Schaefferism as a World View

A book by Francis Schaeffer with the subtitle “Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture,” especially when it is accompanied by a costly film series which is being promoted aggressively this year through seminars and personal appearances, is an evangelical media event. Although there are no new ideas or themes in the book unfamiliar to readers of his earlier titles, it is obvious that Schaeffer, in an effort reminiscent of Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation series, is making a concerted effort to reach the mass audience with the Christian message. It also provides a natural opportunity for his readers to sit back and assess the validity and direction of his thought. All too often Schaeffer’s work receives devoted and uncritical praise when what it needs is a critical response.

Like Escape from Reason, one of the early books, this new work is an outline of the historical development of ideas within Western culture from Roman times to the present. Schaeffer is convinced that humanity’s ultimate religious and moral values spill over into the external world and become worked out in action. He endeavors to show the utter inadequacy of human-centered values to support meaningful existence, and interprets phenomena like the fall of Rome and the breakup of the Middle Ages in relation to the underlying religious and philosophical presuppositions of the times.

Only the biblical faith, according to Schaeffer, supplies an adequate framework for the living of life and the viability of cultures. This basic thesis, even though pretentious for so short a work, is certainly crucial, and has been put forth by other Christian intellectuals. There are, however, some weaknesses in Schaeffer’s manner of developing it.

Philosophically, there is evidence that the author is not fully aware of the nature of his own argument. Although the book, like other of Schaeffer’s works, gives the impression of being a serious intellectual argument for the truth of the Bible, in actual fact the mode of argument is existential and the thrust practical. There are no metaphysical or historical arguments found in it that approach the truth question in other than a utilitarian way. The entire concern is with the practical effects of believing one set of presuppositions rather than another.

Promoting the biblical claim by an argument based on its secular utility is not in itself a weakness. What is amiss is that Schaeffer does not seem to recognize the existential nature of his argument, and persists in rejecting such approaches when others advance them, in the strongest terms. Why should Kant suffer so at Schaeffer’s hand for locating important clues to the truth of religion in the realm of practical reason (Schaeffer’s “upper story”) when that is exactly what Schaeffer himself does? Of course there are verbal disclaimers in the book, denying the thrust of this criticism, but the facts speak for themselves. Schaeffer’s argument is existentially and not logically compelling, and it is not clear that he has grasped this point.

Furthermore, Schaeffer is also unaware that an apologetic based upon the practical effects of a set of presuppositions cannot by itself sustain the rigorous orthodoxy he hopes it will, but could be used just as well to ground a more liberal theology. In fact, this style of utilitarian argument is the mainstay of liberal apologetics which, having abandoned the more traditional “objective” lines of argument, has retreated to an exclusively existentialist emphasis. There is a gap between Schaeffer’s apologetic and his theology which he apparently has not noticed.

On the historical front, the book is very shaky. Schaeffer leaps from one writer to another, from one epoch to the next, with breathtaking swiftness, pausing only briefly to cast a superficial glance on this painting or that novel, and never acknowledging for a moment the existence of other interpretations than his own—even Christian ones. How are we to judge his thesis that Rome fell due to inadequate spiritual foundations when a scant eight pages are devoted to the entire subject? And what are we to make of his judgment when in a single paragraph he dismisses Karl Barth—whose massive labors toppled the edifice of liberal theology in his day—as nothing more than a liberal in disguise? Strange too is the absence of any reference to the radical reformation which occurred alongside the conservative one, or to the existence of any serious school of philosophy in our day other than existentialism.

The reader will receive a strong impression that Schaeffer is forcing highly complex data into a tight interpretive scheme of his own choosing, and those unsympathetic to the thesis will regard it as arbitrary and subjective. Lining up visible historical events with their invisible spiritual causes is not easy even in exhaustive studies, and Schaeffer’s claim to be doing that in this slender book and on this scale is ludicrous. The pretentiousness of the effort will return to haunt him.

Theologically, pitting himself against virtually all contemporary theologians, Schaeffer makes a lot of the importance of having “absolutes,” which is tied in closely with revering the Bible as a book inerrant in every detail and exalted above cultural limitations. In a special note addressed to Christians at the close of the book, he warns them against yielding an inch on this point. Here he is speaking for a particular theological position developed at Princeton in the last century and can expect to receive a hearing only on the right wing of the evangelical movement. How responsible is it really to insist that the Bible is free of cultural limitations when its most obvious feature is precisely its time-bound Semitic character? How responsible is it to stress its perfect errorlessness when errors are present, as Schaeffer admits, in every manuscript and translation that exists?

Surely there is something wrong with this kind of apologetic. And why the emphasis on “absolutes” being the source of salvation rather than Jesus Christ? There is some indication here that Schaeffer, like the old liberals, has sacrificed authentically biblical themes to some ideas of his own because of the requirements of his apologetic argument. For all his desire to be true to the Bible, he has a tendency to tailor its message to his system.

Politically Schaeffer is puritan in a post-puritan age. He is clearly nostalgic for better times in northern Europe and American, when Protestant Christians controlled things. He talks about rebuilding Western society, and restoring the sagging Christian cultural consensus he says once existed. He speaks warmly of the political freedoms won by the Reformation, and joins with Solzhenitsyn in advocating a strong Western posture militarily.

Schaeffer is a Constantinian Christian, lamenting the passing of the Protestant corpus christianum. He seems quite proud of the performance of Western states since the Reformation, and is convinced that it is our Christian duty to wield power in the interests of reforming the world and its structures by means of Christian principles. In short, he is a conservative Calvinist, politically as well as theologically.

Many Christians are less enamored with the results of Christians wielding power historically, and less hopeful of a social strategy conducted on essentially worldly lines. Schaeffer’s failure to mention the witness of the Radical Reformation is regrettable because it is something we need to hear. It warns of the darker side of power, calling us rather to check it than to use it.

There is very little to be proud of in a social and cultural history which today finds the very countries most affected by Schaeffer’s brand of conservative Christianity the overlords in an unjust world economic order which grinds the face of the numberless poor. Schaeffer’s political principles, which justify the Christian use of worldly power in righteous causes, would point one more toward revolution than to a holy puritan commonwealth.

Ironically, there is political wisdom in Schaeffer, not in his book, but in his community, L’Abri, which consciously and effectively strives to be an alternative society, a city on the hill, the embodiment in history of the social truth of the coming kingdom. The building of new community rather than striving after the puritan theocracy is surely God’s word to this generation.

Positively, How Should We Then Live? can make a contribution to many Christians who need to be challenged to think about developments in the culture around them, and to non-Christians who may be stimulated to reconsider their own spiritual roots; it is a pleasure to encounter an unashamed apologetic, unafraid to take a stand in the midst of the most secular thought. But it is important that the work be done well. I offer these criticisms constructively.

The apologetic task cannot be done by a single individual, however brilliant, operating independently of the help and correction of other, speaking as an oracle on a lofty mountain. I am troubled by the messianic posture Schaeffer assumes, giving his opinions in a dogmatic manner as if they were the only answers that deserve to be called Christian. Now that his work is truly public as a result of this latest thrust, I hope a genuine dialogue can begin between Schaeffer and many other Christians scholars—so that his input will not be a source of division and bitterness because of the imbalances and uncorrected mistakes, but will become part of the communal effort to reach our generation with the gospel of Christ.

How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture, by Francis A. Schaeffer. Fleming H. Revell Company, Old Tappan, New Jersey, 1976, 258 pp.

Clark H. Pinnock, a former student of Francis Schaeffer, was a contributing editor of Sojourners and professor of systematic theology at McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario when this article appeared.