The Dissatisfaction of Francis A. Schaeffer
To folks who know me, this man, Francis A. Schaeffer - one of the greatest Christian intellectuals of the 20th century - his thoughts and his works have greatly shaped the foundations of my Christian faith.
A good friend of mine introduced his works to me several years ago. Back then, I was familiar with the Reformed faith and its central tenets, but articulating a worldview (weltenschaung) of what it means to be a Christian, ah, that was a different matter... Politics, economics, social theories, philosophy, anthropology (all these subjects were foreign stuff to me). Worse, it didn't occur to me that such diverse subject matters were of any particular relevance to the Christian faith. Only salvation mattered.
But bit by bit - partly due to my dissatisfaction with the quality of my faith as well as the intellectual challenges that were arising from my university program - I knew that I had to dig deeper into the essence of my faith, in order to really know what I believed.
Schaeffer's works were a watershed. I bought his Complete Works and started reading them. After completing The God who is there and Escape from Reason, I was awestruck with the magnitude of this man's thinking and his ability to integrate diverse spheres of knowledge into a coherent Christian worldview. More importantly, his writings were not simply academic dissertations - detached and aloof from the pangs of a broken world, but works upon which you could sense his compassion for humanity, demonstrated through his outreach to people from all walks of life. His starting point was that, all men - whether saved or unsaved - are created in the image and likeness of God and possess intrinsic value to life.
The following links will provide a deeper insight into the man, his ideas and his life:
http://www.markheard.net/heardtribute/archive/schaeffer1_c_today1997.html http://www.markheard.net/heardtribute/archive/schaeffer2_c_today1997.html
A good friend of mine introduced his works to me several years ago. Back then, I was familiar with the Reformed faith and its central tenets, but articulating a worldview (weltenschaung) of what it means to be a Christian, ah, that was a different matter... Politics, economics, social theories, philosophy, anthropology (all these subjects were foreign stuff to me). Worse, it didn't occur to me that such diverse subject matters were of any particular relevance to the Christian faith. Only salvation mattered.
But bit by bit - partly due to my dissatisfaction with the quality of my faith as well as the intellectual challenges that were arising from my university program - I knew that I had to dig deeper into the essence of my faith, in order to really know what I believed.
Schaeffer's works were a watershed. I bought his Complete Works and started reading them. After completing The God who is there and Escape from Reason, I was awestruck with the magnitude of this man's thinking and his ability to integrate diverse spheres of knowledge into a coherent Christian worldview. More importantly, his writings were not simply academic dissertations - detached and aloof from the pangs of a broken world, but works upon which you could sense his compassion for humanity, demonstrated through his outreach to people from all walks of life. His starting point was that, all men - whether saved or unsaved - are created in the image and likeness of God and possess intrinsic value to life.
The following links will provide a deeper insight into the man, his ideas and his life:
http://www.markheard.net/heardtribute/archive/schaeffer1_c_today1997.html http://www.markheard.net/heardtribute/archive/schaeffer2_c_today1997.html
posted by Benjamin Ho at
6:56 PM
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