Francis Schaeffer in a word - authentic
I've been asked why, after writing many books on fantasy, Tolkien, C. S. Lewis and the Inklings, I've turned to a biography of a formative Christian pastor who died nearly a quarter of a century ago. The short answer is my debt to him-he opened doors for me as a young student, at a time when I'd just discovered the writings of Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. Francis Schaeffer actually encouraged me to pursue my life-long interest in literary fantasy. Writing the biography however was not simply to discharge this debt. I wished also to try to portray the essential Schaeffer, getting past the many, sometimes misleading, labels attached by people to him.
Many people see their own Schaeffer, or have only heard about him under a label-Schaeffer the fundamentalist, Schaeffer the founder and inspiration of L'Abri, Schaeffer the prophetic commentator on the contemporary world, Schaeffer the right-wing activist. Readers, I think, might well be surprised by the man himself, as they get to know him more fully through this book. There is a consistency behind his work as it unfolded through much of the twentieth-century, from his years as a youthful pastor in
Never holier than thou, Francis Schaeffer as writer, teacher, pastor and counsellor, appealed to men and women of all kinds. He was constantly unexpected and disarming. Though I would never claim that he was always right, and have written of his faults and flaws as well as virtues, he was, I believe, a compassionate prophet. He understood the roots of sorrow in popular culture, high art and the intellectual world of our time, but nevertheless exhibited a profound hope of salvation and redemption, which restored joy in human life. He was intensely realistic about the mess we've made of our world, but at the same time inspired a commitment to human endeavour in aiding the downtrodden and shaping a civilisation with foundations that endure. Being and remaining human, for him, was passionately tied up with knowing who we are, as image-bearers of God. His imagination flew beyond the stars.
Schaeffer was very aware of his shortcomings and imperfections. He was thoroughly authentic in attempting to live out as well as think rigorously and painstakingly about Christian truth and understanding (expressed in a distinctive world view). He saw truth (both in theory and practice) as one truth, true to the real human being and to the real universe in which we find ourselves-true to the common experience of all people as humans. Believing in God as the person behind all things made him try consistently to treat all people he encountered as bearing God's image and thus of enormous value. This wasn't done as an evangelistic strategy, but because it was the right, proper and truthful thing to do. Yet he was firstly a Christian pastor-this was his way of reaching out to what he felt was the crisis of modern, post-Christian humanity. Those he encountered tended to respond to his remarkable and inclusive pastoral concern.
Christ has called his followers to be in the world yet distinct from it. Christians who retreat into a comfortable subculture become irrelevant in today's world. C. S. Lewis, Tolkien, Schaeffer and other culture-shapers had the courage to engage and critique the contemporary world spirit by doing what they were best at in the best possible way-Tolkien and Lewis as scholars and storytellers, Schaeffer as pastor to those in the arts, media, intellectual world, or broken by the world spirit. I admire them as people and that they made a difference-ironically, becoming relevant by following what seemed a backwater vision, walking the road less travelled.
Francis Schaeffer's gift to evangelicalism - and to the church worldwide - was his commitment to truth, to God, to the human, and to the physical environment in which God has placed us-the environment both of our immediate bodies and the material universe. As a pastor and evangelist he inculcated a listening attitude to those prepared to engage with his teaching: listening to others, and to the culture in which we find ourselves. This was listening for its own sake (because this is the proper thing to do) as well as in order to be able to communicate God's message and his love effectively and relevantly. The authenticity of his life, given his flaws and faults, powerfully backed up his teaching. He passionately lived what he believed, which made him simple and complex simultaneously. He influenced me initially as a charismatic teacher, so that I began to see through his eyes while (as he wished) retaining my own voice and take on things. Then in later years his presence in my thinking became a corrective to the all-pervasive influence of the modern world spirit.
Our cultural tendency is to surround ourselves with mirrors rather than windows. Francis Schaeffer gave us an open window to look through. For me, his abiding achievement was his fresh, quirky and rather revolutionary way of seeing both fundamental Christian truth and the contemporary world, allowing an effective communication of Christ's ancient message in the modern context. This way of seeing was tied up intimately with the creation of a spiritual shelter (which is what "L'Abri" means) for those who saw and felt their need. That place of healing was not a retreat from the world but an outpost in often hostile territory.
The burning conviction of Schaeffer, established early in his life, was that belief in God (as fully revealed in Jesus) was to do with truth-the truth about who I am, about why evil tears apart relationships and societies, about the real universe that is so important to understand, and about what is behind human history. He was totally serious about truth in this full sense, which is why he felt such a genuine affinity with artists and thinkers of our time who experienced the sorrow at the heart of our culture, rather than escaping into what he dubbed "personal peace and affluence". He saw the latter as the problem of the middle-class church. The essence of Schaeffer was that he lived, thought and believed authentically. This makes him stand out as a great Christian leader. People responded to him because today, more than ever, we need to have an authentic Christianity in our lives, in our thinking and in our understanding of our modern world, a Christianity which, as Schaeffer always insisted, to his last days, is marked by genuine, costly love. Anything less is fluff that will be blown away.
A story that typifies the man for me I only heard from his daughter Susan after I finished the book. It was about one of the children with Downs Syndrome that Schaeffer taught when a young pastor about counting, colors and such things, and Jesus. One, called Danny, died about 21 years of age and Schaeffer had been told that he still loved Jesus when he passed away. In the very last days of his life Susan asked her father what came to his mind as one of the most significant things in his whole ministry. Tears came to his eyes. "Danny," he said. On a more humorous note is a story about one of his life-long afflictions. Jim Sire, one of Schaeffer's editors, recently told me of a phone call he received from him. 'Jim, I just learned why I keep mispronouncing words. I have declasia.'
Colin Duriez has appeared as a commentator on several mainstream documentaries (including on DVD sets of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings), has authored biographies of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, and studied for several months under Francis Schaeffer in Swiss L'Abri. He lives in
Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life is published by IVP http://www.ivpbooks.com/isbn/9781844743100.htm
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