On The Front Lines
OldSpeak asks "Whatever Happened to Francis Schaeffer?'
John W. Whitehead Provides Commentary on Unearthed Schaeffer Speech
In a book published in 1979, philosopher Francis August Schaeffer asked, "Whatever Happened to the Human Race?" A quarter of a century later in an interview with Oldspeak, John W. Whitehead, founder and president of The Rutherford Institute, examines Schaeffer's ideas as expressed in an April 1981 lecture. To read "Christians Under the Scripture: A Lecture by Dr. Francis Schaeffer" with commentary by John W. Whitehead, click here.
Whitehead, who worked with Schaeffer in the 1970s on his book "The Christian Manifesto," was present 23 years ago when Schaeffer addressed an audience of several hundred people at Notre Dame University. Whitehead has noted that even though Schaeffer's observations have proven profoundly prescient, sadly, recognition of his contributions has waned to the point at which his writings and his prophetic call to authentic Christian action have been largely forgotten.
With a transcript of Schaeffer's lecture as his reference point, Whitehead provides a retrospective encounter with the person of whom Christianity Today said in 1997: "Perhaps no intellectual save C.S. Lewis affected the thinking of [20th century] evangelicals more profoundly; perhaps no leader of the period save Billy Graham left a deeper stamp on the movement as a whole."
Among Whitehead's assertions about Schaeffer's positions:
- "One can be a Christian and still think. Christianity ... is in actuality an intellectual religion. It doesn't have anything to do with all the superficiality that people had previously associated with it."
- "The basic problem is that today's evangelical establishment, which controls much of what is called Christian, really doesn't place many demands on the average Christian, intellectually or otherwise."
- "Schaeffer argues that our entire existence and the surrounding world shout to us that God does exist."
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