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Francis Schaeffer and the Shaping of Evangelical America
by Barry Hankins
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, November 2008
288 pp., $13.60

Evangelist Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984) awakened a generation of evangelicals and helped turn the movement decisively toward cultural engagement. Legions of baby boomers, from wild-eyed hippies to disaffected preachers' kids, came to faith at his L'Abri study center in Switzerland. Along with C. Everett Koop, Schaeffer was instrumental in moving evangelicals into the pro-life camp. He was called the "missionary to the intellectuals" and, in one Christianity Today piece, hailed "Our Saint Francis."

But several young scholars inspired by Schaeffer soon came to see chinks in his approach. They judged his historical analysis profoundly flawed and his apologetic strategy too much a product of Enlightenment rationalism. And when he turned more to social activism in his later years, many admirers questioned his alliance with factions like the Moral Majority. The compassionate mentor who saw the wounded soul beyond a young person's anger seemed to have become a cranky polemicist.

Barry Hankins's Francis Schaeffer and the Shaping of Evangelical America (Eerdmans) is a skillful biography written with both fondness and a keen eye that discerns the underlying consistency of Schaeffer's outlook. The evangelist was always a battler, from his early years as a pastor in Carl McIntire's fundamentalist Bible Presbyterian Church to his confrontation with European secularism to the 22-page letters he would fire off to his scholarly critics. Schaeffer followed fundamentalism's will to do battle with theological liberalism—and to save the lost and culture—in every situation and era through which he lived.

By highlighting Schaeffer's formation, Hankins squares Schaeffer's early and late years. Few who were introduced to Schaeffer through his apologetic trilogy or who turned up at L'Abri's door ever knew of his fundamentalist past. This early Schaeffer supported Carl McIntire in cutting off fellowship with other Christians who participated in organizations that included liberals—or, in fact, anyone who disagreed with Carl McIntire.

Hankins also masterfully uses background sources (particularly Schaeffer's correspondence with his mentor Allan MacRae), interviews and documents made available by James Sire, and the testimony of associates like Os Guinness. He shows a knack for deploying this material to ease key transitions in the story.

Hankins focuses on Schaeffer the public intellectual and social activist, and it is hard to imagine a better overview of the strengths, weaknesses, and critical response to his major works. He shows that Schaeffer learned, if reluctantly, from his critics. For example, Schaeffer's later understanding of historical development shows greater sophistication, even if he could never accept that the Reformation furthered an overemphasis on personal autonomy, as evangelical scholar Ronald Wells has argued.

Whenever the more personal aspects of Schaeffer's life crop up, Hankins turns away as quickly as possible. He rarely looks to the personal to understand how Schaeffer's life developed. He mentions that Schaeffer suffered at times from depression, could be irascible, and was obviously defensive. He notes that Schaeffer eventually found McIntire's separatism ugly and turned away to start L'Abri. And he concedes that Schaeffer's last projects were partly motivated by a desire to please his son, Franky. But Hankins appears spooked by the criticism that Franky (now Frank) levels at his parents through his Calvin Becker novels and a memoir, Crazy for God. He makes no attempt to reconcile the personal Schaeffer and the public persona.

I think this a pity. It leaves out themes of continuing redemption and sanctification in Schaeffer's story. In his early years, Schaeffer was a bundle of pride, overweening ambition, and insecurity. He came to Europe motivated by the desire to found a network of fundamentalist churches much like McIntire's. There they would be, two colossi, McIntire astride America and Schaeffer Europe! I think McIntire let Schaeffer go chiefly to get a young, potential rival out of the way. He certainly never gave Schaeffer the support he needed for the task envisioned.

The novelist Flannery O'Connor wrote, "We are all rather blessed in our deprivations if we let ourselves be." Schaeffer was certainly blessed in McIntire's purposeful neglect. Once on the receiving end of separatist fundamentalism, Schaeffer began to see how ugly it could be. This revelation precipitated his famous crisis of faith in 1951, when he "rethought everything." Yet he still could not imagine an ecclesiology that was not essentially separatist. (During the 1970s and the "battle for the Bible" era, he warned students away from schools like Fuller Seminary, which he viewed as wrong on inerrancy.)

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November 2008, Vol. 52, No. 11