Honest questions deserved honest answers, he averred. But both he personally, and the community generally, were bathed with grace and love. Such love is costly, requiring great sacrifice and risk. The Bible was central to his worldview. He experienced deep spiritual crisis at one point in his life.
He believed in the dignity of all humans. Share This. Before Francis had finished his degree, Machen was dead and Westminster's people were at each other's throats. So in Francis and Edith helped set up Faith Seminary as an alternative. The split was a bitter one, giving birth to personal animosities that lasted for years. In the short term, it made of Francis a sharp-tongued partisan for separatist fundamentalism. But in later years, wounds inflicted and received spurred him to serious reflection about how to handle theological disagreement in a spirit of genuine Christian love.
After nine years of pastoring Bible Presbyterian churches and youth work, the Independent Board for Foreign Missions sent Francis on a three-month trip to Europe to build networks among "Bible-believing" churches, pastors, and institutions. Between appointments, he spent his time in art galleries. Then, in , the board sent the Schaeffers to Europe as long-term missionaries. The Schaeffers located in Switzerland, where they took up the tasks of spreading their Children for Christ program throughout Europe and organizing an international arm of the separatist fundamentalist movement.
On the side, they entertained groups of schoolgirls on ski holidays, hosting evening religious discussions by the fire in their chalet. They kept a relentless schedule, most days working until well past midnight. A year later, Francis met a Dutch student of art history, Hans Rookmaaker, who shared Schaeffer's commitment to Kuyperian thought.
Together they discussed how art could be a window into the general philosophy of society. This became a trademark both of Rookmaaker's career as an art historian and of Francis's portrait of the decline of Western society.
In later years, Francis gave Rookmaaker international exposure, and Rookmaaker in turn inspired and assisted a number of young evangelical artists such as Theodore Prescott and art historians such as Mary Leigh Morbey and E.
John Walford of Redeemer and Wheaton colleges, respectively. Schaeffer's separatist preaching frequently decried the weaknesses of Karl Barth's theology: "Neo-orthodoxy gave no new answer. What existential philosophy had already said in secular language, it now said in theological language. There he asked Barth, "Did God create the world? He spent the rest of his life dissenting from this view, insisting that "Christianity speaks of true truth.
He refused to countenance the idea that the Bible's history and science might be less true, or even differently true, than the Bible's theology. Though certain that Barth was wrong, Schaeffer harbored growing doubts about whether or not he himself was right. He could no longer avoid the fact that his party of fundamentalist separatists displayed little Christian love, and that his own spiritual life had become dry and joyless.
In and he struggled through a lengthy spiritual crisis, questioning his beliefs. Edith was frightened, prayed a lot, and tried to keep from intervening. In the end, he found a new assurance that his doctrine was correct and that the "real battle for men is in the world of ideas," but also a new conviction that orthodox belief must travel hand in hand with demonstrative love.
The local group should be the example of the supernatural, of the substantially healed relationship in this present life between men and men. If there is no reality on the local level, we deny what we say we believe. Moreover, the Schaeffers reported that the simple receiving of guests was an increasingly important part of their work, prompting the mission board to cut their pay.
Immediately, the oldest of their three daughters began bringing home fellow students from the University of Lausanne. In short order, students were coming to L'Abri every weekend.
The Schaeffers developed a pattern of meals, walks, and a Sunday church service all geared toward providing an atmosphere that would stimulate conversation about philosophical and religious ideas. In this the Schaeffers were brilliant. For Edith, homemaking was high art, and she created an atmosphere that drew people in and invited them to relax.
Francis was a superb and caring interlocutor who listened attentively, made guests feel important, and spoke with earnest confidence of Christianity's ability to solve the human dilemma. Wrote Francis, "This was and is the real basis of L'Abri. Teaching the historic Christian answers and giving honest answers to honest questions. Word about this unique open home in the mountains quickly spread, and by they were hosting up to 25 people every weekend. Francis spent weekdays teaching classes for students in several locations in Switzerland and Italy.
Though the Schaeffers never appealed directly for funds, Edith kept a growing list of supporters abreast of L'Abri's activities through her "Family Letter. Instead, you can know substantial progress in the Christian life. This includes every area of human existence, social, psychological, the love of God till contentment and the love of neighbor without envy.
He was sharply critical of B. He opposed abortion on demand, euthanasia, and infanticide, coauthoring Whatever Happened to the Human Race? Everett Koop. Against the dilemma of mysticism or nihilism, Schaeffer offered human dignity. He talked about orthodoxy complemented by orthopraxy. Schaeffer was passionate about the truth, and fiercely opposed to relativism in all its guises.
Honest questions deserved honest answers, he averred. But both he personally, and the community generally, were bathed with grace and love.
Such love is costly, requiring great sacrifice and risk. While never developing a step-by-step apologetic technique, Francis had an uncanny sense of the disconnect between what an unbeliever might profess and his or her deeply held convictions or practice.
Believing every human being to know God Romans , he understood that however bold their claims might be about meaninglessness or atheism, their lives betrayed a deeper awareness.
He could then preach the gospel to a more receptive person. Inhabiting the lower were cold, hard facts—the world of mechanisms, the word of history. Inhabiting the upper storey were the irrational, the mystical, and the relative. Such dichotomies were characteristic of philosophy and culture.
But they also characterized modern theology, both liberal and neo-orthodox. Louis for a series of lectures at Covenant Seminary. He turned up wearing a raincoat and carrying a pack and walking stick.
He gave a short homily on the manner in which the Israelites celebrated that first Passover in Egypt—eating unleavened bread, ready to leave the country where they were unwanted aliens. It was this sense of his true home being in the Kingdom to come that helped Schaeffer to be a man with such a generous heart.
When his books started selling very well there was even a Time magazine article about him , he began to receive substantial royalties. This new-found financial prosperity did not change him. He understood, in a way that very few Christians do, that we are called to be laying up treasures in heaven rather than on the earth. It is impossible to love God and money. Francis Schaeffer believed passionately that the fall was a historical event that changed everything in this world.
In particular, he understood that this meant that he himself needed to be always aware that he was a sinner in thought, word, and deed, and that, therefore, it was the mercy and faithfulness of God that brought such unexpected blessing to his ministry, rather than his own gifts, abilities, power, or righteousness. He was acutely aware that what he taught about the doctrines of creation, fall, and redemption must apply to himself first.
He would say that we each have to bow to God three times. We have to bow, first, as a creature, for though we bear the glory of the divine image, we are also totally dependent for life and breath and everything on our Creator. We have to bow, second, as a sinner, for we are in daily need of the atoning blood of Jesus Christ to take away our uncleanness. We have to bow, third, as those who are to be taught by God, who has truth to tell us in His Word.
We do not have it by ourselves. The Lord impresses particular passages of Scripture on all of us. There are many that were especially precious to Francis Schaeffer. One of his favorite passages of Scripture was the Servant Song of Isaiah, found in chapter Later in the chapter those who follow the servant are admonished to imitate his example of speaking the words of the Lord, rather than their own words; his example of trusting in God, rather than relying on themselves.
Schaeffer was passionate about these words. He knew that only God can establish what we do, only God can teach us what to say, only God can lead us where we should go, only God is sufficient for the challenges we face. He wanted to make a distinction between people—a biblical and theological distinction, and therefore an intensely practical distinction.
On the other hand are people who pray that God will build His Kingdom and be pleased to use them as He does. This second way, Schaeffer believed with every fiber of his being, is the message of the God who has created us, the God against whom we have rebelled, the God who has come to deliver us from judgment and from dependence on ourselves.
As I look back on almost 15 years of having had the privilege of working with Francis Schaeffer, my prayer is that this might be one way in which his example would influence me.
Escape from Reason and The God Who Is There are primarily an analysis and response to the dominant ideas in western thought and culture. He Is There and He Is Not Silent also deals with many of the ideas set forward today as alternatives to historic biblical Christianity, but in addition it presents a basic Christian worldview in a more systematic way than do the other two books.
Schaeffer also gave them as a set of special lectures at Covenant Theological Seminary when he came as a visiting lecturer while I was a student there between the years of and I remember the lectures very well as I took them for one hour of seminary credit; consequently, I took thorough notes—notes I still possess and which I have before me as I write this. But the primary reason I remember the lectures so well is that they were open to the public though they were not widely advertised and all through the week a handful of visitors would join us in the tiny seminary chapel.
Covenant Seminary has grown considerably since that time and now has a much more spacious chapel. I remember one man, an unbeliever, who came faithfully to the whole week of lectures. Christianity, on the other hand, gives answers in each of these areas that are satisfying both intellectually and personally. At the end of the week he finished by saying that with the Christian answer there can be true beauty in each of these three areas.
The young man who had attended so faithfully became a Christian as the last lecture finished. I mention this story here not only because it is a precious memory, but also because it reveals something about the way Schaeffer approached his lecturing and his writing. The title of the lectures, Possible Answers to the Basic Philosophic Questions, probably sounds abstract for many when they first come across it. However, Schaeffer was not interested in either abstract or purely academic apologetics.
He was an evangelist—that is how he thought of himself and how he spoke of his ministry. Schaeffer would use the same approach that can be found in his lectures and books when he discussed the truth of Christianity with unbelievers or doubting Christians at mealtimes as Edith served delicious food to meet their other needs.
Or, as he walked through the forests, fields, and mountains of that lovely part of Switzerland, he would encourage his companions to raise their questions and doubts about the Christian faith and he would seek to give them answers. Francis Schaeffer believed passionately that Christianity is the truth about the universe in which we live.
God is indeed there, and He is not silent. God, Scaheffer would say, is not an idea projected from our minds or from our longings onto the giant screen of the heavens, a kind of superhuman created to meet our needs.
God is not a thought in the system of a philosopher who cannot cope with having no answers to the dilemmas of our human existence. No, God truly exists, and He has spoken to us in the Bible to tell us about Himself, about ourselves, and about our world.
He has made known to us what we could never discover by ourselves in our questioning and searching. God has spoken truly to us in His Word, and therefore the message of the Bible fits with the nature of reality as we experience it. To use an image, the biblical account of human life fits like a glove on the hand of reality. Christianity is true to the way things are. Schaeffer was deeply convinced of this, and indeed every believer should be convinced of this.
When we stand up in a worship service and declare the affirmations of the Creed, we are saying what we believe to be true:. These affirmations are not like cartoon balloons floating loose in the air. No, they are statements about the way things truly are. Human life is possible only because the Christian Triune God lives. It is because God is good that we can affirm that there is a difference between good and evil.
It is because God is good that we can commit ourselves to the pursuit of moral beauty. Morals are possible for us because God is moral. Because we are made in the image of our Creator we are designed to love, designed for relationships—a relationship of love with our Creator and relationships of love with one another. Love is possible for us because God is love. We humans are created by God to have knowledge: knowledge about the Lord, knowledge about ourselves, and knowledge about our world.
We will never know exhaustively, for we are finite; but we can know truly, otherwise we would not be able to function at all in this world. Knowledge is possible for us because God knows all things and because He upholds all things and because He has designed us so that there is coherence between us and everything around us. Because we know God, or rather, because God has made Himself known to us, it is possible for us to know ourselves.
Because Christianity is the truth about the world in which we live and about our lives, it is proper for Christian believers to encourage one another, to encourage our children, and to encourage unbelievers to ask their questions, to express their doubts, and to raise their objections against Christianity.
In addition, God has made Himself known in the created order and in human nature in such a way that we can think carefully about what He has revealed. In the same way, the apostle Peter encourages Christians to always be prepared to give a reasoned defense of their hope in Christ. Schaeffer saw this calling as part of the birthright of every believer—not just of pastors or some specially trained apologists.
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