Let’s assume for a moment that the son’s loutish memoir (which I haven’t read) is one extreme and the Father’s Evangelical Saintliness is the other extreme. Any possibility that the truth is somewhere between the two? The son- as his books on military families and his account of his conversion to the EO give evidence- may not be as bad as evangelicals comparing him to Franklin Graham want him to be (Franky isn’t telling dad and mom where to be buried I’ll wager) and the Father- whose credits for being an early culture warrior and examplar apologist evidence- was a good apostle in his times. I’ll wager that both can be good guys, both can be bad guys and they all can be a regular, normal, dysfunctional family.

It won’t be a crime if Franky looks at his upbringing as an ex-evangelical. We could all stand to hear a lot more of that perspective.