Tuesday, January 30th | Francis August Schaeffer

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We're going to leave a link in the description so you can do just that. The rest of the day comes from Jude chapter one. There is only one chapter in Jude, isn't there? Yeah, I don't know why I put Jude one. It's the first chapter. It's also the only chapter. I was in a rush and I put Jude one. No, I mean, Jude, the only chapter.

There you go. Verses 24 and 25. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to God our Savior who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power both now and forever. I mean, that truly is the heart of worship. That's what we aspire to do when we worship is to say, God, to you be glory and majesty. All that stuff.

All that stuff is to you. And then as an afterthought, the icing on the cake is you help us. You present us faultless before the presence of your glory.

You give us exceeding joy. But we worship you because of who you are and we thank you for what you've done. And that's always been the proper order of our worship. And one of the things I appreciate the most about you and Dr. John, the way that you craft worship sets together, is that the songs are geared in such a way that it shifts our focus not to who we are and to the things that are wrong in our lives or the things that are broken about us, but to who Christ is and what he's done for us.

Because that's the proper posture of worship, but it's such a rare focus in popular worship songs. We gotta get into the gripe vine. It's Tuesday, right? It was a hard shift into the gripe vine. Yeah, I was thinking about it. I was like, how can I get into the gripe vine now? Because that's such a great picture of who God is and now I have to instantly be negative. Yeah.

Welcome to the gripe vine! So, this is something that has eaten away at me for decades now at this point. Decades? Decades.

You've only been around for three, so... Yeah, so I'd say maybe a decade and a half. Okay. When I have to back into a parking spot... Hate it.

So you're with me? Immediately hate it. I hate it, cancel it. Okay, sometimes it can't be helped.

That doesn't mean that I can't gripe about it. I hate having to back into a parking spot because I typically drive big cars. I drive like SUVs. Now, sometimes I'll drive a little Ford Fusion. That's cute. That's fine.

Whatever. But when there's like a big parking lot full of cars and I'm having to try to navigate and now I'm like, do I just use the mirror? Do I lean out? Do I send someone out of the car? What do I do? If I'm by myself, it's sort of okay.

If I'm by myself, I just go home. What? It's like give up.

No, sorry. I'll try again tomorrow. I love to, see, because I can back out of a parking spot no problem. But then it's really bad when I'm with someone and I'm like, oh, I can't, I don't know if I can get in here. And they're like, oh, just back in.

And really, really the gripe is people who just say that like it's no big deal. Yeah, easy for you to say. You're not the one behind the wheel. Right. Yeah, just back into the parking spot.

It's all good. And then they sit back and relax in the passenger seat. I can't stand that. I hate backing into a spot.

I do too. I will say, backup cameras have kind of changed the game. True, true. Those are becoming more and more sort of standard in vehicles. And we have a backup camera in our minivan.

Love it. Yes. It is super helpful. It has that sensor where if you get too close to things, but even still, it's not a perfect system.

No, it's not. Because there's still blind spots. And a lot of people don't have them. I only had a backup camera when I got the Honda Pilot back in like 2019. And even then, I don't use it that much because I try to avoid backing into parking spots.

Yeah. Write in and let us know your experience with backing things, backing up your vehicles, especially if they're larger and especially if you're a guy. Write in and let us know 252-582-5028 or you can get online and email us at contact at ClearViewTodayShow.com. Stay tuned.

We'll be back after this. Not to mention the number one best-selling Christian talk show of all time. I don't know if that's accurate. Well, maybe not yet, but that's why we want people to download the app. If you're listening from the Triangle area, we encourage you to check out Clearview Church in person. But if not, you can still follow all of our content on the Clearview app.

It's 100% free on the Apple Store and Google Play Store. And best of all, all of our content is right there in one convenient spot. Make sure you download the Clearview app today and let's get back to the show. Welcome back to Clear View Today with Dr. Abbadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com or if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text at 252-582-5028. That's right.

We are here once again in the Clear View Today studio on this fabulous Taco Tuesday with Dr. Abbadan Shah, who is a Ph.D. in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and host of today's show, Dr. Shah, scale of 1 to 10. I just got to know, how would you rate yourself on backing into a parking spot? You've got a big truck now. You've got a big truck. I don't always feel successful. It's after back and forth four or five times that I can make it in.

It's because my truck is big. Yeah, that's true. That's funny. Well, you know, you've got to sharpen the skill. It's something you've got to work toward. It's something that comes naturally, but it's something you've got to work on and refine. And it's the same is true with, you know, being able to articulate theology, being able to articulate what it is that we believe in the finer points of doctrine. And, you know, one person who did that very well was Mr. Francis Schaeffer.

Let me ask you this. Do these segues come naturally, my friend? Because your transitions have been on point. Well, you know, it's something I've been working on, something that I've been, you know, committing to sharpening in 2024.

So I'm trying to have the smooth transitions. Today, of course, is Francis Schaeffer's birthday. Famous American theologian.

You know, we talked about R.A. Torrey yesterday, and I'm willing to bet there were some Christian listeners out there who would be like, Now, who is that? But everybody knows Francis Schaeffer. At least you've heard the name. You've at least heard the name, I feel like. Most people.

I would like to think people have. Unfortunately, the further we're getting away from his time, and he passed away, I was trying to get the time right, in 1984. Yeah, he died in 1984.

Since then, not many people remember him as much in an outside circle. I'm not going to lie. I'm looking at a picture of him right now. It says the Reverend Francis Schaeffer. This sweater he's got on is almost as clean as yours.

Oh, well, thank you. Almost. Almost. Now, I'm liking the little beard. I'm liking the little... The goatee? Yeah, the little goatee. Is he wearing his knickerbockers?

It's just a headshot. I don't love how much he looks like George Carlin with the slicked back hair. He does have to look like George Carlin.

But I'm liking the little pointed goatee. Mr. Reverend Francis Schaeffer just gave a big shake of the head when you compared him to George Carlin. You know what? I'll say this. There's not a whole lot I like about George Carlin. Let's just put it that way. Oh, no, I'm with you.

I think George Carlin is the wannabe Francis Schaeffer. How about that? He will never be. He's not even the same zip code. No.

Yeah, but that's true. Not the same ballpark, not the same county, not the same zip code, not the same state. Universe? No. No, not even the same universe. No, completely alternate universe. Happy birthday, Francis Schaeffer.

That's right. So, Francis Schaeffer, I mean, we know that he's a theologian, but we don't necessarily know much more than that. What else is he known for? What are some notable things from his life? My introduction to Francis Schaeffer happened in 1992, and I'm sitting in Western Civ class. That's the year I was born. Were you really?

Yes, yes. I'm sitting in Western Civilization class. I had just come back from India. It was a J-term class, so just two weeks. And I was like, okay, fine, let's just do this.

Let's just get this over with. And my professor, Dr. Doug Matthews, great guy, real friendly, real nice, has this ability to connect with young people. And so I was like, okay, I'll enjoy this class.

And then we had this textbook, How Should We Then Live? So I was like, oh my goodness, they wanted us to read this in two weeks? Yeah, that's not happening. That's not going to happen.

I love the time difference, because now it's like, two weeks? Yeah, give me a little bit. I'll get it done.

But you take the college kids like, nope. Absolutely. Not going to happen. Even with the illustrations and the pictures, not going to happen.

Not going to happen. But anyways, I said, okay, I'll do the best I can. And there was another text, too. There were like two texts. And then there was a set of videos we were going to watch.

So I'm like, oh, this sounds great now. And we were in the chapel. Toccoa Falls College had a chapel. And this class was being held in the chapel. And so they would turn down the lights, and I'm like, ah, it's comfortable.

But it was anything but comfortable. In fact, I was hooked. I was hooked watching these videos. They were okay.

They were not super professional. But the content was riveting. The content was, and keep in mind, I am only, at the time, I was only 18 years old. So it's not like I was where I am today.

I was not going in the ministry at the time. And at 18 years of age, I'm just like, wow. This man is really making sense of where the culture is, where the world is. I'm getting this. I'm in. And that's one of the things that I know is a goal of yours even today. That's a way that Francis Schaeffer has impacted you is that I know that in your preaching, that's sort of your goal in a lot of ways is that you would just click in someone's mind. You know what I mean? That you could see the light bulb moment of this man. I get it. I get what he's saying. Right.

Right. So talk about his life a little bit. He was born in 1912, and this is in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Children of working class parents of German ancestry. And they were nominal Christians. But then he even attended a Presbyterian church, sort of liberal side of things. But then later on, he came to know the Lord.

This is in 1930. After reading the Bible for about six months, he realized when he read the book of Genesis what it means that God gave his son for him. And he was not only convinced that the Bible was true, but he was also convinced that this book has the answers to all the basic philosophical questions of life.

This book has the answers. In fact, later on, I think he's the one who said if I had only like an hour with somebody or maybe 30 minutes or 10 minutes, something like that, I can't remember now, he said I'll spend the bulk of my time in Genesis chapter one and two, and then chapter one, two, and three, and then I'll explain what happened in the last few minutes, what happened when sin came in, what happened when there was a fall, what happened when God sent his son into this world to save what had gone wrong. That's such a different approach than what we normally hear. I mean, you hear people just go straight to Romans or straight to the cross.

The easy grab. We should talk about that. But Genesis one and two, I mean, that's the foundation for everything that lays the road ahead of us.

That's right. And then he went on to several seminaries. He went to Westminster Theological Seminary.

This is a place founded by J. Gresham Machen and others. And he studied under Cornelius Van Til, a famous theologian, apologist. He studied his works. He studied also under John Murray.

I mean, so, you know, some very, very famous names reformed. And then that's where his faith began to grow or his knowledge began to grow of Christianity. And then he moved here and there. He pastored churches. And, of course, he moved to Europe.

And this is in 1948 after he met his wife. And that's where, you know, we hear a lot about library. This was a, library in French means the shelter. This is the place which he founded where young people, this is back by the time of the 60s, began to come from all over the world to just be there.

It was kind of like a retreat sort of seminary hybrid thing. That's right. And say that he was sometimes referred to as the prophet of the 60s. Wow.

Really? Yeah, this is Francis Schaeffer, the prophet of the 60s. Remember the 60s counterculture, the hippie movement and all that, disillusionment, anti-establishment.

And Schaeffer was one of those guiding lights for lots and lots and lots of young people. As in he stood against all those things? He stood against the countercultural movement?

It was not like he was standing against it, but he was pointing the light. Okay. Showing the way to people who otherwise had become disillusioned. Yeah. So it was like, yes, but. Yeah.

And then the truth of Christ. That's right. Wow. So the disillusionment sets in.

People are naturally kind of drifting and he kind of sets up a library as a way to say, hey, as you're searching, as you are walking away, let me show you something to walk toward. That's right. Wow. That's right. And I think a lot of churches nowadays want to emulate the culture.

Right. They want to, they want, and it's all under the guise of capturing the culture. But you know, here at Clearview, we truly want to capture culture.

Not by meeting them where they are, but by, I guess, showing that the church is not separate from culture, if that makes sense. You know, this cultural mandate that we have at Clearview. That's right.

And cultural mandate and things like that are coming from Francis Schaeffer. Wow. Yeah. That's really awesome. Yeah. Nancy Murphy. And then, you know, those are the kind of people that got the idea of cultural mandate.

Yeah. How do you balance engaging with secular culture while remaining true to biblical values? And when culture outside rejects those biblical values. So another person that greatly impacted Francis Schaeffer's life was Abraham Kuyper. The Dutch president, prime minister, theologian, pastor. I mean, he was so many things.

Abraham Kuyper. I don't agree with him on every aspect of his theology. I'll just be the first to say to you that he doesn't. But I do love his statement. Remember the statement I made? A Kuyper statement that there's not a single inch of place in this entire universe over which Jesus does not cry out, mine. Yes. That's Kuyper.

That's Kuyper influenced Schaeffer. And that's part of the legacy that I pick and say that's how we should think. Yeah. Every bit of the ground or every inch of this entire universe belongs to Jesus Christ. And so we're simply claiming what is already his.

Yeah. And this is not some Christian reconstructionism. This is not, you know, the kingdom rule kind of thing. And we're not doing that.

That gets weird. Can we not spiritually say that this world belongs to Christ and I'm simply building his kingdom, but I'm simply trying to be the salt and light that he called us to be? That's right. Can we not claim that? Yeah, we can.

Absolutely. And that's what Francis Schaeffer was trying to do. You know, I see a lot of that in the way that we lead here at Clearview Church, recognizing that culture is falling away. But rather than being hopeless about it or rather than just standing firm for the sake of stubbornness or the sake of being firm and planted, that you encourage Christians to appreciate beautiful things like the arts and engaging culture in a way that honors Christ.

You know, not running from it, not standing firm and leaving them to their own devices, but to go about our lives with love. Right, right. And true biblical love, not acceptance of sin.

Right, right. And that's the key. I mean, he talked about, if I can find this place where he talked about the importance of holiness, if I can find that spot. But anyways, that was very important to him.

Well, that's another thing that we talk about here on the show. I know while he's looking for that, we talk about truth and mercy, truth and love. They can't exist apart from each other. No, it's two sides of the same coin and you have to hold them together. Sometimes it may call for more truth applied.

Sometimes it may call for more mercy applied. But they should always be together because that's how Christ worked. He pointed people toward truth, but he did so in a way that was loving. Right. And that's one of our goals. Even from the very conception of this show, that was one of our goals is that every episode has both. It has the mercy of Christ, but it also has Christ's truth. Not one can exist without the other. Well, you said something about the truth. He was very conservative and that's sometimes hard to find because there are people out there or have been in the past 20, 30 years, they are great.

I love their persona, their personalities. But then when I examine them deeply or more deeply, it's like they're fudging over a simple conviction like inerrancy of scripture. They cannot seem to make up their minds or they're just like, well, you know, I'm sort of, yeah, well, maybe we need another term kind of thing. And I'm like, oh, you just gave up a very critical doctrine of our faith, which is the Bible is the word of God. And you gave it up as though it was a bargaining chip or something that you could get back later. Yeah.

And I'm sorry that you compromised. And they will be like, well, you know, there are people under the same umbrella who may not believe in inerrancy, but they have the same convictions. And I'm not impressed by that kind of statement.

Yeah. If you say that, then what are the doctrine? Will you also be sort of open in your umbrella? That's a good point. Would you also be open to maybe Jesus is not fully God or maybe not fully man? Maybe are you also open to the fact that there are other ways to God? Are you also open to the fact that maybe there is not a real hell on the other side?

What else are you open to? Right. So I like Schaeffer because he stood against liberalism. He stood against things like neo orthodoxy.

He was truly a prophet in a sense, in a sense, because he saw what was coming to Western culture. Yeah. Well, I think that's also very telling because I think it's rare nowadays, like we were saying earlier, to find someone who is conservative but willing to engage with culture. Right.

Because when most people think of conservatives, they think of old stuffy old men and women who just wish they could live in the past. Well, it usually takes one or two caricatures in popular media. You either have the person curmudgeonly like crying out, like you're all wrong and hatefully responding, or you have the person who is like frozen chosen, like I don't want to go anywhere near culture.

We're just going to stay over here and us four and no more. Right. Right. Well, one of his clarion calls, we often quote today, but we don't give him the credit for that, but he often called people to be radicals for Christ. We say that, right, in some way, be a radical, be different. Well, he was the one who was saying that a lot. At a time when there were a lot of radicals, and being a radical was not a good thing, at least in conservative circles, but he was saying be a radical for Christ. So Schaeffer would have held to the inerrancy of scripture.

Yes, yes, yes. And he wrote many books, great, great books, like, of course, you know this one, How Should We Then Live, which became that video series, The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture. Still a good book. In fact, years later, when I was in seminary, I actually rented out the videos from the library, and I watched them again.

Wow. Yeah, I watched them a couple more times since then. Haven't watched them in like 20-some years now, but it was still an education when you read this book. Then there are books like The Great Evangelical Disaster, The Christian Manifesto. The Christian Manifesto is a great book.

I'm trying to see right here. The God Who Is There. There's another one called He Is There and He's Not Silent.

Let's see, Nicole's dad, by the way, my father-in-law was a big Schaeffer fan. True Spirituality. That was a good book as well, True Spirituality.

I have most of these in my library. So anyways, a lot of good books he wrote. Escape From Reason. What would you say is the, I mean, we asked this question yesterday with R.A. Torrey, but what would you say is the number one thing that he's most known for or if not that, that people can draw from his life and from his example?

From Francis Schaeffer's life. I think he didn't escape from the culture. He stayed in the culture and yet he did everything he could to capture the culture. He didn't capture everybody in the culture.

Of course, we know that. But the ones he did capture, wow. What an impact he made. Generations of people, like I'm impacted by Francis Schaeffer. I never met him. I mean, shucks, I was only 11 when he died and I was in India, so I never got a chance to meet him.

I'm sure my dad knew about him. But he impacted so many lives. And so my challenge to people is from Francis Schaeffer's life, learn to capture the culture, learn to understand where the culture is headed. That's important too.

He was able to do that. Most of us are simply, I hate to use the word, regurgitating what we learn. That's it. We don't tend to see the principles, the ideas, the trends. None of that is just like, this is what we're hearing, this is what we're going to say. I'm going with this group, so I'm going to talk like this. Now this particular pastor or famous personality is my hero, so I'm just going to talk like him and act like him and believe like him and behave like him. TikTok makes that very easy. It makes it easy to find people who are saying, little 30-second clips of somebody saying something seemingly profound and all of a sudden you have young people adopting it as their new worldview.

And I think you and I have talked about this on the phone before. Even scholars will do this thing where they find their camp and they're no longer that person. They're a mouthpiece for their ideals or for their camp. And I'm seeing people like R.A. Torrey and Francis Schaeffer who, even though they're scholars, they're generalists in that they do lots of different things very well because they're true authentic selves. Right, and now also I would say he had his struggles. He struggled with depression.

Really? Yeah, he had bouts of depression. He struggled with just feeling down many times. He had kind of like these emotional outbursts and people close to him knew that. But it was just, that was his struggle in life. And so we're not going to paint the man with some really broad brushes. Let's just talk about him.

And yes, he struggled. Nonetheless, he tried to make a big impact for Christ. Maybe there's somebody listening to the show today who is involved in a ministry setting, either as a pastor or on a leadership team, and they're thinking about engaging with culture and recognizing maybe some deficits in how their church is doing it. What are some ways that they can be up to date with what is happening in culture and contextualize, not change, but contextualize the message, their means of reaching people?

Well, one, listen to this show. Yeah, that's true. That's what we're here to do.

Today, for a reason. We're trying to capture the heart of our world and we're trying to keep our hand on the pulse of our culture. So yeah, definitely listen to it. And we'll often talk about books on this show and mention names like Francis Schaeffer.

Hey, that's for a reason. Go read some of these books. Go educate yourself on current events. See, I would strongly urge you to ground yourself in biblical historic Christianity because if you don't know where we've come from, it's very hard to know where we are. Exactly, and I'm glad that you said that because I think it's very easy for people to listen to episodes like this one or yesterday's and be like, well, I'm supposed to be feeling the pulse of today's culture and you guys just talk about people from the past, but it's like you have no clue where you came from. And if you don't know your history, if you don't know where you came from, if you don't know how God has used people up to this point, then it's like trying to jump into the middle of a book without reading the beginning of it. It's like I have no clue where I'm at. I can't make an impact. I can't enjoy this story. If you don't know your history, today will be a mystery. Oh, I love that. I didn't actually. I worked really hard on it.

Yeah, no, I just don't know how to proceed. Another important part of his life is his marriage. Francis and Edith Shaffer were the best of friends. There would not be a Francis Shaffer if it wasn't for Edith. Wow, that's true. And because her book writing greatly impacted his life.

And in fact, Nicole and I, in our first years of our marriage, we did a devotion through Francis and Edith Shaffer's writing. Wow, that's awesome. And so, you know, read books like this. There are a lot of trendy books these days, but read some of these books.

Yeah, they're the classics for a reason. That's right. That's awesome.

Impacting the culture is so important. If you guys enjoyed today's episode, maybe you learned something about the life of Francis Shaffer, write in and let us know, 252-582-5028. You can visit us online at clearveetodayshow.com, and you can partner with us financially on that same website. Scroll to the bottom, click that donate button, and let us know that it's coming from our Clear Read Today show family. I want to say a big thank you to Mighty Muscadine for sponsoring this episode of the Clear Read Today show.

Head over to their website, mightymuscadine.com, check out their line of products, and use the promo code TODAY, T-O-D-A-Y, on checkout. That's going to give you a discount, and a portion of those proceeds are going to come right back here to the Clear Read Today show. Jon, anything you want to leave our listeners with today?

Yeah, Dr. Shaw just mentioned his wife, Nicole. We are going to have her on the show tomorrow starting a brand new segment right here at the very, very end of January. We're going to save it for February. We said, look, we got one more day.

Why not? They're going to be talking about marriage and family. We're going to be doing that once a month right here on the Clear Read Today show. So make sure you tune in. Listening to stuff like that doesn't mean anything's wrong with your marriage, doesn't mean you're in danger.

It just means that you are investing in a wise relationship with your spouse. So we're going to be talking about that on tomorrow's show. That's great. Make sure you guys tune in for that. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clear Read Today. Thank you.