Book Review: Francis Schaeffar

 

Part of Evangelical Press’s Bitesize Biographies Series, this book is an introduction to Schaeffer’s teaching and writing as well as an outline biography.  This is entirely appropriate as many readers will meet Schaeffer primarily in his writings.

There is enough information to help the reader contextualise Schaeffer’s thought in the issues he faced in the last century.  We observe him battling liberalism in American Presbyterianism then wrestling with the markedly different 20^th century evangelical cultures of North America and Europe where he founded the L’Abri Fellowship before returning to the States and engaging in some of its late century ethical issues.

This is an ideal book to read before launching into one of Schaeffer’s works.  As we move further away from the 20^th Century it becomes increasingly important to remember the issues that its evangelical leaders faced so that their writings can be appreciated in a new generation.   The mind-set of the youth of the sixties to whom Schaeffer ministered is the mind-set that inhabits the corridors of power today.  And it's hurting.