WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.700 Well, I will start at the beginning with Schaeffer and it's probably the easiest place to start. 00:00:05.700 --> 00:00:10.980 As I say, you are a crowd, some of you I know probably know Schaeffer better than I do, 00:00:10.980 --> 00:00:20.820 others perhaps not so well. He was born in 1912, last year therefore was his centenary, 00:00:20.820 --> 00:00:28.339 born in Germantown in Pennsylvania, United States, of German stock. His grandfather Franz 00:00:28.339 --> 00:00:35.679 Schaeffer II had gone there in about 1869, he was killed in a railroad accident in 1879, 00:00:35.679 --> 00:00:45.700 then his son Frank went to sea, took part in the American-Spanish War in 1897. Why American 00:00:45.700 --> 00:00:50.500 Spain should we saw a war in 1897? I don't know, I never studied the history but they were and 00:00:50.500 --> 00:00:58.840 Francis' dad was in it. And Frank, the father, married a girl in English stock, English immigrants 00:00:58.840 --> 00:01:03.740 who'd gone through America in the mid-19th century, they called Bessie Williamson and 00:01:03.740 --> 00:01:12.740 Francis was born of this union in 1912. It was a very working class background and I think it's 00:01:12.740 --> 00:01:18.140 actually interesting with Schaeffer to remember this, to, you know, they say the boy makes the 00:01:18.140 --> 00:01:25.020 man or whatever and a lot of what Schaeffer later became you can almost see in the first 15-20 years 00:01:25.019 --> 00:01:41.019 of his life. His father and mother gave him no real intellectual encouragement, his father wanted him to be a working man, he was given practical jobs to do, practical tasks, mechanical things, his father didn't have much encouragement for him to go to 00:01:41.019 --> 00:01:56.019 to do education or anything like that, there wasn't a lot of cultural interest in the home, nor was there a spiritual interest. His father thought that ministers were a waste of space, they just sprouted on a Sunday, didn't know what hard work was. 00:01:56.019 --> 00:02:06.019 And though his mother went to an independent evangelical church, she didn't obviously have much spiritual life and so there was very little spiritual or no spiritual interest really in the home. 00:02:06.019 --> 00:02:29.019 But he went to school and one of his teachers, a lady called Diddy Bell, did open the doors a little bit on the world of art for him and he heard a bit of music, Tchaikovsky's 1912 Overture, began to hear this, you know, there was a world outside his rather dour German town, industrial boyhood. 00:02:29.020 --> 00:02:39.020 Boyhood. And he was involved in the scouts and he won a scouts speaking competition. And he started going to the local Presbyterian church because of the scouts connection. 00:02:39.020 --> 00:02:44.020 And a Sunday school teacher at this church put him in common with a Russian count who wanted to learn English. 00:02:44.020 --> 00:02:54.020 And Schaefer this time was about 16 or 17, you know. The Russian count wanted to learn English by reading a biography of Catherine the Great. 00:02:54.020 --> 00:02:59.020 And it didn't take long for Schaefer even at 17 to realise that probably another course of action was needed. 00:02:59.020 --> 00:03:04.020 So he went along and bought a, ordered a teacher, you know, how to teach English book. 00:03:04.020 --> 00:03:11.020 And he was given, by some providence, no one knows how, a book on Greek philosophy. 00:03:11.020 --> 00:03:16.020 And he went home and he just, he said, you know how this was like, he said, coming home. 00:03:16.020 --> 00:03:22.020 This mistake in his life. He thought it was absolutely wonderful. 00:03:22.020 --> 00:03:25.020 Wonderful. I had no idea what happened to the Russian count in his English lessons, I must admit. 00:03:25.020 --> 00:03:30.020 But, um, maybe, I don't know, maybe they continued on in other lines. 00:03:30.020 --> 00:03:33.020 So he began reading Greek philosophy. 00:03:33.020 --> 00:03:38.020 And he, he soon found, he said that the questions just outstrip the answers. 00:03:38.020 --> 00:03:42.020 He just, his mind was, was just turned on by this. 00:03:42.020 --> 00:03:43.020 But he said questions. 00:03:43.020 --> 00:03:45.020 So where's he going to find answers? 00:03:45.020 --> 00:03:48.020 He more or less dismissed Christianity anyway, because of his parents' attitude. 00:03:48.020 --> 00:03:53.020 And he's only been going along to hear probably rather liberal type sermons. 00:03:53.020 --> 00:03:56.020 And, um, then he said, well, I should give it a fair crack of the whip. 00:03:56.020 --> 00:03:58.020 I'll read the Bible, as you do. 00:03:59.020 --> 00:04:02.020 And so what you do if you read the Bible, where do you start? 00:04:02.020 --> 00:04:03.020 Well, you start with Genesis. 00:04:03.020 --> 00:04:04.020 Where do you end? You end with Revelation. 00:04:04.020 --> 00:04:06.020 I mean, there's no one to tell you any different, does you? 00:04:06.020 --> 00:04:11.020 You don't have Bible study notes, which jump from Mark to Jeremiah, back to Ezekiel, 00:04:11.020 --> 00:04:13.020 and then through to Revelation. 00:04:13.020 --> 00:04:16.019 No, you start with Genesis, and you know, you work through to Revelation. 00:04:16.019 --> 00:04:18.019 Because who is to tell him any different? 00:04:18.019 --> 00:04:23.019 And he started reading this alongside Ovid at bedtime. 00:04:23.019 --> 00:04:26.019 How many of you read the Bible at Ovid at bedtime? 00:04:26.019 --> 00:04:28.019 No? No, okay. 00:04:28.019 --> 00:04:31.019 Anyway, Ovid soon fell by the wayside. 00:04:31.019 --> 00:04:34.019 And he continued, and he finished the Bible in six months. 00:04:34.019 --> 00:04:38.019 And the picture you get is that he probably was a Christian by the end of that. 00:04:38.019 --> 00:04:40.019 He was just convinced by it. 00:04:40.019 --> 00:04:45.019 But that was in 1930 when he was 18. 00:04:45.019 --> 00:04:48.019 A couple months later, he was walking through Germantown, 00:04:48.019 --> 00:04:51.019 and he realized there was an evangelistic tent on the green. 00:04:51.019 --> 00:04:54.019 And there was an Italian evangelist, or an American-Italian, Antony Zioli. 00:04:54.019 --> 00:04:57.019 And was bringing people in to hear the gospel. 00:04:57.019 --> 00:05:00.019 And Schaeffer went in, and he walked to the front. 00:05:00.019 --> 00:05:04.019 He said, I unreservedly give my life to Christ. 00:05:04.019 --> 00:05:08.019 Now, I think he was probably a Christian before then. 00:05:08.019 --> 00:05:12.019 But this was a kind of public commitment, public seeding of it, you know. 00:05:12.019 --> 00:05:16.019 And then he started taking, before the week was out, he was taking friends along. 00:05:16.019 --> 00:05:20.019 So, what have you got now in Schaeffer? 00:05:20.019 --> 00:05:24.019 By the age of 18, you've got a man brought up in a school of hard knocks. 00:05:24.019 --> 00:05:26.019 A tough lad. 00:05:26.019 --> 00:05:28.019 A practical lad. 00:05:28.019 --> 00:05:29.019 He knew his way around. 00:05:29.019 --> 00:05:31.019 He could do all sorts of practical things with his hands. 00:05:31.019 --> 00:05:37.019 He had jobs cleaning out and scaling, descaling big fuel tanks. 00:05:37.019 --> 00:05:40.019 He worked on a fish wagon. 00:05:40.019 --> 00:05:44.019 You know, he knew how to do handwork. 00:05:44.019 --> 00:05:48.019 You've got a lad also who is convinced by the Bible. 00:05:48.019 --> 00:05:50.019 Particularly Genesis. 00:05:50.019 --> 00:05:54.019 Even at that early stage, he used to say, I found answers in Genesis. 00:05:54.019 --> 00:05:56.019 That's not the organisation. 00:05:56.019 --> 00:06:03.019 But he found the answers in Genesis to the kind of questions that the Greek philosophers were asking. 00:06:03.019 --> 00:06:07.019 So, already you've got this kind of basic... 00:06:07.019 --> 00:06:10.019 You almost got Schaeffer there. 00:06:10.019 --> 00:06:15.019 A man utterly convinced that the answers to life's big questions are found in the Bible. 00:06:15.019 --> 00:06:18.019 And very particularly when you go back to the very basics. 00:06:18.019 --> 00:06:21.019 You have a God who is a personal God. 00:06:21.019 --> 00:06:23.019 A God who created everything. 00:06:23.019 --> 00:06:27.019 A God behind whom there are no other answers. 00:06:27.019 --> 00:06:31.019 And a God from whom no one can escape. 00:06:31.019 --> 00:06:36.019 In the sense that every unbeliever is living in this God's big world. 00:06:36.019 --> 00:06:43.019 So, unbelievers who are trying to live opposed to God are never going to be able to do it. 00:06:43.019 --> 00:06:49.019 There's always going to be some point of major inconsistency in their lives because of who God is. 00:06:49.019 --> 00:06:53.019 You just can't get away from the reality of God. 00:06:53.019 --> 00:06:56.019 Now, all of those things, I'm sort of reading back a lot of that stuff. 00:06:56.019 --> 00:07:05.019 But nonetheless, you can just see the seed points there of what really is going to be Schaeffer later on. 00:07:05.019 --> 00:07:06.019 Now, what's he going to do next? 00:07:06.019 --> 00:07:08.019 Well, he soon begins to feel a call to the ministry. 00:07:08.019 --> 00:07:09.019 He says, I want to preach this Christ. 00:07:09.019 --> 00:07:11.019 I want to preach this gospel I'm convinced of. 00:07:11.019 --> 00:07:13.019 So, he had to go back to school. 00:07:13.019 --> 00:07:22.019 And eventually, the following year, he got another job in a, I think it was some kind of clothing factory. 00:07:22.019 --> 00:07:26.019 That ended when the ladies were being badly treated. 00:07:26.019 --> 00:07:28.019 He was very concerned that they were being unfairly treated. 00:07:28.019 --> 00:07:32.019 And they called for strike and he jumped on the counter and shouted strike, strike. 00:07:32.019 --> 00:07:34.019 And his job came to an end. 00:07:34.019 --> 00:07:40.019 And so, he went to a place called Hampton Sydney College in Virginia. 00:07:40.019 --> 00:07:43.019 His father was very much against it. 00:07:43.019 --> 00:07:45.019 His parents were very much against it. 00:07:45.019 --> 00:07:48.019 And on the day he was about to leave, his dad stood at the door and said, 00:07:48.019 --> 00:07:49.019 Son, I don't want you to go. 00:07:49.019 --> 00:07:50.019 I don't want you to go. 00:07:50.019 --> 00:07:51.019 I don't want my son to be a preacher. 00:07:51.019 --> 00:07:52.019 I don't want you to go. 00:07:52.019 --> 00:07:53.019 So, Schaeffer just didn't want you. 00:07:53.019 --> 00:07:54.019 He turned around. 00:07:54.019 --> 00:07:56.019 He went down to the cellar. 00:07:56.019 --> 00:07:58.019 And he got a coin out of his pocket. 00:07:58.019 --> 00:08:00.019 And he tossed a coin. 00:08:00.019 --> 00:08:01.019 Heads he'd go. 00:08:01.019 --> 00:08:02.019 Tails he would. 00:08:02.019 --> 00:08:03.019 It was heads. 00:08:03.019 --> 00:08:04.019 Try again. 00:08:04.019 --> 00:08:05.019 Told by Gideon, right? 00:08:05.019 --> 00:08:06.019 Tossed a coin. 00:08:06.019 --> 00:08:07.019 Tails he'd go. 00:08:07.019 --> 00:08:08.019 Head. 00:08:08.019 --> 00:08:09.019 It was tails. 00:08:09.019 --> 00:08:10.019 He went to the door. 00:08:10.019 --> 00:08:11.019 Dad, I've got to go. 00:08:11.019 --> 00:08:12.019 I've got to go. 00:08:12.019 --> 00:08:13.019 And just as his dad slammed the door, he said, Son, I'll pay your first six months. 00:08:13.019 --> 00:08:30.019 And in fact, his father was converted a couple of years before he died in about 1940, 41. 00:08:30.019 --> 00:08:34.019 But that was, he believed that this was right. 00:08:34.019 --> 00:08:37.019 By the way, he always said he'd never advise anyone else to seek guidance like that. 00:08:37.019 --> 00:08:42.019 But sometimes the Lord is gracious to us, isn't he? 00:08:42.019 --> 00:08:43.019 So he went. 00:08:43.019 --> 00:08:45.019 He went to Hampton Sydney College. 00:08:45.019 --> 00:08:51.019 He was, he had a tremendous time there. 00:08:51.019 --> 00:08:53.019 Some fascinating experiences. 00:08:53.019 --> 00:08:56.019 He used to try to get a prayer meeting going. 00:08:56.019 --> 00:09:00.019 Um, they didn't, the other students didn't want him to do it. 00:09:00.019 --> 00:09:08.019 And, uh, he, uh, he, he said, um, one guy said, I'll only go if you carry me. 00:09:08.019 --> 00:09:10.019 So Schaefer carried it. 00:09:10.019 --> 00:09:12.019 And Schaefer was, you know, about that high in his stocking feet. 00:09:12.019 --> 00:09:14.019 You know, he wasn't, wasn't a big man. 00:09:14.019 --> 00:09:20.019 Um, he used to help the students when they came home drunk on a Saturday night, back to 00:09:20.019 --> 00:09:24.019 their rooms, uh, on condition that they'd go to church to them on a Sunday morning. 00:09:24.019 --> 00:09:27.019 So he used to take them along to church on a Sunday morning. 00:09:27.019 --> 00:09:30.019 And, um, so you, you've got this kind of picture. 00:09:30.019 --> 00:09:34.019 And then he, he met, um, during his time there he met Edith. 00:09:34.019 --> 00:09:41.019 Edith Saville, as she was, was the daughter of, um, CIM in those days, China in their mission. 00:09:41.019 --> 00:09:43.019 They're sure I met, uh, family. 00:09:43.019 --> 00:09:46.019 George Saville was, was in, in, in the mission. 00:09:46.019 --> 00:09:51.019 And they met at a, at a meeting in a, in a church where there'd been a very liberal talk 00:09:51.019 --> 00:09:52.019 given to the young people. 00:09:52.019 --> 00:09:55.019 And they, Edith and Frank, Frank were both there. 00:09:55.019 --> 00:09:58.019 Not, I didn't know each other, they were both there with Frank. 00:09:58.019 --> 00:10:00.019 And Edith was incensed by this talk. 00:10:00.019 --> 00:10:01.019 I was about to get him to say something. 00:10:01.019 --> 00:10:07.019 When this young man bobbed up from the other side and, um, said, I can't answer all your questions, 00:10:07.019 --> 00:10:10.019 but I know that Jesus Christ is my savior and I know, believe that God is true. 00:10:10.019 --> 00:10:14.019 And Edith said to her friend, who is that young man? 00:10:14.019 --> 00:10:18.019 And then just as he sat down, Edith popped up and she made a very eloquent address because 00:10:18.019 --> 00:10:19.019 of her background. 00:10:19.019 --> 00:10:22.019 She knew far more theology than Francis ever knew, and I thought ever knew that you were 00:10:22.019 --> 00:10:23.019 at that stage anyway. 00:10:23.019 --> 00:10:26.019 And, uh, Francis said to her, who is that young man? 00:10:26.019 --> 00:10:30.019 And they were introduced afterwards and, uh, he said could you take her home and said 00:10:30.019 --> 00:10:31.019 she, she didn't know, she had a date. 00:10:31.019 --> 00:10:33.019 He said, I'll break it. 00:10:33.019 --> 00:10:34.019 Um, come with me. 00:10:34.019 --> 00:10:35.019 Um, come with me. 00:10:35.019 --> 00:10:38.019 In fact, her date was to go to a girlfriend's house for a coffee, but he didn't know that. 00:10:38.019 --> 00:10:44.019 So he was, and they had a wonderful, uh, um, sort of, uh, exchange of letters which you 00:10:44.019 --> 00:10:46.019 can read about in, in Edith's tapestry. 00:10:46.019 --> 00:10:50.019 Um, and they got married in, I think, 1935. 00:10:50.019 --> 00:10:56.019 Uh, and then, um, he went to Westminster, which was the college that Gresson Machen started. 00:10:56.019 --> 00:11:01.019 I won't go into the history, but there'd been a split that Gresson Machen led the Orthodox 00:11:01.019 --> 00:11:06.019 Presbyterians, the Reformed Presbyterians away from the Presbyterian Church which they 00:11:06.019 --> 00:11:10.019 feel helped to become a liberal, and from Princeton Seminary especially particularly. 00:11:10.019 --> 00:11:13.019 And they started this new seminary, Westminster, in Philadelphia. 00:11:13.019 --> 00:11:18.019 And, um, Schaeffer went there and he spent, I think, a year or two there. 00:11:18.019 --> 00:11:24.019 Then Schaeffer, because he was quite, in a, in a group who were quite separatists, he 00:11:24.019 --> 00:11:30.019 and people like Karl McIntyre and others left Westminster and formed another seminary 00:11:30.019 --> 00:11:33.019 called Faith Seminary in Wilmington in Delaware. 00:11:33.019 --> 00:11:42.019 And, um, that was over issues like a supposedly hyper-Calvinism went above Westminster. 00:11:42.019 --> 00:11:47.019 Whether that was justified or not is difficult to say, but they felt there was hyper-Calvinism. 00:11:47.019 --> 00:11:51.019 And also because Schaeffer and others believed you shouldn't drink and so forth. 00:11:51.019 --> 00:11:55.019 There was this, they were, they were far more strict on things like that. 00:11:55.019 --> 00:11:59.019 Whereas Gresson Machen said no Christians should have liberty to drink. 00:11:59.019 --> 00:12:02.019 So you may or may not agree with Schaeffer for reasons for doing that. 00:12:02.019 --> 00:12:03.019 But they separated. 00:12:03.019 --> 00:12:06.019 So in fact he didn't finish his course of Westminster, he went to this place then. 00:12:06.019 --> 00:12:10.019 Then he entered the Bible Presbyterian Church, which is a new denomination which is set up 00:12:10.019 --> 00:12:17.019 to accommodate the, I suppose, fundamentalist Presbyterians of which Schaeffer was at that time. 00:12:17.019 --> 00:12:22.019 And he then had three ministries between 1938 and 1948. 00:12:22.019 --> 00:12:24.019 Two in Pennsylvania. 00:12:24.019 --> 00:12:28.019 Um, one in Grove City and the other in Chester. 00:12:28.019 --> 00:12:32.019 And then a third ministry in St. Louis, Missouri. 00:12:32.019 --> 00:12:35.019 And so that's where, I won't go into detail in those at all in time. 00:12:35.019 --> 00:12:40.019 So, um, but that's where then, um, Edith always looked back to St. Louis, Missouri, 00:12:40.019 --> 00:12:43.019 which was fashionable and elegant and lovely. 00:12:43.019 --> 00:12:46.019 And Edith always loved things that were fashionable and elegant and lovely. 00:12:46.019 --> 00:12:51.019 So she always enjoyed St. Louis, Missouri, um, better than the ones in Pennsylvania. 00:12:51.019 --> 00:12:55.019 Uh, features of their work were children's works. 00:12:55.019 --> 00:12:57.019 They started children's works there. 00:12:57.019 --> 00:13:06.019 Um, Schaeffer was prepared to challenge the status quo on racism and things like that. 00:13:06.019 --> 00:13:12.019 Um, and he showed tremendous vision as a pastor and the churches all grew under him. 00:13:12.019 --> 00:13:14.019 He had great ministries in all of them. 00:13:14.019 --> 00:13:18.019 And also he's becoming, he's becoming a leader in the denomination. 00:13:18.019 --> 00:13:23.019 Then in 1947 the mission arm of the Bible Presbyterian Church sent him to Europe to investigate two things. 00:13:23.019 --> 00:13:29.019 Firstly, the spiritual condition of things in Europe in view of liberalism and Barcianism. 00:13:29.019 --> 00:13:33.019 And secondly, the strength of children's work. 00:13:33.019 --> 00:13:38.019 He had three gruelling months, which you can read about in my book, or other books as well. 00:13:38.019 --> 00:13:40.019 But I won't go into detail on that either. 00:13:40.019 --> 00:13:43.019 Uh, so he, he spent his three months as kind of sightseeing, 00:13:43.019 --> 00:13:44.019 as kind of sightseeing tour. 00:13:44.019 --> 00:13:48.019 Uh, and had 180 appointments in 90 days. 00:13:48.019 --> 00:13:51.019 Visit 13 countries and 31 cities. 00:13:51.019 --> 00:13:53.019 He met people like Ola Hallesby in Norway, 00:13:53.019 --> 00:13:58.019 Martin Lloyd-Jones in London, people like that for the first time on this tour. 00:13:58.019 --> 00:14:06.019 In 1948 he returned to, quote, strengthen the things that remain and to set up children for Christ in Europe. 00:14:06.019 --> 00:14:11.019 I always think that people who, who would only know Schaeffer as the kind of academic philosopher, 00:14:11.019 --> 00:14:16.019 would be astonished if they knew that Schaeffer really first came to Europe to do children's work. 00:14:16.019 --> 00:14:19.019 And he was usually loved by children. 00:14:19.019 --> 00:14:26.019 He used to, apparently he got his record for boys into a Model T Ford as 21. 00:14:26.019 --> 00:14:29.019 When he used to collect them to take them to his camps. 00:14:29.019 --> 00:14:33.019 So, um, they went to Switzerland. 00:14:33.019 --> 00:14:36.019 Uh, then the family, all of them, they settled near Lausanne. 00:14:36.019 --> 00:14:39.019 And, uh, there's a succession of chalets. 00:14:39.019 --> 00:14:41.019 I always try to remember, I can never remember the chalets, 00:14:41.019 --> 00:14:43.019 but there are lots of chalets that lived in over the period. 00:14:43.019 --> 00:14:46.019 Um, and, uh, what did he do? 00:14:46.019 --> 00:14:49.019 He initially travelled in Europe, he taught on dangers of Bargainism, 00:14:49.019 --> 00:14:51.019 he expanded children for Christ's work, 00:14:51.019 --> 00:14:55.019 he sought to build up an evangelical alternative to the World Council of Churches. 00:14:55.019 --> 00:15:00.019 In other words, he was really interested in building up what they called the International Council of Christian Churches, 00:15:00.019 --> 00:15:05.019 which was an evangelical foil to the World Council of Churches. 00:15:05.019 --> 00:15:09.019 He met Hans Rookmaker on one of his trips in Holland as well, who was a great friend of his. 00:15:09.019 --> 00:15:14.019 Um, and one of the interesting things at this point, even in 1948, 00:15:14.019 --> 00:15:16.019 he, he, there was an article he wrote on Apologetics, 00:15:16.019 --> 00:15:24.019 which you can see exactly the main points of Apologetics which come through in his major writings 20 years later. 00:15:24.019 --> 00:15:30.019 It's interesting that, uh, his thought, his thought was, was in form, in structure, 00:15:30.019 --> 00:15:33.019 it was there already in 1948. 00:15:33.019 --> 00:15:38.019 Uh, long before Lebris started, and long before he wrote his books. 00:15:38.019 --> 00:15:42.019 So I'm trying to say this because, you know, the, the thing about Schaeffer is, 00:15:42.019 --> 00:15:45.019 everybody's sort of associating with Lebris, they think everything started with Lebris, 00:15:45.019 --> 00:15:49.019 that Schaeffer started with Lebris, all his ideas began in the 1960s. 00:15:49.019 --> 00:15:52.019 That wasn't so. In the 1960s, things were just coming into the open. 00:15:52.019 --> 00:15:56.019 But actually, the man that Schaeffer was, the, the fundamental ideas he had about Apologetics, 00:15:56.019 --> 00:15:59.019 his fundamental theology, was there in the 1940s. 00:15:59.019 --> 00:16:03.019 Uh, it was just that the Lord lay him into a different kind of image. 00:16:03.019 --> 00:16:09.019 And, um, things were becoming tense in the denomination, 00:16:09.019 --> 00:16:11.019 his, the Bible Presbyterian Church. 00:16:11.019 --> 00:16:16.019 Eventually, um, because of a lack of love, as Schaeffer saw it, 00:16:16.019 --> 00:16:20.019 a kind of harsh separatist attitude, 00:16:20.019 --> 00:16:28.019 and, um, uh, a failure to, um, evidence and manifest love and holiness together. 00:16:28.019 --> 00:16:32.019 And, uh, he was becoming disillusioned then a bit with his denomination at that point. 00:16:32.019 --> 00:16:36.019 And then in late 1950, early 1951, he went through this very famous, 00:16:36.019 --> 00:16:40.019 but profound spiritual crisis, of which nobody knows a great deal. 00:16:40.019 --> 00:16:46.019 Um, but he, he, he, it's known that he, he, he felt spiritually dry, 00:16:46.019 --> 00:16:49.019 lack of reality in his spiritual life. 00:16:49.019 --> 00:16:52.019 Uh, and he went through a profound searching 00:16:52.019 --> 00:16:55.019 and asking deep questions about whether Christianity was true. 00:16:55.019 --> 00:17:02.019 Um, and he came through that, although Edith was really worried about it, 00:17:02.019 --> 00:17:05.019 whether the whole, you know, the whole thing was going to implode 00:17:05.019 --> 00:17:07.019 and they'd have to go back to America. 00:17:07.019 --> 00:17:12.019 He used to paste the hayloft in one of the chalet, chalet v. Jules, walk around. 00:17:12.019 --> 00:17:14.019 It was quite a, a difficult time. 00:17:14.019 --> 00:17:18.019 But he came through it with his faith greatly strengthened. 00:17:18.019 --> 00:17:21.019 And, in fact, Edith would say, and others would say, 00:17:21.019 --> 00:17:25.019 that his ministry really owes a lot to that time. 00:17:25.019 --> 00:17:28.019 Because it enabled him to understand the questions 00:17:28.019 --> 00:17:30.019 that people that he came to him were going through. 00:17:30.019 --> 00:17:35.019 It enabled him to understand people who really experienced deep doubts 00:17:35.019 --> 00:17:36.019 and real doubts. 00:17:36.019 --> 00:17:40.019 Uh, and it enabled him to be able to answer them, um, 00:17:40.019 --> 00:17:45.019 with, um, with real feeling and sympathy and experience of them. 00:17:45.019 --> 00:17:48.019 It wasn't just intellectual stuff he was trotting out. 00:17:48.019 --> 00:17:50.019 And those of us like me, you know, 00:17:50.019 --> 00:17:54.019 if you try to be a shaper, if you try to give all these answers 00:17:54.019 --> 00:17:56.019 that seem so clever on paper, 00:17:56.019 --> 00:17:59.019 you find it, it comes terribly fat and terribly dry, 00:17:59.019 --> 00:18:00.019 at least in my experience. 00:18:00.019 --> 00:18:02.019 And the reason is, we are not shaper. 00:18:02.019 --> 00:18:07.019 We haven't gone through the furnace that he went through. 00:18:07.019 --> 00:18:10.019 I'm not saying there's no value in learning and reading what he does, 00:18:10.019 --> 00:18:11.019 but it's helpful. 00:18:11.019 --> 00:18:15.019 But, but the stuff that just seemed to come so naturally from him 00:18:15.019 --> 00:18:22.019 was born of his experience and, uh, not just book study, book learning. 00:18:22.019 --> 00:18:24.019 But he went through this crisis. 00:18:24.019 --> 00:18:26.019 Uh, they went back to America for a year or so. 00:18:26.019 --> 00:18:31.019 He taught, uh, he did, he taught mainly, um, the book that, 00:18:31.019 --> 00:18:33.019 what mainly became True Spirituality. 00:18:33.019 --> 00:18:36.019 Uh, and William Edgar, if you want a good book that's been published recently, 00:18:36.019 --> 00:18:38.019 William Edgar's book, Shape on the Christian Life, 00:18:38.019 --> 00:18:40.019 does a good job of summarizing True Spirituality 00:18:40.019 --> 00:18:43.019 until talking about Shape's Attitude and the Christian Life. 00:18:43.019 --> 00:18:46.019 But True Spirituality was really born of his Hayloth experience. 00:18:46.019 --> 00:18:51.019 And, um, he played, he did six talks on this in America. 00:18:51.019 --> 00:18:55.019 Um, I think on the, on sanctification was the main subject. 00:18:55.019 --> 00:18:58.019 And, um, he would always say that was actually fundamental 00:18:58.019 --> 00:19:01.019 to the life of, of the Marie. 00:19:01.019 --> 00:19:04.019 Well, they came back to Switzerland. 00:19:04.019 --> 00:19:06.019 They thought the Lord was leaving them there. 00:19:06.019 --> 00:19:08.019 They were told they had to leave in six weeks. 00:19:08.019 --> 00:19:12.019 And what Colin Durius calls the 29th chapter of the Book of Acts happened. 00:19:12.019 --> 00:19:14.019 Uh, or something like that. 00:19:14.019 --> 00:19:18.019 And, um, uh, amazingly, they got all the money they needed 00:19:18.019 --> 00:19:21.019 and they were able to buy a chalet in Huaymo, the little village. 00:19:21.019 --> 00:19:24.019 And in May 1955, Le Brie was born. 00:19:24.019 --> 00:19:27.019 And that's where it all, and that's where that, it started. 00:19:27.019 --> 00:19:29.019 They resigned from the international, 00:19:29.019 --> 00:19:32.019 they resigned, sorry, from the, from the Bible Presbytean Church. 00:19:32.019 --> 00:19:34.019 And they started the International Presbytean Church. 00:19:34.019 --> 00:19:36.019 It's interesting, by the way, also, 00:19:36.019 --> 00:19:39.019 the International Presbytean Church was started the year before Le Brie. 00:19:39.019 --> 00:19:42.019 So, the church didn't grow at Le Brie. 00:19:42.019 --> 00:19:45.019 They'd already started the church in Champéry, I think, the previous, 00:19:45.019 --> 00:19:47.019 the previous area, before Le Brie started. 00:19:47.019 --> 00:19:50.019 It was interesting to see the sequence of events there. 00:19:50.019 --> 00:19:53.019 Le Brie was a place to find honest answers to honest questions, 00:19:53.019 --> 00:19:56.019 and a place to see, not only, you get intellectual answers, 00:19:56.019 --> 00:20:00.019 but a demonstration of the personal, infinite God was really there. 00:20:00.019 --> 00:20:03.019 You know, they really wanted to demonstrate, by living by faith, 00:20:03.019 --> 00:20:06.019 that, that, that God is real. 00:20:06.019 --> 00:20:10.019 And I always say this, I said, I think, I've got a Christian, Christian, Christian webinar last week. 00:20:10.019 --> 00:20:15.019 There should be no other explanation for a Christian life, ultimately, than that God exists. 00:20:15.019 --> 00:20:21.019 If you're living by faith, your life, fundamentally, is a mystery to the world. 00:20:21.019 --> 00:20:28.019 If you're living by faith, the roots of your life are beyond the scrutiny 00:20:28.019 --> 00:20:33.019 of the rationalist, materialist, secular world around us. 00:20:33.019 --> 00:20:35.019 People can't quite understand you. 00:20:35.019 --> 00:20:36.019 Sometimes they'll hate that. 00:20:36.019 --> 00:20:39.019 Other times they'll ask you questions, and we're called to give a reason for the defense, 00:20:39.019 --> 00:20:42.019 a reasonable hope that is within us, aren't we? 00:20:42.019 --> 00:20:45.019 But it's really because our life should be asking questions of the world. 00:20:45.019 --> 00:20:48.019 And I think this is what we want him to be to be. 00:20:48.019 --> 00:20:51.019 Certainly churches should be, that church should be an astonishment to the world. 00:20:51.019 --> 00:20:53.019 Why do churches exist? 00:20:53.019 --> 00:20:55.019 Well, ultimately, because God is there. 00:20:55.019 --> 00:20:56.019 Because God is real. 00:20:56.019 --> 00:20:58.019 That's the only reason. 00:20:58.019 --> 00:21:01.019 And once churches lose that sense of living by faith, 00:21:01.019 --> 00:21:04.019 then we become compromised. 00:21:04.019 --> 00:21:09.019 So, it's interesting that influences too, I think, 00:21:09.019 --> 00:21:13.019 but Edith's Hudson Taylor background, you know, living by faith, 00:21:13.019 --> 00:21:17.019 identifying with the people you're working with. 00:21:17.019 --> 00:21:19.019 Hudson Taylor used to work with Poitone. 00:21:19.019 --> 00:21:23.019 I'm sure there are Chinese and admission influences on the Schaefer's 00:21:23.019 --> 00:21:26.019 as they started this work at Labrie, really. 00:21:26.019 --> 00:21:30.019 And, well, they continued Labrie. 00:21:30.019 --> 00:21:33.019 I won't go on to say too much about their work at Labrie. 00:21:33.019 --> 00:21:36.019 I visited there in 1981, very privileged to go there. 00:21:36.019 --> 00:21:38.019 I had a personal interview with Schaefer. 00:21:38.019 --> 00:21:41.019 And it was lovely to meet him. 00:21:41.019 --> 00:21:44.019 And I recount the details in the book. 00:21:44.019 --> 00:21:49.019 In 1968, he began to publish his books, 00:21:49.019 --> 00:21:53.019 and quite a lot of them were published in the few years after that, 00:21:53.019 --> 00:21:56.019 Escape from Reason being the first. 00:21:56.019 --> 00:21:59.019 Just quickly to wind up his life period, 00:21:59.019 --> 00:22:03.019 he did these film series, How Should We Then Live?, 00:22:03.019 --> 00:22:05.019 which is analysis of Western culture, 00:22:05.019 --> 00:22:08.019 which went very well, really. 00:22:08.019 --> 00:22:12.019 Although people cringe a bit when they see it, particularly these days. 00:22:12.019 --> 00:22:14.019 Looks a bit amateurish. 00:22:14.019 --> 00:22:18.019 And then he did whatever happened to the human race. 00:22:18.019 --> 00:22:20.019 The... 00:22:20.019 --> 00:22:22.019 Is that a comment on that? 00:22:22.019 --> 00:22:24.019 The anti... 00:22:24.019 --> 00:22:26.019 And the anti-abortion and youth and age issues. 00:22:26.019 --> 00:22:28.019 And he did that with Chuck Coop. 00:22:28.019 --> 00:22:34.019 And that was really arising out of the Rowan Way Supreme Court decision in 1973, 00:22:34.019 --> 00:22:36.019 which effectively offered abortion on demand. 00:22:36.019 --> 00:22:40.019 And made it a constitutional right, actually, as well, in America. 00:22:40.019 --> 00:22:45.019 So, after that, in 1970, these were difficult years. 00:22:45.019 --> 00:22:51.019 When he finished filming in 1978, the second film series, 00:22:51.019 --> 00:22:54.019 he was diagnosed as having lymphoma. 00:22:54.019 --> 00:22:56.019 And for six years, he was undergoing treatment. 00:22:56.019 --> 00:22:59.019 Working very hard as well, lecturing, teaching. 00:22:59.019 --> 00:23:02.019 His last book was The Great Evangelical Disaster. 00:23:02.019 --> 00:23:05.019 I think that's one of his great legacies to the Church. 00:23:05.019 --> 00:23:07.019 I think that's a book that every minister should read. 00:23:07.019 --> 00:23:11.019 It's a terrific defense of the inerrant scripture, 00:23:11.019 --> 00:23:14.019 which was always one of the Sheper's great concerns. 00:23:14.019 --> 00:23:17.019 Going right back to Bart and the battles with Bart in this coming. 00:23:17.019 --> 00:23:20.019 Many Evangelicals are quite soft on Bart, and they were then, 00:23:20.019 --> 00:23:26.019 but he saw the dangers of Bart's mysticism about the... 00:23:26.019 --> 00:23:28.019 You can live with an errant scripture. 00:23:28.019 --> 00:23:31.019 When Sheper says you can't, that's just nonsense. 00:23:31.019 --> 00:23:38.019 And he died in May 1984. 00:23:38.019 --> 00:23:46.019 I love this little thing that Edith wrote about his death at 4am on May 15th. 00:23:46.019 --> 00:23:48.019 And he was absent. 00:23:48.019 --> 00:23:51.019 The absence was so sharp and so precise. Absent. 00:23:51.019 --> 00:23:56.019 As for his presence with the Lord, I had to turn to my Bible to know that. 00:23:56.019 --> 00:24:00.019 I only know that a person is present with the Lord because the Bible tells us that. 00:24:00.019 --> 00:24:02.019 I did not have a mystical experience. 00:24:02.019 --> 00:24:06.019 My husband fought for truth and fought for the truth of the inspiration of the Bible, 00:24:06.019 --> 00:24:10.019 the inerrancy of the Bible, all the 52 years that I knew him. 00:24:10.019 --> 00:24:19.019 But I never have I been more impressed with the wonder of having a trustworthy message from God, 00:24:19.019 --> 00:24:25.019 an unshakable word from God, than right then. 00:24:25.019 --> 00:24:28.019 And so she wrote of his death. 00:24:28.019 --> 00:24:31.019 Okay, that's just a little bit about his teaching. 00:24:31.019 --> 00:24:33.019 His apologetics. 00:24:33.019 --> 00:24:47.019 Schaeffer's basic idea is that the unbeliever inhabits the Creator's world and cannot avoid it. 00:24:47.019 --> 00:24:52.019 The unbeliever and the believer share common ground but not neutral ground. 00:24:52.019 --> 00:24:54.019 Right? 00:24:54.019 --> 00:24:56.019 Common ground, we all live in God's world. 00:24:56.019 --> 00:24:58.019 But it's not neutral, it's God's world. 00:24:58.019 --> 00:25:03.019 There's no such thing as neutral territory in this world. 00:25:03.019 --> 00:25:07.019 Yet the unbeliever is rebelling against God. 00:25:07.019 --> 00:25:12.019 And so there's going to be some point of tension. 00:25:12.019 --> 00:25:14.019 I shape this. 00:25:14.019 --> 00:25:17.019 Some inconsistency. 00:25:17.019 --> 00:25:23.019 At which the position he adopts intellectually, 00:25:23.019 --> 00:25:26.019 various levels of consciousness and clarity, 00:25:26.019 --> 00:25:30.019 is going to be at variance with how things are. 00:25:30.019 --> 00:25:35.019 And the two things that Schaeffer said the unbeliever will always clash against is the manishness of man, 00:25:35.019 --> 00:25:40.019 what I am as a human being, made in the image of God, I reflect God, I am a person. 00:25:40.019 --> 00:25:47.019 He says that you can't explain that any other way than by a personal God existing. 00:25:47.019 --> 00:25:52.019 If you're rebelling against that, and you always somehow or other live having consistencies. 00:25:52.019 --> 00:25:57.019 And the other thing was the form of the universe, the bloody world in which we're made. 00:25:57.019 --> 00:26:08.019 He would say that modern art designers would have houses where people would just walk out of the window, 00:26:08.019 --> 00:26:11.019 or they'd have the door on the first floor or something clever like that, 00:26:11.019 --> 00:26:16.019 to try to show that they were not bound by the rules of reason. 00:26:16.019 --> 00:26:20.019 But he said you couldn't get people walking through walls. 00:26:20.019 --> 00:26:26.019 At some point, people are going to crash into the reality of the way things are. 00:26:26.019 --> 00:26:35.019 And he said that if you just sort of follow this through with people. 00:26:35.019 --> 00:26:41.019 And so essential to his apologetics and evangelism are the doctrines of creation and the fall. 00:26:41.019 --> 00:26:46.019 And he said what you've got to try to do with a non-Christian is to take the roof off. 00:26:46.019 --> 00:26:54.019 You've got to expose the unbeliever to the painful realities of his position. 00:26:54.019 --> 00:27:04.019 And let me just, from Death in the City, I've just got to, this is one of the things that he would say. 00:27:04.019 --> 00:27:17.019 One of the things he says that distinguishes man from animals and machines is his moral motions. 00:27:17.019 --> 00:27:18.019 Right? 00:27:18.019 --> 00:27:27.019 He says men have different morals or mores, but one never finds people without moral motions. 00:27:27.019 --> 00:27:28.019 Right? 00:27:28.019 --> 00:27:32.019 And what he means by that is that everybody is a moral creature and we all make judgements. 00:27:32.019 --> 00:27:36.019 At some level we're all saying certain things are right and wrong. 00:27:36.019 --> 00:27:44.019 The most, you know, avid atheists, the Richard Dawkins of this world, are able to say that genocide is wrong. 00:27:44.019 --> 00:27:48.019 And they usually accuse the God of the Bible of it. 00:27:48.019 --> 00:27:51.019 But on what basis do they say it's wrong? That's the point. 00:27:51.019 --> 00:27:55.019 They have no fundamental basis for saying things are right or wrong. 00:27:55.019 --> 00:28:04.019 And so relativism is always going to rub up against this fact that the way we are made is moral and the universe is moral. 00:28:04.019 --> 00:28:12.019 And so, you know, you're going to have this basic act. 00:28:12.019 --> 00:28:17.019 And he would say the two points he'd always make with apologetics. 00:28:17.019 --> 00:28:21.019 You've got to keep in mind the Christian system. 00:28:21.019 --> 00:28:26.019 He was unapologetic about the fact that Christianity is a system of truth. 00:28:26.019 --> 00:28:36.019 From God the Creator to man, the way we're made, the moral system, the moral laws we have to live and so forth. 00:28:36.019 --> 00:28:44.019 He was saying that it's working through the Christian worldview and you need to work through the implications of that. 00:28:44.019 --> 00:28:57.019 And in his day particularly, he was concerned about this kind of forcing people to make decisions for Jesus when they only half understood who God was. 00:28:57.019 --> 00:28:59.019 Or that he even existed. 00:28:59.019 --> 00:29:06.019 People being pushed into decisions without proper grounding in understanding. 00:29:06.019 --> 00:29:10.019 And that was something he ran up against time and time again with young people who came to the room. 00:29:10.019 --> 00:29:15.019 Probably, I was one of them actually, in 1981. 00:29:15.019 --> 00:29:18.019 And the other thing about Schaefer is that he was very flexible. 00:29:18.019 --> 00:29:22.019 He would say, you know, if you meet the Philippian jailer who says, 00:29:22.019 --> 00:29:24.019 What must I do to be saved? 00:29:24.019 --> 00:29:30.019 Well, you don't take him back to the God the Creator and, you know, start doing an apologetic lesson and things like that. 00:29:30.019 --> 00:29:32.019 The guy is clearly under conviction. 00:29:32.019 --> 00:29:34.019 He's saying, you share the gospel with him. 00:29:34.019 --> 00:29:39.019 So, you've got someone who's got real intellectual questions and you treat him seriously. 00:29:39.019 --> 00:29:42.019 You treat people where they are. 00:29:42.019 --> 00:29:48.019 And so, I think people who think that Schaefer was always trying to put everybody into a kind of intellectual straitjacket, 00:29:48.019 --> 00:29:49.019 I think he misunderstood him. 00:29:49.019 --> 00:29:52.019 He was always concerned that people came to Christ. 00:29:52.019 --> 00:30:03.019 But he was more aware, possibly, than many of his day, of the dangers of emotional, voluntaristic experiences and decisions. 00:30:03.019 --> 00:30:05.019 Rather than clearly understanding. 00:30:05.019 --> 00:30:09.019 He was fundamentally impressed by the importance of the mind. 00:30:09.019 --> 00:30:13.019 And that we should have that kind of level of understanding. 00:30:13.019 --> 00:30:14.019 So, he was very flexible. 00:30:14.019 --> 00:30:15.019 You just read a number of categories. 00:30:15.019 --> 00:30:17.019 You know, was he an evidentialist? 00:30:17.019 --> 00:30:19.019 Was he an inconsistent evidentialist? 00:30:19.019 --> 00:30:20.019 Was he a presuppositionalist? 00:30:20.019 --> 00:30:22.019 Was he an inconsistent presuppositionalist? 00:30:22.019 --> 00:30:24.019 What kind of apologist was he? 00:30:24.019 --> 00:30:28.019 You know, they have all these different is-isms in apologetics. 00:30:28.019 --> 00:30:31.019 And there are reasons for saying there's possibly one. 00:30:31.019 --> 00:30:34.019 But, he didn't fit easily into boxes. 00:30:34.019 --> 00:30:42.019 And the reason was he wasn't really interested about coherent philosophies of apologetics. 00:30:42.019 --> 00:30:45.019 He was interested in reaching people for Christ. 00:30:45.019 --> 00:30:49.019 I think I said at the end of my book, he was fundamentally a pastor and evangelist all his life. 00:30:49.019 --> 00:30:53.019 And the apologetics, he had his own system. 00:30:53.019 --> 00:30:57.019 But he was pragmatic in how far he pushed it. 00:30:57.019 --> 00:30:59.019 Individual cases. 00:30:59.019 --> 00:31:05.019 I won't go into his- his gospel, I think, was pretty standard really. 00:31:05.019 --> 00:31:08.019 I mean, he was a Westminster Confession man. 00:31:08.019 --> 00:31:13.019 An interesting one, his premillennialism possibly would be a surprise to some people. 00:31:13.019 --> 00:31:16.019 But he was definitely premillennialist in his eschatology. 00:31:16.019 --> 00:31:20.019 And, but his gospel I think was- 00:31:20.019 --> 00:31:24.019 I'm still- I'm using actually with Bible studies with a young man in our church, 00:31:24.019 --> 00:31:27.019 who's not got a great education. 00:31:27.019 --> 00:31:29.019 I'm using his 25 basic Bible studies. 00:31:29.019 --> 00:31:31.019 You know that he produced? 00:31:31.019 --> 00:31:33.019 He produced them in 1954 for Dr. Otten. 00:31:33.019 --> 00:31:34.019 They're still in print. 00:31:34.019 --> 00:31:35.019 And they're great. 00:31:35.019 --> 00:31:36.019 And I- 00:31:36.019 --> 00:31:39.019 We just worked through two or three of these sections. 00:31:39.019 --> 00:31:41.019 And they're still useful. 00:31:41.019 --> 00:31:44.019 The other big thing was the history of ideas. 00:31:44.019 --> 00:31:47.019 And again, I don't want to go into this in C.D. 00:31:47.019 --> 00:31:53.019 But basically, his big issue was that the great enemy is relativism. 00:31:53.019 --> 00:31:55.019 Now, we can see that now. 00:31:55.019 --> 00:31:58.019 But he was seeing it in the 1950s and 1960s. 00:31:58.019 --> 00:32:03.019 And he once said the Christians are missing the point. 00:32:03.019 --> 00:32:06.019 He said they made a great fuss about four-letter words on television. 00:32:06.019 --> 00:32:08.019 Of course, he didn't endorse four-letter words. 00:32:08.019 --> 00:32:10.019 Let's think of that for a moment. 00:32:10.019 --> 00:32:13.019 But he said that they're completely missing the point. 00:32:13.019 --> 00:32:16.019 They're straining at gnats and swallowing at camels. 00:32:16.019 --> 00:32:20.019 They are making a fuss about these issues, 00:32:20.019 --> 00:32:23.019 which were really only symptoms of the bigger issue 00:32:23.019 --> 00:32:26.019 that we completely lost any sense of absolutes. 00:32:26.019 --> 00:32:29.019 And meanwhile, the church and the bishops and all that 00:32:29.019 --> 00:32:33.019 were trying to buy into relativism themselves. 00:32:33.019 --> 00:32:35.019 And in fact, liberal theology and Barthianism 00:32:35.019 --> 00:32:37.019 were just relativism brought into theology. 00:32:37.019 --> 00:32:42.019 So he was very perceptive in seeing. 00:32:42.019 --> 00:32:46.019 And he made the point, you know, his analysis of culture, 00:32:46.019 --> 00:32:53.019 the history of ideas, was that we have a world of particulars around us, 00:32:53.019 --> 00:32:56.019 things, and we need to explain it. 00:32:56.019 --> 00:32:59.019 And there's a world of universals. 00:32:59.019 --> 00:33:04.019 And he, grace and nature are the words that were traditionally used for those. 00:33:04.019 --> 00:33:07.019 And then he follows this kind of train of theology and philosophy 00:33:07.019 --> 00:33:11.019 from Aquinas right through Kant and Hegel and Kierkegaard. 00:33:11.019 --> 00:33:12.019 And so two things happened. 00:33:12.019 --> 00:33:17.019 One is we began to have a very high view of human reason, 00:33:17.019 --> 00:33:23.019 which became highlighted of the Enlightenment in the 18th century. 00:33:23.019 --> 00:33:35.019 And we also began to think we could do without God speaking to us. 00:33:35.019 --> 00:33:39.019 We lost confidence in his revelation. 00:33:39.019 --> 00:33:44.019 So we begin now to try to understand the world around us from our own position. 00:33:44.019 --> 00:33:50.019 And so we cut off the idea of a revelation which actually explains the world. 00:33:50.019 --> 00:33:55.019 We cut ourselves off from a true source of revelation, a true source of truth, 00:33:55.019 --> 00:33:57.019 which explains the world for us. 00:33:57.019 --> 00:34:00.019 And then he says that the rationalists were quite open about that, 00:34:00.019 --> 00:34:02.019 but they still sought, you know, the Enlightenment. 00:34:02.019 --> 00:34:05.019 They still tried to find an explanation of life. 00:34:05.019 --> 00:34:06.019 They still tried to find... 00:34:06.019 --> 00:34:09.019 He said, when you come into the 20th century, 00:34:09.019 --> 00:34:11.019 the anti-centralists are saying, 00:34:11.019 --> 00:34:12.019 we can't find an explanation for life. 00:34:12.019 --> 00:34:13.019 Life is absurd. 00:34:13.019 --> 00:34:15.019 Life is going nowhere. 00:34:15.019 --> 00:34:16.019 Nihilism, nothingness. 00:34:16.019 --> 00:34:17.019 Throw it all up. 00:34:17.019 --> 00:34:19.019 Suicide is the most logical answer. 00:34:19.019 --> 00:34:21.019 And Schaefer said, you know, you're right. 00:34:21.019 --> 00:34:23.019 On your premises, you're absolutely right. 00:34:23.019 --> 00:34:26.019 He was very careful about how he said that, 00:34:26.019 --> 00:34:28.019 because he knew that for many people who came to him, 00:34:28.019 --> 00:34:30.019 it was a deeply tragic issue. 00:34:30.019 --> 00:34:32.019 And he didn't just say that lightly. 00:34:32.019 --> 00:34:35.019 But he said it, saying, yeah. 00:34:35.019 --> 00:34:36.019 Yeah. 00:34:36.019 --> 00:34:38.019 Why isn't suicide the right answer? 00:34:38.019 --> 00:34:42.019 The only answer is because you've got to start from a different viewpoint. 00:34:42.019 --> 00:34:44.019 You've got to start from a different worldview 00:34:44.019 --> 00:34:47.019 about the meaning of what it is to be human. 00:34:47.019 --> 00:34:50.019 And then he said, you get from the next century, 00:34:50.019 --> 00:34:51.019 you come to the postmoderns, 00:34:51.019 --> 00:34:54.019 who say, not only are we not going to be fine any reason, 00:34:54.019 --> 00:34:56.019 but we're not going to try to. 00:34:56.019 --> 00:34:58.019 We're going to make a virtue of non-reason. 00:34:58.019 --> 00:35:02.019 And truth can't be found, but not only that, 00:35:02.019 --> 00:35:05.019 there isn't any truth there anyway to be found. 00:35:05.019 --> 00:35:08.019 And even if there were, it would be a bad thing. 00:35:08.019 --> 00:35:09.019 Right? 00:35:09.019 --> 00:35:12.019 So truth from being unfindable becomes undesirable, 00:35:12.019 --> 00:35:15.019 becomes non-existent, and becomes a bad thing ultimately. 00:35:15.019 --> 00:35:16.019 You know? 00:35:16.019 --> 00:35:18.019 And that's where postmodernism... 00:35:18.019 --> 00:35:19.019 And he began to see that, 00:35:19.019 --> 00:35:23.019 and he even quotes some people in Escape from Reason in the 1960s, 00:35:23.019 --> 00:35:27.019 who were getting to the point that madness is its own virtue, for example. 00:35:27.019 --> 00:35:28.019 You know? 00:35:28.019 --> 00:35:30.019 Madness is the most... 00:35:30.019 --> 00:35:34.019 And so he was actually seeing postmodernism 00:35:34.019 --> 00:35:37.019 thirty years before it was becoming popular evangelical currency. 00:35:37.019 --> 00:35:39.019 Because he just traced it through. 00:35:39.019 --> 00:35:44.019 Now, again, people will differ on the interpretations of his... 00:35:46.019 --> 00:35:49.019 of his scheme of history of ideas. 00:35:49.019 --> 00:35:53.019 Personally, I believe that in the big picture, 00:35:53.019 --> 00:35:55.019 it works pretty well. 00:35:55.019 --> 00:35:57.019 It's still pretty convincing. 00:35:57.019 --> 00:35:58.019 And even in this... 00:35:58.019 --> 00:36:03.019 If you only take the conclusion that basically we are struggling with relativism, 00:36:04.019 --> 00:36:06.019 we're seeing it all around us, don't we? 00:36:06.019 --> 00:36:08.019 You know, our children in schools are being taught that. 00:36:08.019 --> 00:36:11.019 It's just the very air we breathe now. 00:36:11.019 --> 00:36:13.019 And, uh... 00:36:13.019 --> 00:36:16.019 So, I think Kurt Schaefer had his finger on the pulse, 00:36:16.019 --> 00:36:20.019 even if you don't agree with the details, as many didn't, of all that he's doing. 00:36:20.019 --> 00:36:22.019 He came into quite a lot of flack, by the way, 00:36:22.019 --> 00:36:26.019 from people like Mark Nolan, George Marsden, American evangelical historians, 00:36:26.019 --> 00:36:27.019 for, um... 00:36:27.019 --> 00:36:29.019 Some of his interpretations of American history. 00:36:29.019 --> 00:36:31.019 Americans, of course, Christian nation, and the... 00:36:31.019 --> 00:36:33.019 You know, how Christian was the Constitution, 00:36:33.019 --> 00:36:36.019 the Bill of Rights in the 1700s, and that kind of thing. 00:36:36.019 --> 00:36:37.019 Uh... 00:36:37.019 --> 00:36:38.019 People have... 00:36:38.019 --> 00:36:41.019 You know, I'm not an expert in American history. 00:36:41.019 --> 00:36:42.019 I think... 00:36:42.019 --> 00:36:43.019 I understand... 00:36:43.019 --> 00:36:44.019 Schaefer would be to talk about a Christian consensus. 00:36:44.019 --> 00:36:47.019 He never tried to pretend that Thomas Jefferson was an evangelical Christian, 00:36:47.019 --> 00:36:48.019 for example. 00:36:48.019 --> 00:36:50.019 But I think he talked about a Christian consensus, 00:36:50.019 --> 00:36:51.019 and he would... 00:36:51.019 --> 00:36:52.019 And I think he's probably right on that. 00:36:52.019 --> 00:36:56.019 That those men were working within a Christian worldview, 00:36:56.019 --> 00:36:57.019 even if it was... 00:36:57.019 --> 00:37:01.019 They were personally probably deists, or humanists, or whatever. 00:37:01.019 --> 00:37:02.019 So... 00:37:02.019 --> 00:37:03.019 Um... 00:37:04.019 --> 00:37:07.019 When you come to, um... 00:37:07.019 --> 00:37:08.019 Then... 00:37:08.019 --> 00:37:09.019 His... 00:37:09.019 --> 00:37:10.019 Writings... 00:37:10.019 --> 00:37:11.019 Um... 00:37:11.019 --> 00:37:13.019 I only just recommend that you... 00:37:13.019 --> 00:37:15.019 You do read True Spirituality. 00:37:15.019 --> 00:37:16.019 Don't... 00:37:16.019 --> 00:37:17.019 Don't... 00:37:17.019 --> 00:37:18.019 Don't write... 00:37:18.019 --> 00:37:19.019 Don't rely even on William Edgar's very good summary of it. 00:37:19.019 --> 00:37:20.019 Read... 00:37:20.019 --> 00:37:21.019 Read the book itself. 00:37:21.019 --> 00:37:23.019 If you want to understand Schaefer, he always said that... 00:37:23.019 --> 00:37:26.019 You know, to understand where he came from, 00:37:26.019 --> 00:37:28.019 you need to see the spiritual struggles. 00:37:28.019 --> 00:37:29.019 Uh... 00:37:29.019 --> 00:37:30.019 And... 00:37:30.019 --> 00:37:31.019 It... 00:37:31.019 --> 00:37:33.019 He wasn't just an intellectual who thought, 00:37:33.019 --> 00:37:34.019 I have a good idea. 00:37:34.019 --> 00:37:35.019 Let's set up a... 00:37:35.019 --> 00:37:38.019 Let's set up a trendy hippie commune in the Alps, 00:37:38.019 --> 00:37:40.019 with a lovely view, and invite everyone to come. 00:37:40.019 --> 00:37:41.019 That wasn't the case. 00:37:41.019 --> 00:37:44.019 There were people coming to him for six years before they started to bring. 00:37:44.019 --> 00:37:45.019 From the time they went to Switzerland, 00:37:45.019 --> 00:37:47.019 they got young people coming in. 00:37:47.019 --> 00:37:49.019 They got people from the villages popping in. 00:37:49.019 --> 00:37:54.019 There were some finishing schools for posh English young ladies and others in the locality. 00:37:54.019 --> 00:37:56.019 They'd come, and they'd have the... 00:37:56.019 --> 00:37:59.019 And so, really, the whole Liberty thing was not a bright idea. 00:37:59.019 --> 00:38:03.019 It was a response to a ministry that clearly was happening at the time. 00:38:03.019 --> 00:38:05.019 And, you know, they never... 00:38:05.019 --> 00:38:08.019 And they were always very clear too, and I believe Philip Ries still is, 00:38:08.019 --> 00:38:11.019 that if the money stopped coming in, and if it was clearly there was no need, 00:38:11.019 --> 00:38:12.019 that they stop. 00:38:12.019 --> 00:38:13.019 You know? 00:38:13.019 --> 00:38:17.019 Only the church has a divine right to exist on earth. 00:38:17.019 --> 00:38:19.019 No human organisation. 00:38:19.019 --> 00:38:28.019 And the other thing I find Philip Ries was two contents, two realities. 00:38:28.019 --> 00:38:30.019 And I'll finish off on this, really. 00:38:30.019 --> 00:38:33.019 Two contents and two realities. 00:38:33.019 --> 00:38:38.019 This was a paper he gave the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelisation in 1974. 00:38:38.019 --> 00:38:41.019 And he talked of two contents. 00:38:41.019 --> 00:38:45.019 Sound doctrine and honest answers to honest questions. 00:38:45.019 --> 00:38:46.019 Right? 00:38:46.019 --> 00:38:50.019 Sound doctrine, honest answers to honest questions. 00:38:50.019 --> 00:38:52.019 True truth, you've heard that phrase. 00:38:52.019 --> 00:38:54.019 Christianity is a body of truth. 00:38:54.019 --> 00:38:55.019 Right? 00:38:55.019 --> 00:38:57.019 We mustn't separate faith from reason. 00:38:57.019 --> 00:38:59.019 We've got to... 00:38:59.019 --> 00:39:02.019 We've got to base what we say on truth. 00:39:02.019 --> 00:39:05.019 And then he said, be prepared to answer questions. 00:39:05.019 --> 00:39:09.019 And he said, everyone's got questions. 00:39:09.019 --> 00:39:12.019 Even the shipyard worker, I'm sure he must have been thinking of his own dad. 00:39:12.019 --> 00:39:16.019 He said, they can't ask it in the way the intellectual might, 00:39:16.019 --> 00:39:19.019 but they've got the same basic questions. 00:39:19.019 --> 00:39:22.019 And we must try to answer people's questions. 00:39:22.019 --> 00:39:29.019 His working class background gave him tremendous respect for working people. 00:39:29.019 --> 00:39:33.019 And a tremendous ability to relate to all manner of people. 00:39:33.019 --> 00:39:35.019 He was unique in my experience. 00:39:35.019 --> 00:39:40.019 Whoever you were, he could make you feel you were really important. 00:39:40.019 --> 00:39:45.019 Whoever you were, you felt you had his attention. 00:39:45.019 --> 00:39:48.019 And people noticed that time and again. 00:39:48.019 --> 00:39:50.019 That he listened. 00:39:50.019 --> 00:39:51.019 And he always made this point. 00:39:51.019 --> 00:39:53.019 He said, if you're going to answer people's questions, 00:39:53.019 --> 00:39:55.019 you've got to listen to people. 00:39:55.019 --> 00:39:58.019 And he listened not just to individuals, 00:39:58.019 --> 00:39:59.019 but to the culture as well. 00:39:59.019 --> 00:40:02.019 He could listen to what was going on in the world. 00:40:02.019 --> 00:40:06.019 And so had an ability to speak into it. 00:40:06.019 --> 00:40:09.019 So the two contents were really intellectual doctrine and answers to the questions. 00:40:09.019 --> 00:40:14.019 The two realities were true spirituality and the beauty of human relationships. 00:40:14.019 --> 00:40:18.019 He said, live by faith, moment by moment, in the finished work of Christ. 00:40:18.019 --> 00:40:23.019 If you read true spirituality, you'll come across that phrase time and time again. 00:40:23.019 --> 00:40:24.019 The finished work of Christ. 00:40:24.019 --> 00:40:28.019 I became a Christian once for all who writes upon the basis of the finished work of Christ. 00:40:28.019 --> 00:40:29.019 Through faith. 00:40:29.019 --> 00:40:30.019 Thus justification. 00:40:30.019 --> 00:40:32.019 The Christian life sanctification operates on the same basis. 00:40:32.019 --> 00:40:34.019 But moment by moment. 00:40:34.019 --> 00:40:36.019 I find this phrase coming into my preaching sometimes. 00:40:36.019 --> 00:40:37.019 Moment by moment. 00:40:37.019 --> 00:40:39.019 I suddenly realize where it's coming from here. 00:40:39.019 --> 00:40:40.019 It's the same basis. 00:40:40.019 --> 00:40:41.019 It's Christ's work. 00:40:41.019 --> 00:40:42.019 The same instrument. 00:40:42.019 --> 00:40:43.019 Faith. 00:40:43.019 --> 00:40:45.019 The only difference is that one is once and for all. 00:40:45.019 --> 00:40:46.019 And the other is moment by moment. 00:40:46.019 --> 00:40:49.019 If we try to live the Christian life in our own strength, 00:40:49.019 --> 00:40:50.019 we shall have sorrow. 00:40:50.019 --> 00:40:53.019 But if we live in this way, we will not only serve the Lord, 00:40:53.019 --> 00:40:55.019 but in place of sorrow, He will be our song. 00:40:55.019 --> 00:40:59.019 But how in a Christian life is the power of the crucified and risen Lord 00:40:59.019 --> 00:41:01.019 through the agency of the Holy Spirit? 00:41:01.019 --> 00:41:03.019 By faith, moment by moment. 00:41:03.019 --> 00:41:05.019 Now that's not an arrogant intellectualist, is it? 00:41:05.019 --> 00:41:07.019 That's not a rationalist to speak. 00:41:07.019 --> 00:41:09.019 That's somebody who knows God. 00:41:09.019 --> 00:41:11.019 And he talks about the Holy Spirit. 00:41:11.019 --> 00:41:12.019 He talks about faith. 00:41:12.019 --> 00:41:14.019 But he's very concerned too. 00:41:14.019 --> 00:41:17.019 And for someone like myself, who had been brought up in the charismatic world 00:41:17.019 --> 00:41:21.019 in the 1970s and 80s, or rather influenced by it at least, 00:41:21.019 --> 00:41:24.019 it was very important for us at that day, young people, 00:41:24.019 --> 00:41:29.019 to be hearing about the importance of reason and intellect 00:41:29.019 --> 00:41:31.019 and not become anti-intellectual. 00:41:31.019 --> 00:41:34.019 Because the charismatics were saying, you know, just have an experience. 00:41:34.019 --> 00:41:36.019 You know, get zapped. 00:41:36.019 --> 00:41:37.019 That's all you need. 00:41:37.019 --> 00:41:39.019 All your problems solved. 00:41:39.019 --> 00:41:44.019 And Shekhar was clear that wasn't the way. 00:41:44.019 --> 00:41:52.019 I'll just read one or two little snippets from Death in the City. 00:41:52.019 --> 00:42:03.019 And he is speaking really mostly from Jeremiah at this point. 00:42:03.019 --> 00:42:06.019 And he talks about the importance of truth. 00:42:06.019 --> 00:42:09.019 And he talks about the nation being under the wrath of God. 00:42:09.019 --> 00:42:12.019 And we must not be afraid of saying these things. 00:42:12.019 --> 00:42:16.019 We have to preach the truth as it is to people. 00:42:16.019 --> 00:42:26.019 But he also goes on to say that we must practice the truth. 00:42:26.019 --> 00:42:30.019 And must maintain the full doctrine of historic Christianity. 00:42:30.019 --> 00:42:33.019 Christianity must be fully maintained. 00:42:33.019 --> 00:42:36.019 And then he goes on to say that we must keep on speaking and acting, 00:42:36.019 --> 00:42:39.019 even if the price is high. 00:42:39.019 --> 00:42:41.019 I think this is a word today. 00:42:41.019 --> 00:42:44.019 Christianity says it is not a modern success story. 00:42:44.019 --> 00:42:48.019 It is to be preached with love and tears into the teeth of men, 00:42:48.019 --> 00:42:53.019 preached without compromise, without regard to the world's concept of success. 00:42:53.019 --> 00:42:56.019 Yet there seem to be no results. 00:42:56.019 --> 00:42:59.019 Remember that Jeremiah did not see the results in his day. 00:42:59.019 --> 00:43:00.019 They came later. 00:43:00.019 --> 00:43:01.019 They came later. 00:43:01.019 --> 00:43:04.019 If there seems to be no results, it does not change God's imperative. 00:43:04.019 --> 00:43:10.019 It is simply up to you and to me to go on, go on, go on. 00:43:10.019 --> 00:43:13.019 Whether we see the results or whether we don't. 00:43:13.019 --> 00:43:14.019 Go on. 00:43:14.019 --> 00:43:17.019 My concluding sentence is simply this, he says. 00:43:17.019 --> 00:43:18.019 The world is lost. 00:43:18.019 --> 00:43:20.019 The God of the Bible does exist. 00:43:20.019 --> 00:43:22.019 The world is lost. 00:43:22.019 --> 00:43:23.019 But truth is truth. 00:43:23.019 --> 00:43:24.019 Keep on. 00:43:24.019 --> 00:43:26.019 And for how long? 00:43:26.019 --> 00:43:27.019 I'll tell you. 00:43:27.019 --> 00:43:28.019 Keep on. 00:43:28.019 --> 00:43:29.019 Keep on. 00:43:29.019 --> 00:43:30.019 Keep on. 00:43:30.019 --> 00:43:31.019 Keep on. 00:43:31.019 --> 00:43:33.019 And then, keep on. 00:43:33.019 --> 00:43:35.019 I'll close then. 00:43:35.019 --> 00:43:36.019 I'll close then. 00:43:36.019 --> 00:43:36.019 00:43:36.019 --> 00:43:36.019 00:43:36.019 --> 00:43:36.019 00:43:36.019 --> 00:43:36.019 00:43:36.019 --> 00:43:36.019 00:43:36.019 --> 00:43:36.019 00:43:36.019 --> 00:43:36.019 00:43:36.019 --> 00:43:36.019 00:43:36.019 --> 00:43:36.019 00:43:36.019 --> 00:43:36.019 00:43:36.019 --> 00:43:36.019 00:43:36.019 --> 00:43:36.019 00:43:36.019 --> 00:43:36.019 00:43:36.019 --> 00:43:36.019 00:43:36.019 --> 00:43:36.019 00:43:36.019 --> 00:43:36.019 00:43:36.019 --> 00:43:36.019 00:43:36.019 --> 00:43:36.019 00:43:36.019 --> 00:43:36.019 00:43:36.019 --> 00:43:36.019 00:43:36.019 --> 00:43:36.019 00:43:36.019 --> 00:43:36.019 00:43:36.019 --> 00:43:36.019 00:43:36.019 --> 00:43:36.019 00:43:36.019 --> 00:43:36.019 00:43:36.019 --> 00:43:36.019 00:43:36.019 --> 00:43:36.019 00:43:36.019 --> 00:43:36.019 00:43:36.019 --> 00:43:36.019 00:43:36.019 --> 00:43:36.019 00:43:36.019 --> 00:43:36.369 ยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยย