Frank Schaeffer, Crazy for God (Cambridge: Carroll and Graf, 2007) 311.
To me, John’s selfless actions came to represent what faith looks like when lived, as opposed to what theological “purity” looks like. And one reason I still bother to struggle to have faith is because of John Sandri’s example. He truly returned good for evil.
John Sandri was Frank’s brother-in-law. He was removed from leading his well-attended Bible classes at L’Abri because people thought he was teaching heresy. I’m not entirely certain what he was teaching, but it included “reading the Bible as a literary work, and not giving it the ‘correct’ theological spin,” as well as replacing a rigid commitment to inerrancy with being “allowed to ask real questions and let the chips fall where they may.”
The problem was the John was the only one who truly knew about the nuts-and-bolts of L’Abri, in terms of taxes, insurance, the tricky water heater, etc. So L’Abri asked him to stay and help run the work, even though he wouldn’t be teaching. According to Frank, John didn’t take himself too seriously, so, instead of telling L’Abri to “kiss off,” he stayed and helped run the work.
There’s a submission that flows from a desire for acceptance, one that lacks self-respect and lets people walk all over you. And there’s a submission that flows from confidence, love, and security. I often have the former. I hope to have the latter.
It’s interesting that Frank said John is one reason he bothers to have faith at all. There are plenty of Christians who discourage me from wanting to be a Christian. But it’s good to encounter Christians I can look up to. A friend of mine recently said that about AA: for a while, he didn’t attend meetings because of the bad people, but now he’s returned to the program, and he tries to remember the good AA people who have inspired him.
There are plenty of Christians who have judged and criticized me, but there are also some who have humbly listened to what I had to say. They may have offered me another way to look at a situation, but they didn’t judge me. It’s tempting to ditch Christianity in rebellion against the former kind of Christians. But I hope I can have a strong sense of peace, humility, love, and security like John and the latter kind of Christians.