed on Schaeffer’s novel Baby Jack to him.  That book really resonated with Bill on many levels and I probably never would have known about it if the PCC folks hadn’t turned me on to Frank Schaeffer’s writing.  So I offer them thanks for that.  And, I also see from Amazon.com, that I’ve missed a couple of Schaeffer’s latest books.  He’s very prolific and, if you write to him, he will write back.

Mood music for this post. It’s profane, so don’t listen to it if cursing offends you. I can play this on the guitar.

I don’t really hang out with PCC folks anymore, though I am still a member of their relocated forum.  Every year on my birthday, I get an automated birthday greeting from them and I remember how much fun I had learning about the wacky world of PCC and fundie Christians.   I only wish I could find a similarly entertaining community so I could pry myself off of Facebook. 

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book reviews, Military

Repost: a review of AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America’s Upper Class From the Military and How It Hurts Our Country

Just because I’m on a Frank Schaeffer roll, here’s another mostly as/is review of a book of his that I read and reviewed for Epinions.com. This one was originally posted in May 2008.

Those of you who regularly read my book reviews may know that I am the wife of an Army officer and the daughter of a retired Air Force officer. I have always had a great respect for the military and the people who choose to be a part of it. My husband is one of the smartest people I know. He never had much money when he was growing up, but he did a stint in the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) in high school. That led him to earn military scholarships for college, a commission, and eventually, an international relations degree from American University. Later, again through the military, he went on to earn a master’s degree (ETA: in 2021, he has two master’s degrees, courtesy of the U.S Army).

For over thirty years, Bill has proudly enjoyed serving his country in the military. He has told me on more than one occasion that he has always felt led to serve his country; it is his vocation. The military has been very good to Bill, but I wonder if he would have considered it a career choice had he grown up more economically privileged? In their 2006 book, AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America’s Upper Class From the Military and How It Hurts Our Country, Frank Schaeffer and Kathy Roth-Douquet explore the absence of America’s elite from military service.

Schaeffer and Roth-Douquet could both be considered members of the upper class. Schaeffer was raised in Switzerland by two very famous protestant church leaders. He is now a successful author. Roth-Douquet hails from an upper-middle class Jewish neighborhood and was educated at exclusive private schools. She later went on to serve in President Clinton’s White House. Neither one of them ever expected that one day, they would consider the absence of America’s upper classes from military service. Schaeffer had a negative opinion of military service until his son, John, decided to join the Marines back in 1999. Roth-Douquet found herself exposed to the military when she married her husband, a career Marine officer. Neither Schaeffer nor Roth-Douquet has ever served in the military themselves.

The absence of the so-called “elite”

These two people, who once seemed so unlikely to rub elbows with the men and women who serve in the United States military, noticed that nowadays, America’s all volunteer military mostly consists of people from the lower and middle economic classes. They also noticed that the people making policy decisions involving the military often come from the upper classes; yet, policymakers often have no actual experience with the military. Relying on their combined exposure to the military and their experiences as elite members of society, the two authors point out why people from the elite class should reconsider the decision not to serve their country in the military.

There was a time when military service was expected of the elite. Nowadays, it seems the elite are hellbent on keeping themselves and their children out of the military. They go as far as trying to ban military recruiters from high schools and college campuses and actively discouraging their children when they express an interest in a military career. The attitude seems to be, “We support the military, as long as whatever it does doesn’t involve anyone we care about.” Many elite members of society have no trouble sticking a “Support our troops” magnet on their SUVs, but they are not willing to go as far as volunteering to join the people they so ardently claim to support. Indeed, Schaeffer and Roth-Douquet discuss some of the groups that want to ban military recruiters from talking to their kids and their official reasons for doing so.

Not In My Backyard! Leave My Kid Alone!

As I read this book, I felt as though the authors were preaching to the choir. I have, after all, spent my whole life around military people who have been happy to serve. I have also had some exposure to the so-called academic ivory tower, having spent seven years earning three college degrees. I also spent two years serving in the Peace Corps, a government organization with decidedly liberal leanings. I understand the arguments the elite classes have against joining the military.

As Schaeffer and Roth-Douquet point out in their well researched book, a lot of privileged people simply don’t see the military as a viable option for themselves when they could earn much higher salaries and enjoy more a more comfortable lifestyle opting for a well paid position at a Fortune 500 company or a prestigious law firm. Some people argue that military service is not worthwhile because servicemembers are forced to be involved in causes that they don’t consider just or good. Others see military service as too dangerous. While they want to see our country protected from enemies, they would rather someone else’s child be the one to shed blood, sweat, and tears in the effort. According to Schaeffer and Roth-Douquet, the attitude seems to be that they have more important, cleaner work to do.

I think one of the best points made in AWOL is the fact that we as a society have become overprotective of our children. We stop holding them accountable for their successes and failures because we hate to see them get hurt or experience disappointment. As a result, to many people, the military seems much too dangerous and risky for their sons and daughters. And yet, we as a society are also literally becoming soft and flabby. As Schaeffer points on on pages 162 and 163,

…the civilians sent to boot camp these days leave much to be desired. Many arrive having no idea how to work in a team, how to shoulder responsibility, or how to put other people first… When it comes to physical fitness, fewer young men and women who volunteer each year can do what most young volunteers could do just a generation ago.

On page 163, Schaffer then quotes an Army Ranger, who said,

Parents are always telling me they worry about their kid being killed in a war. But there are going to be a lot more American twenty-year-olds dying of diabetes than get killed in Iraq. When I see the shape these kids are in [at boot camp], I want to tell the parents the safest place for your kids is in my platoon!

As distasteful as that revelation might be for someone who has actually lost someone in a war, I think the Army Ranger may be, sadly, quite correct, if not now, then in the near future. Diabetes and other obesity related illnesses are affecting American young people at an alarming rate. At least in the military, they would be required to get and stay in somewhat decent physical shape and maintain their health through regular physicals and check ups.

Seeing Soldiers as Victims

AWOL includes an interesting discussion about the media’s affect on the military’s image. Frank Schaeffer received a letter from a military chaplain who happened to catch an article written by columnist Andy Rooney. The article, written on April 12, 2004, was entitled “Our Soldiers In Iraq Aren’t Heroes”. In it, Rooney basically paints servicemembers as victims who need to be rescued from the big, bad government. Schaeffer quotes Rooney’s article thusly on page 156,

…We pin medals on their chest to keep them going. We speak of them as if they volunteered to risk their lives to save ours, but there isn’t much voluntary about what most of them have done… many young people, desperate for some income, enlisted… in the National Guard or the Army Reserve to pick up some extra money and never thought they’d be called on to fight… Most are victims, not heroes…

The chaplain wrote a very intelligent response to Rooney that proved that he, at least, did not see himself as a victim. The chaplain reminded Rooney that to call him and his comrades “victims” was to rob them of their own accountability for their decision to serve and responsibility for their own actions. In short, Rooney’s attitude, which seems to be popularly shared by the news media and people in show business, really makes the men and women who choose military service out to be children who need to be protected from themselves, rather than the brave professionals that they actually are.

It may be true that some people join the military because they need the money or they have nowhere else to go, but the vast majority of the servicemembers I’ve met have been proud of what they do. It does seem unfair that so many people in the military are from the lower to middle classes. Their options may not be as expansive as those available to the elite, but the military does offer them a place where they can learn how to handle awesome responsibility at a young age. It also offers a place where they don’t necessarily have to “know someone” in order to get ahead. And, as Schaeffer points out, at least everybody in the military, from the lowest to highest ranking, has the same access to health care. The same cannot be said of a person who works at Wal-Mart or McDonald’s.

Solutions

Frank Schaeffer and Kathryn Roth-Douquet do have ideas for solving the problem of so many people passing on military service. I thought it was interesting to see that they each had their own ideas and presented them separately. Schaeffer believes that the United States should come up with a new type of draft system that requires everyone to do some kind of service to their country, whether it be through the military, the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, or something similar. Roth-Douquet, by contrast, feels that conscription is too impractical and expensive. She believes that we must simply ask the elite to serve. I will comment that as a former Peace Corps Volunteer, I noticed that many of my colleagues already represented the elite class. I don’t think the Peace Corps, in particular, has that much trouble attracting the elite to service. However, I personally don’t think the same could be said for AmeriCorps and it certainly cannot be said for the military, as is well documented in this book.

My overall impressions…

I enjoyed reading AWOL, as I generally enjoy reading all of Frank Schaeffer’s books. He is very opinionated and unabashed about his thoughts, even at the risk of being offensive or seeming short-sighted. It was interesting to read his joint effort with Kathy Roth-Douquet. For the most part, I agree with what they have to say, even though they do seem to use a lot of anecdotes to get their message to the masses.

That said, I don’t think everyone will agree with what these authors have to say. A lot of people think they have good reasons for not serving their country. Some people actually do have good reasons for not serving. Frankly, I wouldn’t want to see the draft come back because I think people should have a choice as to whether or not they want to serve. I think those who do make the choice to serve will be better suited to doing the job, and that will make people like my husband safer.

In any case, I certainly enjoyed reading this book and am glad to see that its authors, themselves members of the elite class who never chose to be a part of the armed forces, have at least learned something from their loved ones who did. I will recommend it to anyone who wants some food for thought regarding the military and the people who make the choice to serve.

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book reviews, Military

Repost: Keeping Faith: A Father-Son Story About Love and The United States Marine Corps

In the wake of the decision to pull troops out of Afghanistan, I’ve decided to repost this review I wrote of Frank Schaeffer’s book, Keeping Faith: A Father-Son Story About Love and The United States Marine Corps. Frank co-wrote this book with his youngest child, his son John. I discovered Schaeffer about 20 years ago, when I was hanging out on a messageboard dedicated to people who had attended Pensacola Christian College. Schaeffer was raised in Switzerland by two famous missionary parents, and he had written a trilogy of very entertaining novels about the experience. Someone on the PCC board recommended them, so I read and loved them. He’s also written many non-fiction books about religion, some of which I have read and reviewed for Epinions.com.

Schaeffer had no experience with the U.S. military when his son, John, decided to join the Marines just before 9/11. He wrote several books about his son’s military experience, as well as a great novel called Baby Jack. I wrote this review for Epinions in February 2004. I believe John has since left the Marines. It appears here as/is. I see by visiting Frank’s Web site that he’s written a new book about Trump. Guess I’ll be downloading that one, too.

First off, let me preface by commenting that Keeping Faith: A Father-Son Story About Love and The United States Marine Corps (2002) by Frank Schaeffer and his son, John Schaeffer, is a wonderfully honest and poignant book. Frank Schaeffer, an author of three novels (two at the time this book was published), is the father of three children. His older two, daughter Jessica, and son, Francis, had done what all of the other kids in Schaeffer’s social class had done and, after graduating from private high schools, gone off to private colleges.

Youngest son John had always been a good athlete and a talented writer (he specializes in poetry and aspires to one day own a bookstore and write for a living), but he was not a good student. Nevertheless, Frank and his wife, Genie, had always assumed that John would follow in his older siblings’ footsteps and go to college, if not for academics, then for athletics. Instead, John decided to join the Marines, an entity that was totally foreign to the Schaeffer family. John Schaeffer wrote that he was not particularly concerned with what his parents thought about the direction of his life, although he did listen to what they had to say and respected their opinions. He had joined the Marines without consulting his parents. I got the feeling that this decision really hurt Frank Schaeffer’s feelings, especially when he pictured his boy coming home in a casket, draped with an American flag.

Frank Schaeffer confesses that he had always felt particularly close to John because his youngest boy had come along when he was “supposed to have children”. The elder Schaeffer became a father for the first time at age eighteen. His second child arrived when he was twenty-one. John was born when Frank was fully twenty-eight years old “almost a grown up”, he says. He got to enjoy his youngest child. I also got the sense that he shared a sense of adventure with John as well as writing talent. Frank Schaeffer grew up the son of American Calvinist missionaries based in Switzerland. He didn’t learn to read until he was eleven years old, vacationed in Portofino, Italy every summer with his three sisters. Schaeffer chronicles his experiences in his novels, Portofino and Saving Grandma, both of which I have read and reviewed on Epinions.com. Frank Schaeffer enjoys cooking, and his son John loves his father’s Tuscan pizza. Frank enjoys his youngest son very much, but I got the feeling it went beyond the fact that they were merely blood. It seemed to me that they were also very good friends.

This sense of friendship was apparent as Frank and John Schaeffer wrote about how they spent their last summer together before boot camp. John had a girlfriend named Erica whom Frank did not like. Frank found Erica cold and distant. She didn’t want to spend any time with the Schaeffer family and Frank felt that she was taking his son away from him, especially since there was precious little time left before boot camp would begin. And this is where the honesty of this book comes in. Readers begin to read about situations in which Schaeffer behaved in ways that may seem, quite frankly, embarrassing. Many people would not want have wanted to admit to admit to some of the behavior that Schaeffer writes that he exhibited in the face of losing his son to boot camp. He comes across as, well, a father hen facing an empty nest.

And then when John starts basic training, we get to read about Frank’s angst at never hearing from his son and the constant letters that he sends his boy. We also read from John’s side as he experiences life on Parris Island– the constant harassment that he suffered as a Marine recruit– the abuse that others suffered, especially those deemed “Fat Bodies or Diet Trays (overweight recruits)”. John’s letters home are painfully short with one or two lines of information and maybe a request or two. He asks for Power Bars and Gatorade, which Frank gladly sends on several occasions. The treats get stashed in a foot locker for the drill instructors to eat or dole out to all of the recruits. Some of the recruits get no mail at all, but John gets a lot of mail– mostly courtesy of his father. He actually gets punished for this a few times.

I found the description of the basic training fascinating. My husband has often told me tales of training, but he didn’t enlist and he’s in the Army. It was interesting to read another point of view. I also used to live in South Carolina, which is where Parris Island is located. I was living there when John Schaeffer was in basic training. In fact, he wrote of having to be evacuated for Hurricane Floyd. He didn’t mention the storm by name, but I know that was the storm he was referring to because it had the distinction of causing one of the worst traffic tie ups in hurricane evacuation history– and it never even really struck land.

I also found John’s stories of the Marines doing what they could to get their fellow recruits through the course inspiring. He wrote of one recruit who developed double pneumonia right before the final 52 hour test, called the Crucible. There was talk that the recruit would not be allowed to take the test. The other recruits, unbeknownst to the sick one, split up the heavier contents of his pack, and carried his load for him. The Senior Drill Instructor said he would get him through the Crucible if he had to carry him through it himself. In fact the recruit played the injured recruit during the Crucible whenever the test called for an injured recruit, and he ended up passing and becoming a Marine.

We are also treated to several scenes where drill instructors dispense fatherly advice coated in profanity. For instance, they tell their recruits “not to get married and buy a bunch of stupid crap for Suzie Rottencrotch” the minute they get out of basic training– instead they should hold off until they make rank and can afford it. They also advise their recruits that there will be plenty of sex to be had once they are Marines and a lot of women will want to “nail them.” But they shouldn’t try to “bang sixteen year olds” because they could go to jail for that in the Corps. And they add, “Fer Chrissakes, don’t get any of ’em pregnant!”

Interspersed within these inspiring stories are John’s poems, stories of life at home in Massachusetts, and Frank’s yearnings to hear from his son. At one point in the book, John writes home to tell his parents that he has decided to change his job once he gets out of training. The job change means that he will add another year to his contract. Frank is angry about this change of events and scolds his son for not consulting him first, or at least talking to the one person the family knows who is a Marine. Frank’s reason for being angry is that the training will require John to move further away from him for a longer time. Originally, he would have trained in the DC area, but his new job would require him to go to Arizona and then Florida. He wrote an angry letter to his son about this development and then got in a fight with his wife… more embarrassing scenes that one would think might be too embarrassing to include in this book. But that’s what makes this book so good. It’s quite honest and Schaeffer shows his very human side. Incidentally, my first reaction to this scenario was that Frank Schaeffer was really in for a rude awakening. Service life is all about frequent moves and going wherever the government decides to send you. I’m sure Frank Schaeffer knows all of this now, though. And I’m sure he’s allowed his son to grow up and distance himself a bit.

As it turned out, once John graduated from basic training, he completed some training in North Carolina, then he ended up spending eighteen months in Arizona while he waited for his security clearance. He had left for Arizona four days after meeting Mollie, a woman to whom he really felt attracted. This part of the book was interesting, as John wasn’t doing anything in particular but waiting. It was a time in which he proved his allegiance to the Corps, since he had injured his foot and had to have surgery. He had the chance to leave the Marines, go to college, be with Mollie. He stayed in, went to Pensacola, and became an exemplary example of a Marine, just in time for September 11th, 2001. According to the back jacket, John Schaeffer is currently serving in Maryland.

As expected, this book does do some bashing of the other services, especially the Army. As the wife of a Soldier, I found myself getting a little annoyed at the generalization that all Army Soldiers are slobs. But then again, I know that the Marines have the toughest physical standards of all of the services. I know they take exceptional pride in their appearance. I’m also an Air Force daughter and I used to hear my dad bashing the Army, too (though not quite as much as this book did). I also found myself laughing aloud quite a lot.

This is a great book and I thoroughly enjoyed it, as much as I have enjoyed Frank Schaeffer’s novels. I read passages of it aloud to my husband, who also wants to read the book now that I’m finished. If you have a loved one serving in the Armed Forces, especially if he or she is a Marine, this book might be a worthy investment of your time.

Frank Schaeffer has written two follow ups to Keeping Faith, Faith of Our Sons, and Voices From The Front.

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