Francis Schaeffer : A 20th Century Prophet by Chris White

Have you ever noticed that God fits men (and women) to a ministry suitable to their times and place?  As a student of history I have often imagined what it would be like to have been a minister (or even a monk) in an epoch different from my own, but I don't operate under any illusion that the times were simpler or that people were more godly than they are now.  Every era has its challenges and blessings and the voice of Providence says to each of us what Mordecai said to Queen Esther: you have been raised up for such a time as this (Esther 4:14).  We are given our day and our challenge is to serve the Lord in the times in which we live.  The 20^th Century was a time of great spiritual darkness all over the world, and one of the voices God raised up to challenge the darkness was that of Francis A. Schaeffer. 

Newsweek magazine called Schaeffer a “guru to fundamentalism” and this was entirely appropriate.  By the mid-twentieth century, young university age people in the West were disenchanted with the structures and institutions of their society (including the church and their families) and were seeking the meaning of life in alternative ways and communities.  Like a mystic of the East, Schaeffer and his wife Edith lived in a mountain village in Switzerland and the young looking for wisdom and direction came and lived with them in a small community.

That said, Francis Schaeffer didn't look like your typical guru.  In fact his appearance was more than a bit eccentric with his long white hair and goatee (long before this was common) and his trademark knickerbocker pants with knee high socks no matter what the occasion.  It makes sense if you live in the Swiss Alps, but I fear that if Schaeffer ever went to Hawaii on vacation (I don't know if he did or didn't) that you'd find him on the beach with the same outfit.  He also had a higher pitched voice (not the first choice of great orators) and as Time magazine noted “he was sad-faced.”

Chuck Colson explores the legacy of Francis Schaeffer here 

Although his teaching was thoroughly Christian, Schaeffer rarely quoted from the Bible and was just as comfortable using the secular as he was the sacred to make his point.  He had an encyclopedic knowledge of history that allowed him to connect important events together and show how the present course is the result of a long flow of human history.  Francis Schaeffer was a prolific reader, writer, and teacher.  Although he was to later engage in political activism, his core belief was that “ideas are totally a matter of life and death” and thus his life work was mostly about shaping the thoughts of a new generation of Christians.

Francis Schaeffer’s ministry can easily be divided up into three phases.  First he was a pastor, later he moved into being an apologist for the faith, and finally in the last part of his life he was more a prophet.

The Pastoral Phase:

Schaeffer was born in 1912 and grew up in a working class home and community in Eastern Pennsylvania.  His upbringing ignored the intellect and nurtured the technical and practical arts.  Francis spent much of his childhood working side by side with his father learning home repair and construction and seemed destined to a life of working with his hands.  When he was in grade school his parents received a letter from his teacher telling them that Francis seemed to have real intellectual promise.  Rather than build on this, they concealed it from him for fear he might join the ranks of the ivory tower elite which they thought to be of no value.  Instead, his parents constantly steered him towards a technical education and career.

Although the Schaeffer family were not what anyone would categorize as deeply religious, Francis and his family attended a very liberal Presbyterian Church on a weekly basis.  When Francis was a teenager he was asked by the church to tutor a Russian count in English.  Francis went to a bookshop to get an English book to use and quite mistakenly the bookseller gave him a book on Greek philosophy.  In the process of tutoring, Schaeffer read this book and was captivated by its approach to answering the big questions in life.

For a time, Schaeffer looked only to philosophy for answers but in time felt that before he gave up on Christianity, he would read the Bible from cover-to-cover to see what it really was about.  What he found was that the Bible was filled with answers to life’s deepest questions and began to trust that the Bible was truly the truth mankind needed.

With his home and church background, Francis, then 17, thought he was completely alone in his belief that the Bible was the Word of God.  It was by chance that he passed by a revival tent one night and over heard the preacher saying things that he believed as well.  He was overjoyed to find that there were Christians who believed as he did.

As Francis grew in his faith he felt a strong call to ministry, but his parents strongly objected and wanted him to become an electrical engineer.  When Francis wanted to leave his technical school for a Christian college there was a great confrontation between he and his father.  Before he decided to disobey his father, Francis went into the basement and put what once would call a fleece before the Lord (Judges 6:36).  Schaeffer flipped a coin three times changing it from heads to tails and back to heads on whether he should go and prepare for ministry.  Each time, the Lord’s cause won and Francis stood in real confidence that despite his parents objections, he was to become a minister of the Gospel.

By 1935 Schaeffer had graduated college and entered Westminster Theological Seminary to begin ministerial studies.  This was a very turbulent period in the Presbyterian Church as they were dividing along the lines of Modernism and its attendant questioning of the Bible, and Evangelicalism and its strong confidence in the Bible.  Fortunately (at least in my opinion), Francis held a firm belief in the Scriptures and remained within the Evangelical camp of his Church.

During his first ten years of pastoral work, Francis and his wife Edith, worked among working class congregations in Pennsylvania and Missouri.  It is telling that although Francis was by most human measures a brilliant thinker, when he ministered and called upon the members of his Churches, he was frequently working on projects or home repairs with them.  He saw both humble people and humble work as sacred and never felt it was beneath his dignity as a clergyman.

Francis and his wife were also very talented children’s and youth ministers.  When you read his weighty books or see his films, its hard to imagine him doing flannel-graphs and teen barbecues. But  he did this both in the United States and then as a missionary working in Europe after World War 2.  In fact, his work grew into an international ministry called Children for Christ.  And really his being able to relate to the younger generation was an integral part of his work with the L’Abri community and the college age generation of the 1960’s.

In 1948 Francis Schaeffer and his entire family moved to Switzerland to serve with the efforts of  Children for Christ and also to work on the formation of the International Council of Christian Churches.

Like most Christians of strong conviction, Francis Schaeffer had his own ‘dark night of the soul’ in 1951.  During this time there was deep division within his denomination and the way people were talking and acting really caused him to question the reality of Christianity.  He had also been working very hard and was experiencing burnout which robbed him of a lot of joy and well-being. For several months he went through a deep crisis where he reevaluated everything he believed, reading the Bible and praying and walking for hours.  In the end he concluded that what the Bible teaches is true, but that men were emphasizing the things we believe for salvation to the exclusion of our need to live in holiness.  This crisis led him to eventually sever some of his denominational ties but also led him to a foundational belief that true spirituality is marked by belief and behavior.

The Apologetic Phase:

For several years the Schaeffers had been seeking God for new avenues of ministry in Switzerland.  In 1955 a whole new phase of his ministry was inaugurated when his eldest daughter brought some friends home from college who were struggling with some big questions about life.  Francis was able to share in a way that really made sense to the younger generation that historic Christianity had the answers to life’s biggest questions.  Before long, more college students started coming for the weekend and the long discussions held around the table evolved into a ministry known as L’Abri which is French for shelter.

Schaeffer said later that it was never intended to be an evangelistic ministry to the young, to intellectuals, or to drug users.  It was simply a commitment to their prayers that God would somehow use them to demonstrate his reality in their generation.  By 1957, L’Abri was filled with 25 guests each weekend.  They developed a pattern of meals, walks, discussions and Sunday Church services that created a conducive atmosphere for philosophical and religious ideas to be shared.

Download Teachings from Francis Schaeffer from the L'Abri Website 

Francis would read and teach classes throughout Italy and Switzerland during the weekdays.  Many of his students were Europeans who were very much aware of the post-Christian existential philosophies floating around at this time.  In a way, these students served as tutors to Schaeffer as he would see the consequences of existential thought being lived out in their lives. 

By 1960, the work of L’Abri had expanded so much that the sheer numbers required the informal weekends to be replaced with a full-time study program.  L’Abri actually caught the attention of Time magazine who called it a mission to intellectuals.  With the steady stream of visitors to their home in Switzerland, Francis read and prepared and became fueled with a passion to take his messages to a wider audience.  He felt he had the answers for a generation that was rapidly becoming lost but his wife Edith really put the brakes on any sort of speaking tours that would take him away from home.   This caused a real strain in their marriage at one point, but eventually Edith relented and eventually Schaeffer embarked on another phase of ministry which found him lecturing at some of the leading universities of the Western world.

Francis and Edith Schaeffer

The Prophetic Phase:

By the 1970s, the Schaeffers were well-known throughout the world in evangelical circles.  They were quite different because rather than encourage disengagement from the culture as was the standard practice in the day, they encouraged an engagement which would challenge cultural presuppositions.

Surprisingly, the Schaeffers were even involved with politicians in Washington DC seeking to influence the government for Christ.   Then President Gerald Ford invited them to the White House for dinner as their oldest son Michael had been a L’Abri student.   By the late 70’s Schaeffer had begun to focus much of his efforts on fighting abortion.  He joined C. Everett Koop who would later become the Surgeon General under Ronald Reagan and started a series of seminars and films which challenged the ideas of abortion and euthanasia based on the premise that all life has dignity because it originates with God.

One of his greatest projects was making How Should We Then Live?   This was a 10 part film series and book he wrote in the mid 70’s which crystallized his thoughts on the decline of Western Culture.  The film series and book were intended to be a Christian rebuttal to another popular film series produced by historian Kenneth Clark called Civilization.  Although the film series was very well received in the United States, it proved quite divisive in the L’Abri community.  The community had always prayed together over big decisions before they were made, and in this case the decision was made quite unilaterally by Francis and Edith.  They also broke with their longstanding tradition of no direct solicitation, and solicited funds from their large mailing list of supporters for the film project.  The film series is guilty of being almost too sweeping in its summary of history, but it has made a complex subject accessible to many and though now over 30 years old, it is more relevant today than it was when it was produced.

Watch How Should We Then Live on Youtube here 

In 1981 Schaeffer wrote his book “A Christian Manifesto” which called Christians to civil disobedience, and even resisting the government by force if need be especially over the issue of abortion.  This book along with ‘The Great Evangelical Disaster” written in 1984 which sharply criticized many evangelical leaders for being so accommodating to American culture had many critics.  Many felt he had become uncharitable and had become too involved in politics.  In reality, the things he criticized and saw ahead for the Church did come to pass.  Prophets are frequently without honor in their own day.

Schaeffer was diagnosed with cancer in 1978 and after a 6 year battle with it died in his home in Minnesota.

The Legacy:

The L’Abri community today has an outpost in the United States and sites in 6 other countries.  Each community is engaged in reaching their culture through various projects but also runs a 2-3 month study program for visiting students.  All of Schaeffer’s daughters and their husbands are involved in the work.

Schaeffer’s influence has extended to many ministries and careers such as Chuck Colson, Randall Terry of Operation Rescue, Social commentator Cal Thomas, and Jerry Falwell

How Shall We Then Live?  Although it was criticized for its simplicity the film series is credited with moving many evangelicals in the 1970’s to become politically active.

One of the greatest of Schaeffer’s legacies is his writings.  His first couple of books Escape from Reason and  The God Who is There actually put the publisher Intervarsity Press on the map in the Christian publishing world.  Schaeffer wrote many books and pamphlets, however he was not the traditional writer who sits pen in hand.  Many of his books were from lectures that were taped, transcribed, and then edited for print.  Many of the ideas were not his alone, but rather came from long discussions with his circle of friends at L’Abri.

The big thing that make his books important is that he explains some of the most difficult theological and philosophical issues of the 20^th century in a way that is very non-technical and is accessible to the everyday Christian.  Vernon Grounds, a fellow classmate of Schaeffer and a leading evangelical teacher in his own right, wrote this about the life of Francis Schaeffer:

“It is difficult for a contemporary to pronounce definitive judgement on the achievement of his peers.  Time performs a winnowing process in which once-towering heroes sink into oblivion, and those who were little applauded while living gain stature and significance.  My own surmise, however, is that, while many evangelical luminaries will fade into obscure references in church history, Francis Schaeffer, will be recognized as a key figure in 20^th Century Evangelicalism.”

View more pictures and a timeline of Schaeffer's life here 

Prophet William Wade Harris (1860-1929) : Translator of Christianity in West Africa by Chris White

Prophet Harris

Lamin Sanneh in his book Whose Religion is Christianity?,  makes the case that Christianity is always a translated religion.  What he means by this is that the autographs of the Gospels were not even written in the original language of Jesus and thus from the start the message and religion of Jesus Christ was not the property of any particular people or geographic locale.  Instead, it should be considered normative that Christianity is going to have a vernacular quality as it enters the different cultures of our world while at the same time transforming individuals and social structures.  In this article I reflect upon the ministry of William Wade Harris of Liberia and what it tells us about God, ourselves, and the need for a translated Christianity. 

Liberia in western Africa

A brief sketch of Liberian history is required to appreciate the context of William Harris.  Liberia (Latin for “Land of Freedom”) was founded in 1822 as an independent colony for the repatriation of slaves from North America and the West Indies.  Space does not permit much detail here but Liberia has never been able to live up to its name or objectives.  First of all the majority of slaves who did come died within three years having no natural immunities to the tropical diseases of the region.  Secondly, the government they established took American freedoms and hypocrisy to another level.  Liberia has over 16 indigenous peoples who were far greater in number than the colonizing former slaves, yet an unjust system was put in place where virtually all political power and economic opportunity resided with the newcomers.  Ironically, even within Liberia there was also a replication of American racism.  Mulattos held the highest position in society and actually had a policy of separation, while others, former slaves or indigenous had their place in society determined by the shade of their skin.  Liberia was a land of freedom but some were freer than others.

William Wade’ Harris was born in Liberia around 1860.  His parents were of the Grebo tribe which was one of the larger indigenous peoples living in the colony.  By the time Harris was a teenager war broke out between the Grebo tribes and the Liberian government.  The conflict started when the Grebo tribes wanted to secede from Liberia and confederate into their own kingdom which would enable them to begin trading with the outside world.  The United States was called in to negotiate the conflict (which, given the Civil War and the subsequent misdeeds of Reconstruction seems laughable) and their emissary was able to negotiate of compromise where the Grebos would be given full citizenship and allowed to participate in the economy but they must remain as Liberians. In the end the Americans went home with a warm feeling in their hearts and nothing was to change in Liberia.


One of the good aspects of the Liberian constitution was that it recognized and protected religious freedom.  Although Christianity held a predominate place in the thinking and structures of their society, the African traditional religions were also allowed to be practiced by their adherents.  Space was also made for many Christian missionary endeavors to the indigenous peoples who eventually touched the life of Harris as he was fully converted and baptized a Methodist in his mid to late twenties.

Eventually Harris was to leave the Methodists and join the Episcopalians where he later became a catechist and school teacher in one of their mission church schools.  In time he also held a second job working for the Liberian government.  But his conversion to Christianity did not make him apolitical.  By his late 40’s Harris became active in a group that was trying to get the British government of neighboring Sierra Leone to make the Grebo lands of Liberia a protectorate.  While not offering them the autonomy that their earlier plan of secession did in 1875,  Harris and the others felt the English would rule them with more equity than the Americo-Liberians did.  Nothing of this plan ever materialized; however, Harris miscalculated the situation and was caught flying a Union Jack instead of a Liberian flag.  For his activism, William Wade’ Harris now around 50 with a wife and children, found himself unemployed and a political prisoner.

 While in prison, Harris has a life transforming experience of epic proportion.  Harris claims to have had a visitation from the angel Gabriel who comes to him and commissions him as a prophet.  I can’t resist inserting here that Jewish and Catholic traditions regard Gabriel the Lord’s first minister of encouragement and consolation which seems quite apropos for someone in Harris’ position.  Different accounts of this event yield different details but the essence of the divine encounter is that God  anointed Harris as a prophet sent to prepare hearts to follow Christ and be ready for His second coming.  Part of this prophetic commission was to discontinue dressing in western style clothing including the wearing of shoes and to shun all alcohol.  One source suggests that the rejection of European dress was to be the sign of his conversion and the symbol of the simplicity and humility of the Gospel.


Apparently Harris was quite ready to obey his new commission as he adopted a new wardrobe which included a long white robe, a white turban for his head, a tall cross made of cane, a calabash to fill with baptismal water, a gourd rattle, and a Bible.  The white clothing, according to Isichei[i], was a symbol of purity and separation from the world. 


Unlike the prophets of Israel, it was not apparently completely clear to Harris who his audience was to be.  He started preaching in Liberia, but like all before him, he was a prophet without honor in his homeland.  Actually, Liberia was heavily Christianized and more likely his message of turning from the ancient religion to the living God didn’t apply to many people.  The story does get interesting when Harris crosses the border to the Ivory Coast and begins going village to village preaching to a largely non-Christian audience.   Harris would be accompanied by two or three women who would sing, dance, and play the rattle as an accompaniment to his preaching.  His basic message was that:

1.      God and Christ came to vanquish and replace the spirits of tradition

2.      Christ’s Second Coming was imminent

3.      Preparation for the Parousia required keeping the Ten Commandments, observing a Sunday Sabbath, accepting the authority of the Bible, and the rejection and burning of fetishes.

4.      Be baptized immediately.

From a western perspective this message may seem imbalanced or even sub-Christian but taken from the milieu of African traditional religion this is on par with John the Baptist’s line “Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand!!”  Traditional African religion has several core beliefs.  One is that of a Supreme Creator who made all things and people and executes justice.  This god is far off and very distant.  There is also the belief in lesser spirits who dwell in all natural things and in close proximity to people and must be dealt with through ritual magic.  The spirits of ancestors must also be ritually honored. The presence of formal cults with temples and priests are not found in these cultures.  Traditional religion is more free-wheeling with local practices and practitioners. 

Fetishes like these are a part of traditional tribal religious practice

Such practitioners are called witch-doctors or shamans.  These have special skills in which they are able to get these lesser spirits to inhabit material objects either made by nature, such as a rock, or crafted by man such as a wood carving.   Known as fetishes, these then are inanimate objects that have the power of the spirits in them because of the shaman’s incantations.



In essence, the use of fetishes is prophylactic.  They are not objects of veneration or worship, but rather preventatives of evil or illness or misfortune of body or soul.  Their use offers a sense of security in an insecure world of good and evil spirits.  Burning them, would be making a decisive break with the lesser spirits and turning fully to the Creator God for your security.


Harris, with the chanting, dancing, shaking of the gourd rattle, the large walking stick with a cross, and long while robe, while looking quite weird to us, would not be too big of a reach for his audience who might look upon him as a new kind of shaman.  Given this context the message is strongly biblical:  There is no god but God and his Son Jesus Christ,  Jesus Christ is coming soon,  don’t be making up your own religion any longer but turn to the authority of God, and put your faith in the God who is sovereign over the world not in your ability to manipulate your circumstances through magic.



The burning of fetishes and immediate baptism are linked together.  In Harris’ day a convert to Christianity had to go through a long period of preparation before receiving baptism.  This long period of waiting would be a hindrance to conversion.  It could be a dangerous thing to live without the protection of your fetishes while you wait for the protection of God that would come from your baptism.  Thus Harris was also recognizing a cultural issue that missionary community was overlooking. 


 Like an authentic prophet, Harris was not on a church planting crusade.  In most instances he would direct those who responded and were baptized to join themselves to the congregations of the missionary churches.  Those who lived in areas where missionaries had not yet come were baptized and formed into congregations under the oversight of 12 elders or apostles.  They were told to wait until teachers came with the Bible for them.  Years later when Methodist missionaries reached Ivory Coast and Ghana, to their surprise and delight they had a whole group already waiting and eager to join their churches. 


The foray into Ivory Coast and Ghana which lasted only a year and a half was ended abruptly by his deportation back to Liberia by provincial authorities.  For the next 15 years he made many attempts but was never able to return.  He spent the remainder of his days in Liberia wearing his distinctive clothing and preaching but with little effect.  He passed away in 1929. 


During his brief ministry he baptized an estimated 120,000 converts.  Their fruit has remained and Harrist Churches are spread throughout Africa today.  Although not mentioned in this article, it should be noted that several other prophets were also working in Central Africa around the same time.  Like Harris they were not commissioned by any mission board or Church but from a divine call given in a supernatural way.  They were imprisoned and then they would have a brief but very successful period of preaching in which a great harvest would come in.  While not definitive proof of Harris’ encounter with Gabriel, when you see a trend it is difficult to ignore it or write it off. 


So what does this fascinating story tell us about God, ourselves, and the need for a translated Christianity?  Let me propose several ideas.  First of all while God does work through our structures of evangelism and mission work, in many cases He works in spite of them or even around them.  Jesus told Nicodemus that “the wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit (John 3:8).”  The work of redeeming humanity is God’s responsibility and He will use whomever and whatever method He wishes.  This is not to suggest that all strategy should be abandoned in Christian ministry but those of us in the work should hold such things lightly and be open to the mysterious and surprising ways God works.

Harrist Church women today

This story also serves as a reminder that spiritual crisis often precedes our greatest usefulness to the Lord.  What happens to Harris in the crucible of imprisonment is a total transformation.  He is no longer the catechist of an imported Christianity wearing the clothing of an imported culture.  This previous life is stripped away and a new message and image emerge that is influential far beyond the size and scope of one man.  Many of us go through our toughest years around age 50 (as Harris did) and there is a need to look to God through the hard times and let Him remake us for His purposes.  The only other option in such times is to remake God to fit our disappointments and grow increasingly bitter and lukewarm towards him. 


 Finally, the Harris story reflects another truth concerning the nature of Christianity.  Christianity is a religion that has all the answers for mankind.  But mankind is not all asking the same set of questions.  To reference Dr. Sanneh again, Global Christianity seeks make Christianity one-size-fits-all, where World Christianity allows for central orthodox thought but a richness of difference that is in line with the tapestry of cultures that inhabit our globe.[ii]  Missionary work then must bring the message with as little distortion as possible but not try to control the outcome or implications of living out that message.  This is the work of the receiving culture.  As Chidester points out there was a rejection by the prophets of African traditional religion but also foreign missionary Christianity.  What the African prophets point to is the need to take Christianity and make it African.[iii]   This is true in every setting.

Sources:

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[i] Isechei, Elizabeth, “A Soul of Fire” 4 Aug, 2005, Christian History and Biography,

                http://www.ctlibrary.com/7847

[ii] Sanneh, Lamin, Whose Religion is Christianity? : The Gospel Beyond the West, Grand Rapids:

                 Eerdmans, 2003

[iii] Chidester, David, Christianity: A Global History, San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2000. p. 419