smokeygecko Thoughts

A Christian Manifesto
by Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer
This address was delivered by the late Dr. Schaeffer in 1982 at the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It is based on one of his books, which bears the same title.

“Christians, in the last 80 years or so, have only been seeing things as bits and pieces which have gradually begun to trouble them and others, instead of understanding that they are the natural outcome of a change from a Christian World View to a Humanistic one; things such as overpermissiveness, pornography, the problem of the public schools, the breakdown of the family, abortion, infanticide (the killing of newborn babies), increased emphasis upon the euthanasia of the old and many, many other things.”

Click here for the full transcript.

The above is the beginning on the transcript of the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer’s address to Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in 1982. The address was filmed and is now available on DVD, known as A Christian Manifesto.

For more on A Christian Manifesto see Doug Groothuis’ recent post, or see Schaeffer’s book by the same name.

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“So it’s not surprising that the world would think that “all we need is love,” and we can do without the doctrine, since the world thinks it can do without Christ. Doctrine is where the religions most obviously part ways. Doctrine is where things get interesting-and dangerous. As the playwright Dorothy Sayers said, doctrine isn’t the dull part of Christianity, rather, “The doctrine is the drama.” Jesus was not revolutionary because he said we should love God and each other. Moses said that first. So did Buddha, Confucius, and countless other religious leaders we’ve never heard of. Madonna, Oprah, Dr. Phil, the Dali Lama, and probably a lot of Christian leaders will tell us that the point of religion is to get us to love each other. “God loves you” doesn’t stir the world’s opposition. However, start talking about God’s absolute authority, holiness, wrath, and righteousness, original sin, Christ’s substitutionary atonement, justification apart from works, the necessity of new birth, repentance, baptism, Communion, and the future judgment, and the mood in the room changes considerably. If postmodernism is simply a revival of modern romanticism (experience as sovereign), then it’s not very postmodern after all.”

Stumbled upon here, quoted originally from here.

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This is taken from a Christianity Today article on Francis Schaeffer and L’Abri, by Molly Worthen:

The modernist philosophy that he targeted in most of his writings, the bogeyman of existentialism, is passé. “Now the question is, Is there truth at all?” said worker Thomas Rauchenstein, a soft-spoken Canadian with sandy brown hair and a close-cropped beard. “Postmodernism’s critique of truth is more of a factor in students’ thinking.”

This just shows the complete misunderstanding of Schaeffer’s teachings. He saw, felt and understood post-modernism which is the reason he pushed strongly presuppositional apologetics. Presuppositonal apologetics do not rest on modernism, but on truth – which does exist no matter what worldview you hold. Schaeffer, by pushing people to the Line of Despair, helped people realise that their presuppositions were faulty, incoherent and unliveable.

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I should say at the outset what really I aim to achieve with this blog. I’ve had blogs before, mostly to keep people updated with my life in YWAM in various parts of this world. Posts were personal and the only people who really looked at the site were friends and family.

With this blog I aim to attract a different user base. Last year the base director of YWAM Maui, Tom Osterhus, instigated the New Reformers Discipleship School (or, NeRDS) Reading Plan. This was for graduates of the School of Biblical Foundations and Missions (SBFM) and was designed as a tool to keep alive the discipline of discussion and study through a web-based distance learning plan. Tom led the school, setting the coursework and assignments etc. and a few of us become regular contributors both while we were on the island of Maui and while we elsewhere.

I benefited greatly from the insight of others and the discipline of the school (which I have to say on my behalf was poorer than it could/should have been). And here comes the reason for this blog. I thought that it would be good for me to share my thoughts and insights here for others to see and comment on and in this way exchange ideas and views with a wider group of people.

So my plan is to publish (fairly regularly) updates and points of discussion. The blog will serve as a tool of discipline for me, and will hopefully be of some insight to others. I look forward to seeing where this idea gos!

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