Monday, January 30, 2012

Francis Schaeffer, January 30, 1912-1984

My friend, Professor Timothy McGrew, selected these quotes on the occasion of Francis A. Schaeffer's centennial:

We as Bible-believing evangelical Christians are locked in a battle. This is not a friendly gentleman's discussion. It is a life and death conflict between the spiritual hosts of wickedness and those who claim the name of Christ. It is a conflict on the level of ideas between two fundamentally opposed views of truth and reality. It is a conflict on the level of actions between a complete moral perversion and chaos and God's absolutes. But do we really believe that we are in a life and death battle? Do we really believe that the part we play in the battle has consequences for whether or not men and women will spend eternity in hell? Or whether or not in this life people will live with meaning or meaninglessness? Or whether or not those who do live will live in a climate of moral perversion and degradation? Sadly, we must say that very few in the evangelical world have acted as if these things are true. Rather than trumpet our accomplishments and revel in our growing numbers, it would be closer to the truth to admit that our response has been a disaster.

-Francis Schaeffer, The Great Evangelical Disaster (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1984), pp. 31-32

Truth demands confrontation; loving confrontation, but confrontation nevertheless. If our reflex action is always accommodation regardless of the centrality of the truth involved, there is something wrong. Just as what we may call holiness without love is not God's kind of holiness, so also what we may call love without holiness, including when necessary confrontation, is not God's kind of love.

-Francis Schaeffer, The Great Evangelical Disaster (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1984), pp. 64-65

Most people catch their presuppositions from their family and surrounding society the way a child catches measels. But people with more understanding realize that their presuppositions should be chosen after a careful consideration of what world view is true. When all is done, when all the alternatives have been explored, "not many men are in the room" -- that is, although world views have many variations, there are not many basic world views or basic presuppositions.

-Francis Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live? (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2005), p. 20

Suppose we awoke tomorrow morning and we opened our Bibles and found two things had been taken out, not as the liberals would take them out, but really out. Suppose God had taken them out. The first item missing was the real empowering of the Holy Spirit, and the second item the reality of prayer. Consequently, following the dictates of Scripture, we would begin to live on the basis of this new Bible in which there was nothing about the power of the Holy Spirit and nothing about the power of prayer. Let me ask you something: what difference would there be from the way we acted yesterday? Do we really believe God is there? If we do, we live differently.
-Francis Schaeffer, The Church at the End of the Twentieth Century, in The Complete Works of Francis Schaeffer, vol. 4, p. 40

2 comments:

Takis Konstantopoulos said...

The last passage is very intersting:
Suppose we awoke tomorrow morning and we opened our Bibles and found two things had been taken out, not as the liberals would take them out, but really out. Suppose God had taken them out. The first item missing was the real empowering of the Holy Spirit, and the second item the reality of prayer. Consequently, following the dictates of Scripture, we would begin to live on the basis of this new Bible in which there was nothing about the power of the Holy Spirit and nothing about the power of prayer. Let me ask you something: what difference would there be from the way we acted yesterday? Do we really believe God is there? If we do, we live differently.

Suppose we woke up one day and relized that all passages in the Bible--in any Bible in the world--had missing items. How would we know that it was God who took them out or it was some kind of very strange conspiracy? Admittedly, a hard-to-implement concpiracy, of extremely low probability, but possible nevertheless. What kind of test should we perform to decide this?

In addition, if we decided that it was Good who took off items regarding the Holy Spirit, then, I suppose, that would mean that God would want us not to believe in it, right? But why would He do that? Perhaps because he had some personal issues with the Holy Spirit?

So, I guess, the answer is: Yes, we would have to live differently in *some* but not all aspects. For example, if it was onlt the Holy Spirit that was left out, then God probably would want us not to mention the Holy Spirit in our prayers. But, other than that, I can't see what difference the absence of passages referring to the Holy Spirit would make.

Am I on the right track?

Takis Konstantopoulos said...

The last passage is very intersting:
Suppose we awoke tomorrow morning and we opened our Bibles and found two things had been taken out, not as the liberals would take them out, but really out. Suppose God had taken them out. The first item missing was the real empowering of the Holy Spirit, and the second item the reality of prayer. Consequently, following the dictates of Scripture, we would begin to live on the basis of this new Bible in which there was nothing about the power of the Holy Spirit and nothing about the power of prayer. Let me ask you something: what difference would there be from the way we acted yesterday? Do we really believe God is there? If we do, we live differently.

Suppose we woke up one day and relized that all passages in the Bible--in any Bible in the world--had missing items. How would we know that it was God who took them out or it was some kind of very strange conspiracy? Admittedly, a hard-to-implement concpiracy, of extremely low probability, but possible nevertheless. What kind of test should we perform to decide this?

In addition, if we decided that it was Good who took off items regarding the Holy Spirit, then, I suppose, that would mean that God would want us not to believe in it, right? But why would He do that? Perhaps because he had some personal issues with the Holy Spirit?

So, I guess, the answer is: Yes, we would have to live differently in *some* but not all aspects. For example, if it was onlt the Holy Spirit that was left out, then God probably would want us not to mention the Holy Spirit in our prayers. But, other than that, I can't see what difference the absence of passages referring to the Holy Spirit would make.

Am I on the right track?