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Evangelical leader Edith Schaeffer, who co-founded L'Abri, a Christian ministry, with her husband, prolific evangelical author Francis Schaeffer, passed away quietly in her sleep early Saturday. L'Abri was founded in Switzerland in 1955 as a Christian retreat center where people of any faith, or no faith, could come to learn and discuss theological and philosophical issues. During the 1960s, it became popular among some of the counter-cultural, or "hippie," movements of the time. "What a lovely person Edith is – and how thankful we are that she has gone at last to her eternal rest. One wonders, too, with her...

WASHINGTON (ABP) -- Many evangelical scholars agree Francis Schaeffer was the single greatest force that propelled evangelicals into political action -- ultimately putting George W. Bush in the White House. But some question whether he is rightly described as a fundamentalist. While some scholars think Schaeffer, the popular author and theologian who helped a generation of evangelicals move toward the public square, left fundamentalism behind during his lifetime, Baylor University professor Barry Hankins is reticent to concede that point. "Historians have defined fundamentalism as the militaristic defense of orthodoxy," Hankins told more than 1,000 theologians who gathered Nov. 15 for...

PRAYERS FOR EDITH SCHAEFFER: Udo, Dan and several others have informed me.... "We just recieved word that Edith is in very poor in health and may be near passing. Also, in the interest of being mindful of the family and their privacy we will withhold releasing anything more news right now until we confirm what information we have. Please pray for Edith and the family, and for traveling mercies for those who may require travel in this time. If others are at more liberty to post additional information I invite you to do so as you feel comfortable. To all:...

Francis Schaeffer—100? Who can believe it?! Schaeffer (1912-1984) was born 100 years ago on January 30th. On this special occasion, it’s worth taking a few minutes to remember his important legacy. Many of us were greatly blessed by his life. Schaeffer was a Presbyterian pastor, then missionary, then apologist, prolific author, evangelist, film maker and activist . He was one of six evangelical leaders (along with Billy Graham, John Stott, J.I. Packer, Carl F. H. Henry, and Martyn Lloyd-Jones) who profoundly shaped the evangelical movement in the second half of the 20th century. His life Francis Schaeffer was born in...

VANCOUVER, November 2, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - On Sunday morning a break-away faction of the Occupy Vancouver movement tried to occupy the city’s Holy Rosary Cathedral during morning Mass. Several dozen protesters, calling themselves ‘Occupy the Vatican’, were halted when Archbishop Michael Miller requested a police presence, and were stopped again later in the day by police and members of the Knights of Columbus. The incident highlights a trend by some in the anti-corporate protest movement to use it as a launching pad for attacks on Christianity and the Catholic Church in particular. Most infamously, on October 15th, members of the...

Once a self-identified founding member of the American “religious right,” Franky Schaeffer now says that “religion is dumb” and “man made.” Although Schaeffer grew up among some of the most influential evangelicals of the twentieth century, and worked as one of them during much of his adult life, he now believes the Bible is a fraud and that Christianity teaches “misogynistic” practices. Schaeffer, the son of the late evangelical theologian, philosopher, and founder of the L’Abri Fellowship, Francis Schaeffer, discussed his newest book at the Kansas City Public Library on September 27, 2011. His recent book, Sex, Mom, and God:...

A few not to be missed articles or blogs have appeared in the past few days. The first is by the conservative New York Times columnist, Ross Douthat. Most people, especially those who still buy the print edition, see his regular featured column. But fewer people read his blog, which appears only on the paperÂ’s website, and for that, one usually has to search to find. Two days ago, Douthat wrote about the myth spread by many Democrats and liberals: that conservatives and Republicans want to institute a theocracy in America. As Douthat points out, [A] spate of recent articles...

NORTHAMPTON, Mass. — In every line of work, there are family businesses. But no business is more defined by dynasties and nepotism than evangelical preaching. Lyman Beecher, Bob Jones, Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, Robert H. Schuller, Jim Bakker: all had sons who became ministers. It is never easy stepping into Dad’s shoes, of course. But when the family business is religion, it is especially perilous. That is one of the central laments, anyway, of “Sex, Mom, & God,” a new memoir by Frank Schaeffer. To secular Americans, the name Frank Schaeffer means nothing. But to millions of evangelical Christians, the...

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann is one of the several pro-life advocates seeking the Republican nomination to face pro-abortion President Barack Obama and she cites Christian writer Francis Schaeffer as an influence on her pro-life views. In a campaign stop to speak to local residents at a church in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Bachmann shared her testimony and talked about the Christian faith she and her husband share. That faith, which has matured thanks to the writings of Schaeffer, has led Bachman to a pro-life view that has seen her compile a 100% pro-life voting record in Congress and adopt dozens of foster...

Best-selling author and former Republican Frank Schaeffer lets Rush Limbaugh and his Republican mates have it at HuffPo, in a piece called, "An Open Letter to the Republican Traitors (from a former Republican)": I have to say, love him or hate him, the Republicans have got to appreciate Schaeffer's helpful inclusion of related content. He's like their own personal AOL Dashboard.....

Here's Frank Schaeffer, the David Brock of the religious right, on Rachel Maddow characterizing all conservatives as dangerous nutjobs. Rachel Maddow guest, author Frank Schaeffer, summarizes The Right Wing

The moral bankruptcy of the Left – epitomized by its backing of Islamic dictators and extremists over moderate Muslims – saw it defeated across Europe in recent EU elections. From what I read yesterday, the Huffington Post, and American liberals, might want to take a lesson from that. In one op-ed piece, Frank Schaeffer tells us that “the real lesson of Iran” actually has nothing to do with Iran, and everything to do with American conservatives. Neoconservatives and the religious-Right are – so we’re told – trying their best to establish a Christian, pro-Israel dictatorship, replete with Old Testament law....

As we watch the horrors in Iran, it makes us wonder if anything like that could happen in America. In Iran, the mullahs control everything and feel justified in any injustice they commit because of a belief in the rightness of their own actions. Is there anyone like that here? In an answer to that question, Frank Schaeffer wrote a column for the Huffington Post entitled “The Real Lesson of Iran — Beware America’s Republican Mullahs.” Reading it and the comments to it, I came to a realization: people who think the religious right are just like Iranian mullahs are...

The earth bursts with life. Far right exclusionary religion bursts with death. If there is a creator of life He/She/It must hate fundamentalist religion. The countries in the world that are the most fundamentalist and religious, and/or those whose identity is most religion-based, are the world's greatest troublemakers. Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the USA, Vatican City and the state of Israel come to mind. Just take one example of religion’s baleful influence: President Woodrow Wilson’s messianic religion-inspired intervention in World War One. "My life would not be worth living” Wilson wrote, “if it were not for the driving power of...

One of the stories out of this year's CPAC convention concerned what we might call "post-Reagan conservatives" calling for a step back from social issues for the next few years—especially for 2012. In Mitch Daniel's terminology, it might be time for a "truce" in the battle for traditional marriage and abortion limits, in order to focus on our impending economic collapse. That position makes a lot of sense on the surface, and Gov. Daniels is an admirable model for getting one's fiscal house in order. The problem is, it's all one house—fiscal policy affects social, and vice versa. For something...

Dear Republican Leaders: The Republican Party has become the party dedicated to sabotaging the American future. Check out the sermon I just delivered about the Republican Party on CNN when being interviewed by D.L. Hughley -- and/or read on. You Republicans are the arsonists who burned down our national home. You combined the failed ideologies of the Religious Right, so-called free market deregulation and the Neoconservative love of war to light a fire that has consumed America. Now you have the nerve to criticize the "architect" America just hired -- President Obama -- to rebuild from the ashes. You do...

The Huffington Post sends us this essay by Frank Schaeffer claiming that Republicans have acted hypocritically in scolding Barack Obama over Jeremiah Wright — because the GOP embraced him and his father. His father is “Religious Right leader Francis Schaeffer”, which around here might combine up with a buck to buy a bag of donut holes. Schaeffer fils has repented of his conservativism — hence the appearance at HuffPo — and spends most of it spanking his dad: Take Dad’s words and put them in the mouth of Obama’s preacher (or in the mouth of any black American preacher) and...

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...

OPEN FORUM With God on their side Frank Schaeffer Sunday, May 22, 2005 It is perhaps not coincidental that Cardinal Ratzinger, the most fundamentalist Roman Catholic cardinal, was chosen as the new pope. Fundamentalism is the big story of the 21st century. Ask anyone trying to teach evolution in a public school. Consider the 50 million copies sold of the "Left Behind" series about the second coming of Christ. Or listen to mullahs earnestly explain how to apply seventh-century religious law to so-called modern life -- say, why women should not be allowed to vote. Or watch Tom DeLay and...

Who's the major figure behind the election and re-election of George W. Bush? On one level, the visionary Karl Rove. At a deeper level, a theologian most Americans have never heard of: Francis Schaeffer, who 50 years ago this month founded an evangelistic haven in Switzerland, L'Abri. Over the next quarter-century, Schaeffer changed the lives of many disaffected young people who stopped at L'Abri and found an intellectual pastor who dealt with their hardest questions. He summarized his answers in notable books like "The God Who is There" and "Escape from Reason," and then turned to political matters in his...

21. The final reality Love is the final apologetic. Schaeffer made it utterly clear that this kind of love is of a distinctly Christian variety. It is not a mere "humanistic, romantic oneness among men in general". Rather, it is the same kind of love that Jesus showed his followers. For Christians this is nothing less that the same kind of love demonstrated by the Son of God incarnate. But there is more. The love Christians are to demonstrate and exemplify is ultimately the same kind of love that the Father had for his Son from all eternity. This love...

20. The final apologetic While Schaeffer's apologetic arguments and cultural commentary have elicited a wide variety of responses throughout evangelicalism, there is one feature of his ministry that has evoked nearly unanimous favor, namely, his captivating emphasis on community. Even Jack Rogers, one of Schaeffer's stiffest critics, has noted that he finds the Schaeffers' "arguments exasperating, but the description of life at L'Abri exhilarating." The L'Abri community is in many ways a microcosm of what the church ought to be. In combines spiritual formation, intellectual stimulation, holy living, ethnic diversity, shared responsibility and mutual interdependency. It is a fertile context...

19. Flexibility and versatility John Frame, professor of apologetics and systematic theology at Westminster Theological Seminary in California, believes Schaeffer's most important contribution was his ability to bring the full spectrum of reality into the apologetic arena. From biology to business, philosophy to physics, ecology to engineering, Schaeffer consistently displayed remarkable flexibility and versatility in his quest to meet a wide range of people on their own turf. Schaeffer firmly believed that apologetics must be a person-relative enterprise. Each individual is unique, so no single argument will work with everybody. This is undoubtedly a poignant word in light of our...

18. Pastoral apologetics Jerry Jenkins, former editor of Moody Magazine, tells of a time when he heard Francis Schaeffer speak in Chicago. After presenting his How Should We Then Live? material, Schaeffer fielded questions from an audience of more than four thousand. Jenkins recalls one gentleman who "began a question in a halting, nearly incoherent growl. Clearly, he suffered from cerebral palsy." Schaeffer pressed his eyes firmly shut and listened intently as the questioner offered a lengthy, garbled inquiry. Jenkins admits to grasping only about a quarter of the question, but Schaeffer discerned all but the final three words, which...

17. Virtue epistemology A few lessons back, we made the point that holiness is nonnegotiable for deep, settled satisfaction. Now we want to insist that holiness is equally essential for true epistemological insight and profound discernment. In other words, personal character has a direct bearing on one's ability to apprehend the nature of ultimate reality. As noted in chapter five, Lewis thought one reason God has not provided unambiguous revelation is because such a message might have engaged only the mind instead of "the whole man". God's primary purpose is not to satisfy our curiosity but rather to transform us...

16. Moral intuitions In The Problem of Pain Lewis noted that we face a dilemma when we try to relate God's goodness to our own notion of goodness. One the one hand, since God is wiser than we are, and his ways higher than our ways, what seems good to us may not really be good, and what seems evil may not really be evil. On the other hand, if this is true, then calling God good is meaningless, and if he is not good in our sense, then we shall obey him not on moral grounds but through fear....

15. Libertarian freedom One of the central themes of this book has been the insistence upon maintaining a self-consistent, comprehensive, livable vision of reality that does justice to the character of God and the significance of humans. This means there is no escaping the reality that apologetics is tightly connected to systematic theology. In fact, apologetic activity should emerge naturally from one's theological assumptions and commitments. That is why we have devoted so much space in this study to issues like soteriology, free will and determinism, divine election, and biblical inspiration. These are not peripheral matters that can be easily...

14. True moral guilt Closely connected to the need for a renewed appreciation for holiness is the need to recapture the biblical concept of sin. Schaeffer and Lewis both recognized the difficulty of awakening a sense of sin in a culture saturated with psychological techniques designed to explain away the notion of true moral guilt. Nevertheless, both apologists insisted that a cure cannot be administered until people recognize they are sick. Schaeffer made it clear that the unbeliever must realize "that we are talking about real guilt before God, and we are not offering him merely relief for his guilt-feelings....

Empowering the Will 13. The highway to happiness Holiness. In our age, this term conjures up a whole array of bizarre, outdated images. Thoughts of sour-faced, cannot-do-anything-fun legalists are surely what comes to mind for many. This is unfortunate. In a day when society is desperately searching for unshakable happiness and sturdy ethical moorings, the very thing understood least is that which is needed most - a renewed appreciation for the biblical concept of holiness. Even within Christian circles, holiness has all too often been construed as a relatively marginal matter or a doctrinal distinctive of certain sectarian denominations, as...

12. The hope of heaven In their fascinating book Heaven: A History, Colleen McDannel and Bernhard Lang observe that even among conservative Christians "eternal life has become an unknown place or a state of vague identity." A recent article in Time magazine made the same point, although it reported that 81 percent of those they polled professed to believe in heaven as a place "where people live forever with God after they die." While they still believe in heaven "their concept of exactly what it is has grown foggier, and they hear about it much less frequently from their pastors."...

11. The attraction of agape Perhaps no culture more than modern and postmodern Western culture has been more obsessed with love, and has celebrated it more, while gleaning less real satisfaction from it. Naturalism tells a story in which love is a relative newcomer on the stage of history, emerging late in the evolutionary scheme from impersonal and loveless sources. But according to Christian theism, love is the eternal and highest reality. Human loves are an image of Love himself and thus have a more secure grounding in ultimate reality. As Lewis argued so powerfully, a proper relation to Love...

10. Subversion by surprise Lewis and Schaeffer did some of their best evangelistic and apologetic work with those who were resistant to a direct presentation of the gospel. Years of compassionate conversation and an attentive ear enabled Schaeffer to "smoke out" incongruities with remarkable finesse. Lewis, likewise, was adept at catching his audience with its guard down. One way he went about doing this was by turning the tables on the skeptic. Consider how he responded to the charge that Christianity is discredited by its similarity to other religions. Instead of seeing similar motifs as a strike against the faith,...

9. The marriage of myth and fact The myth of progress has given way to the progress of myth. This is one way of describing the transition from the optimistic Age of Reason into our current Age of Imagination. As C. Stephen Evans has aptly noted, "there is considerable fascination with mythology in our culture." Evans suggests a number of reasons for the appeal of myth in our postmodern age. Chief among them is the belief that "myth is in many ways living water for a dry culture." As we suggested earlier, humans are created for a thorough integration of...

Today we enter a new topic: Enchanting the Emotions 8. Emotional redemption A central point of The Abolition of Man is that true virtue is impossible without trained emotions. Without the support of such trained emotions, we are powerless to do what is right in a consistent fashion, even if we know intellectually what we ought to do. The key to real character, then, is for the emotions to be trained so they follow the lead of the intellect. This requires that our heart, our "chest" as Lewis put it, must be shaped and schooled by the perception of objective...

7. Critical rationalism and cumulative case argumentation In chapter nine we suggested that Lewis and Schaeffer occasionally employed the principles of cumulative case argumentation, an attractive alternative to classical foundationalism. Now we want to propose further that this mode of reasoning and marshaling of arguments has considerable apologetic promise because it can respond to some of the central themes of postmodernism without falling into the relativism that is characteristic of postmodern epistemology. Postmodernism is difficult to define precisely, and its correct contours remain a matter of (perhaps interminable) controversy. This alone is a good reason for Christian apologists to exercise...

6. Cultural engagement It is surely significant that the two most influential spokesmen for orthodox, evangelical Christianity in the twentieth century were both apologists. Both spent much of their time and energy engaging ideas and challenging the prevailing wisdom of the age. Ironically, much of modern culture, including the church, is heavily pragmatic and has little patience with such issues as whether or not naturalism is a coherent worldview or whether it can adequately account for personality. The immediate pragmatic cash value of such discussions and distinctions is not always apparent. At first glance they may seem almost irrelevant to...

5. The historical texture of the Christian faith What would you say if you picked up the newspaper tomorrow morning and the lead headline screamed, "Bone of Jesus Found: Scholars Refute Resurrection"? Your first reaction might likely be grave skepticism and a quick glance through the body of the story to identify the names of these radical revisionists. But suppose upon reading the opening paragraph you discovered that the academicians who made this pronouncement are not of the Jesus Seminar variety but rather a battery of the most respected evangelical New Testament scholars in the world. The article indicates that...

4. A unified body of knowledge and meaning A leading motif in the Schaeffer corpus is the divided field of knowledge and meaning. It was Schaeffer's staunch conviction that the twentieth century ushered in an age of fragmentation. Reason and faith, intellect and imagination, matter and meaning all have been shoved into mutually exclusive compartments. In fact, a young C.S. Lewis serves as a prime example of this type of dichotomized existence: "The two hemispheres of my mind were in the sharpest contrast. One the one side a many-islanded sea of poetry and myth; on the other a glib and...

3. The big questions of life For every seeker who came to L'Abri in a state of focused inquiry, Schaeffer realized there were countless others indifferent toward the big questions of life. For those people, it is not merely a matter of providing honest answers to honest questions, but rather it is helping them see why they ought to care about ultimate issues at all. In a world of growing specialization, fragmentation and skepticism, Schaeffer recognized that people were becoming increasingly proficient at diverting themselves from the big questions of life: "People are playing many, many games instead of thinking...

Half a century ago, an American pastor named Francis Schaeffer opened his home in Switzerland to anyone who was struggling with the basic questions of life. It was the beginning of L'Abri, a word meaning "shelter." Over the years, student backpackers, troubled atheists, and thoughtful Christians found their way to this chalet in the Alps. Here they met biblical truth, explained not only with a sophistication that was then rare in evangelicalism—but lived out. Many who trekked the Alpine hillsides to L'Abri became Christians and learned how to engage their cultures and to apply their faith to all of life....

<p>One hallmark of Schaeffer's ministry was his willingness to provide honest answers to honest questions. He realized that many young people during his era had been told by their parents and church leaders that spiritual questioning is a sign of weak faith. Schaeffer did not buy this for a minute. He passionately rejected such fideistic counsel, insisting that "it is not more spiritual to believe without asking questions. It is not more biblical. It is less biblical and eventually it will be less spiritual, because the whole man will not be involved." Schaeffer keenly recognized that a spirituality without an intellectual grounding is a mere shadow of the rich, robust, satisfying faith that God desires for all his children. Such a faith is also dangerously vulnerable to the inevitable challenges of life, whether it be the loss of a loved one or the teaching of a false prophet.</p>

The first seven lessons from Burson and Walls in 21 Lessons for the 21st Century come under the heading Engaging the Mind. Lesson 1 is titled 1. Objective reality and absolute truth Lewis and Schaeffer never tired of emphasizing the crucial importance of objective reality and absolute truth. While neither lived to see deconstructionism and other distinctly postmodern forms of radical relativism in full bloom, neither apologist would be surprised by such trends. The seeds of these developments had already been sown when they wrote. Each of our apologists had a prophetic sense of where relativism would lead. It is...

In 1998 a book was published with one of those intimidating academic titles, C.S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer: Lessons for a New Century from the Most Influential Apologists of Our Time. It was written by Scott R. Burson, at the time director of communications at Asbury Theological Seminary, and Jerry L. Walls, professor of philosophy and also at Asbury. The book was almost a Godsend for me, as I had long been a fan of both Lewis, the Anglican, and Schaeffer, the fundamentalist Presbyterian, and often had thought that it would be interesting to put the works of these two...

Since next month will bring the 50th anniversary of Francis Schaeffer's founding of L'Abri, his famous evangelistic haven in Switzerland, www.worldmagblog.com is running reminiscences by those whose lives were changed by the discussions that went on there and the personality of Schaeffer himself. One of the blog posts is by Marc Mailloux (Andree Seu's brother), who dropped in on L'Abri as a 17-year-old agnostic in 1971 wearing the same cut-off jeans and T-shirt that he had worn for weeks. Marc notes that Schaeffer at the dinner table one evening gave a thorough answer to a question about evolution as everyone...

"Gradually, that which had become the basic thought form of modern people became the almost totally accepted viewpoint, an almost monolithic consensus. And as it came to the majority of people through art, music, drama, theology and the mass media, values died." Those are the words of one of my mentors, the late theologian Francis A. Schaeffer, in his seminal book, "How Should We Then Live?" Dr. Schaeffer was lamenting the fact that Christian ideals and traditional moral standards that had defined this nation for most of its great history were gradually being replaced by arbitrary absolutes that have no...

<p>Frank Schaeffer, son of the late renowned Christian theologian Francis Schaeffer, will be in Modesto next weekend to discuss the Orthodox church and faith. Schaeffer holds a photo of his son, John, a Marine.</p> <p>Author Frank Schaeffer will speak at Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Modesto next Saturday on the historic Orthodox tradition and his conversion to the Orthodox faith.</p>

A Film Series by Francis Schaeffer With comments by Dr. Robert A. Morey Episode One: The Roman Age Key Terms: A. "Presupposition" Those foundational ideas or concepts that are: 1. assumed to be true or self-evident. 2. form the basis of one’s explanation of the world, man and God. 3. The "first" or "beginning" ideas or propositions that are the "Given." 4. The glasses through which you interpret life. B. "Human autonomy" 1. The foundational presupposition of all humanistic philosophy, religion, ethics, politics, etc. 2. It is the assumption that man starting from himself, by himself, with himself without any...