Read part one here.
Francis Schaeffer was born on January 30, 1912 in Germantown, Pennsylvania to middle-class parents of German heritage. After being converted as a young man, Schaeffer felt a calling from God to be a pastor. After his graduation from college in 1935, Schaeffer married Edith Seville and then entered Westminster Theological Seminary (in Philadelphia) in September of that same year. As a result of a split within his denomination (PCUSA), Schaeffer soon found himself transferring to a new seminary, Faith Theological, and relocating his membership to a new denomination, the Bible Presbyterian Church. From this point, it is most helpful to trace Schaeffer’s life in three phases: his time as a separatist pastor, the prelude and development of the work of L’Abri fellowship, and his involvement as a political activist.
Separatist Pastor
After graduation, Francis and Edith would find themselves in three different cities throughout the United States, as Francis would spend the next ten years serving in pastoral ministry. In the spring of 1947, the Independent Board of Foreign Missions (of the Bible Presbyterian Church) would invite Schaeffer to make a “fact-finding tour” for three months that summer in order to determine how churches in Europe were faring theologically under the destructive influence of neo-orthodoxy. The impact of this investigative expedition upon Schaeffer cannot be overstated. Indeed, as biographer and personal friend Colin Duriez observes, “This tour would change his life—and eventually the lives of countless others throughout Europe and the world” (Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life, 63).
When the Schaeffer’s returned to St. Louis, Francis began to receive letters from Europeans, requesting that he return to Europe and help establish the same kind of evangelical work that was being cultivated in America. The mission agency agreed to these requests and decided to send the Schaeffer’s to Europe permanently so that Francis might help revive European Protestantism. After six months of preparation in Philadelphia, the Schaeffer’s moved to Switzerland.
While in Europe, Schaeffer delivered an address to the International Council of Christian Churches (an organization of separatist churches). In the address entitled, “The New Modernism,” Schaeffer, responded to the neo-orthodoxy of Karl Barth. Schaeffer argued that Barth’s separating of religious truth from the facts of history was both nonsensical and dangerous. Nevertheless, despite his passionate denunciation of Barth’s teaching, Schaeffer revealed his heart for right use of apologetic reasoning; an approach that would later characterize all of his evangelistic efforts: “The end of apologetics is not to slay men with our logic, but to lead them to the true Christ, the Christ of the whole Scriptures” (Hankins, 32). Schaeffer’s address in Geneva would anticipate the direction his thought would begin to take, as he would attempt to wrestle with the writings of prominent thinkers and philosophers and their influence on Christianity; this time would also feature Schaeffer’s break with fundamentalism (Hankins, 40).
Schaeffer was beginning to experience growing doubts about the adequacy of fundamentalism, especially with regard to its focus on strident separatism. Schaeffer believed the Lord would not bless the efforts of separatist churches if they continued “fight without restraint” against those who differed from their work. Furthermore, Schaeffer began to grow tired of his old mentor, Carl McIntire’s “insatiable desire to fight against other evangelical Christians and institutions” (Hankins, 46). By 1954, Schaeffer and McIntire were in open warfare; the feud would eventually lead to Schaeffer’s break from McIntire and separatist churches. The break, however, would free Schaeffer to pursue what would become his life’s work.
