The God Who is …Where? by John Fischer

The God Who Is… Where?

A         Comparison of Two Book Titles and the Thirty Years that Separate Them

by John Fischer

I have always         considered myself fortunate to have been in the formative years of my         life when Francis Schaeffer was having his greatest impact on evangelical         Christianity. His visits to Wheaton College, two of which I witnessed         as a student there during the last half of the sixties, became the watermarks         of my college experience. It was during those visits that Schaeffer presented         the material that was to later become his most comprehensive philosophical         work, The God Who Is There.

Almost 30 years later, in an issue of Christianity Today that celebrated         Schaeffer’s influence in an article by Michael Hamilton, I noticed a coincidental         ad for a book by Bill Hybels, pastor of Willow Creek Community Church,         titled,The God You’re Looking For. The similarity of these titles made         their key differences stand out. Something about these two titles speaks         volumes about the way thinking has changed over the years that separate         their respective releases.

The God Who Is There Francis Schaeffer spoke to a generation that cared enough about the concept         of God to despair over its loss. In Schaeffer’s analysis, drug use, pornography,         existentialism and even madness were not merely sin and debauchery for         the fun of it, they were the logical conclusions of philosophical ideas         that had been crossing the ocean from Europe for decades and surfacing         in the works of American artists, writers and film makers. Piece by piece,         the old ways of thinking were being stripped away by philosophers and         theologians until God was nothing but a memory. And yet a memory was more         than nothing, and it was that memory of God and propositional truth that         Schaeffer was always seeking to retrieve.

Francis Schaeffer spoke to young people from families that still prayed         to God, in a nation that still pledged its allegiance under Him. Many         of these students made the long trek to L’Abri, Switzerland, to find if         there was any validity to their childhood beliefs about God and the meaning         of human existence. So when Schaeffer gave credibility to both, and even         a historical context as to why they had doubted God in the first place,         many were persuaded to believe.

Thirty years ago, it was enough to prove the existence of God and the         reliability of the scriptures. Belief would follow the evidence. The God         Who Is There assumes that people care enough to do something about God         should it prove to be a rational thing to believe in him.

Reading Schaeffer again today makes one long for such a mind-set. It also         makes despair seem almost attractive when compared to the moral relativism         and self-absorption that characterizes most of western culture in the         nineties. Would that people cared enough today to actually despair. Would         that truth meant enough for people to lament its absence. Would that proving         the rationality of the existence of God would assume the embracing of         that God as its logical consequence.

The God You’re Looking For We now live in a generation that lies beyond the rational boundaries of         Schaeffer’s day–even beyond despair. Hope is fantasy. Truth is whatever         anyone wants to make it. God is a concept to be used only when useful.         Religion is a preference. There is nothing beyond self to appeal to; only         the subjective desires and felt needs of human existence are left. The         God Who is There is about as relevant to today’s thought processes as         Francis Schaeffer’s knickers. Not that the truth is no longer true, it         is just that the postmodern mind does not possess the thought-forms necessary         to grasp truth as absolute. Announce the God “who is there”         today, and people will want to know which God you are talking about. On         which channel? Representing which ethnic group? Which religion? And if         he is “there”, just where is he? Is he out on video? And before         anything else, people would want to know what this God could do for them,         for whether God is or is not there, the operative question is, what can         belief in God do for me?

In this context, The God You’re Looking For is a fitting title. There         is simply no other way to address a postmodern mind except by way of the         expressed needs, longings and desires of people. And the churches who         are adopting this approach are currently finding much success. But in         doing so, are we not now facing a new dilemma for ministry?

Schaeffer himself has stated that each generation of the church “has         the responsibility of communicating the gospel in understandable terms,         considering the language and thought-forms of that setting.” [Escape         from Reason, p.94] But what if the language and thought-forms of a generation         are inept at holding the kind of belief systems necessary to sustain a         relationship with God over the long haul? Then we will have to teach people         to think in thought-forms that are foreign to them‹that are outside their         cultural experience. To some degree then, in teaching people how to follow         God, we must now teach them how to think all over again.

For instance, we keep hearing how the postmodern mind cannot grasp the         idea of absolutes. Well then, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure         out that the postmodern mind is incapable of grasping the idea of God.         Something has to give here: either the postmodern mind, or the God we         preach, and I don’t think God is very interested in making too many adjustments         in his nature or his character in deference to our inadequate minds. People,         in order to grow in their understanding and relationship with God, are         going to have to somehow graduate from a God they once met on one level,         to a God who demands they stretch their minds in order to meet him in         ways they have never thought of before.

Actually, this process is not unlike one common to all believers. We all         begin a relationship with God on a subjective level through our own personal         salvation. But our growth (or sanctification) is the process of discovering         that God does not exist for us; we exist for him. “True worshipers         will worship the Father in Spirit and truth (John 4:23)”–speaking         not of my truth, but of his truth to which I adjust myself and my thought         processes. New believers have come to God because he has met their need;         mature believers come to God regardless of their need. They come because         he is God and he is worthy of their worship and allegiance.

The Current Task If I am right about this, then the current task that faces the church         is a difficult one that poses some rather ticklish questions. Having convinced         people to embrace a God who is relevant and contemporary, will Christians         still love God when they find he can also be irrelevant and old and sometimes         difficult to follow? What do we do when the God who is there is not the         God anyone wants? Do we still preach him? Will we be tempted to continue         giving people a God they are looking for when the God who is there no         longer holds their interest?

One can readily see how addressing this generation with the truth about         God is a more formidable task than it was thirty years ago. If people         no longer have the thought-forms to grasp absolute truth, then we have         to teach and challenge them until God forms in them a new mind. “Do         not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed         by the renewing of your mind (Romans 12:2)” takes on new significance         in this regard. It will take a new mind to even believe.

In reality, both these titles are true and necessary. The God You’re Looking         For is a good way to start people thinking about God today, but at some         point, the God you are looking for has to become The God Who Is There–the         God who was there all along, and the God who will be there forever. He         is the absolute we will all eventually bump into, regardless of our ability         or inability to conceive of him. This is the God who deserves our praise         whether or not he fits our description or meets our needs. Somewhere in         me, I hear God saying to us all today, “If you are looking for God,         I am the God you get, because I am that I am.”

May we not shrink from telling the whole truth.

©1999 John Fischer, all rights reserved For more information and other articles by John Fischer visit http://www.fischtank.com.

Related posts:

Francis Schaeffer’s wife Edith passes away on Easter weekend 2013 Part 7 (includes pro-life editorial cartoon)

On January 30, 2012, had Francis A. Schaeffer still been living he would have celebrated his 100th birthday. In recognition of this fact a number of Christian organizations have been paying tribute Schaeffer as one of the great evangelical Christian thinkers of the 20th Century. One of those is the Center for Faith and Culture at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, of which I am director.

There is a growing consensus among older evangelicals that Schaeffer must not be forgotten. So, efforts such as this are important as today many under the age of 40 have little awareness of Schaeffer’s impact on the evangelical world. It has been most encouraging to see the 100th anniversary of his life used as an opportunity to reacquaint the evangelical world with the life and ministry of Francis Schaeffer. Happily, there are a good number of evangelical notables who remember and understand the importance of Schaeffer’s legacy, not only as something to be remembered, but to be followed.
Schaeffer was a Christian theologian, philosopher and Presbyterian pastor (maybe a pastor first and foremost) who spent most of his adult life in Switzerland with his wife Edith and their four children. His insightful mind disturbed the evangelical conscience with his penetrating analysis of culture. In the 1960s he taught evangelicals to take seriously the questions brought to the surface by the anti-authority cultural revolution.

One of his major contributions was that he taught Christians the importance of worldview thinking both in living the Christian life and evangelizing the lost. I believe a strong case can be made that Schaeffer’s thinking, passion, and ministry are still able to inform present-day evangelicals on engaging culture and defending the Faith.

In 1948 Schaeffer moved to Switzerland to begin a children’s ministry (Children for Christ) in worn-torn Europe under the Independent Board of Presbyterian Foreign Missions. In time, however, his ministry developed beyond a children’s ministry to university students. Eventually, the Schaeffer’s purchased a chalet in Huemoz where eventually the ministry known as L’Abri (Fr. Shelter) was birthed 1955 (the story of the L’Abri ministry can be found in Edith Schaeffer’s wonderful book, The Tapestry). Truly it was a shelter for many who were thrown into intellectual and spiritual chaos by the anti-establishment forces of the 1960s encouraged by existentialism. In 1960, Time magazine took note of Schaeffer’s ministry in the Swiss mountains and referred to it as a unique ministry to the European intellectual.

Over the years, hundreds (probably thousands) of people came (some for days others for months) to L’Abri where many found Christ as Savior. This was especially true in the 60s and 70s and those of us who lived through those times remember the political and social upheaval as students on both sides of the Atlantic went into a rebellious mode full throttle. Many in evangelicalism merely condemned the senseless destruction (of course, in one sense it needed to be condemned) and ignored the legitimate questions being asked by the students.

Schaeffer, on the other hand, listened carefully to their questions and helped them to see how historic Christianity answered those questions consistently within the reality all lived. While it was a time of entrenchment for many in evangelicalism, Schaeffer engaged the young people and the intellectuals (many were existentialists) on their own terms. He showed them that their explanation of the world was inconsistent with and insufficient for the world in which they lived. Then he would show how Christianity answered those questions.

A hallmark of Schaeffer’s apologetic was that it was driven by a deep and abiding love for humanity. He truly empathized with those who were struggling with life in a world that was terribly out of joint. I am told that Schaeffer would spend hours with one person asking questions until the individual had sufficient information to think further on the matter.

To understand Schaeffer’s approach to evangelism and his apologetic thought one must give attention to the three works that reveal the foundation of his understanding of man, reality, and the Bible. These three books serve as the foundation for all his other books, forming a trilogy: The God Who Is There, Escape from Reason, and He Is There and He Is Not Silent. According to Schaeffer all his other books fit into these as “spokes of the wheel into the hub”. In 1982, the works of Francis Schaeffer were edited by Schaeffer and published in a five-volume set in which the books in the trilogy are in the order in which they were written. This order reveals the development of his thinking apologetically and is essential to understanding Schaeffer and his apologetic method.

In these three books, one learns how Schaeffer’s view of man shaped his apologetic approach (which for him was part and parcel of his evangelism). Historic Christianity, according to Schaeffer, was creation centered and central to creation was that God created man in his image. The first apologetic implication of creation was that man had intrinsic worth which meant he was to be treated with respect and love. This truth shaped Schaeffer’s life and ministry as he was motivated and directed by love and compassion for man as a person. Apologetics, he urged, must be “shaped on the basis of love for the person as a person.”

While Schaeffer did not minimize the historic fall recorded in Genesis, he argued that the fall “did not lead to machineness, but to fallen-manness.” There was a greatness to man even though he could also be very cruel. He spoke of man being noble, not because of his achievements, but because of who he was as a creation of God—man was not a zero, to use Schaeffer’s words. Only Christianity, Schaeffer said, could explain both the greatness and the cruelty of man. This truth moved Schaeffer to take all men seriously and to answer the honest questions of fallen man. Furthermore, he argued that the Christian must take care to understand the person by looking carefully at cultural artifacts (especially the arts) to understand the underlying worldviews and presuppositions revealed in them.

The second apologetic implication of creation for Schaeffer was the intelligibility of creation. The categories of the mind of man correspond to the structure of the world as God had created both. The result, Schaeffer argued, was that common ground existed between the Christian and the non-Christian. This is not something man put upon the universe; it is simply the way it is. Man lives in a morally structured, rational universe and no matter how he might try to live against the way the universe is, Schaeffer was sure it would push back at him and create tension for his non-Christian presuppositions. Of course this was not a game for Schaeffer and he urged the Christian always to give the answer as understood in light of historic Christianity and to do so in a loving and compassionate tone.

He was convinced that when speaking to the non-Christian the first truth to present was that of the truth of the real world and the reality of man himself. For Schaeffer, the real point of contact with the modern (and post modern mind) was reality. Regardless what presuppositions a man claims as grounds for his worldview, Schaeffer showed how they can be tested for truthfulness when pressed against the reality in which every person must live.

In 1978 Schaeffer learned that he had lymphoma cancer succumbing to it in May 1984. However, almost until his death he maintained an active speaking schedule. During his life time he carried on a voluminous correspondence with many of the great evangelical minds of the day. Most of this correspondence is in the Francis A. Schaeffer Collection (of which I am director) given by the Francis Schaeffer Foundation which is now under the custodianship of the library at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

He wrote 27 books (and many pamphlets), and produced two films with his son Frank. Of the two films, the most well-known is How Should We then Live? which is a companion to the book by the same title. The second film, Whatever Happened to the Human Race with Everett Koop, Schaeffer shows the social and philosophical consequences of abortion. He wrote on responsible stewardship of creation long before others were talking about it. Schaeffer not only could think with the best minds of his day, he lived out his Christianity in very practical ways and urged all in the church to do the same.

The concluding thought is that Schaeffer remains an important apologetic resource for Christians in the 21st century. It goes without saying that the evangelical world owes much to the life and ministry of Francis Schaeffer. Every now and then, God gives His Church a unique voice for His people—Schaeffer was such a voice. It is without fear of contradiction to say that Schaeffer was one of the evangelical giants of the latter half of the 20th century. We will do well to listen, for to do otherwise will deny that which was intended for our profit.

Related posts:

Francis Schaeffer’s wife Edith passes away on Easter weekend 2013 Part 7 (includes pro-life editorial cartoon)

The Mark of the Christian by Francis Schaeffer Part 3

THE MARK OF A CHRISTIAN – CLASS 3 – For True Christian Only/The Stand

Published on Mar 20, 2012

I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the video below. It is very valuable information for Christians to have.  Actually I have included a video below that includes comments from him on this subject.

Many liberals actually truly do argue for abortion rights over human rights. Prochoice advocate Elizabeth Williams came out and said that on 1-23-13 in her article on Salon. We hear reasons for abortion such as poverty,and  child abuse,  but why not consider adoption? Instead, the political left will stop at nothing to push the pro-abortion agenda. Why not stop and take an honest look at when life begins for the unborn child and when she begins to feel pain?

Francis Schaeffer

Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE

Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis

Who was Francis Schaeffer? by Udo Middelmann

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)

• Colin Duriez, Author
• Thursday, July 17, 2008

EDITOR’S NOTE:  The following is an excerpt from Francis Schaeffer by Colin Duriez (Crossway).

Preface

His preferred medium was talk—conversation, whether with an individual or with a large group of people. He had the uncanny knack of addressing an individual personally, even if one was sitting with several hundred other people. His tapes, books, and films are best seen as embodiments of his conversation or table talk. The overwhelming impression of those who met him briefly or more extensively, particularly in connection with his homely yet expansive community at L’Abri in Switzerland, was his kindness, a word that constantly occurs in people’s memories of him, whether Dutch, English, American, Irish, or other nationality.

His attire was quirky and memorable, dapper in knee-breeches and colorful tops, a goatee beard he wore later in life adding to his artistic, cultured appearance, far from the stereotype of the evangelical pastor. He was cool, knew about Bob Dylan, Jackson Pollock, Merce Cunningham, the older Wittgenstein, the younger Heidegger, and neoorthodoxy and spoke of postmodernism in the sixties before it was clearly post. He bluntly challenged evangelical and fundamentalist pietism and later superspirituality as “neo-platonic.” This challenge left at least one of his students, me, wondering at the time how it was “neo” as well as “platonic,” but it had the desired effect of leading to a spiritual pilgrimage that was often painful.

Francis Schaeffer was a small man whose giant passion for truth, for reality, for God, and for the needs of people made him a key shaper of modern Christianity, larger than any label put on him. This biography portrays his formation and achievement, illuminating the complex person and his vivid teaching.

Having studied under Francis Schaeffer when young, interviewed him about the course of his life near the end of it, and heard many friends and others acknowledge their debt to him, I waited in vain for a comprehensive biography. I have therefore tried to meet this need. It is now nearly a quarter-century since his death, and it seems to me that his essential message is as topical and important as it was in his lifetime. He has some detractors, but for me, he always eludes their nets. I have attempted to give an affectionate, accurate, warts-and-all portrait of a fascinating and complex person whom people always remembered. To ensure a truthful and reasonably objective portrait, I have been guided by over 180,000 words of oral history concerning Francis Schaeffer. This oral history was gathered by the historian Christopher Catherwood, his wife (musicologist Paulette Catherwood), and myself. We carried out interviews in Switzerland, the Netherlands, England, Northern Ireland, and the USA, talking to a variety of people, including former L’Abri members, workers, helpers, students, as well as members of the immediate family.

I’ve also made use of PCA (Presbyterian Church of America) archive material, early writings of Francis Schaeffer, letters, biography and memoirs by Edith Schaeffer, writings of the novelist Frank Schaeffer, and assessments of the pastor-intellectual (including Time magazine and De Spiegel). I’ve put this into a continuous narrative so that the reader might get to know Francis Schaeffer, his vision and concerns, and the thrust of his teaching (the purpose of my book is, of course, biographical, not to give an analysis of Schaeffer’s thought).

My hope is that my book may play a little part in drawing a new generation of readers to Schaeffer’s crucial work and message—sadly, they can no longer have the benefit of the teacher in person. I emphasize teacher. Schaeffer was of the old school of teacher or master—charismatic, memorable, learned. Though he wasn’t a scholar in the usually accepted sense, he pushed those who truly listened to explore more, to learn more, to be more prepared for living as a Christian and human being in today’s post-Christian, media-rich, exciting, dangerous world. Like John Milton I believe the image of God is captured in a unique way in books, and though Schaeffer is dead, his mind and spirit are alive in his writings, even though they lack the elegance and style of a C. S. Lewis. His message can still leap from mind to mind, as it did at the time I remember as a student. Our world still cries out for his imaginative L’Abri (“The Shelter”), which can and should take many forms for differing needs.

A biography of Francis Schaeffer must account for his remarkable impact on people of many types—the intellectual, the humble laborer, the scientist, the artist, the doubting Christian, the questioning nonbeliever; man, woman, youth, and child; white, black, hairy, and smooth. After Francis Schaeffer’s first visit to Europe, still suffering from the effects of war in 1947, a wall of parochialism in his life began to collapse—a process quickened by his friendship with the Dutchman Hans Rookmaaker and his own long-standing interest in and love for art. A biography of him (or a critique, for that matter) cannot itself be parochial in any sense, intellectual or regional. He was larger than any denominational or political context.

In this book I write about Francis Schaeffer’s strengths and flaws, placing him in the context of his times, portraying the formation of his ideas and the genesis of his lectures, writings, seminars, and movies, as well as the complex person and his relationships. I portray the establishment and impact of the L’Abri community, and the deeper idea of a “shelter,” as Schaeffer’s most representative and abiding achievement, showing the development of this unique phenomenon and revealing its importance in the context of church and recent cultural history. The man himself is pictured as in essence undivided, rather than consisting of two or even three Schaeffers, though he went through sometimes anguished change and growth. Even his late and very emphatic association with the American church in the Reagan years was for him a development from the L’Abri work, not a capitulation to what he called the “middle-class church.”

Though Francis Schaeffer is undivided, the distinct phases of his life are all portrayed here, each illuminating the other phases: his working-class childhood in Germantown, Pennsylvania; his intellectual and cultural awakening and student and seminary years; the ten years as a “separated” pastor in eastern and midwestern America; his early years in Europe working with his wife Edith for Children for Christ and speaking widely on the dangers of a new, deceptive liberalism as regards the Bible; the crisis in his faith resulting in a deep experience of the Holy Spirit; the birth and early struggles of L’Abri in Switzerland; the gradual opening up of a wider ministry through taped lectures, international speaking, books, and the formation of new L’Abri centers, first in England, then in other countries; and, at the end of his life, the dramatic, celebrity phase of the movies and large seminars, in which Schaeffer extended his cultural analysis to the sphere of politics, law, and government, putting his long-standing role as a compassionate controversialist into the spotlight, with all its distortions of view.

As I was completing this book, Frank Schaeffer’s Crazy for God was published. This is a confessional memoir of his life. While it vividly and sometimes poignantly portrays Frank’s own life and journey, it added little to what I had already documented about his father—as a biographer I knew his strengths and weaknesses. Many of those interviewed for this book spoke of them openly. What I must remark on is Frank’s portrayal of his father as keeping up a façade of conviction about his faith, especially in his final years. This bears no relation to what was the case. Francis Schaeffer was always open about his personal struggles and failings—this was the secret of his strength as a pastor and as a counselor. He emphatically did not divorce his inner and public life. When I was a young student, on my first or second visit to his L’Abri community in Switzerland, I once joined him on the descent to the chalet-style chapel for his regular Saturday night discussion. Suddenly he confided, “Colin, I feel like I’m about to jump out of an airplane without a parachute.”

In an unpublished letter to his close friend and peer Hans Rookmaaker, perhaps that same year, he confided that he was low after working hard on the manuscript of The God Who Is There with an editor: “I am so very much behind in every aspect of the work that I feel in a rather depressed mood which means of course that it is a difficult time. However, the Lord continues to open doors and we are thankful. . . . I would be glad if you would continue to pray for me personally because . . . this is a bit of a low period for me. However, I suppose I will be dug out in a couple of weeks and then I will feel better.”1

As my book reveals, Francis Schaeffer in the twilight of his life was as convinced of the truth-claims of Christianity and the efficacy of what he called the finished work of Christ as he was after his struggles in the early 1950s and even immediately after his conversion in 1930. Indeed, his conviction continued to deepen into his closing years, allowing him no respite from his grief over the lost condition of human beings and still expanding his empathy for those whom he encountered. In his final film series, Whatever Happened to the Human Race? He included a powerful episode about the historical underpinnings of Christian conviction.

What is the essence of Francis Schaeffer? Is it his system of theology, his books, his political campaigning, the existence of L’Abri? Ironically, though he attacked first the “old” modernism, then the “new” modernism of existentialism, neo-orthodoxy, and even, in anticipation, postmodernism, he demonstrates what might be called an existential Christianity—living in the moment; embracing the reality of existence; seeing the underpinning certainty of Christian faith in the historical death and resurrection of Jesus Christ; and reckoning on the specific intervention of the Holy Spirit in conversion at a point in time in a person’s life, after which he or she passes from death to life. Schaeffer might be dismissed as a scholar or even original thinker (though it can be argued he was both, but particularly the latter), but his realistic, existential Christianity is remarkable and perhaps unique for someone of his biblical orthodoxy in his generation and is the secret, perhaps, of his impact on many people of diverse backgrounds and nationalities.

A full list of acknowledgments appears toward the end of this book, but I must here especially express my thanks to Christopher and Paulette Catherwood, for their brilliant and enthusiastic help with the interviewing for this book; to Ted Griffin, for his wise and thorough editing; to others who added to this book in a very special way, including Lane Dennis, John and Prisca Sandri, Ranald and Susan Macaulay, and Udo and Deborah Middelmann. Though not well enough to give me more than a warm smile and greeting, Edith Schaeffer’s published records of the family and L’Abri history, and unpublished Family Letters must have a special mention. While Christopher, Paulette, and I interviewed, we received kindness and hospitality of a Dutch, Swiss, English, Irish, and American variety. I particularly remember the kindness of Marleen and Albert Hengelaar and the inspiring memories of the late Anky Rookmaaker as she reached back in her mind to the war years; the events she recounted seemed as yesterday. It is a privilege even to share a little in others’ lives.

Francis Schaeffer
Copyright © 2008 by Colin Duriez 
Published by Crossway Books, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers 
1300 Crescent Street Wheaton, Illinois 60187

Related posts:

Francis Schaeffer’s wife Edith passes away on Easter weekend 2013 Part 7 (includes pro-life editorial cartoon)

Related posts:

Francis Schaeffer’s wife Edith passes away on Easter weekend 2013 Part 7 (includes pro-life editorial cartoon)