Schaeffer's Method of Analysis

amishrockstar · #1 (**permalink**) 10-02-2009, 03:26 AM

I've read a little of Schaeffer --not much-- and I'm curious about the questions that he asked to get to the conclusions that he did about art, music, history, and culture.

What sort of questions ought I ask if I want to analyze culture the way that Schaeffer did?

It seems that the ol' "how should we then live?" question was foundational, but what are some of the other aspects to how he analyzed Western culture?

Thanks,
Matthew

discipulo · #2 (**permalink**) 10-02-2009, 03:34 AM

Appart from reading Schaeffer's books of course I encourage you to

read one of Francis Schaeffer's greatets influence,

the dutch Hans Rookmaaker, an Art and Culture Professor at the

Free UNiversity of Amsterdam, I'm glad to say he was also a member

of our Church in Holland, the GKvrigemaakt.

The best way to start is with his book:

Modern Art and The Death of a Culture

you can also read

Gene Edward Veith's works

The State of the Arts and

Post Modern Times

jwithnell · #3 (**permalink**) 10-02-2009, 05:25 AM

Mr. Schaeffer had an underlying conviction that your world view provided the lens by which you viewed all else, and that a world view based upon anything other than the truth of scripture could not be internally self-consistent. This led to an apologetic that encouraged people to examine the logical conclusions to their positions.

Richard Tallach · #4 (**permalink**) 10-02-2009, 07:36 AM

"What is beauty?" - from a biblical perspective.

Wayne · #5 (**permalink**) 10-02-2009, 09:59 AM

You might also glean some points from something he wrote in the 1940's, on the subject of apologetics, kinda mapping out his position over against both Van Til and Buswell (who was an evidentialist).

PCA Historical Center: A Review of a Review, by Francis A. Schaeffer (1948)

amishrockstar · #6 (**permalink**) 10-02-2009, 12:34 PM

Thanks for the article and book recommendation.
I did read the article, but probably won't have time to sit down with the book --I'm a full-time graduate student and I'm a first-year instructor.

I'd be grateful for some more summaries of Schaeffer's method(s).

Thanks again,
Matthew

Joe Keysor · #7 (**permalink**) 10-28-2009, 03:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by amishrockstar

Thanks for the article and book recommendation.
I did read the article, but probably won't have time to sit down with the book --I'm a full-time graduate student and I'm a first-year instructor.

I'd be grateful for some more summaries of Schaeffer's method(s).

Thanks again,
Matthew

If you read Schaeffer's excellent book The Great Evangelical Disaster you will see that central to his approach was the belief that the bible is the abiding word of God and should not be trimmed to fit the culture.

If you read No Little People it is clear that Schaeffer had profound insights into biblical teaching, spirituality and living the Christian life apart from any cultural apologetic.

This is I think a key to understanding Schaeffer - he first started out with a solid biblical foundation and emphasis, which was his main priority, and then analyzed current trends in the light of scripture. His response to Sarte, Camus, Heidegger whatever was "What does the bible say?"

Also, his interest in his apologetic emerged out of conversations with lost people while he was ministering in Europe. People who were deeply into modern trends asked him profound questions and he wanted to understand where they were coming from. His motivation was thus not intellectual only (though that was a part of it), but more importantly, a desire to help people become saved, to understand their position so he could reach them for Christ more effectively.

He was also surprisingly aware of currrent trends, and wrote something about Foucault (if I remember that correctly) long before Foucault became a post modernist icon.

The secret to Schaeffer's apologetic was that he had a heart for God and for people, and was used of God in that particular area of ministry. He was not an intellectual but an evangelist who found intellectualism useful as a means of communicating with lost people.

Joe Keysor · #8 (**permalink**) 11-07-2009, 02:24 PM

I have just come across a useful book, Francis Schaeffer and the Shaping of Evangelical America by Barry Hankins. it looks to have a lot of useful information about Schaeffer's life and work, though the comment on p. 9 that Schaeffer would probably not have amounted to a hill of beans without his wife seems to me to be pretty ridiculous.

Michael Turner · #9 (**permalink**) 11-07-2009, 02:32 PM

A great read...

Amazon