Notes
Notes
CHAPTER 1 / What Really Matters?
'Henry Grunwald, "Time at 60," Time. October [60th Anniversary Issue] 1983, p.5.
'Roger Rosenblatt, "What Really Mattered?" Time. October [60th Anniversary Issue] 1983, pp. 24, 25.
'Rosenblatt, p. 25. Emphasis added.
4Rosenblatt, p. 26. Emphasis added.
'Rosenblatt, p. 27.
6The terms "biblical consensus" and "Christian consensus," as used throughout this chapter and the book, need some clarification. In using these terms I do not mean to say that everyone at the time of the Reformation in Northern Europe was truly a Christian; nor, when these terms are used in reference to our own country, that everyone in our country was a genuine Christian. Rather this refers to the fact that the Christian world view, and biblical knowledge in particular, were widely disseminated throughout the culture and were a decisive influence in giving shape to the culture. In other words, at the time of the Reformation and in our country up until the last forty to sixty years, the large majority of people believed in basic Christian truths such as: the existence of God; that Jesus was God's Son; that there is an afterlife; that morality is concerned with what truly is right and wrong (as opposed to relative morality); that God is righteous and will punish those who do wrong; that there truly is evil in the world as a result of the fall; and that the Bible truly is God's Word. In the Reformation countries and in our own country up until the last forty to sixty years, most people believed these things-albeit sometimes only in a vague way and often not in the sense that they personally trusted in Christ as their Savior.
Going back to the founding of the United States, this consensus was crucial. This does not mean that it was a golden age, nor that the Founders were personally Christian, nor that those who were Christians were always consistent in their political thinking. But the concept of a Creator and a Christian consensus or ethos was crucial in their work, and the difference between the American Revolution, as compared to the French and Russian Revolutions, cannot be understood without recognizing the significance of the Christian consensus or ethos.
This vast dissemination of biblical knowledge can properly be called a "biblical consensus," a "Christian consensus" or a "Christian ethos." And it may correctly be stated that this "consensus" had a decisive influence in shaping the culture of the Reformation and the extensions of these cultures in North America, Australia, and New Zealand. We must be careful, however, not to overstate the case and imply that the United States ever was a "Christian nation" in a truly biblical sense of what it means to be a Christian, or that the United States could ever properly be called God's "chosen nation."
Moreover, we must acknowledge that there is no "golden age" in the past to which we can return, and that as a nation we have always been far from perfect. As I have mentioned in the past we have had blind spots and serious shortcomings, particularly in three areas: 1) in the area of race; 2) in the area of the compassionate use of wealth-both in how money is made and how money is used; and 3) in wrongly subscribing to the idea of "manifest destiny" as some have done. But having made all of these qualifications, we must nevertheless acknowledge that insofar as the Northern European countries of the Reformation and the extensions of these countries such as the United States do in fact represent a Christian consensus, this consensus has profoundly shaped these cultures, bringing forth many wonderful blessings across the whole spectrum of life. Moreover, the opposite is also true: insofar as our culture has departed from a Christian consensus, as it has so rapidly over the last forty to sixty years, this has had a devastating effect upon human life and culture, bringing with it a sweeping breakdown in morality and in many other ways as well.
'See further, How Should We Then Live? in The Complete Works of Francis Schaeffer, Vol. V (Westchester, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1982), pp. 243, 244.
'See further the way I have developed the material in the next two sections in a slightly different form, for example, in Death in the City in The Complete Works, Vol. IV, pp. 210-212.
'See further, Death in the City in The Complete Works, Vol. IV, pp. 207299, especially 209-213.
10See the treatment of this in A Christian Manifesto in The Complete Works, Vol. V, pp. 423-430; in Francis A. Schaeffer, Vladimir Bukovsky, and James Hitchcock, Who Is for Peace? (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1983), pp. 13-19; and my critique of secular humanism found especially in The God Who Is There (The Complete Works, Vol. 1, pp. 5-202) and in my later work, especially How Should We Then Live? and Whatever Happened to the Human Race? in The Complete Works, Vol. V, pp. 83-227 and pp. 281-419 respectively. See also the excellent discussions of secular humanism by James Hitchcock, What Is Secular Humanism? Why Humanism Became Secular and How It Is Changing the World (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Servant Books, 1982); Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction: Christian Faith and Its Confrontation with American Society (Nashville: Thomas Nelson), esp. Chap. 2; and Os Guinness, The Gravedigger File: Papers on the Subversion of the Modern Church (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1983).
F. L. Cross, ed., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (London: Oxford University Press, 1958), pp. 104, 105. Note that the quote as it appears in the original text of the Dictionary uses the German form of the word Aufklarung instead of the English "Enlightenment," and that the English form has been substituted in the quote as it appears here.
12J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1924).
"See further The Church Before the Watching World in The Complete Works, Vol. IV, pp. 153-162, and esp. Note 2, p. 302.
'"See further A Christian Manifesto in The Complete Works, Vol. V, p. 423; and Chapter 1, Note 9 of this book.
"See further the way I have developed this in an expanded form in Whatever Happened... in The Complete Works, Vol. V, pp. 407-410.
"In recent years I have been criticized for allegedly having left my earlier concerns as reflected in my earlier books and work, and for allegedly having moved in a new direction. This criticism, however, really is not accurate. A more correct way to look at my work would be to see a continuity from beginning to the end. My earlier books dealt especially with intellectual matters and the area of culture. Then there were the books dealing with the Christian life and the church. My later books have made specific application of my earlier work to the area of law and the society as a whole, especially in relation to the crucial issues of human life and freedom of religious expression. Through all of this there has been my continued interest in evangelism (helping men and women come to know Christ as Savior) and an emphasis upon the Lordship of Christ in the totality of life. Finally I would want to emphasize, from beginning to end, the need to walk daily with the Lord, to study the Word of God, to live a life of prayer, and to show forth the love, compassion, and holiness of our Lord in daily life.
The proper way to view my work is to see my later work as a direct extension and application of my earlier work, and to see that I have not in any way abandoned my earlier concerns. I must admit that since my writing has filled so many pages and covered such a wide range, I do face a problem concerning those who are familiar with only some of my work, or those who would like to give priority of one part over another. I would stress simply that my work needs to be taken as a whole, with continuity from beginning to end. Probably the best way to see this would be to consult my Complete Works and read it through from beginning to end.
CHAPTER 2 / Marking the Watershed
'There was indeed at least one person who raised a lonely and courageous voice when this seminary began to accept a neo-orthodox view of the Scripture. This was Jay Grimstead, a graduate of the seminary, and I would mention him and honor him for his efforts. Jay Grimstead played a decisive role in founding the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy. The Council was formally organized on May 16, 1977 in Chicago with ten of us present. It still did not have the backing of most of the evangelical leadership, and there was no rush of the evangelical leadership to this cause.
The council was formed specifically for the purpose of defending the historic orthodox position concerning Scripture. Of particular note are the two statements issued by the Council. The first statement, issued in October 1978, is entitled "The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy." The second statement, issued in November 1982, deals with "Hermeneutics." Both statements are extremely valuable in setting forth first what it means to say that the Bible is without error, and second how this applies to the understanding and interpretation of the Bible. The second statement on hermeneutics presents a remarkably balanced and helpful series of twenty-five "affirmations and denials" concerning how the Scriptures are properly to be studied and interpreted. Together these statements set forth the total integrity of biblical inerrancy.
CHAPTER 3 / The Practice of Truth
'See further Bernard Ramm, Beyond Fundamentalism: The Future of Evangelical Theology (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1983), especially pp. 19-22 and 43, 44.
'The issue here is not really a question of scholarship. Bible-believing Christians should never be opposed to genuine scholarship in any field. Constantly through the years great Bible-believing scholars have engaged in what is usually called "lower criticism"-the question of what the best Bible text really is. It is natural that biblical Christians should find textual study important, because, since Scripture is propositional communication from God to mankind, obviously we are interested in the very best texts possible. Consequently, Christian scholars have labored through the years in the area of "lower criticism."
"Higher criticism" is quite a different matter. Picking up where lower criticism leaves off, it attempts to determine upon its own subjective basis what is to be accepted and what is to be rejected after the best text has been established. The real difference between liberalism and biblical Christianity is not a matter of scholarship but a matter of presuppositions. Both the old liberalism and the new liberalism operate on a set of presuppositions common to both of them, but different from those of historic, orthodox Christianity.
See further Chapter 1 of my book The Church Before the Watching World (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1971), p. 9-34, also my The Complete Works, Vol. IV (Westchester, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1982), p. 117-132.
'Quoted in George C. Bedell, Leo Sandon, Jr., and Charles T. Wellborn, Religion in America (New York: Macmillan, 1975), p. 237, emphasis added.
4George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth Century Evangelicalism: 1870-1925 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 118, 119.
'See further Eerdmans' Handbook to Christianity in America, Mark A. Noll et at, eds. (Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 1983), p. 379.
'See further The Church Before..., Chapter 2, p. 35-60; also in The Complete Works, Vol. IV, pp. 133-149.
'See further The Church Before..., Chapter 1, pp. 9-34; also in The Complete Works, Vol. IV, pp. 117-132.
CHAPTER 4 / Connotations and Compromise
'Harold J. Ockenga, "From Fundamentalism, Through New Evangelicalism, to Evangelicalism," in Kenneth S. Kantzer, ed., Evangelical Roots: A Tribute to [ Y'ilbur Smith (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1978), p. 36, emphasis added.
'Thomas C. Oden, Agenda for Theology: Recovering Christian Roots (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1979), pp. 29-31, emphasis added. Oden is a very interesting example. He was a thoroughgoing liberal who recognized that liberalism had completely failed, and we can commend him in his courage to say this publicly and decisively. This has led him toward what is essentially a neoorthodox position, but one that tries at the same time to take the full range of historic Christianity seriously. Since, however, he does not accept the full authority and inerrancy of the Bible he is still left with a serious problem-namely, upon what will he finally base his faith? Without the objective truth of the Bible as his foundation, Oden is still left without any way to appropriate with confidence the truth of the Scriptures, nor really to sort through the mixture of truth and error in the life and theology of the church through the centuries. Thus we can commend Oden for rediscovering the stream of historic orthodoxy, but we must say that his theology is still seriously deficient with regard to his understanding of the authority of the Bible. Without the full authority and inerrancy of the Bible, he is left without any final authority and caught in the same basic problem that he started with. It is interesting to note that the issue which started Oden to reconsider his liberalism was the liberal stance on abortion. Thus Oden comments:
So when I am speaking of a diarrhea of religious accommodation, I am not thinking of "the other guys" or speaking in the abstract, but out of my own personal history....
The shocker is not merely that I rode every bandwagon in sight, but that I thought I was doing Christian teaching a marvelous favor by it, and at times considered it the very substance of the Christian teaching office....
It was the abortion movement, more than anything else, that brought me to movement revulsiveness. The climbing abortion statistics made me movement weary, movement demoralized. I now suspect that a fair amount of my own idealistic history of political action was ill conceived by self-deception romanticisms, in search of power in the form of prestige, that were from the beginning willing to destroy human traditions in the name of humanity, and at the end willing to extinguish the futures of countless unborn children in the name of individual autonomy. (pp. 24, 25)
'Lance Morrow, "Thinking Animal Thoughts," Time. October 3, 1983, p. 86, emphasis added.
4David Neff, "Who's Afraid of the Secular Humanists?" His. March 1983, pp. 4-7, 31.
'See further how I have carefully defined "humanism" in Francis A. Schaeffer, A Christian Manifesto (Westchester, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1981), pp. 22-24, in The Complete Works, Vol. V (Westchester, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1982), pp. 425-527. On the question of what humanism is, see further James Hitchcock, What Is Secular Humanism? (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Servant Books, 1982).
6Peter Singer, "Sanctity of Life or Quality of Life?" Pediatrics. July 1983, pp. 128, 129.
'Once abortion is accepted there is no logical boundary as to how far the devaluation of human life can be taken. Think how quickly there is discussion concerning the use of fetuses for experimentation. It is a horror even to think about. But once the unborn human life is not legally accepted and protected as a person, this is a most logical extension. Concerning the implications of fetal experimentation and documented cases of this see "On Human Experimentation," Donald DeMarco, The Human Life Review, Fall 1983, pp. 48-60.
CHAPTER 5 / Forms of the World Spirit
'Russ Williams, "Spotlight: Evangelicals for Social Action," Evangelical Newsletter. October 15, 1982, p. 4, emphasis added.
2For an expanded treatment and an incisive critique of the "socialist mentality" see further Franky Schaeffer, Bad News for Modern Man (Westchester, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1984).
'Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction: Christian Faith and Its Confrontation with American Society (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1983), pp. 133, 134.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn's comments are also instructive here. In an article entitled "Three Key Moments in Japanese History," National Review, December 9, 1983, Solzhenitsyn writes:
This is an appropriate place to touch briefly upon a fashionable and widespread myth about socialism. Although this term lacks any precise, unambiguous meaning, it has come to stand, the world over, for some vague dream of a "just society." At the heart of socialism lies the fallacy that all human problems can be solved by social reorganization. But even when socialism promises to take the very mildest of forms, it always attempts to implement by force the contrived and unattainable notion that all people must be equal. One of the most brilliant thinkers in Russia today, physicist Yuri Orlov (now ill and close to death after more than five years' confinement in a Communist labor camp), has demonstrated that pure socialism is always and inevitably totalitarian. Orlov shows that it is immaterial how mild and gradual the measures of advancing socialism may be: if they are consistent, then the conveyor-belt-like sequence of socialist reforms will hurl that country (or the entire world) into the abyss of Communist totalitarianism. And totalitarianism is what the physicist calls an "energy well." It is easy to tumble in, but it takes extraordinary effort and exceptional circumstances to effect an escape.
'See further the work of John Perkins for an outstanding example of an alternative to the "socialist mentality"-an alternative which is at once biblical, compassionate, and practical. Perkins, who is a black himself, emphasizes the need for blacks to be active in the economic system, to be given opportunity, and to be treated justly, and to build equity within the economic system. See especially John Perkins, Let Justice Roll Down (Ventura, Calif.: Regal Books, 1976), A Quiet Revolution: The Christian Response to Human Need, A Strategy for Today (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1976), and With Justice For All (Ventura, Calif.: Regal Books, 1982).
5It is interesting to note that while many evangelicals are beginning to sing the praises of socialism, a growing number of secular socialists are growing weary of socialism. Of particular interest is the "Nouveaux Philsophes," Bernard-Henri Levy, whom The Christian Science Monitor calls "one of France's greatest contemporary philosophers." Levy is not a Christian by any means, but his insight into the problem of morality, social ethics, and law is remarkable. Levy comments:
I am not a man of faith but I think if we are looking for a new foundation of ethics, the best ground is the old biblical tradition. These old manuscripts contain the principles of human rights, the idea of individuality, the idea of exile and cosmopolitanism. Marxism maintains there is no absolute ethics, truth, evil, and good; it all depends on the circumstance and the class which is expressing it. If you want, however, to escape this relativity of ethics you'll find the tools and inspiration in the Bible.
Remarkably, Levy sees the total incompatability of Marxism with Christianity better than many evangelical Christians. See further the complete article by Stewart McBride, "`New Philosopher' Bernard-Henri Levy: A French Leftist Takes Out After Socialism." The Christian Science Monitor (Pullout Section). January 20, 1983, pp. BI-B3.
'See further how I have developed this in How Should We Then Live? (Westchester, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1976), pp. 113, 114 and 127, 128; in The Complete Works, Vol. V, p. 141, 142 and pp. 152, 153. I would mention further that in the matter of race, all the way back to the time that I was a pastor in St. Louis in the 1940s and the black neighborhood was getting closer to our church building, I was stressing to my elders that color must never be a factor in determining who was to be accepted as a member of the church, and that I would resign as the pastor if it were. And through the years, a number of blacks have found L'Abri to be the first place where race made no difference at all. In the 1940s, many of our leading evangelical schools-and I'm not thinking of schools such as Bob Jones here at all-still held strict racial dating laws and all the rest. I will never forget one black who attended such a school who said at L'Abri, "This is the first place I was treated as a man." When he said it, I wept. I'm glad he could say that.
'See further A Christian Manifesto, p. 121; and in The Complete Works, Vol. V, p. 486.
'See further, Francis A. Schaeffer, Vladimir Bukovsky, and James Hitchcock, Who Is for Peace? (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1983), p. 19.
'Witherspoon's Works, Vol. 5, p. 184.
"Ronald A. Wells, "Francis Schaeffer's Jeremiad," Reformed Journal. May 1982, p. 18.
"This is not just abstract academic discussion. For if Christian truth makes no or little difference in society (without it ever being a golden age) and if all is only a mixture, including the Reformation concept of sola scriptura-if this is only an illusion, then indeed Christianity is only one more piece of data in a world of probability, uncertainty, and constant flux. We should not be surprised that the historian I quoted above (see Note 10) who so devaluated the Reformation and its claim of sola scriptura in another article urges evangelicals to look at Walter Rauschenbusch and Reinhold Niebuhr and to their social gospel as our basis of having something to say to modern culture. For those of you who know these two men, you know what this means. The earlier evangelicals saw themselves in complete conflict with Niebuhr's social gospel.
"For a personal account of how this can happen, for example in psychology, see the remarkable chapter entitled "Wolf in the Fold" in William Kirk Kilpatrick's book Psychological Seduction (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1983), PP. 13-27.
"Richard N. Ostling, "The Curious Politics of Ecumenism," Time. August 22, 1983, p. 46. On the Marxist influence in the WCC contributions to guerilla warfare causes see further: Richard N. Ostling, "Warring Over Where Donations Go," Time. March 28, 1983, pp. 58, 59; Kenneth L. Woodward and David Gates, "Ideology Under the Alms," Newsweek. February 7, 1983, pp. 61, 62; and Rael Jean Isaac, "Do You Know Where Your Church Offerings Go?" Readers Digest. January 1983, pp. 120-125.
"Ostling, "The Curious Politics," p. 46.
"Richard Lovelace, "Are There Winds of Change at the World Council?" Christianity Today. September 16, 1983, pp. 33, 34.
16Peter Beyerhaus, Arthur Johnston, and Myung Yuk Kim, "An Evangelical Evaluation of the WCC's Sixth Assembly in Vancouver," as reprinted in Theological Student Fellowship Bulletin. September-October, 1983, pp. 19, 20.
"Beyerhaus, p. 20.
For an expanded treatment concerning the related questions of nuclear defense and pacifism see Schaeffer, Who is for Peace?, esp. pp. 19-30. For an excellent treatment in a longer format see Jerram Bans, Who Are the Peacemakers? The Christian Case for Nuclear Deterrence (Westchester, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1983).
110s Guinness, The Gravedigger File: Papers on the Subversion of the Modern Church (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1983), pp. 99, 100, emphasis in the original.
"John F. Alexander, "Feminism as a Subversive Activity," The Other Side. July 1982, p. 8.
"It is interesting to note how sociologists Brigitte Berger and Peter L. Berger link the breakdown of the family and the prevailing antifamily attitude in our culture with a whole range of other issues. The Bergers write:
Those who would do away with the bourgeois family would like, if at all possible, to do away with all risks. This fantasy of a riskfree existence expresses itself in some of its central causes; the ideal of the "swinging single," with no ties on his or her project of endless self-realization; the idealization of abortion, once and for all eliminating the vestigial risk of pregnancy in sexual relations; the insistence that a "gay life-style" is as socially legitimate as heterosexual marriage, thereby putting on the same level a relatively risk-free (since childless) relationship with the most risky relationship of all. All these themes can be subsumed under the category of "antinatalism." They can then be seen in a perfectly logical configuration with other ideological themes prevalent in the same strata: political leftism, zero-growth and zero-population theories, anti-nuclear and more generally anti-technological sentiments, pacifism and a benignly nonaggressive posture in international relations, a deep suspicion of patriotism (which always has an at least potentially military dimension), and a generally negative attitude to the values of discipline, achievement, and competitiveness. In the aggregate, this is indeed a constellation of decadence. A society dominated by these themes has rather poor prospects in the real world, which is mostly inhabited by people with very contrary norms and habits.
We recognize the likelihood that some readers will be offended by the above paragraphs; we certainly do not expect to persuade anyone by such a sketchy argument. We only make it here to indicate that the fate of the bourgeois family is linked, in our opinion, with much broader questions of the survival chances of contemporary Western societies. In any case, our defense of the bourgeois family does not necessarily depend on agreement concerning these wider issues. But there is one more point that should be stressed if one places this topic in the framework of decadence: That is the point that the decadent syndrome is not distributed uniformly throughout our societies. Both in North America and in Western Europe it is concentrated in those strata that we have described as the new "knowledge class" (in the case of evangelicalism this corresponds to the evangelical leadership, especially as found in evangelical "knowledge industries" such as education and print media) though it radiates into other strata from this epicenter. There are other classes (notably the lower-middle and working classes) and large, relatively unassimilated ethnic groups that are much less marked by this syndrome and, in some instances, not touched at all by it. The fate of the bourgeois family (and, we believe, the future survivability of these societies) thus hinges on the future development of these groups. (pp. 135-146, emphasis added)
Or in other words, as this applied to evangelical leadership, the Bergers are pointing out that the leadership within evangelicalism has accommodated to the ideas which happen to be in vogue among the secular "knowledge class." See further the Bergers very insightful book entitled The War Over the Family: Capturing the Middle Ground (New York: Doubleday, 1983).
22See for example, Paul K. Jewett, Man as Male and Female (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1975); and Virginia R. Mollenkott, Women, Men and the Bible (Nashville: Abingdon, 1977).
23See for example, Letha Dawson Scanzoni and Virginia R. Mollenkott, Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1980).
'°Letha Dawson Scanzoni, "Can Homosexuals Change?" The Other Side. January 1984, p. 14.
25See further: I Corinthians 6:9, 10; 1 Timothy 1:9, 10; Jude 6, 7; 2 Peter 2:4, 6-8; Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13.
CHAPTER 6 / The Great Evangelical Disaster
'Although I would not agree with Richard Quebedeaux in his theology, the main sociological conclusion he reaches in his influential book The Worldly Evangelicals (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1978) is very much to the pointnamely, that the leadership of evangelicalism has become worldly in the proper sense of the word.
2See Francis A. Schaeffer, The Mark of the Christian (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1970); in The Complete Works, Vol. IV, pp. 183-205.
'Note, for example, the comments of Gill Davis, in "Christians for Socialism," which appeared in The Other Side: "I am concerned with those mealymouthed preachers ... In this country, the mythological support for fascism is often right-wing fundamentalism." As reported in Lloyd Billingsley, "First Church of Christ Socialist," National Review. October 28, 1983, p. 1339.