The only thing I’ve read of Francis Schaeffer is He is There and He is not Silent (Wheaton: Tyndale, 1972).  It has been a few years since I’ve read the whole thing, so I’ll have to re-read it again soon.  In sermon prep this week, I did re-read part of the book.  One quote stuck out (from pages 33-34):

“Evangelicals often make a mistake today.  Without knowing it, they slip over into a weak position.  They often thank God in their prayers for the revelation we have of God in Christ.  This is good as far as it goes, and it is wonderful that we do have a factual revelation of God in Christ.  But I hear very little thanks from the lips of evangelicals today for the propositional revelation in verbalized form which we have in the Scriptures.  He must indeed not only be there, but he must have spoken.  And he must have spoken in a way which is more than simply a quarry for emotional, upper-story experiences.”

“We need propositional facts.  We need to know who he is, and what his character is, because his character is the law of the universe.  He has told us what his character is, and this becomes our moral law, our moral standard.  It is not arbitrary, for it is fixed in God himself, in what has always been.  It is the very opposite of what is relativistic.  It is either this or morals are not morals, but simply sociological averages or arbitrary standards imposed by society or the state.  It is one or the other.”

I especially appreciate the next paragraph:

“It is important to remember that it is not improper for men to ask these questions concerning metaphysics and morals, and Christians should point out that there is no answer to these questions except that God is there and he is not silent.  Students and other young people should not be told to keep quiet when they ask these questions.  They are right to ask them, but we should make it plain to them that these are the only answers.  It is this or nothing.”

shane lems

sunnyside wa

Michael Patton shares his list at Parchment and Pen.  Here are the top five:

5. The God Who is There, Francis Schaeffer

Schaeffer’s works could all be put on this list, but this particular work is representative of a timeless defense from a timeless scholar.

4. Faith Has its Reasons, Rob Bowman and Kenneth Boa

The best book for one who’s desire it is to understand not only what apologetics is, but how it is to be done. The authors give a great overview of all the different Christian apologetic methods asking the question “How are we to defend the faith?” They then discuss and defend Presuppositionalism, Fideism, Evidentialism, and Classical approaches to the defense of the faith. For the young, aspiring apologist, this is the first book that should be read.

3. The Resurrection of the Son of God, N. T. Wright

Simply put, this is the most comprehensive work on the resurrection of Christ ever produced. Whatever you think of N. T. Wright, there is no debate that this is an immensely valuable contribution to the Christian witness.

2. The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, Habermas and Licona

Simply a must have for everyone. The resurrection of Christ is the central issue of Christianity. If Christ rose from the grave, Christianity is true; if he did not, it is false. Everyone needs to have a good defense of the resurrection and this work represents the best of the popular options. Get it!

1. Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis

How can I do justice to what might be the most significant and influential apologetic work in all of Christianity? All I can say is that if you have not read Mere Christianity, shame on you.

What other good apologetics and philosophy books are you guys reading these days? 

…was inspired by the late Francis Schaeffer.  I came across the phrase while enjoying Bryan A. Follis expound on the legacy of Schaeffer’s apologetic:

For Schaeffer the heart of the problem of modern man is the issue of personality and whether or not one lives in a personal universe.  He believed that modern thinking viewed man as something determined by chemical, psychological, or sociological factors—a sort of machine.  Schaeffer felt that “man is increasingly getting lost as he doesn’t understand who he is” and is “lost among the machines.” [quoted from Truth with Love: The Apologetics of Francis Schaeffer by Bryan A. Follis, Crossway 2006]

With a sympathetic spirit, this site aims to serve as an archive of thoughts while taking in the scenery of our postmodern society.  And perhaps along the way we [in Christ] can leave breadcrumbs of truth and love for those lost among the machines.

Enjoy!

1. Have you heard of the Lausanne movement? They’re gearing up for the 2010 conference in Cape Town, South Africa.  John Stott, Billy Graham, and Francis Schaeffer were heavily involved in the 1974 gathering.  Sounds pretty cool.

2. Weekly Standard writer Noemie Emery spells out the recent troubles of our nation’s president.  Here’s a key slice of her commentary:

These are the five contradictions to Barack Obama that have misled the public, without the intent to deceive. He does have a complex, exotic, and intriguing background; he did rise by his gifts from inauspicious beginnings; he does have a genuinely moderate temperament (it is not possible to lie for this long about one’s personality); and it is hardly his doing that being biracial–a net minus when he was born at the start of the civil rights movement–had, by the time he was running for president, turned into a tactical plus.

But these things, which were true, were not the whole story. His background was wide, but his political world was remarkably limited; his early years were hard, but his political rise was too easy and effortless; his temperament was cool, but his agenda was otherwise; and in a number of areas he appealed at the same time to quite different people, whose desires were wholly opposed.

3. David Brooks excoriates talk-show personalities like Glenn Beck of the conservative movement and calls for new leadership in the movement.  He makes some good points, I think.

4. The town of Lodi, California will continue to invoke the Lord’s blessing on their meetings.  Good to hear.

5. What is it like to attend a prep-school while living in the American inner-city?  Here’s a look from the NYT Magazine.

6. Wonderful news: apparently, abortion support rates are falling “sharply,” according to CNN.  Let’s pray for much, much more of this.

–Have a great weekend, all.

(Image of Francis Schaeffer: VCY)

I recently finished reading “Art and the Bible” by Francis Schaeffer. My recurring thought as I read it: Oh how I wish I had read this two years ago!

It is a small book, composed of two essays; Art in the Bible is the first one, and Some Perspectives on Art is the other essay. They are a great resource to the Christian artist that surrounds himself with many many humanist ideologies about art and its purpose.

In the second essay, he lays out some perspectives on art from a Christian point of view.  The first one is:

The Art Work As An Art Work:

The first is the most important: A work of art has a value in itself… Art is not something we merely  analyze or value for its intellectual content. It is something to be enjoyed.

He goes on to point out that the reason our work of art has value is that since a work of art is a work of creativity, we are reflecting a part of God’s nature; He is God the Creator. Isn’t that a freeing thought? God is pleased when we create art.

I see the fine balance that should exist between creating art that is well crafted , and art that delivers a message. He suggests an artist should dedicate himself to making a body of work and that this body of work reflect his worldview (wiki definition:refers to the framework of ideas and beliefs through which an individual interprets the world and interacts with it).

And to that  I’ll add that if I want my worldview to capture the viewer’s attention, then I ought to make sure that my worldview is being shown through good art.

I’ve been putting together a number of posts currently held in my ‘drafts’ tab.  Once things settle down with work and family, this blog should receive some original updates.  For the time being, other folks’ words will suffice.

“I’ll hit the bottom.  Hit the bottom and escape.” -Radiohead, Weird Fishes

[in reference to traveling solely to see the sights vs having experiences]  “…regardless of how rich a tapestry the scenery paints, in the end it’s just a visual image,  another sight.  It will fade and become blurry in just a couple months, only rekindled by the sight of photographs on a computer screen.  Other memories lasted longer.”  -Roosh Vorek, A Dead Bat in Paraguay

“No totalitarian authority nor authoritarian state can tolerate those who have an absolute by which to judge that state and its actions.” -Francis Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live?

“How can a man follow the Way or the Great Game when he is eternally pestered by women?” -Rudyard Kipling, Kim

“He’s murdering the time!  Off with his head!” -Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Mick Turner

Only a modicum of spiritual discernment is needed to affirm the fact that many Christians are living far beneath the standards of excellence called for by Christ in his teachings and exemplified by the manner in which he lived. This unfortunate reality points to yet another tragic fact: many Christians are not appropriating their reborn status as new creations in Christ and, as a result, are not bearing fruit.

 This is quite understandable when we recall Christ’s teaching about the vine and the branches. If Christ is indeed the vine from which we draw our sustenance and our power, we need to be more firmly attached to him and one of the primary ways we strengthen that connection is through understanding and appropriating our reborn, justified, and sanctified status as children of the Father of Lights.

 The renowned Evangelical Bible teacher and scholar Francis Schaeffer states that among the reasons that many Christians fail to bear the fruit of justification and sanctification in their lives is nothing less than ignorance. Schaeffer isn’t saying that non-productive Christians are stupid. He is, rather, saying that they just don’t have the knowledge they need to begin to walk in the ways in which they have been called by Christ. In his book True Spirituality Schaeffer, in his characteristically brilliant and cogent way, describes five sources of this ignorance:

 The Christian may have been taught how to be justified but never taught the present meaning of the work of Christ for him.

He may have been taught to become a Christian through the instrumentality of faith, but then he may have been left, as though from that point on the Christian life has to be lived in his own strength.

He may have been taught the opposite; that is, he may have been taught that, having accepted Christ, in some antinomian way it does not now matter how he lives.

He may have been taught some kind of second blessing, which would make him perfect in this life when he receives it. This the Bible does not teach. And therefore, he just waits hopelessly or tries to act upon that which is not.

He may never have been taught that there is a reality of faith to be acted on consciously after justification. This last point is the point of ignorance of many who stand in the orthodox and historic stream of the Reformation.

 When I first encountered Schaeffer’s quintet of reasons that might lead to a believer’s ignorance of who and what they are in Christ, I recognized many of my Christian friends who, during candid conversations, had made statements that would place them in one of the five categories. And, needless to say, I found myself in residence there as well.

 The point is, when we wander about in a fog of confused identity we waste not only precious time, but also abort chances to use the gifts God has given to us to help establish his kingdom on earth. More depressing, as our sense of frustration and aimlessness deepens, we become vulnerable to the enemy toying with our thoughts and our feelings and more than a few of us drift into a spiritual malaise from which escape is impossible without divine intervention. Schaeffer describes this lack of awareness of our true identity as a constituting a Christian who does not “possess his possessions.” As a result, he or she misses out on the blessings God has intended for his children. The key to unlock this prison of despondency is first of all, knowledge. Schaeffer continues:

 But when a man does learn the meaning of the work of Christ in the present life, a new door is open to him. And this new door then seems to be so wonderful that often it gives the Christian, as he begins to act upon the knowledge of faith, the sense of something that is as new as was his conversion. And it has been true for many of us that at a certain point, after we have been Christians for a long time, suddenly through the teaching of the Bible – directly or through someone teaching us – we have seen the meaning of the work of Christ and the blood of Jesus Christ for our present life, and a new door opens for us. So what is needed is the knowledge of the meaning of the work of Christ in our present life, for our present life, and then for us to act upon it in faith.

 The “knowledge” Schaeffer is getting at here is the biblical revelation that there are at least two sides to the gospel – justification and sanctification. We are placed in right standing with God through the blood of Christ and further, we are given the power and the mechanisms to live the Christian life by Christ’s work on the cross. And then, Schaeffer points out the real crux of the issue for the prospective Christian. If we want to be able to walk the walk that Christ calls us to, we have to have more than intellectual information here. No, that kind of knowledge does not have the octane needed to propel the Christian life in all of its fruit-producing glory. We must have knowledge that we accept, take into our lives, and live according to by faith. It is a knowledge that spawns action.

 The kind of knowledge that is called for is revealed knowledge, accepted in faith and wed to action that brings about transformation into Christ-likeness. Doctrine, important as it is, is never enough to bring about personal change and renewal of the mind. Let’s listen again to Schaeffer:

 In the last analysis it is never doctrine alone that is important. It is doctrine appropriated that counts. We can see this in the case of justification. There are many men, unhappily, who have heard the gospel and know the gospel but do not take Christ as their Savior. In such a case a man has the knowledge, but it means nothing to him because he has not taken it in. It may be so with us in this matter of our present life. We may know the truth, we may have the knowledge, but it has not been appropriated, and so it will not mean anything to us in practice, and the fruit will not be born.

 One other reason why we continue to walk in our old ways, even though scripture screams we are new creations, stems from the fact that either we don’t realize that we are new creations or we don’t believe it. Perhaps this needs a bit of clarification.

 The Church as a whole has been expert at preaching the gospel of the blood and forgiveness of sin. Christ died as a ransom for many and, even though we don’t deserve it, we can now come into God’s presence as if we were spotless. As great a message as this is, it only half the story. Yes, Christ won our forgiveness but he also did something else. He won our victory over our sin and our sinful nature. Go back and review Romans 5-8 to get a true picture of all this.

 By his resurrection and his ascension Christ has made possible, through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, our sanctification, meaning, we are now operating under a new set of circumstances, with the Holy Spirit working inside of us. Many Christians are unaware of this reality for two primary reasons: first, the vast majority of believers are biblically illiterate. Recent studies by George Barna more than bear this out; and second, pastors typically preach more about the blood than they do the resurrection, the ascension, and our subsequent empowerment.

Other Christians are aware of the fact that they are new creations in Christ, but just don’t believe it. This is a tragedy because just the act of believing what scripture says about us goes a long way toward helping us to manifest this new reality in our lives. Look at it like this: we receive salvation by accepting Christ’s atonement by faith; why don’t we also accept the second half of the gospel by faith? Why don’t we, using our faith in all that Christ has accomplished, accept the gift of our own progressive movement toward receiving the “fullness of Christ?”

 In essence, a big part of our problem as Christians is the fact that we sell ourselves short. We don’t understand who we are and what we are in Christ. Even more devastating, we don’t accept and apply our new identity to daily living and we end up only being marginally effective. Like the Tibetan Bear, we pace back and forth in the same old ruts, the same old worn out ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. If we continue to do this and expect results any different than what we have experienced in the past, we are sadly mistaken.

 No, my friends, it is time for a change and that change begins with recognizing, understanding, accepting, and applying the blessed gifts of being “in Christ.” I encourage you to not put this off another day. Start today  by taking a few minutes out of your schedule, sitting down and getting quiet and centered, and ask God to reveal to you the full understanding of your status as his child. Ask God to show you, especially in scripture, just what Christ accomplished for you in his life, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, and his successful mission into this world.

 Begin a personal Bible study in which you explore this whole business of being “in Christ.” Keep a notebook handy and jot down your thoughts, insights, and ideas. They may be useful reminders as you move forward in the process of appropriating your new identity.

 In my own walk of faith, the breakthrough on these issues finally came when I realized that the same principles involved in my justification were also critical in my sanctification. The only seeming difference was that my justification was instantaneous whereas my sanctification, at least in the physical world, is an ongoing moment-by-moment process. Some would say that my sanctification is also instantaneous in the spiritual world. That may be so and Peter tells us that God has provided everything we need to live a godly life already. Still, making this spiritual reality a manifested reality in the physical, day-to-day world remains a process that occurs across time.

 Through the teaching of the Holy Spirit it was if I saw a collection of key scriptures in a new and life-giving way. In either case, justification and sanctification, I realized that the key ingredient was faith. Just as I had accepted Christ into my life by faith, I should also accept his gift of personal transformation by faith. It really is as simple as that. So simple in conceptual terms, it is hard to put into words the actual experience that I had. It was, and remains, a personal epiphany. In terms of the mechanics of the process, I will again acquiesce to Francis Schaeffer:

 In justification, we must see, acknowledge, and act upon the fact that we cannot save ourselves. In sanctification, we must see, acknowledge, and act upon the fact that we cannot live the Christian life in our own strength, or in our own goodness….In justification the instrument by which we receive the free gift of God is faith, which believes God as he has given us his promises in the Bible; in sanctification the instrument by which we receive the fee gift of God is faith, which believes God as he has given us his promises in the Bible. It is exactly the same thing. There is one difference between the practice of justification and sanctification. As justification deals with our guilt, and sanctification deals with the problem of the power of sin in our lives as Christians, justification is once for all, and the Christian life is moment by moment. There is a difference in that one deals with the guilt of my sin and the other deals with the power of sin in my life….Let me repeat: the only difference in the practice is that in justification it is once and for all, and the Christian life is live moment by moment. The Christian life is acting moment by moment on the same principle, and in the same way, as I acted at the moment of my justification.

 As I became increasingly aware of the need to apply these spiritual truths to my life it was as if I had been sailing on a ship that had suddenly cleared a fog bank. Whereas before things were dark and murky, all of a sudden, by the grace and work of the Holy Spirit, I had eyes to see. As I applied these principles to my life I also began to see more clearly what Christ meant when he uttered those words about his yoke being light.

 In closing, let me say that you can never underestimate the significance, the blessings, and the power that is unleashed when you accept the fullness of the gospel message, especially as it applies to you. In actuality, you become a point of spiritual light and potency. As you are gradually changed by the Holy Spirit your focus shifts from what God can do, and has done, for you and is directed more toward what you can do for God and for others. In a very real and tangible way, the more your life is inundated with the Holy Spirit and his work, you become a point of blessing for others.

 There is no higher calling, privilege, and honor.

 In its most fundamental sense, the process of fully appropriating your new identity in Christ is the greatest gift you can give to the world. Operating under you old identity, you were spiritually dead, cut off from the source of your true life. You were under the control of your lower nature, what Paul referred to as “the flesh.” Furthermore, you were held under the sway of both the world and the enemy. Living under the burdensome limitations of your old self, there was no way you could possibly approach the dynamic creativity and productivity of your God-given potential.

 Now, however, by taking possession of who and what you are “in Christ,” you can discover your divine potential, find your spiritual calling, develop you personal vision, and grow into the best version of yourself. In Christ, you are reborn – you are spiritually alive and capable of making your own unique contribution to the world. When you become the best version of yourself, when you walk in your glory, you are in reality a gift of God to a hurting world.

 © L.D. Turner 2009/All Rights Reserved

Francis Schaeffer wrote A Christian Manifesto in 1981 in response to a growing decline of morality in almost all spheres of life in the west, and especially in America. The premise of the book is that Christians have been largely asleep at the wheel while secular humanists have taken over the public square, and in doing so the control of all government and laws related to morality and right living. This occurred, he says, by Christians taking a myopic view of one issue at a time rather than seeing the broad picture of secular humanist philosophy which had it been seen from the start would have been vigorously opposed. The incremental approach taken by those opposed to God lulled Christians into a slumber that only the stark reality of where we are now can disturb.

My general impressions of the book are twofold. First of all, it is a really well researched and written text. It is short – only 138 pages – but covers a tremendous amount of ground. Much of the historical content is material I had heard before, namely that the founding fathers were generally committed Christians and had set up the United States with that mindset. I already knew that the founding fathers wanted the first amendment not to prevent religion from influencing the state, but to prevent the state from controlling religion as it did in much of Europe throughout the fourteenth thru nineteenth centuries. The detail Schaeffer presents to support this history is quite good, especially in such a little book. Did you know that while the federal government was prohibited from establishing an official religion, individual states DID have state religions and that was not deemed in conflict with the first amendment? In fact, Massachusetts used tax monies to support the state church until 1853.

My second impression is tremendous surprise at how little Scripture is actually in the book that promotes itself to be “A Christian Manifesto”. In the whole book I saw only one reference to how a believer should react to the government expounded from the Bible, namely how David responded to King Saul when he was wrongfully pursued. He ran rather than fought because he saw Saul as God’s anointed king. (of course he also ran from his son Absalom when he stole the throne from David but that was different). It isn’t that Schaeffer doesn’t make logical arguments from the character of God or the history of God’s people, he just doesn’t cite any actual Scripture to support his points. In a general sense I’m okay with that because we know we are to be salt and light to the world while we’re here. Salt is both a source of flavor and a preservative and Christians should take on both roles in the world. It just seems really odd to me that he’d go through all the effort to write this book and spend an inordinately great amount of time on the history of what preachers believed and taught in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries without providing a basis. This is especially true given he pretty much slams the secular humanists for not having a basis for anything they believe about government and law (which is correct).

As I mentioned in a previous post, I kept waiting for him to explain why something like the American Revolution was justified in light of the fact that Rome was certainly worse to Christians under Nero than King George was to the colonists and yet the first century Christians did not revolt. Romans 13 is also pretty clear that we should be praying for and submissive to our government BECAUSE no authority exists except that which God himself has ordained. He does do a very good job of explaining the options a Christian under governmental persecution has available and promotes the idea of taking the least aggressive action that will permit obedience to God, but I’m not sure he ever convinced me that revolution is the way to please God in the case of an extremely ungodly government. He repeatedly goes to the concept of Lex Rex by the Scottish 17th century preacher Samuel Rutherford that claimed the law is greater than the king. Rutherford actually based that on Romans 13 in that kings can only make laws because they are given permission by the great Law Giver, God. Therefore, anything that would violate God’s revealed will must be opposed.

To buy into his argument for revolution, you first have to accept his presupposition (actually not his but Samuel Rutherford’s) that there is a difference between government’s oppression of an individual verses a corporate body. For example in current affairs it would be one thing for the government to force a Christian to have an abortion and another thing to force the State of Georgia to violate its own constitution in some way. This is the basic argument he extends to the colonial fight for independence, namely that England was trying to force unjust laws on the colonies as entities. In such cases, individuals who organize under lesser authorities (for example the Governor of Georgia) have the right and in many cases the duty to resist. That’s his point anyway.

I’ll close with this provocative quote from the last page before Schaeffer’s closing remarks.

If there is no final place for civil disobedience, then the government has been made autonomous, and as such, it has been put in place of the Living God.

What can I say? I’m still not convinced but I know that after reading about a sneaky way some in Washington wanted to try to force government control of healthcare on the states who believe it is wrong to do it my reaction was “there will be a revolution if they do that”. Still, even with my uncertainty I recommend this book. Given the current times and polar political climate it was a helpful text to prompt questions in my own mind about the role of civil disobedience and even resistance by force by professing Christians.

Now she’s worried about people comparing the president to Hitler? Listen to the hysterical lefty, Frank Schaeffer, getting his panties all bunched about the “middle aged white males that are not terribly bright” protesting Obama, the most polarizing figure in history.

Frank Schaeffer ,at one time was fighting the Hollywood left. He was a thoughtful, educated evangelical christian. He was concerned about the demise  of our culture. His father,Francis Schaeffer was a noted philosopher and theologian that wasn’t a crackpot. Frank Schaeffer seems to have failed, and seems to be tired of living in his fathers shadow. He has become angry and very disturbed! So he is now bashing the right who were once his “friends”.

How else do you get on Rachel Maddow’s or Chris Matthew’s show. Notice how angry he is. Notice the coldness in his face. Liberals love a conservative that turns and bashes their history, and where they came from.  Write some books about it and this is how you get some attention from dishonest people like Rachel Maddow!

Now, if these angry not so bright people, that is, Rachel and Frank, were really outraged they would have started their tirade with the  people in the next video. Watch the replay of Rachel and Frank, but with the images of the truly unhinged, misinformed, and not so bright people!

Maybe if Rachel , Frank and others  actually were honest and reported the truth we would have a more civil culture!

Until September 30, you can get this audio download free by taking a 90-second, 12-question survey at ChristianAudio.com.

“Christianity is not a series of truths in the plural,

But rather truth spelled with a capital “T”.

Truth about total reality, not just about religious things.

Biblical Christianity is Truth concerning total reality-

and the intellectual holding of that total Truth

and then living in the light of that truth.”

Francis Schaeffer

(address at the University of Notre Dame, April 1981)

I will add this. This ultimate reality is the Person of Jesus Christ. Just as the Sabbath or New Moon may be a shadow so “abstract” truth is only a shadow of the reality that is Jesus Christ.

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Edith & Francis Schaeffer

Am cunoscut-o pe Edith, soţia lui Francis Schaeffer, târziu, în 1991, în timpul unei conferinţe în Slovacia, organizată de organizaţia CARE din Anglia, cu participarea unui număr de ucenici ai lui Schaeffer.

Edith este autoarea unui număr de cărţi, dintre care cel puţin una este tradusă în româneşte. Evadarea din rutină sau arta de-a face din casă un cămin, Editura Logos, Cluj-Napoca, 2001.

Aşa cum spuneam şi altădată, Schaeffer a jucat într-o anumită perioadă un rol important în formarea mea spirituală şi culturală. N-am reuşit însă, din păcate, să-l întâlnesc în viaţă. Aşa încât, întâlnirea cu Edith a fost ceva special pentru mine. Păstrez de atunci, ca pe un tezaur, cărţile semnate de ea, pe care desena, pe o pagină întreagă, munţi şi cabane, ce aminteau de Huemoz, satul elveţian din Alpi care găzduia L’Abri, comunitatea creştină creată de soţii Schaeffer, la care fusesem invitat de Francis dar n-am reuşit niciodată să ajung.

Anii au trecut şi Edith a îmbătrânit şi a slăbit. Cel mai mult o macină acum singurătatea. Am primit zilele acestea, prin intermediul unei prietene, un mesaj de la ginerele ei, Udo Middelmann. Îl transcriu mai jos, cu îndemnul care care au cunoscut-o ori au fost marcaţi de lectura cărţilor ei, să-i scrie câteva rânduri, pentru a-i mângâie bătrăneţea.

Dear Friends,
…
Edith Schaeffer, who has been with us full time during the past almost nine years, is taken care of in her apartment in Gryon, by Kaye. She has been a trusted and congenial helper for a year. When she returns to Florida in a month’s time, Carla will come from Oregon. Debby will return earlier than I to introduce her to the work.
With Edith in mind I want to ask as many of you as know her to write to her. When she was active in the past she would get some 20 letters per day, but now she receives almost none from anyone. Isolation is part of her sadness, and any note from one or the other over the weeks and months would be a great joy to her. We read them to her several times and she loves to answer them even now when she can not read anymore herself.
Edith’s address is Chalet Mon Abri, CH 1882 Gryon, Switzerland.
…

…in a post-Christian world and in an often post-Christian church it is imperative to point out with love where apostasy lies. We must openly discuss with all who will listen, treating all men as fellow men, but we must call apostasy, apostasy.  If we do not do that, we are not ready for reformation, revival, and a revolutionary church in the power of the Holy Spirit. We are all too easily infiltrated with relativism and synthesis in our own day. We tend to lack antithesis.   ~Francis Schaeffer, Death in the City (1969)         

40 years later, Schaeffer’s assessment as well as his warning might eerily be all the more apropos.  While love can take on a thousand and one forms—love is never about accomidating lies and turning a deaf ear to truth—rather, love (the kind of love Jesus demonstrated) is commited to exposing lies and embracing the truth.  And it makes sense, because lies bring every kind of bondage and the truth (what Schaffer called “true truth”) is ever about setting people free.

Thoughts?

Al Mohler has word out about his latest book, Words from the Fire: Hearing the Voice of God in the 10 Commandments (Moody, 2009).  On his website, he gives a teaser from the book’s introduction that caught my attention:

The great philosophical crisis of our day is an epistemological crisis – a crisis of knowing and a crisis of knowledge. It is a challenge for the Christian thinker, the Christian theologian, the Christian minister, the Christian preacher, and the Christian institution – the whole of Christianity. The crisis can be summed up in one question: How do we know and teach what we claim to know and teach?

Mohler continues in this vein:

The claim to know anything, certainly in terms of empirical and scientific observation and study and phenomenology, is audacious enough. But then to speak of the “immortal invisible God only wise”—that is a new leap of audacity altogether.

He concludes with reference to another theologian who took on the challenge of epistemology in his own day, Francis Schaeffer:

Dr. Schaeffer understood the epistemological problem that is silence – the claim and the implication that we can know nothing. And he understood that there is only one epistemological answer—revelation. Christianity depends upon a Christian epistemology, a Christian theory of knowledge based in revelation alone. There is no greater challenge than this—to make certain we know on what authority we speak, and know, and teach.

This a strong introduction for what looks like an excellent book.  I encourage you to make your way over to Amazon and buy it. Great to see Moody Publishers turning out another great title that simultaneously illumines the world and address the culture.  It’s short, readable, and, according to Tim Challies, perhaps Dr. Mohler’s best book yet.  Unlike many handlings of the Ten Words, it’s Christ-centered.  This one will work for a wide audience.

Words from the Fire will help you to understand one of the most important sections of scriptural content, the Ten Commandments, and it will also equip you to handle the challenging question, “How do we know what we know?”  The answer: look to the fire–and listen.

If you’re like me, you read good blogs and then want to know more about the person behind the curtain.  Who are they, and why do they bother keeping a blog?

With that in mind, Brian at Apologetics 315 was kind enough to answer some questions about his life, blog, and views on apologetics for Cloud of Witnesses.  This is the first part of a two-part interview, the second part of which I will post tomorrow.

If you have follow-up questions or comments for Brian, feel free to post them.

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Please tell us a little about yourself.

My name is Brian. Although I am originally from Michigan, I now live in Northern Ireland. This is the result of meeting my wife of the mission field. Now my time is taken up with being a husband, father, doing graphic design, and studying apologetics.

What prompted you to create the Apologetics 315 blog?

In studying apologetics I found that there was a vast amount of excellent audio resources available on the internet for free. However, they weren’t always the easiest things to find unless you already knew what you were searching for. So, I just started putting the stuff I found personally helpful on the blog.

After chatting with a couple of other bloggers I tried to imagine what I thought would be the ideal blog to develop: What sort of blog I would benefit most from personally? My answer was a sort of one-stop-shop for quality resources. This eventually came to include the idea of a quote of the week, weekly book reviews, and treatments of various arguments. And of course, lots of audio and numerous other resources.

In the early stages I didn’t post daily. But one week I came across a lot of good stuff and decided to schedule a series of posts – one for every day that week. Then, I thought, why not keep the ball rolling? The daily posting never stopped after that. Now there have been over 500 posts, with the goal that every post would be some sort of helpful nugget. If I don’t really benefit from it or I don’t think others will benefit from it, I don’t put it out there. In addition, pretty much the only thing that I publish of my own is book reviews and an occasional essay. There are much better thinkers than me, and the idea is to try to get the best ideas out there to the masses.

Do you see your blog as mainly directed toward believers or non-believers?  What has been the response? Do you receive many comments from skeptics of Christianity?  How do you handle those interactions?

The blog is geared to be an apologetics resource; a place for continual learning. This is of course going to be most appealing for believers. However, in gearing it primarily as a resource to believers, it is ultimately going to be a means for reaching unbelievers. So basically it is for equipping believers to reach unbelievers.

The response has been positive, for the most part. I occasionally get an email or two from people who are glad to have a good resource. That makes me thankful. One encouraging word can keep someone going for some time.

I aim to invest proper time with honest objections or discussion, but really try to limit my time with off-topic debate and personalities that seem just to be “in it to win it.” I think one must be both careful and prayerful when assessing the approach one takes, the amount of time invested, and just how fruitful a discussion has the potential to become. In the end, these interactions should be to win the person – not every objection needs to be engaged. I think of Francis Schaeffer saying, “honest answers to honest questions.” In addition, I think bloggers should be aware of the time they spend trying to “win” online, when they should be winning their wife and children. If I think that someone just wants to showboat his or her intellectual prowess and be a mocker, then that’s time that could be better used reading Cat in the Hat to my daughter or doing some laundry.

What areas of apologetics are people most interested in now?  Is the apologetics scene in Europe different from in the U.S.?

These are just my opinions here, but I think on a basic level, many people are interested in engaging the likes of the new atheism and the popular-level attacks on New Testament reliability. I think that the arguments that are faced today are in many ways no different than those you will find throughout the history of apologetics. The personalities behind the objections have changed, but many are just new incarnations of old issues. But I think most Christians are concerned with just meeting the cultural need of the moment and don’t realize that these are perennial issues of philosophy and textual criticism that are being recycled by new personalities that have pitted themselves against the Gospel.

Speaking of the apologetic challenges in Europe, my impression is that secularism, naturalism, and scientism are the biggest influences in Europe. These things are alive and well in the States, of course. But in Europe you don’t have to deal with counter-cult apologetics in the same way that you do in America. And, I would venture to say that this is because of the secularism. Again, that’s just my personal opinion and shouldn’t be taken as a particularly accurate assessment of the situation.

When I think of the apologetics “scene” in Europe I think of organizations such as Damaris Trust, the Oxford Centre for Apologetics, Ravi Zacharias International, radio programs like Premier’s Unbelievable?, excellent scientists and scholars like Dr. John Lennox and Dr. Alistair McGrath (both out of Oxford). Of particular note is the European Leadership Forum, which is held every May in Hungary, composed of a huge apologetics network and many scholars, theologians, and scientists. There are probably others I am either forgetting or haven’t heard of yet. I would love to find more.

To be continued . . .