10 Successful People They say had Dyslexia

1. Hans Christian Anderson
2. Marc Bolan
3. Winston Churchill
4. Leonardo Da Vinci
5. Walt Disney
6. Albert Einstein
7. Michael Faraday
8. Francis Schaeffer
9. Auguste Rodin
10. W B Yeats

Book Buys August

It has been a very busy month as far as book buying is concerned.

I bought three books over the net in connection with the John Owen Centre course

Francis Schaeffer An Authentic Life by Colin Duriez
Cornelius Van Til Reformed Apologist and Churchman by John Muether
Christian Apologetics by Cornelius Van Til (ed Bill Edgar)

In the EMW bookstall and the Alfred Place Bookshop I bought several volumes including

John Calvin Pilgrim and Pastor by Robert Godfrey
Living for God's Glory An Introduction to Calvinism by Joel Beeke
John Calvin a heart for Devotion, Doctrine and Doxology by Burk Parsons (ed)
Calvin's Teaching on Job by Derek Thomas
The Sovereign Spirit by Gwyn Walters

Why Johnny can't preach by T David Gordon
The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller
Letters of Geerhardus Vos
The Family at Church by Joel Beeke
Heirs with Christ: The Puritans on Adoption by Joel Beeke

I also picked up the much praised Bruce Gordon on Calvin in Ystwyth Books

Then there was also a book on the British Empire and The invention of Dr Cake by Andrew Motion second hand in Aberaeron, and 3 Wordsworth Classics for £5 in Aber - Life's Little Ironies (Thomas Hardy), The Professor (Charlotte Bronte), The Three Hostages (John Buchan).

Schaeffer Biography

It is a while since I read anything by or about Francis Schaeffer and it has been good to read the book about his life by Colin Duriez recently (the IVP book appeared last year). Our CU in Aberystwyth showed the film series How should we then live? I found his books enormously helpful and stimulating as an undergaduate. By the time I became a pastor I felt I could see a little beyond Schaeffer and so moved on, perhaps unwisely.

Well written biographies are always interesting. You get the background as well as what you knew already and there's always some surprise or other (eg his premillennialism or the threat to throw him out of Switzerland) or something you'd missed (eg the apparently haphazard way things developed, his enormous popularity). Often there are things chiefly only of interest to you personally. I'd not seen in print before that he was dyslexic (like one of my sons) or that he was treated at the Royal Free at one point (near where we live). I also noticed that Welshamn Geraint Fielder edited his first IVP book.

Duriez is well placed to do the job being a real fan who met and corresponded with the great man but with some perspective and a number of other interests. This results in a good balance of objectivity and insider info (much like the lectures from Dr Edgar this week). The warts are all there but so is a portrait of a godly man seeking to serve the Lord in his own time. No doubt what he wrote will continue to be a help to many in the years to come, however the main challenge of this book is to live the authentic life in Christ that all believers, well known or not, are called to live.

Van Til Schaeffer Concluded

So we have completed our studies on Van Til and Schaeffer with Dr Edgar and very good it has been. We began on the second day with Van Til's Why I believe in God. We discussed common grace and the gospel then looked at Schaeffer's life, as we had looked at Van Til's on the first day. We also looked at Schaeffer's diagrams and so on. On day 3 we looked at point of contact in Romans 1, stressed both in Van Til and Schaeffer. Barth taught that there is no POC until the gospel itself comes in (probably a reaction to liberalism where every man has a spark of goodness). For Van Til and Schaeffer there is something in man that is a point of contact – his sense of God. In many ways natural/general revelation parallels supernatural/special revelation. The whole matter of method in Van Til was also considered.
Towards the end we got on to Schaeffer on absolute limits and the problem of evil in both Van Til and Schaeffer. On the final day we looked at church and state in Van Til and Schaeffer including theonomy/reconstructionism (and the federal vision) and the moral majority.

Van Til Schaeffer Studies

It was good yesterday to be at the John Owen Centre for the first of five days of study on the apologists Cornelius Van Til (see here) and Francis Schaeffer. The lecturer is Bill Edgar from Westminster (accompanied by his wife Barbara – sat mostly quiet in the corner knitting). We are in the newly refurbished Kensit Library (or whatever it will be in future. There are 8 students present (3 for credit, 5 of us auditing). We began surprisingly with Schleiermacher (the father of liberalism), a giant figure who set the tone for 19C apologetics. Apologetics (rationalistic, anthropological, humanistic) became an academic discipline through his influence. In 1799 he wrote The Essence of Christianity. His aim was to win over “cultured despisers” of Christianity. He tried to show Christianity is the best observable religion. He ended up re-inventing the Christian faith. His central argument was that there are feelings in all of us – a need for something transcendent. The Christian God is the one most worthy of this. He redefined the elements of Christianity. Sin is not transgression but selfishness, Jesus is just the best example, etc. He was uncomfortable with the Trinity. By the time you came to Ritschl, etc, such redefinition is common. The trend can be identified as horizontalisation. It was not wholly anti-supernatural but it was horizontal. (He also mentioned the social gospel especially in USA 20C). There was a general feeling of optimism by the beginning of the 20C. It was felt that “free examination” would be enough to lead people to maturity and social improvement. This was all unravelled by WWI and various revolutions. Eventually Barthianism came to the fore. Barth emphasised the transcendence of God not the horizontal approach of Schleiermacher and his successors. He had no room for apologetics or for natural revelation (he famously disagreed with Brunner over this). He said God is his own apologist, his own point of contact. Some evangelicals thought in the same way. Eg Spurgeon's anti-apologetics remarks (just let the lion out). Lloyd-Jones too sometimes. Dr Edgar then named three alternative approaches 1. Liberalism or neo-liberalism. Paul Tillich, etc. (Method of correlation – gospel fits needs). He recommended studying culture to identify these needs (Munch's Scream – where we are at). Basic problem alienation not sin. Return to the ground of being gives power to be. Quite unchristian by the end. 2. The mainly British movement led by C S Lewis and including other inklings. The myth come true. 3. Movement begun in the 19C and that crystallised in Kuyper, Orr, Hengstenberg and that is usually called presuppositionalist. These are not the only strands. Evidentialist and classical apologetics has continued to grow stronger over the years. Eg the ID movement. Cf the way the resurrection is dealt with by J N D Anderson, etc. Also theistic proofs (cf Aquinas based on Aristotle, cosmological arguments). W C Lane, J P Moreland, R C Sproul, etc. The good news today is that there is a lot of interest in apologetics again. The bad news is the confusion over ways of doing it and the need for clarity. We then looked at the background and life of Cornelius Van Til including the dispute with Gordon Clark and Van Til's advocacy of analogical knowledge. A stimulating day.

The undercover revolution

This cleverly titled little paperback from Iain Murray is an informative and apologetic piece in the Schaeffer mould in two parts.

The first and main part is fascinating. It looks, after a brief introduction, at Robert Louis Stevenson, then Thomas Hardy and then, more briefly, at more obvious and well known examples of anti-Christian writing in Shaw, Wells and Bertrand Russell. The second brief section is called 'Is Christianity fiction?' and is a more pedestrian attempt to promote the gospel. When a Christian writes about such figures one comes away with quite a different impression to that engendered by a humanist. A number of neglected or downplayed matters are highlighted and certain contradictions are exposed here.

The book is ony 95 pages and can easily be read in one or two sittings. Christians will find it interesting and it may be appropriate for certain unbelievers.

Francis Schaeffer

Today was the second of the three lunch time lectures being held at the Evangelical Library, London, this Spring. About 25 gathered in the Bob Sheehan Room to hear Pastor Sheehan's successor at Welwyn Evangelical Church, Hertfordshire, Pastor Mostyn Roberts. His subject was Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984) and was a call not to forget that man's significant contribution from the sixties and seventies but to go back to him again for help in facing some of the challenges of the presnet day, movements such as the emergent church.

Mr Roberts began with a brief overview of Schaeffer's life - his conversion, marriage, brief spell at Westminster Seminary and his involvement in the various splits that took place among fundamentalists in America before his coming to Switzerland to work with Children for Christ. The book True Spirituality was commended to us, a book that grew out of a spiritual crisis he passed through in 1951 and 1952 that eventually led to the establishment of L'Abri and the work that Schaeffer subsequently became known for.

A fascinating section followed where our speaker described his unconverted days in the seventies studying French as a would be existentialist and discovering Schaeffer's Escape from reason, a book that proved important in his eventual conversion. In the eighties and then a lawyer he got to meet the great man himself following a bout of sickness when he picked up adn read He is there and he is not silent and decided to visit L'Abri (a visit that lasted an unexpected 10 days). The blow by blow account of the meeting was appreciated. 'No-one can be the Holy Spirit for you' was a phrase that stuck in Mr Roberts's mind from it. This was three years before Schaeffer's death from cancer. The conversation helped draw Mr Roberts in the direction of the Reformed faith.

The rest of the paper considered Schaeffer and his message for today. An Acts 17 style-evangelist and a man like the men of Issachar commended by the Chronicler, Schaeffer's chief principles were the Lordship of Christ over the totality of life and the centrality of the mind. Four sections considered him as evangelist, as pastor, as 'prophet' and as communicator.

The Schaeffer approach of 'taking the roof off' to expose people's inconsistent thinking and being confident in the unyielding nature of God's created reality was commended as was the idea of the need to bow twice (to God as Creator and to God as Saviour) though not uncritically. A conviction of despair needs to come usually before a conviction of guilt. Men need to see they are dead or lost as well as guilty. Quoting Jim Packer Mr Roberts urged us to accept Schaeffer's 'cartoons' rather than rejecting them because of some faulty details.

Some of the more superficial criticisms of Schaeffer were dismissed and we were encouraged to learn from an admittedly imperfect model.

There was plenty of time for discussion including some filling in of background detail. People seemed generally willing to take the critical but appreciative approach commended. Perhaps one thing that didn't help caheffer in his time was the desire to presnet him as a Christian philsopher. When we see him chiefly as an evangelist and pastor he stands out. His undoubted 'prophetic' insight and skilful communication served only to add to those qualities.

Francis Schaeffer links:

Wikipedia (Some 10 links are given there so I won't repeat them here). You might find this letter from Cornelius Van Til to Francis Schaeffer of interest.