Posted on 04/26/2005 5:54:22 AM PDT by logos
While Schaeffer's apologetic arguments and cultural commentary have elicited a wide variety of responses throughout evangelicalism, there is one feature of his ministry that has evoked nearly unanimous favor, namely, his captivating emphasis on community. Even Jack Rogers, one of Schaeffer's stiffest critics, has noted that he finds the Schaeffers' "arguments exasperating, but the description of life at L'Abri exhilarating." The L'Abri community is in many ways a microcosm of what the church ought to be. In combines spiritual formation, intellectual stimulation, holy living, ethnic diversity, shared responsibility and mutual interdependency. It is a fertile context for engaging the whole person.
Some of Schaeffer's most passionate writing revolved around this topic. He boldly challenged his readers to open their homes in hospitality. He explained that most of his and Edith's wedding presents were destroyed during L'Abri's first three years. Their linens were ripped. Cigarettes seared their rugs. Diseased teenagers slept in their beds. It was this bank of real-life authenticity that enabled Schaeffer to speak with such force on these issues. Consider his rebuke to white evangelical complacency: "In the past year, how many blacks have you fed at your dinner table? How many blacks have felt at home in your home? And if you haven't had any blacks in your home, shut up about the blacks."
Schaeffer was convinced that Christians are called to be a counterculture, a revolutionary organism that faithfully models individual and corporate spirituality that is radically different from what the secular world has to offer. If the world does not see this in the Christian community, then our claims to credibility will have very little force. In fact, Schaeffer tells us on the basis of John 13 that if the world does not see profound loving relationships among the brethren, they have the right to judge not only the faith of those believers but the truth claims of Christianity as well. The final apologetic for Schaeffer was the beautiful exhibition of Christian community. This is a model worth emulating.
Schaeffer, the fundamentalist's fundamentalist and the Calvinist's Calvinist, has a great deal to say to those of us who frequent the Free Republic Religion Forum. Orthodoxy is more than an intellectual position; proclamation is more than a Sunday sermon.
Oh rats, logos, you have been conditioning us all along with intellectual arguments and slowly and cleverly got our heads moving in the right direction too, to spring this on us. You have softened our consciences and our hard shelled dogmatic positions with sly appeals to reason while all the while mysteriously penetrating our hearts with a transcending love. In the words of Jeremiah, "you deceived us", you scoundral. Now I have to take time to recall all the "slings and arrows" of hurt that I am responsible for and make amends, but before I do that, I have to roll up the new carpet and put away the china and crystal before the guests get here.
S. was best when he lectured. Lecture series he gave in Switzerland are taped and these are now available (at no cost if a seminary has them). I recommend them over the books.
Edith's letters (With Love, Edith)are also a fascinating read, especially if you like the perdiod 1950 - 60.
No problem.
Edith should get recognition. And music. I'm convinced they were not what they were without Bach and Beethoven.
There are many ways to define the word "brethren" here on earth. OTOH, Jesus seemed to define it as those who obeyed his commandments - without any modifiers.
Others could tell more. But it's worth a study for those who do or admire this kind of work. In short, the interest in "who's in charge" replaced the love of making breakfast for somebody.
I've always taken it to mean my brothers (and sisters) in Christ. No more, no less.
Then we're in agreement. :)
All the Scriptures are time past, but they are nothing if we consider them as "something after its time has run."
It's true that nostalgia can be debilitating. For some odd reason I have this paperback lying around by Sidney Hook. I've never gotten past the first couple pages, but I've always remembered what he said. The past is good insofar as it can help the future.
nostalgia is a combination of the Greek nostos algos. Pain for home. That's a sign that we are healthy. Most of the American people do not have nostalgia in that sense.
You are right, nostalgia in its proper place is a good thing in that it can inform the present and prepare us for the future. I see the problem when we try to impose or possess the past on current times. The Word is the same yeaterday, today and tomorrow, but institutions are not. the seem to be time bound. But we get off the track from this thread. We are to love one another
Pain for home, the feeling that we are in the "wrong place" or the "wrong world." Homesickness. Feelings of being "a stranger in a strange land" that is not as real as the land we "left behind."
I agree, cornelis, few Americans today have this sense of being misplaced, with the resulting nostalgia for something lost. We are too well satisfied with/preoccupied by/distracted by things material.... Our spiritual sense consequently has become quite dull. And this is an unhealthy condition for us; for it exposes us to all kinds of "opportunistic diseases" presently ravaging the culture, and even the world of nature. For I note that, when man fell, he took the whole of created nature down with him. Nature -- personal, social, environmental -- can only be restored to its intended glory by the restoration of man to the house of his Father. FWIW.
When death was a reality, before all of the modern drugs and remedies, "homesick" was a reality. A lot of the old country hymns and poetry give a sense of the nearness of that "far country" we have, by faith, experienced and long for.
Pining for the proper home only requires moving one's heart to the right location, after all. :)
That's nice, but you are still a scoundral.
The Scriptures speak often of the "ears to hear" which I assert is that sense of belonging to Him, that desire to be home. Praise God that He allows us to be home in Him while yet in the flesh:
IMHO, that is one of the strongest testimonies to those who do not yet believe - to see the family of such a one rejoice in their homegoing.
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