Francis Schaeffer, the Pastor-Evangelist | Christianity Today

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Christianity Today, May, 2007 |

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Francis Schaeffer, the Pastor-Evangelist

Bryan A. Follis on his book, Truth with Love.

Review by James E. Taylor, interview by Susan Wunderink | posted 5/22/2007 10:33AM

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Related Elsewhere:

Truth with Love is available from ChristianBook.com and other retailers. ChristianBook.com also has an excerpt.

Bryan Follis is rector of All Saints' Church in Belfast.

In 1955, Schaeffer founded L'Abri fellowship, "where individuals have the opportunity to seek answers to honest questions about God and the significance of human life."

The Francis A. Schaeffer Foundation was founded to advance the availability of Schaeffer's ideas. His letters are available on their site.

The Shelter, another site dedicated to Schaeffer's work, has a list of his books, photos, and links to other relevant sites.

Covenant Seminary's Francis Schaeffer Institute offers course materials in pdf and audio form about Schaeffer in his early and late years.

Other Christianity Today articles on Schaeffer and his influence include:

Learning to Cry for the Culture | Let's remember Francis Schaeffer's most crucial legacy--tears. (March 19, 2007)

The Book Report: Things We Ought to Know | Charles Colson's apologetic—and call to action—is in the tradition of Francis Schaeffer. (January 10, 2000)

The Dissatisfaction of Francis Schaeffer (Parts 1 and 2) | Thirteen years after his death, Schaeffer's vision and frustrations continue to haunt evangelicalism. (March 1997)

Inside CT: Midwives of Francis Schaeffer | March 3, 1997

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May 2007, Vol. 51, No. 5

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mk	Posted: May 24, 2007 8:35 AM

Reviewers sometimes fall into the trap of reviewing a book as if it were supposed to meet their expectations of the subject rather than the book that is actually written. I'm afraid that Mr. Taylor does that in his comment: "It would have been more effective if the author (who was brought back to Christ through a Schaeffer film series) had been more willing to acknowledge Schaeffer's shortcomings." To criticize the book for failing to address the "limitations of his [Schaeffer's] methods and arguments" or to cite a theological weathervane like Clark Pinnock --the intellectual antithesis of Schaeffer-- as an authority on the deficiency of Schaeffer's thinking reveals the reviewer's own deeply flawed thinking. As an opinion piece from a partisan perspective, it's adequate; as a review for a general readership, it's terrible.

Ron Kubsch

Posted: May 24, 2007 12:15 AM

Yes Robert, it is necessary to read primary sources. In the matter of Kierkegaard it is essential to read Kierkegaard (and Hegel). I have read most of the books of Kierkegaard including his diaries (and the important new biography of Joakim Garff). Again: Schaeffers later understanding of Kierkegaard is quite adequate. Kierkegaard’s subjective understanding of truth was a source of inspiration for Heidegger, Camus, Brunner, Bultmann, Niebuhr and Barth.

Robert

Posted: May 23, 2007 12:25 PM

Why should anyone be required to read a little known secondary source in German when you can read the primary source material in English. As a young man I read all of Schaeffer's books not realizing that he relied on anecdote and other people's understanding of the philosophical works he criticized (something that became painfully obvious when I read the primary source materials that he critiqued). Schaeffer's early works God Who Is There, Escape From Reason and He is There and He is Not Silent, rather than his later works are quite helpful in their call for believers to resist compartmentalizing their lives, but as philosophical works they are completely deficent, unannotated (as I recall there is not a single footnote in these 3 volumes) and unfortunately reduce the Christian faith to a set of propositional truths (extracted from their narrative context as if the Christian faith were simply a philosophical position rather than a dynamic relationship with a living God) to believe.

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