Posted on 04/24/2005 5:39:54 AM PDT by logos
Jerry Jenkins, former editor of Moody Magazine, tells of a time when he heard Francis Schaeffer speak in Chicago. After presenting his How Should We Then Live? material, Schaeffer fielded questions from an audience of more than four thousand. Jenkins recalls one gentleman who "began a question in a halting, nearly incoherent growl. Clearly, he suffered from cerebral palsy." Schaeffer pressed his eyes firmly shut and listened intently as the questioner offered a lengthy, garbled inquiry. Jenkins admits to grasping only about a quarter of the question, but Schaeffer discerned all but the final three words, which the man reiterated. Schaeffer responded, "Forgive me ... the last word again, please." With the full question grasped, Schaeffer verbalized a summary and responded "with the time and dignity he had accorded all the other questions." When this same man followed up with another tedious question, Schaeffer "repeated the process, being sure he understood every word and answering fully." While many in the audience were frustrated by this, Schaeffer displayed remarkable patience and compassion - vintage Francis Schaeffer, the pastor.
Lewis also displayed a shepherd's heart. In one of the most moving passages in all of Mere Christianity, one can almost imagine the author placing his hand on the shoulder of a despairing soul, while offering the following keen and compassionate psychological advice:
But if you are a poor creature - poisoned by a wretched up-bringing in some house full of vulgar jealousies and senseless quarrels - saddled, by no choice of your own, with some loathsome sexual perversion - nagged day in and day out by an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends - do not despair. He knows all about it. You are one of the poor whom he has blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you can. One day (perhaps in another world, but perhaps far sooner than that) he will fling it on the scrap heap and give you a new one. And then you may astonish us all - not the least yourself: for you have learned your driving in a hard school.
Lewis displayed an uncommon balance and sensitivity when discussing psychological issues. He insisted vigorously that humans are responsible beings yet at the same time recognized the widespread infirmities that plague much of humanity through no fault of their own. His solution was to place his trust in the wisdom and goodness of our heavenly Father, who will one day separate our true character, that for which we are properly responsible, for the psychological, emotional, environmental and physiological baggage we have involuntarily inherited. This is a profoundly compassionate and balanced perspective that avoids the all-too-common extremes of our day: a rigid moralism on the one hand, which largely ignores the influence of infirmities, and the different forms of psychological and behavioristic determinism on the other, which downplay or altogether deny the existence of moral responsibility. Lewis provides a characteristically appealing via media that strikes just the right balance.
Schaeffer and Lewis show us in their own distinctive ways that apologetics must be saturated with compassion and pastoral wisdom if our message is to be attractive. All too often apologetic arguments are marshaled with polemical venom and little apparent concern for the ultimate well-being of the listener. Our apologists, by contrast, are excellent models of how a keen mind and warm heart can combine for a powerful apologetic presence.
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Simply beautiful, logos; and such a truthful insight.... Thank you oh so very much for posting this!
Indeed. What beautiful insight! Thank you for the ping!
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