Introduction: Schaeffer In Context
INTRODUCTION:
SCHAEFFER IN CONTEXT
THIS INTRODUCTION WILL outline the historical backdrop against which Francis Schaeffer lived and worked: the retreat of evangelicalism from its position in mainstream society to being a fringe separatist movement. In 1870 “almost all American Protestants thought of America as a Christian nation,” and “Protestant evangelicals considered their faith to be the normative American creed.”1 However, intellectual challenges to this consensus “eventually made unbelief as respectable as belief among the country’s intellectual elite.”2 As Nancy Pearcey has observed, Darwinism was “the missing puzzle piece that completed a naturalistic picture of reality.”3 Much of the advanced scholarship from Europe in philosophy, science, and biblical studies appeared to erode confidence in the truthfulness of Scripture.
There was soon a growing liberal or modernist approach among church scholars that sought to reinterpret the Christian faith in the light of such developments.4 Modernism quickly won important victories in higher education, and by the early twentieth century it was exercising a growing influence within the Protestant churches. In reaction to this modernist trend, a series of pamphlets—The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth—were published in 1910–1915 that restated the basic tenets of orthodox theology. These pamphlets (funded by evangelical businessmen from different denominations) gave name to the fundamentalist movement that was militantly anti-modernist.5
Although many of the original leaders of the movement were careful scholars such as Gresham Machen of Princeton, the momentum shifted toward what some writers have called “zealous but sometimes poorly informed persons.”6 The famous “Monkey Trial” in 1925 about the teaching of evolution in schools in Tennessee was a disaster for the image of Fundamentalism. The 1920s witnessed a series of defeats for the conservatives within the main Presbyterian church, and in 1929 Machen and three other faculty members withdrew from Princeton in protest at its proposed reorganization, which they believed was designed to destroy its distinctive anti-modernist character.Westminster Theological Seminary was established to promote an unmodified Calvinism and to continue the Old School theology of Princeton.7
The struggle against the modernists in relation to their control of the overseas missions board led to disciplinary action by the Presbyterian church against Machen and other conservative ministers who either resigned or were defrocked.8 A new denomination—the Presbyterian Church of America (later renamed the Orthodox Presbyterian Church)—was launched to stand in “true spiritual succession” to the beliefs abandoned by the Presbyterian church.9Yet as a people they felt dispossessed. They had lost their original seminary and their original denomination, and they had passed from being leaders in a culturally powerful institution to being a very small, often ignored movement, and these experiences “tempted them at times to angry or bitter reactions.”10
The failure of the attempt to combat modernism on an academic level weakened the conservative Presbyterian strand within the fundamentalist movement, and its predominant position was ended in 1937 with the death of Machen. Fundamentalism increasingly reflected the revivalist movement and the anti-intellectual populism of its grassroots evangelicalism.11 In particular, premillennial dispensational theology became central to its self-understanding and the fundamentalist view of church and society.12 A growing separatism from both liberal denominations and society characterized fundamentalists, and the intensity of the conflict pushed even less aggressive fundamentalists “toward sec12 tarian and anti-intellectual affirmations of faith for fear of being labelled modernists.”13 In May 1937 the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (which Machen had founded) split, and a minority—who were premillennialists and strongly espoused total abstinence—founded the Bible Presbyterian Church. Oliver Buswell and Carl McIntire were among the leaders of the new denomination, which described itself as “Calvinistic, fundamental, premillennial and evangelistic.”14 The first minister to be ordained into the Bible Presbyterian Church was Francis Schaeffer.
FRANCIS SCHAEFFER
Born in 1912, Schaeffer grew up in a blue-collar family whose Christianity was only nominal. And the church he attended was very liberal. However, at the age of eighteen following a period of studying the Bible, he wrote in his diary on September 3, 1930, contrasting Scripture with secular philosophy, that “all truth is from the Bible” and converted from agnosticism to Christianity.15 In 1935 he married Edith Seville, the daughter of former missionaries to China, and they subsequently had four children. Until his death in 1984, Edith was his soul mate, constant companion, and fellow soldier in the struggle to advance Christ’s kingdom. Francis Schaeffer served three pastorates between 1938 and 1948 when he was sent to Europe by his denomination’s board for international mission.16 Based in Switzerland, Francis and Edith visited evangelical churches throughout western Europe—he to speak out against modernism and she to promote children’s evangelism.
In 1951 Schaeffer faced a spiritual crisis, and among the various doubts and problems he had to wrestle with was the lack of love among many within the fundamentalist movement. Referring to the conflict with modernism, he wrote to a friend, “I think we have to be involved in the combat. But when we are fighting for the Lord, it has to be according to His rules, does it not?”17 Gradually he saw the need to hold holiness in tension with love and to have a greater dependence upon the leading of the Holy Spirit. Returning to the United States on furlough in 1953, Schaeffer gave a series of sermons on the importance of true sanctification, but these addresses were badly received by many in leadership positions within the Bible Presbyterian Church. Yet Schaeffer was now convinced that
if we are to know the fullest blessing of God, there must be no final loyalty to human leadership of organizations, or even to organizations as such. Rather, we must urge each other not even to give final authority to principles about Christ, but only to the person of Christ.18
Back in Switzerland, both Francis and Edith Schaeffer became increasingly convicted that the Lord was calling them into something new. Having experienced a number of difficulties and having received remarkable answers to prayer, the Schaeffers resigned from the mission board on June 4, 1955.19 Having opened their home in Huémoz as L’Abri (which means “shelter”), they wanted to develop this and decided that they would “ask God that our work, and our lives, be a demonstration that He does exist.”20 The vision of L’Abri that was forming in Schaeffer’s mind at this time was a place where he could help those in need, either spiritually or emotionally, whom God sent to him. The Schaeffers adopted as a guiding principle that “they would not publicise themselves but trust the Lord to send those people truly seeking and in need.”21 Looking back many years later on his spiritual crisis, Francis Schaeffer wrote:
This was and is the real basis of L’Abri. Teaching the historic Christian answers and giving honest answers to honest questions are crucial; but it was out of these struggles that the reality came without which an incisive work like L’Abri would not have been possible.22
OUTLINE OF THE BOOK
This book aims to examine the apologetics of Francis Schaeffer and in particular to consider the role of reason and the importance of loving relationships. It also seeks to locate him within the Reformed tradition and to trace its varying intellectual influences on him. Chapter One will consider the importance of rationality in the writings of John Calvin and the different interpretations within the Reformed tradition (such as the Old Princetonians and Abraham Kuyper’s Dutch School) of the use of reason in apologetics. Chapter Two will present a summary of Schaeffer’s apologetical argument and explain how this must be understood in relation to his writings on spirituality and the way he actually conducted his discussions at L’Abri.
In Chapter Three we will analyze the role of reason in his apologetics and will consider criticism that Schaeffer drifted into rationalism. Chapter Four will explore the alternative view that Schaeffer’s arguments were not rational enough and that his approach was that of a presuppositionalist. In rejecting this view, I will argue that Francis Schaeffer was more influenced by the verificationalist approach but that he should be seen primarily as an evangelist who pragmatically drew upon different streams. The Conclusion notes the development of postmodernism and questions whether the apologetics of Francis Schaeffer still has any relevance. I argue that the lack of trust today in the concept of truth makes his approach, with his strong emphasis on individual relationships, love, and truth, even more important.