No other theologian in the 20th century had as big an impact on conservative evangelical Christianity than Francis Schaeffer; but often his view of salvation as substitutionary and ongoing is ignored when discussing his philosophy and theology. Schaeffer believed that salvation was a past, present, and future event that Christians partook in. Though Christians were justified at one time through the substitution of Christ on the cross – an irrevocable justification – he also taught that salvation was ongoing through sanctification and culminated in glorification. Though he might have put too much emphasis on the rational aspect of salvation in certain works, his works as a whole do an excellent job to show that salvation is both rational and relational. Though the apologetic works of Schaeffer are important, his teachings on salvation are invaluable.
Francis Schaeffer was born January 30, 1912 in Pennsylvania to a nominally Christian home. Schaeffer parents groomed him to be an electrician by trade, but early in his teens he began to read philosophical works by Greek philosophers. After going through an agnostic stage in his walk, at the age of eighteen Francis Schaeffer was drawn to Christ. After coming to Christ he began to realize that one must believe in the inerrancy of the Bible and also live the truth of the Bible. Though he was raised in a nominally Christian home, Christ drew him to a deeper walk with the Lord.
Though he did not have the intellectual fortitude earl in his Christian walk – the same fortitude that would define him later in his Christianity – he did see the importance of living and practicing the Christian faith. In the 1930s, when segregation was not only rampant, but seen as moral, Schaeffer would walk to an African American church to teach Sunday school to little children. Later, in the 1940s when Schaeffer was a pastor at a church, a family in his church couldn’t afford to send their child with Down’s syndrome to a special school. Schaeffer voluntarily went to that family’s house and tutored the child himself, on top of his other duties. These actions are best summed up by Bryan Follis when he states, “This is true Christian love – a compassion for those considered by society to be unimportant and a compassion that is costly in terms of time effort, and commitment.” This idea of Christian love – practicing the faith – was central to Schaeffer’s idea of sanctification within salvation.
Even as Schaeffer grew in his intellectual understanding of Christianity, he never once deviated from the idea that salvation is a continuous action on this earth, manifested in the actions of Christians. In the 1950′s, Schaeffer founded L’Abri (“shelter”) in order to reach out to students in colleges. Students would come to Schaeffer with intellectual questions and while there were taken care of physically and spiritually. Schaeffer would feed them, give them a place to sleep, but also deal with the difficult questions they posed. To his death, Schaeffer was always concentrated on the person and never on the multitude of people. One time shortly before his death in 1984, Schaeffer was late for a speaking engagement for several thousand people, while staying in the United States. When the organizers finally found him, they discovered he was in his hotel room having a conversation about the Gospel with the maid. Schaeffer never abandoned his view that the Gospel was to be lived out.
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