How Should We Then Live?

I have heard so much about this book that I finally had to pick it up and read it because of me love of Schaeffer's earlier works, which you can find my reviews here on those. I am not sure what I was expecting, but what I found was really a regurgitation of earlier works to be adapted to a film series that Schaeffer and his son were going to do. Not that the book was bad, it just wasn't anything new from Schaeffer's earlier works.

The book is based off the passage found in Ezekiel 33:1-11,19 where you will find the title in verse 10 and then the answer to the question in verse 19:

1Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say unto them, When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man of their coasts, and set him for their watchman:
3If when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people;
4Then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning; if the sword come, and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head.
5He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warning; his blood shall be upon him. But he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul.
6But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand.
7So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me.
8When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.
9Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it; if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.
10Therefore, O thou son of man, speak unto the house of Israel; Thus ye speak, saying, If our transgressions and our sins be upon us, and we pine away in them, how should we then live?
11Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?
19But if the wicked turn from his wickedness, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall live thereby.

This book is good for those who have never read Schaeffer. He, as usual, masterfully shows through the rise and decline of nations how their thought of God has been determined and shown it through a nation's art and culture. He walks through early Rome, the Middle Ages, the Reformation, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, etc. to show how the belief in God, or lack thereof, was shown through music, theatrical playwrights, paintings, and even architecture. He really sums up well whole cultures throughout history to show the flow of thought as a whole.

As with all of his books he focuses primarily on the arguments posed by those who ascribe to non-absolutes and shows how this thought has ruined, and will continue to ruin, the reason for man and the value of man. After he shows how these people have portrayed their beliefs in all of culture, he breaks down the reason why the belief in the Christian God makes more sense and is a reality.

Even if one isn't a Christian, the flow of culture that is shown by Schaeffer is not a grind but a real joy to read. He shows this over and over again in all of his books the reality of the impact our cultures have on our thinking and values.

Although I do recommend the book, I would then quickly follow up with his earlier works which give even greater detail. But, I will also say that I enjoyed the fact that this book included pictures of the art and people that Schaeffer spoke about. Usually I would be googling those different aspects of art and film that Schaeffer mentioned because of how much detail he sometimes goes into when referencing different pieces in history. This part I much enjoyed about this book.

Recommended

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Crossway Books

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Will America Fall Like Rome?

I have been reading Schaeffer's "How Should We Then Live?" and he comes to the point towards the end of the book of the problem with modern modern man...which is another way to say before his time, postmodern man. He is showing the rise of this man throughout the history of cultures around the world. As he does this, he comes to the point of where he saw the United States in the mid 1970's, which is when the book was written. The sad thing, is that this country looks a lot like Rome when it fell. Here is where Schaeffer is making his point from:

Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-1788) said that the following five attributes marked Rome at its end:

1. A mounting love of show and luxury (that is, affluence)

2. A widening gap between the very rich and the very poor (this could be countries in the family of nations as well as in a single nation)

3. An obsession with sex

4. Freakishness in the arts, masquerading as originality and enthusiasms pretending to be creativity (I put some pictures that I took from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art so you could see up close the absurdity)

5. An increased desire to live off the state

This was Schaeffer quoting Gibbon back in the 70's. How far we have come in a mere 30 years to show that Schaeffer was noticing something even then what was coming. I just wonder how close we are to calling ourselves Romerica. (click read more to look at SFMOMA Pictures.

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Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross

This book comes out well before Easter to make sure that you are able to buy it, study it and then teach its truths to others as Easter comes about. The book is laid out to have 25 short teachings and thoughts on the cross of Christ. It has most theologians that you can think of in the Reformed and Calvinistic circles and then also includes at least one I know that wasn't a Calvinist (Adrian Rogers). Most of the chapters are about 3 to 4 pages which include many different angles to look at the cross. The topics range from Christ's humility in Gethsemane, silence among his accusers, our sin putting him on the cross, propitiation, forsaken by God, etc. I am not going to list every theologian and every topic, but I will say that this book is a very good one to help someone as they study further on the cross of Christ. This book is a book of quotable thoughts for any pastor.

Some of my favorites were Martin Luther, C.J. Mahaney, Tim Keller, Adrian Rogers and Augustine. Martin Luther is first up in the book, and in my opinion, it didn't get any better than Luther. I really enjoyed his chapter and found myself continually reading because of his start of the understanding of the "True Contemplation of the Cross." Here is an excerpt from Luther's chapter:

Take this to heart and doubt not that you are the one who killed Christ. Your sins certainly did, and when you see the nails driven through his hands, be sure that you are pounding, and when the thorns pierce his brow, know that they are your evil thoughts. Consider that if one thorn pierced Christ you deserve one hundred thousand.

The whole value of the meditation of the suffering of Christ lies in this, that man should come to the knowledge of himself and sink and tremble. If you are so hardened that you do not tremble, then you have reason to tremble. Pray to God that he may soften your heart and make fruitful your meditation upon the suffering of Christ, for we ourselves are incapable of proper reflection unless God instills it.

But if one does meditate rightly on the suffering of Christ for a day, an hour, or even a quarter of an hour, this we may confidently say is better than a whole year of fasting, days of psalm singing, yes, than even one hundred masses, because this reflection changes the whole man and makes him new…

Martin Luther, p. 12 (taken from Martin Luther's Easter Book)

Although there were some that stood out, there were also some where I couldn't wait to read and they seemed to fall a little flat. Not only tha, there were some that were just plain bizarre where I will either need to study further or just glaze over for the sake of the other chapters. The odd ones were John MacArthur's take on Christ's forgiveness on the cross. He believes that Christ was only asking for the forgiveness of those who would end up believing in Him and not everyone that was at the cross crucifying him. I believe he ends up making his theology read into this part of Scripture a little too much. The other two that I will have to study a little further were J.I. Packer's on Christ descending to hell and also Joseph "Skip" Ryan's chapter on Christ being thirsty. He takes this to mean that Christ was spiritually thirsty and not physically. My first take is that he is trying to stretch this text further than it allows.

Even with these three, the other 22 chapters far outweigh them to keep me from recommending this book. I would recommend this to any who would like a good understanding of the cross from a wide set of generations, convictions and theologians. Just know, that it doesn't get better than Luther's chapter, but that doesn't mean the rest of the book gets "worse." Highly Recommended
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A Christian Manifesto

This book was definitely one of the more political ones of Schaeffer's. This came towards the end of his life when he was very upset, understandably, over Roe v. Wade and the abolition of anti-abortion laws by the U.S. Supreme Court. It was done well and one that had many great arguments of why we shouldn't really be surprised at what is happening because of the allowance of secular humanism becoming so rampant in our schools and among our society as a whole (in practice anyways).

Like most of Schaeffer, he does very well at showing historically why we are dealing with these issues as a whole. He shows how this country was set up, although not as a Christian one, one that obviously drew from a distinctively Christian mindset. From there, he shows the historical shift that began to take place when the humanist manifesto made it's debut in 1933 and from there the downfall was set in motion. From there, the 1st amendment started to be interpreted differently than the Founding Fathers had in mind and then the 60's started living out the humanist manifesto and we, as a nation, never looked back.

Schaeffer shows why it is necessary for countries to believe in a moral law giver and not in the humanist call that every man decide, in their context, what is right and wrong. Schaeffer actually shows masterfully why abortion is the greatest way that the humanist manifesto has shown itself in our culture. What else should we expect from people who believe that it is up to the person to decide what is right and wrong? Now one can murder their child, because they deem that it is right within their context and for their life. Although deplorable, should not surprise us.

From there Schaeffer gives a historical and biblical understanding of when it is okay to show civil disobedience to a government who goes against God's decrees. Although I don't agree with all his points and he even admittedly states that some will take what he writes beyond the bounds he means them to go, I can see the fruitfulness of this discussion and his reasons.

The one thing that I found to be disturbing within the context of abortion is that he gives four defenses that all Christians should take up for the child. The problem is that these four defenses are all against the government and none against the actual people murdering their children. He points to how to try and fight against a government who allows this murder to happen, but does not show anyway to rise up against the actual murderers of their children. He does this throughout the book on the whole though. He talks about government as a whole, instead of the individual. This is definitely a short coming in the book. Until people are transformed, we can try and change as many laws as we want, but we will come up well short of the overall goal: transforming people to live for the glory of God.

Overall, the book is definitely a political one more than an apologetics book. It is a book where I found myself in agreement and also disagreement, but overall found it useful. As usual Schaeffer wrote this and it sounds like he was living today and not close to 30 years ago. Most of what Schaeffer has forecasted is now happening and it is very close to come to a place to where the Christian voice will be silenced completely. Until then, we must preach, teach and transform the lives of people, not just government. Recommended. Link to Buy

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Escape from Reason

Francis Schaeffer admits that this small book overlaps much of his book titled The God Who is There. What Schaeffer does in this small treatise is give a glimpse on the impact that Thomas Aquinas had on the thinking about nature and grace. Meaning that before Aquinas much of what was thought about God and the heavenlies were never pictured in any way besides mere symbols. For instance, before Aquinas, Mary and Jesus were never portrayed as real bodies with a physical element, but were only allowed to be pictured using symbols. As well as this, nature held no interest to the artist and were never pictured at all in art in any way. This came from the fact that before Aquinas, to simply climb a mountain for the sake of climbing a mountain had never been done.

Out of this nature started to have more meaning for people, which if taken from a biblical perspective can be good in so far we speak of stewardship, but what we find is that from this time on, nature took on more of a role than Aquinas would have thought.

In the Escape from Reason Schaeffer shows how from the start of Aquinas and the Renaissance nature started to depart from the Scriptural understanding of its place among men. So, art, poetry, theatre, etc. took from this and lead us down the road of being completely autonomous from God, where nature ended up "eating up grace" so that it was completely free from the God who created it and us.

Schaeffer goes to show the history of this thought and then gives the better understanding through the Reformation and the Scriptures. Namely, that the only way that man can be the most free is within the "constraints" of the knowledge given by the personal, communicable triune God of the Christian bible.

Even though much of this was overlapped from The God Who is There, this book was still very worth the read and gives greater understanding of how, from Aquinas on, nature and autonomy took a dangerous turn from the freedom found in God, and turned instead to an autonomy apart from Him. Highly Recommended. Link to Buy

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The Personal God Gives Us Meaning

I have been reading a lot of Schaeffer these past 3 weeks and am about to finish up my third book by him in that time. I can now see why so many have pointed me to him in the past. He was truly before his time, yet spoke truth to those in his time as well. I want to give another quote of Schaeffer in regards to why the personal God of the Christian gives us meaning, unlike the impersonal god of the deist, or impersonal science in regards to the atheist or secular humanist. This quote comes off the heals of him showing the dilemma of a personal human coming out of an impersonal naturalistic science. Enjoy and have a great weekend.

So now let us think what it means to begin with that which is personal. This is the very opposite of beginning with the impersonal. That which is personal began everything else. In this case man, being personal, does have meaning. This is not abstract. Many of the people who come to L'Abri would not become Christian if we did not discuss in this area. Many would have turned away, saying, "You don't even know the questions." These things are not abstract, but have to do with communicating the Christian gospel in the midst of the twentieth century.

At times I get tired of being asked why I don't just preach the "simple gospel." You have to preach the simple gospel so that it is simple to the person to whom you are talking, or it is no longer simple. The dilemma of modern man is simple: he does not know why man has any meaning. He is lost. Man remains a zero. This is the damnation of our generation, the heart of modern man's problem. But if we begin with a personal and this is the origin of all else, then the personal does have meaning, and man and his aspirations are not meaningless. Man's aspirations to the reality of personality are in line with what was originally there and what has always intrinsically been.

It is the Christian who has the answer at this point - a titanic answer! So why have we as Christians gone on saying the great truths in ways that nobody understands? Why do we keep talking to ourselves, if men are lost and we love them? Man's damnation today is that he can find no meaning for man, but if we begin with the personal beginning we have an absolutely opposite situation. We have the reality of the fact that personality does have meaning because it is not alienated from what has always been , and what is, and what always will be. This is our answer, and with this we have a solution not only to the problem of existence of bare being and its complexity - but also for man's being different, with a personality which distinguishes him from non-man.

We may use an illustration of two valleys. Often in the Swiss Alps there is a valley filled with water and an adjacent valley without water. Surprisingly enough, sometimes the mountains spring leaks, and suddenly the second valley begins to fill up with water. As long as the level of water in the second valley does not rise higher than the level of the water in the first valley, everyone concludes that there is a real possibility that the second lake came from the first. However, if the water in the second valley goes thirty feet higher than the water in the first valley, nobody gives that answer. If we begin with a personal beginning to all things, then we can understand that man's aspiration for personality has a possible answer.

If we begin will less than personality, we must finally reduce personality to the impersonal. The modern scientific world does this in its reductionism, in which the word personality is only the impersonal plus complexity. In the naturalistic scientific world, whether in sociology, psychology or in the natural sciences, a man is reduced to the impersonal plus complexity.

Francis Schaeffer, He is There and He is Not Silent

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The God Who Is There

This is the first book of Schaeffer's that I have read, and I must say, I am pretty excited to continue to learn from this godly evangelist. In The God Who Is There, Schaeffer weaves in and out of so many philosophical systems and history that it is quite impossible to list it all in a book review. Schaeffer is definitely a classic presuppositional apologist. Meaning that he tries to get the listener or reader to get to the very reason they believe in the certain system that they believe in. He then points out their holes in their arguments and shows how Christianity is the better and most reasonable option there is in philosophical thought. Most of this argument comes from Romans 1:18 where it states,

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,

If they suppress the truth, that means that the truth is definitely inside them, as they are made in the image of God, their Creator.

In The God Who Is There, Schaeffer shows how the modern man has woven himself through philosophy, art, music, theatre, movies, etc. After showing how this has been done throughout history, Schaeffer shows that the "leap of faith" does not happen in Christianity, but actually in humanism, or modern atheism. Schaeffer explains it this way:

Of course, faith is needed to become a Christian, but there are two concepts concerning faith. The two ideas of faith run like this: One idea of faith would be a blind leap in the dark. A blind leap in which you believe something with no reason (or no adequate reason), you just believe it. This is what I mean by a blind leap of faith. The other idea of faith, which has no relationship with this, none whatsoever, is that you are asked to believe something and bow before that something on the basis of good and adequate reasons. There is no relationship between those two concepts of faith. The biblical concept of faith is very much the second and not the first. You are not asked to believe in a blind leap of faith. The Bible teaches that there are good and sufficient reasons to know that these things are true. If you examine the ministry of Paul and also of Christ, you find they endlessly answered questions. There was no concept here of "Keep quiet, just believe"; it just does not exist. Paul answered the questions of the non-Jews, he was always answering questions; and the book of Romans certainly answered the questions of those without the Bible as well as of those with it. There are good and sufficient reasons to know that these things are true. We have already with the fact of reality and everybody having to deal with reality; (1) the existence of the universe and its form; (2) the dinstinctiveness of man; (3) you can relate these to a third thing, and that is the examination of the historicity of Scripture Francis Schaeffer

This is what the book aims to answer. Not only does Schaeffer answer these through the understanding of the triune God of historic Christianity, but he shows how humanism, or atheism, cannot fully answer these questions, therefore, they are the ones taking the "blind leap of faith", not Christianity. There is so much in this book that I did not mention, but Schaeffer had a strong conviction that the Christian cannot live in a castle with a moat, but must be among the culture to help answer the question of those that desire to know the answer to the question, "Why are we here?" He resonates much of what I desire to do within the ministries that God has given me and the convictions of my heart.

I very much enjoyed this book and would recommend anyone desiring to take up the challenge to read Schaeffer as well. I do not think that this is the only answer to the understanding of the existence of God, but believe it helps move us all in the right direction. Highly Recommended. Link to Buy

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L'Abri and Schaeffer's Legacy

I found a very well done article at Christianty Today on the current state of Schaeffer's L'Abri in Switzerland. It is sad where it has gone and what is also interesting is that those that are at L'Abri are out of touch with their own postmodernism. They make some very incoherant statements about postmodernism and Schaeffer himself and I find it very irritating. One statement is that Schaeffer's work is outdated because he was working against modernism, which questioned basic truths, but now we work with postmodernism that asks, "Is there anything that is absolute truth?" The problem with their conclusion at L'Abri is that they figure that people today don't want to know truth, which they do and are searching for. Schaeffer's work still stands because it will take the postmodern to the fact that there not only is truth, but Christianity is that truth they are seeking for.

I am saddened to read how far L'Abri has deserted Schaeffer's desire, but I guess it shouldn't with the state of our crappy, who cares attitude with standing for the faith in the United States. Take a look at this article, as it actually gives a glimpse into what is going on with those young people who are questioning truth altogether.

Not Your Father's L'Abri

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Our Unique Opportunity: Francis Schaeffer

I am currently reading "The God Who is There" by Francis Schaeffer and am really enjoying it. I am very angry at myself for not reading him earlier in life. He is truly amazing in thought and practice. I came to this thought from him and thought I would share it. Enjoy, and have a great weekend:

But we cannot take advantage of our opportunity, if we let go in either thought or practice that methodology of antithesis (that is, that A is A and A is not non-A). If a thing is true, the opposite is not true; if a thing is right, the opposite is wrong.

If our own young people within the churches and those of the world outside see us playing with the methodology of synthesis, in our teaching and evangelism, in our policies and institutions, we can never expect to take advantage of this unique moment of opportunity presented by the death of romanticism. If we let go of our sense of antithesis, we will have nothing left to say.

Moreover, not only will we have nothing to say, we become nothing. Christianity ceases to exist, though it may still keep its outward institutional form. Christianity demands antithesis, not as some abstract concept of truth, but in the fact that God exists, and in personal justification. the biblical concept of justification is a total, personal antithesis. Before justification, we were dead in the kingdom of darkness. The Bible says that in the moment that we accept Christ we pass from death to life. This is total antithesis at the level of the individual man. Once we begin to slip over into the other methodology- a failure to hold on to an absolute which can be known by the whole man, including what is logical and rational in him- historic Christianity is destroyed, even if it seems to keep going for a time. We may not know it, but when this occurs, the marks of death are upon it, and it will soon be one more museum piece.

To the extent that anyone gives up the mentality of antithesis, he has moved over to the other side, even if he still tries to defend orthodoxy or evangelicalism. If Christians are to take advantage of the death of romanticism, we must consciously build back the mentality and practice of antithesis among Christians in doctrine and life. We must do it by our teaching and by example in our attitude toward compromise, both ecclesiastically and in evangelism. To fail to exhibit that we take truth seriously at those points where there is cost in our doing so, is to push the next generation int the relative, dialectical millstreams that surrounds us.

Finally, and with due reverence, may I emphasize that not only should we have genuine compassion for the lost among whom we live, but also concern for our God. We are His people, and if we get caught up in the other methodology, we have really blasphemed, discredited, and dishonored Him - for the greatest antithesis of all is that God exists as opposed to His not existing; He is the God who is there.

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