Francis Schaeffer: How Should We Then Live (Episode 1)

My introduction to Christian apologetics–true Christian apologetics–came about in the late 1980s through videos produced by Francis Schaeffer. If you had asked me before then what Christianity was about, I would have parroted Kierkegaard‘s idea that salvation required a leap of faith. That is, that faith is essentially irrational and not grounded in any certain evidence, but necessary. After being exposed to Francis Schaeffer, I knew that salvation was not a leap of faith at all, but a small step of faith based in what is entirely logical and based upon things that could be demonstrated as true.

I never met Schaeffer, but I knew several people who did, including one man who ran one of Schaeffer’s villas in L’Abris. Everyone who knew him reported that he was one of the sharpest intellects ever to spread the Gospel. While he was fully aware that faith required a commitment of the heart, his ministry was to those who wanted an intellectual grounding to their beliefs. In his heyday, he regularly confounded intellects and silenced critics of the Gospel through his sound arguments and logic. This was something much needed then, and now. The pity is that after he died, people did not build upon what he had started. It could be that he was simply one of a kind, and that he broke the mold. If so, then we need more one-of-a-kind people like him to contend for the Gospel.

In the spirit of wanting to go back and reclaim what has been forgotten, here is Part 1 of his video series, How Should We Then Live? I shall be posting the other sections as I have a chance.

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