I’m pleased to have a good friend, Chris Talbot, offer this short look at a person of mutual interest, Francis Schaeffer. Talbot wears lots of hats, perhaps most notably the Program Coordinator for Youth and Family Ministry at Welch College. Read more about him here.
For those interested in apologetics, especially those in the Reformed community, Francis Schaeffer is a well-known, often lauded figure. As one looks through works on apologetic, cultural engagement, and the like, Schaeffer’s name is often invoked. Yet there’s plenty about Francis Schaeffer that people don’t know. Too often only a part of Schaeffer’s life or work is highlighted. While a whole book could be written on trying to discern the “real Schaeffer,” I offer this short list to name a handful of things you (maybe) didn’t know about Francis Schaeffer.
1. Schaeffer initially moved his family to Switzerland to do children’s ministry.
While L’Abri has caught the imagination of evangelical Christians, you may not know that Francis Schaeffer and his family moved to Switzerland not to build an apologetic study-center, but instead do children’s ministry. In 1945, while Francis was pastoring in St. Louis, he and his wife, Edith, founded a children’s ministry called Children for Christ. The ministry, along with the curriculum he and Edith wrote, was utilized across their denomination at the time. This outreach ministry included Bible studies, songs, and more.
The Schaeffers had regularly ministered to children. This includes Francis’ pastorate in Grove City, Pennsylvania, as well as at summer camps. In fact, Colin Duriez records Schaeffer’s affinity for hosting hot dog roasts for kids, and on at least one occasion, Schaeffer squeezed twenty-one kids into his Model A Ford.
2. J. Gresham Machen gave his very last exam to Francis Schaeffer before dying in 1937.
Upon graduating from Hampton-Sydney College, Schaeffer, with some gentle prodding from his wife, decided to enroll at the newly formed Westminster Theological Seminary. This new institution, sought to carry on an older tradition of Princeton Seminary. Appropriately, it was led by J. Gresham Machen, the author of Christianity and Liberalism.
Many know that Schaeffer studied under Cornelis Van Til (the father of presuppositional apologetics) at Westminster. But few realize that Schaeffer also studied under Machen. (A side note: Machen was an evidentialist of the Princetonian variety, unlike his newly hired apologetics professor.) More interestingly, biographer William Edgar notes that Machen gave his very last exam to Schaeffer, who had to take it while sitting next to Machen’s sick bed.
3. Francis was not the only apologist of the family.
Edith Schaeffer (née Seville) was the daughter of missionaries with China Inland Mission. She was well-cultured, enjoyed a wide variety of art and music, and was known around L’Abri for her love of dancing. But she was also well-educated. She and Francis met at a Young People’s meeting at a liberal Presbyterian Church in Germantown, Pennsylvania. The speaker was a Unitarian who rejected Christ’s divinity and the inerrancy and inspiration of Scripture. Both Francis and Edith stood up to respond to the speaker’s talk. However, while Francis argued from personal experience, it was Edith quoted from J. Gresham Machen and Robert D. Wilson. Even more, after Francis and Edith began dating, Edith encouraged the young Francis to read Machen’s seminal work Christianity and Liberalism. In the foreword of L’Abri, Francis states that his and Edith’s work were two sides to the same apologetic coin.
4. Schaeffer pastored in the United States for nearly ten years before moving to war-torn Europe and becoming the “missionary to the intellectuals.”
Years before L’Abri, or what Time magazine called the “mission to the intellectuals,” Schaeffer served in three different pastorates. Throughout his four decades of ministry, Schaeffer would be known for his pastoral tone and care. After being the first ordained pastor in the newly minted Bible Presbyterian Church, he first served in a pastorate in Grove City, Pennsylvania. Three years later, he would serve as an associate pastor under Abraham Lance Lathem in Chester, Pennsylvania. Then in 1943, Schaeffer served as Senior Pastor of the Bible Presbyterian Church (now Covenant Presbyterian) in St. Louis Missouri.
5. Schaeffer was adamantly against racism early and throughout his life.
One of the resounding legacies of Schaeffer’s work is his love and care for every single individual. Schaeffer argues for this approach throughout his works, most notably in Two Contents, Two Realities, True Spirituality, and The Mark of the Christian. It wasn’t just lip service. Friends, colleagues, and students all remember and appreciate Schaeffer’s constant care for all those made in the image of God. Sylvester Jacob’s has a moving account of the Schaeffers’ endearing love in his autobiography Born Black.
While his practice was consistent enough, Schaeffer himself worked adamantly against racism throughout his life. In college at Hampden-Sydney, he taught Sunday School at an African American Church. Early in his ministry and in the middle of World War II, he wrote tracks like The Bible Believing Christian and the Jew, or The Fundamentalist Christian and Anti Semitism. His anti-racist stance may not be any clearer though then when he declared to his church in St. Louis that if any black person came to the church and even felt unwelcome, that he would resign. He saw all people as image-bearers.
6. Francis Schaeffer founded the International Presbyterian Church in 1954.
While Schaeffer stayed Presbyterian throughout his life, he shifted from denomination to denomination. He was seemingly involved in what is now the Orthodox Presbyterian Church while at Westminster, but after enrolling and graduating from Faith Seminary, he was ordained in the Bible Presbyterian Church. Once Francis and Edith resigned from the Independent Board for Presbyterian Missions in 1948, they founded the International Presbyterian Church in 1954 to formalize the Protestant church meetings in Champéry.
7. While early visitors to L’Abri were curious and inquisitive non-believers, L’Abri and the Schaeffers quickly began to host disenchanted young Christians.
It’s easy to look upon L’Abri with a kind of romantic idealism. Who doesn’t want to spend time in a Swiss chalet in the Alps, working the gardens, enjoying community, and talking about theology and philosophy? Apparently, many Christians thought the same thing. While L’Abri certainly began as an outreach to non-believers—and certainly still does so—in the 1970s and 80s, the community began to be dominated by disenchanted young Christians. At first, L’Abri was a destination for the counterculture community, often hosting drug attics, single mothers, and many more. Over time, L’Abri began to be a place of Christian pilgrimage for those young Christians who too wanted “honest answers to honest questions.”
There’s certainly more to say. Francis Schaeffer is an ever-interesting person who touched the lives of people everywhere. He wrote on and discussed so much. Not mentioned above is his interest in the arts, his care for the poor, or his interactions with Larry Norman and R. J. Rushdoony. And while his legacy continues in his books and the work at L’Abri, there is much more for his readers to retrieve and rediscover. Take this as opportunity to go and read more of Francis Schaeffer.