Francis Schaeffer

Francis A Schaeffer (1912–1984), a Christian theologian, philosopher, and Presbyterian pastor, is most famous for his writings and his establishment of the l'Abri community in Switzerland. Opposed to theological modernism, Schaeffer promoted an orthodox Protestant faith and a presuppositional approach to Christian apologetics, which he believed would answer the questions of the age.

Schaeffer and the Christian Right

Schaeffer is credited with helping spark a return to political activism among Protestant evangelicals and fundamentalists in the late 1970s and early 1980s, especially around the issue of abortion. By popularizing, in the modern context, a conservative Puritan and Reformed perspective, he is considered by some to be the godfather of contemporary Dominionism. Schaeffer argued that Christians have a duty to "live Christianly" in every area of life and to challenge encroaching secular humanism. Christian Right leaders such as Tim LaHaye have credited Schaeffer for influencing their theological arguments urging political participation by evangelicals (LaHaye, Battle, p. 5). But it is possible that LaHaye and others who cite Schaeffer's influence are extending their ideas well beyond what Schaeffer himself suggested.

Related Topics:
Evangelical - Fundamentalist - 1970s - 1980s - Abortion - Puritan - Reformed - Dominionism - Secular humanism - Christian Right - Tim LaHaye - Political

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Irving Hexham of the University of Calgary, for example, argues that Schaeffer's political position has been misconstrued as advocating R. J. Rushdoony's views, which are known variously as Theonomy, Christian Reconstructionism, and Dominion Theology. Hexham indicates that Schaeffer's essential philosophy was derived from Dooyeweerd, not Rushdoony, and that Hans Rookmaaker introduced Schaeffer to his writings. Rushdoony, although another admirer of Dooyeweerd, rejected the pluralist implications of his philosophy.

Related Topics:
University of Calgary - R. J. Rushdoony - Theonomy - Christian Reconstructionism - Dominion Theology - Hans Rookmaaker

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A Christian Manifesto

Critical authors, such as Sara Diamond and Frederick Clarkson, have traced the activism of numerous key figures in the Christian Right, to the influence of Francis Schaeffer. According to Diamond: "The idea of taking dominion over secular society gained widespread currency with the 1981 publication of...Schaeffer's book A Christian Manifesto. The book sold 290,000 copies in its first year, and it remains one of the movement's most frequently cited texts."

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Diamond summarizes the book, and its importance to the movement, which she and Clarkson call Dominionism:

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:In A Christian Manifesto, Schaeffer's argument is simple. The United States began as a nation rooted in Biblical principles. But as society became more pluralistic, with each new wave of immigrants, proponents of a new philosophy of secular humanism gradually came to dominate debate on policy issues. Since humanists place human progress, not God, at the center of their considerations, they pushed American culture in all manner of ungodly directions, the most visible results of which included legalized abortion and the secularization of the public schools. At the end of A Christian Manifesto, Schaeffer calls for Christians to use civil disobedience to restore Biblical morality.

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The name of the book is intended to position its thesis as a Christian answer to The Communist Manifesto and the Humanist Manifestos of 1933 and 1973. Although A Christian Manfesto does not mention immigration as an issue, critics infer this from his diagnosis that the decline of Western Civilization is due to society having become increasingly pluralistic, resulting in a shift "away from a world view that was at least vaguely Christian in people's memory ... toward something completely different." Similarly, critics perceive anti-semitism in Schaeffer's oft-repeated theme of a Judeo-Christian worldview.

Related Topics:
The Communist Manifesto - Humanist Manifesto - Immigration - Pluralistic - Anti-semitism - Judeo-Christian - Worldview

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In a sermon also titled "A Christian Manifesto", Schaeffer defines Humanism as the worldview where "man is the measure of all things," and in the book, he claims that critics of the Christian Right miss the mark by confusing the "humanist religion" with humanitarianism, the humanities, or love of humans. He describes the conflict with humanism as a battle in which "these two religions, Christianity and humanism, stand over against each other as totalities." He writes that the decline of commitment to objective truth that he perceives in the various institutions of society is "not because of a conspiracy, but because the church has forsaken its duty to be the salt of the culture." Finally, he describes Christian civil disobedience:

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:A true Christian in Hitler's Germany and in the occupied countries should have defied the false and counterfeit state and hidden his Jewish neighbors from the German SS Troops. The government had abrogated its authority, and it had no right to make any demands.

Related Topics:
Hitler - Germany - Jewish - SS Troops

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