Francis Schaeffer -- Apologist and Evangelist (Part Two)
The Life and Times of Francis Schaeffer
The Life History of Francis Schaeffer[1]
Schaeffer’s life spans a tumultuous period in American history–from World War One, the Great Depression, World War Two, then the debate over inerrancy among evangelicals (the only time I met and spoke with Schaeffer was at The International Congress on Biblical Inerrancy held in San Diego in 1980), and finally the initial phase of the culture wars and the rise of political activism among evangelicals closely associated with the pro-life movement (from the “Silent Majority” to the “Moral Majority”).
1912 - Francis August Schaeffer was born January 30 in Germantown, PA. He was an only child.
1930 - Schaeffer became a Christian at the age of eighteen after reading the Bible for a six-month period.[2]
1932 - Met Edith Seville (his future wife) at the First Presbyterian Church of Germantown.
1935 - Graduated from Hampden-Sydney College. Schaeffer was second in his senior class and graduated magna cum laude. Married Edith in the same year.
1935 - Entered Westminster Theological Seminary, where he studied under Cornelius Van Til, Oswald T. Allis and J. Gresham Machen and was further immersed in confessional Calvinism.
1937 - After a split with Westminster, Schaeffer transferred to Faith Theological Seminary (under Carl McIntire, Allan MacRae, and J. O. Buswell), which he helped to found.
1938 - After graduation from Faith, he became the first ordained pastor in the new Bible Presbyterian Church.
1938-47 - Served as pastor of several Bible Presbyterian Churches (most notably in St. Louis) throughout the east and midwest.
1947 - After WWII, Schaeffer traveled throughout Europe as a representative of the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions.
1948 - Moved to Lausanne, Switzerland as missionaries, helping Children for Christ.
1951 - Schaeffer experienced a deep and profound spiritual crisis. This event drastically changed Schaeffer's ministry.
1953-54 - Traveled extensively through the United States, lecturing on the subject of true spirituality.
1955 - Resigned from the Independent Board of Foreign Missions, marking the formal beginning of the L'Abri Fellowship.
1968 - Schaeffer publishes The God Who Is There, based upon a series of lectures given at Wheaton.
1974 - Begins work on the book and film series, How Should We Then Live?
1977 - Helped found International Congress on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI).
1977 - Began work on the Whatever Happened to the Human Race? book and film series.
1978 - Diagnosed as having lymphoma cancer.
1982 - Publication of The Complete Works of Francis Schaeffer.
1983 - Received honorary Doctor of Laws from the Simon Greenleaf School of Law.
1984 - Died in his home in Rochester, Minnesota on May 15.
Francis Schaeffer’s Personal Crisis of Faith
1). In the preface to his book True Spirituality, Schaeffer mentions a spiritual crisis set the tone for the rest of his life and ministry. It is difficult to understand much of Schaeffer’s work apart from this crisis. It affected everything else he did. Schaeffer writes,
In 1951 and 1952 I faced a spiritual crisis in my own life. I had become a Christian from agnosticism many years before. After that I had become a pastor for ten years in the United States, and then for several years my wife Edith and I had been working in Europe. During this time I felt a strong burden to stand for the historical Christian position, and for the purity of the visible church. Gradually, however, a problem came to me - the problem of reality. This had two parts: first, it seemed to me that among many of those who held the orthodox position, one saw little reality in the things that the Bible so clearly says should be the result of Christianity. Second, it gradually grew on me that my own reality was less than it had been in the early days after I had become a Christian. I realized that in honesty I had to go back and rethink my whole position.[3]
Schaeffer continues,
I told Edith that for the sake of honesty I had to go all the way back to my agnosticism and think through the whole matter. I'm sure that this was a difficult time for her, and I'm sure that she prayed much for me in those days. I walked in the mountains when it was clear, and when it was rainy I walked backward and forward in the hayloft of the old chalet in which we lived. I walked, prayed, and thought through what the Scriptures taught, as well as reviewing my own reasons for being a Christian.
He goes on to say . . .
As I rethought my reasons for being a Christian, I saw again, that there were totally sufficient reasons to know that the infinite-personal God does exist and that Christianity is true. In going further, I saw something else which made a profound difference in my life. I searched through what the Bible said concerning reality as a Christian. Gradually I saw that the problem was that with all the teaching I had received after I was a Christian, I had heard little about what the Bible says about the meaning of the finished work of Christ for our present lives. Gradually the sun came out and the song came. Interestingly enough, although I had written no poetry for many years, in that time of joy and song I found poetry beginning to flow again - poetry of certainty, an affirmation of life, thanksgiving, and praise. Admittedly as poetry it is very poor, but it expressed a song in my heart which was wonderful to me.
He concludes,
This was and is a 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 a work like L'Abri would nor have been possible.
2). It is apparent that this personal crisis shaped the whole course of Schaeffer’s future ministry. Out of doubt came certainty, out of despair came hope, out of depression came joy.
3). There are several things here which might give us clues as to some of Schaeffer’s later concerns, especially those dealing with certainty.
a. The first of these is the Reformed debate over the question as to whether assurance of one’s salvation is of the essence of saving faith. In other words, does saving faith carry with it the assurance of salvation?
b. Accordingly, this debate affects the apologetic enterprise as well. Those in the Dutch tradition (i.e. Abraham Kuyper, Cornelius Van Til, etc.) place a great stress upon the absolute need for certainty in connection with faith and the Christian truth claim. God decrees all things, God creates all things, God knows and gives meaning to all things. Only the Holy Spirit, the author of the Scriptures, can give this kind of certainty. We must argue for the truth of Christianity on the basis of unchallenged presuppositions.
c. On the other hand, the English/Scottish and American Reformed traditions, tend to see faith as “reasonable” and is the product of the Holy Spirit allowing the will to acquiesce to what the mind knows to be true. B. B. Warfield and J. G. Machen fit in this camp.
d. Poor Schaeffer found himself wrestling with the tension between what is true, and how it is lived out during a global intellectual crisis. Furthermore, how would he deal with his own doubt?
e. Schaeffer came to the conclusion that, “there were totally sufficient reasons to know that the infinite-personal God does exist and that Christianity is true.” Perhaps Schaeffer’s theological training (with the varying apologetics trajectories described above) and his own personal crisis over his faith led to many of the inconsistencies that we will see in Schaeffer’s method.
f. It is one thing for one to preach certainty as does Van Til. Yet, it is another thing to work that out in your own life, particularly when doubt arises. Schaeffer frequently will speak like Van Til, but he will work to soften the sharp edges built into Van Til’s method. Schaeffer will attempt to remain a presuppositionalist throughout the course of his life, but he at many points backs away from his presuppositional leanings, seeing himself as an “evangelist” not an “apologist.”
The Sources of Schaeffer’s Thought
1). Confessional Reformed Theology–Sort of, Mostly . . .
There are a number of distinctively Reformed doctrines which have a direct bearing on Schaeffer’s apologetic endeavors. These doctrines are set forth in the Westminster Standards to which Schaeffer adhered as a Presbyterian minister. While Schaeffer was not someone who felt slavishly bound to a particular theological system (he seemed to appreciate Vos more than Hodge or Berkhof, and seemed to think individual circumstances trumped a rigid methodology), nevertheless, Schaeffer did produce some 60 hours of lectures on the Westminster Confession.[4] He was self-consciously Reformed in his confession and theology.
2). The “Old-Princeton” school of evidential apologetics. Despite Van Til’s idealist tendencies, Schaeffer is clearly indebted to Warfield’s Inspiration and Authority of the Bible [5], and Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism, and What is Faith? [6]
3). The Presuppositionalism of Cornelius Van Til
There is certainly no twentieth century apologist who has made such a unique and significant contribution to the defense of the faith as has Cornelius Van Til (1896-1987).[7] VanTil’s impact upon evangelical apologetics cannot be underestimated. In addition to Schaeffer, E. J. Carnell, Carl F. H. Henry and John Gerstner were all his students. Westminster Theological Seminary, through the efforts of John Frame,[8] K. Scott Oliphant, and William Edgar have continued to carry on the Van Tillian method of defending the faith.
In addition to instructing so many of the leading evangelical apologists. Van Til also provided the philosophical foundations for the re-constructionist/theonomist movements of R. J. Rushdooney, Gary North, and Greg Bahnsen. Van Til is a most significant figure indeed.
4). The Separatist Fundamentalism of Carl Mclntire
Schaeffer, despite his respect for Machen, followed Mclntire to Faith Seminary, established by the new denomination known as the Bible Presbyterian Church. Mclntire was concerned for the purity of the Church and was involved in many separatist causes, such as the founding of the American Council of Christian Churches (ACCC).[9]
The cause of the split between Mclntire and the Westminster community was over premillennialism and the complete abstinence from alcoholic beverages.[10] Westminster took no confessional stand on the issue of eschatology, most faculty being amillennial (a few being postmillennial). Westminster has no policy regarding abstinence from alcohol. These were apparently significant enough for Mclntire to leave the broader Reformed tradition for a more separatistic fundamentalism.
According to Forrest Baird this period in Schaeffer’s development left a lasting two-fold impression on him.
a. First, Schaeffer had a history of stressing the need for purity. His experiences with Machen at Westminster, and his following Buswell and Mclntire to Faith Seminary, probably led to some of Schaeffer’s activities in the ACCC, and the International Council of Christian Churches (the ICCC). Schaeffer writes “Let us not compromise one inch with any of these three (existentialism, Rome and the new modernism) forms of uncertainty which control the thinking of the world about us in our day.”[11]
b. Second, Schaeffer bears the scars of this continuing conflict. During his own crisis of faith he lamented over the lack of “reality in the things that the Bible so clearly says should be the result of Christianity.” Surely all of the in-house fighting (including apologetic methodology) took its toll on Schaeffer. As Baird points out, while Schaeffer always remained a separatist, his emphasis on culture served to moderate the harshness of the separatist movement.[12] I cannot help but think of Schaeffer’s book, The Mark of a Christian. This is the work of a wounded warrior.
_______________________________________
[1] The chronology of Schaeffer’s life was largely taken from Lane T. Dennis, Letters Of Francis Schaeffer (Westchester: Crossway Books, 1985), 25-28.
[2] This is wonderfully recounted by his wife Edith, in her book on their life together, The Tapestry. See Edith Schaeffer, The Tapesty (Waco: Word Books, 1981), 51-52.
[3] What follows is taken from Schaeffer, Collected Works, III.195-96.
[4] Barrs, “Schaeffer: The Man and His Message,” 5.
[5] Mark A. Noll, “B. B. Warfield,” in Walter E. Elwell, ed., Handbook of Evangelical Theologians (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1993), 26-39; Kim Riddlebarger, “B. B. Warfield,” in Benjamin K. Forrest, Joshua D. Chatraw, and Alister E. McGrath, The History of Apologetics (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2020), 445-460.
6. Darryl Hart, “J. Gresham Machen,” in Elwell, Handbook of Evangelical Theologians, 129-143; and Hart, “J. Gresham Machen” in Forrest, Chatraw, and McGarth, The History of Apologetics, 465-476.
[7] An overview of Van Til’s work by John Frame can be found in Elwell, Handbook of Evangelical Theologians, 156-167; and more recently, K. Scott Oliphant, “Cornelius Van Til” in Forrest, Chatraw, and McGarth, The History of Apologetics, 479-493.
[8] John Frame was Van Til’s hand-picked replacement at Westminster Theological Seminary. I studied under Frame during my three years at WSC after he moved west when WSC opened.
[9] See Forrest Baird, “Schaeffer's Intellectual Roots,” in Reugsegger, “Reflections on Francis Schaeffer,” 58. This organization was itself a splinter group of the earlier separatist group the National Council of Churches, which according to Mclntire had become impure.
[10] Baird, “Schaeffer’s Intellectual Roots,” 54.
[11] Baird, “Schaeffer's Intellectual Roots,” 61.
[12] Baird, “Schaeffer's Intellectual Roots,” 65.