I just read an article called "What Can We Learn From Francis Schaeffer?" on The Pearcy Reportand found it to be very fascinating. I became a Christian when I was 18 and it was just a few years after Francis Schaeffer had passed away.
My early mentors (Scott's church as well) were big fans of his work and so I was quickly getting up to speed on his books and films. I still like to go back and read his words as they seem all the more relevant today. I'm curious to know what you think--especially the author's claims about Schaeffer's relevance pertaining to Modernism and Post-Modernism today.
Oh, and this is my first official post on Java Jesus. Scott told me about the $50 membership fee that you all paid and I sent him my check. Who would have thought it was that easy. He also told me that my Java Jesus Secret Decoder Ring is in the mail along with instructions on how to correctly do the Super Secret Java Jesus Hand Shake and Break Dancing Moves.
--Rog (Big Doofus)
8 comments:
Schaeffer's epistemology was enigmatic. His apologetic method was a pure modernist aproach (presuppositional apolologetics, a la Van Til), but his thoughts and teachings on spirituality were out of an entirely different mold. Basically experiential, much more in sync with existentialist thought, though I doubt he would have classified himself so. Modernism (foundationalist epistemlogy, particularly) is not friendly to faith. But Schaeffer was, he was huge on faith. And faith is what it is all about, Amigo's. Not factual certitude.
Go Francis!
I like to refer to Francis Schaeffer as "One more author that I know I was supposed to read, that I meant to read, but never quite got around to it." So I have nothing to add to this conversation.
That's a lie. I can add something to any conversation, regardless of how ignorant I am about the topic.
Last fall, I did see an interesting article in World Magazine about his son. It was about his son's experiences growing up, being in a family like that... It wasn't terribly flattering, given the less-than-perfect relationship he had with his father. You guys might find it interesting.
Except of course I just realized that if you aren't a subscriber you'd have to shell out five bucks to read the whole article. Darn Interweb.
As an addendum, Java Jesus membership also requires posting of said breakdancing moves to Youtube.
When you talk about great minds it is easy to get boring. But I think it kind of boils down to this, in terms that anyone would understand. Schaeffer was into apologetics, irrelevant to the 50% of humanity with IQ below 100. But he was also that prophet-dude who was caling people to trust in Jesus and experience the reality of Christ that you can't read in a book. I've often thought the Schaeffer we know was a bit of a gimmick (kind of like Stryper were Christian rockers, Schaeffer was our Christian beatnik philosopher. In that era we had a knockoff of every cultural icon.) But he was also a super cool thinker and a real inspiration to people trying to break the church mold from the inside. He had a big part in shaping folks like us.
Scott, you have a vid clip of me attempting to do the Worm, does that count? (It looks more like a scene from deliverance, but hey, that's the risk of life in the Blogosphere, eh?)
"Art is a reflection of God's creativity, an evidence that we are made in the image of God." -Francis Schaeffer
Found it on www.labri.org. I like it.
-E
Scott:
The same site that had the Francis Schaeffer article also had a review of Frank Schaeffer's (i.e. Francis Schaeffer IV) recent book about growing up Schaeffer. Basically, it looks like Frank decided to share EVERYthing and he really drags his family through the mud. I've followed Frank over the years and I've read his novels and I have my own opinions on why he has turned out the way he is (i.e. Greek Orthodox and almost an agnostic), but that's for another time.
I thought Frankie was a golden boy. Oh, my ignorance abounds.
It's funny, the quote that void put up sounds like a big deal among us evangelicals (really emergent,too.) Really it was a constant in Christian thought for oodles of centuries.
Yep, until us Evangelicals decided art was of the devil...
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