Editing Frederick Buechner (section)

===Exeter===
In September 1958, the Buechners moved to [[Phillips Exeter Academy|Exeter]]. There, Buechner faced the challenge of creating a new religion department and academically rigorous curriculum that would challenge the often cynical views of his new students. "My job, as I saw it, was to defend the [[Christianity|Christian]] faith against its 'cultured despisers,' to use [[Schleiermacher]]'s phrase. To put it more positively, it was to present the faith as appealingly, honestly, relevantly, and skillfully as I could."<ref>Frederick, Buechner (1983). ''Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation''. Zondervan. p. 47. {{ISBN|9780061974533}}</ref> During his tenure at Exeter, Buechner taught courses in both the [[Religion]] and English departments and served as school [[chaplain]] and minister. Also during this time, the family grew to include three daughters. For the school year 1963–64, the Buechners took a sabbatical on their farm in [[Rupert, Vermont]], during which time Buechner returned to his writing; his fourth book, ''The Final Beast'', was published in 1965. As the first book he had written since his ordination, ''The Final Beast'' represented a new style for Buechner, one in which he combined his dual callings as minister and as author.

Buechner recalls of his accomplishments at [[Phillips Exeter Academy|Exeter]]: "All told, we were there for nine years with one year's leave of absence tucked in the middle, and by the time we left, the religion department had grown from only one full-time teacher, namely myself, and about twenty students, to four teachers and something in the neighborhood, as I remember, of three hundred students or more."<ref>Frederick, Buechner (1983). ''Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation''. Zondervan. p. 43. {{ISBN|9780061974533}}</ref> Among these students was the future author [[John Irving]], who included a quotation from Buechner as an epigraph of his book ''[[A Prayer for Owen Meany]]''. One of Buechner's biographers, Marjorie Casebier McCoy, describes the effect of his time at Exeter as follows: "Buechner in his sermons had been attempting to reach out to the "cultured despisers of religion." The students and faculty at [[Phillips Exeter]] had been, for the most part, just that when he had arrived at the school, and it had been they who compelled him to hone his preaching and literary skills to their utmost in order to get a hearing for [[Christian faith]]."<ref>McCoy, Marjorie Casebier (1988). ''Frederick Buechner: Novelist and Theologian of the Lost and Found.'' New York: Harper & Row. {{ISBN|9780060653293}}</ref>