Francis Schaeffer: The Man and L'Abri

A young Dutchman once went looking for an American who could answer his questions about jazz. This was in 1948, in Amsterdam, at the founding assembly of an international council of churches. The American he found was Francis Schaeffer, who looked at his watch and said he could spare half an hour. They talked until four in the morning.¹ The Dutchman was Hans Rookmaaker. The two became close friends.

That night is a fair picture of what Schaeffer did best. He took a young man's question seriously, and he treated painting, music and philosophy as places where people tell the truth about what they believe, whether they mean to or not.

Germantown, Doubt and Seminary

Francis Schaeffer was born January 30, 1912, in Germantown, Pennsylvania, the only child of working-class German-American parents.² The family church was theologically liberal and gave him little. As a teenager he drifted into agnosticism and began reading philosophy and, alongside it, the Bible. In 1930, after about six months of reading Scripture and starting in Genesis, he became a Christian.²

He went to Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia against his father's wishes and graduated magna cum laude in 1935.³ On July 26 of that year he married Edith Seville, the daughter of missionary parents who had served with the China Inland Mission.²³ That fall he entered Westminster Theological Seminary, founded in 1929 by J. Gresham Machen, where he studied under Machen and Cornelius Van Til.³ In 1936 the Northern Presbyterian Church deposed Machen, and conservatives, Schaeffer among them, broke away. A further division in 1937 led him to Faith Theological Seminary in Wilmington, Delaware. He graduated in 1938.⁴

Ten years of pastoring followed, in Grove City and Chester, Pennsylvania, and then St. Louis, Missouri. In St. Louis the couple began a children's outreach called Children for Christ.² Schaeffer was the first graduate and first ordained minister of the Bible Presbyterian Church.³

Europe and the Crisis of 1951

In 1947 he spent three months in postwar Europe, looking at what young people needed and how the churches were answering liberal theology. He came home convinced that his family was meant to go there.⁵ In 1948 the Schaeffers moved to Lausanne, Switzerland, as missionaries, with their three daughters, Priscilla, Susan and Deborah. A son, Franky, was born in 1952. In 1949 they moved to the mountain village of Champéry.²

Then came 1951. Schaeffer went through a spiritual crisis in which he reexamined whether Christianity was true and whether the church he knew showed the love it preached.⁶ The crisis shaped his book True Spirituality and the founding of L'Abri.⁷ When he had weighed his own presuppositions, he concluded that Christianity was "true truth," and that it could be discussed openly with philosophy and culture.⁶

L'Abri, 1955

In 1955 the family moved into a chalet called Les Mélèzes in Huémoz, a small village in the Swiss Alps. They had the money to buy the chalet, and visas to stay after the Swiss authorities had told them to leave.² L'Abri began there, a French word that means "the shelter." Friends of the Schaeffers' daughter Priscilla came with questions about Christianity, and the Schaeffers opened the door. In the early days nobody was thinking of books, films or tapes.²

The way they ran it was unusual. They did not raise funds, did not recruit staff, did not make long-range plans and did not advertise.² Dick Keyes, who first visited as a non-Christian in 1964 and later directed L'Abri in Massachusetts, says the Schaeffers gave up their mission's financial support, made no appeals and relied on prayer.⁸ Guests, called students, must be at least eighteen and may stay from days to months. Each has a tutor and spends about half of every day on a personal study plan. The other half goes to community work such as cooking, cleaning, gardening and cutting firewood. Meals are shared, and the talk at the table is part of the education.⁸

Edith Schaeffer's hospitality was half of the enterprise. Francis talked with guests late into the night, and Edith made meals and a home that the Swiss L'Abri history says were meant to feed the soul as well as the body.⁶ By 1957 about twenty-five people came every weekend. L'Abri opened a branch in England in 1958, and in 1960 Time magazine took notice as tapes of his talks spread around the world.⁹

L'Abri's own statement of belief fits on a few lines. Christianity as the Bible gives it is true, so it can be discussed in the open and lived. It covers all of life, with no wall between sacred and secular. Trusting the God of the Bible is reasonable, and faith is never cut off from thought. And art, history, philosophy and science can all be examined from that standpoint.¹⁰ The work spread. Wikipedia lists branches in Sweden, France, the Netherlands, Canada, Britain and the United States, and Swiss L'Abri counts ten branches today on six continents.¹¹ Near the end of his life Schaeffer opened one more in Rochester, Minnesota, where he was being treated.¹¹

The Books, in Order

The books came out of the talking. In 1965 he lectured in Boston and then at Wheaton College, and the Wheaton lectures became the basis of The God Who Is There.² It was published in 1968, along with Escape from Reason. He Is There and He Is Not Silent followed in 1972, and Crossway later bound the three together as a trilogy.¹² Between them came Death in the City (1969), The Church at the End of the 20th Century (1970) and Art and the Bible (1973). The big public work was How Should We Then Live?, a book in 1976 and a ten-episode film series released in 1977, narrated by Schaeffer.¹³ In 1977 he began a seminar tour across North America to show the film.¹⁴

1. 1912 Born January 30 in Germantown, Pennsylvania.
2. 1930 Becomes a Christian after reading the Bible.
3. 1935 Graduates from Hampden-Sydney, marries Edith Seville, enters Westminster Seminary.
4. 1938 Graduates from Faith Seminary and begins pastoring.
5. 1948 Moves the family to Switzerland.
6. 1951 Spiritual crisis and reexamination of his faith.
7. 1955 L'Abri begins at Huémoz.
8. 1968 The God Who Is There and Escape from Reason.
9. 1974 Speaks at the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization.
10. 1976 How Should We Then Live? (book); film follows in 1977.
11. 1979 Whatever Happened to the Human Race? with C. Everett Koop.
12. 1981 A Christian Manifesto.
13. 1984 Dies May 15 in Rochester, Minnesota.

The later books turned to life and law. Whatever Happened to the Human Race? (1979) was written with C. Everett Koop, a pediatric surgeon who became Surgeon General of the United States, and it came with a film and a 1979 speaking tour.¹⁵ A Christian Manifesto appeared in 1981. In 1978 Schaeffer had been diagnosed with cancer.¹⁶ In spring 1984 he toured thirteen cities and visited ten Christian colleges for his last book, The Great Evangelical Disaster.¹⁶ He died May 15, 1984, in Rochester, Minnesota, at seventy-two, of lymphoma.¹⁷

How He Taught

Schaeffer did not take to the labels that sorted apologists into camps. Douglas Groothuis reports that when someone asked whether he was a presuppositionalist or an evidentialist, Schaeffer answered, "Neither. I am an evangelist."¹⁸ What he practiced he called pre-evangelism: patient work to clear away the questions that kept a person from hearing the gospel at all. His best-known tool was to "take the roof off." He held a person to the logical implications of that person's view of the world, and let the person see what the view could not explain.¹⁸

Groothuis sums up his central picture of modern thought as two stories. In the lower story sit fact, logic and science. In the upper story sits faith, which is placed beyond rational analysis, along with meaning and value. Reason is then said to be unable to speak about meaning, so a person must make a blind leap of faith or accept nihilism. Schaeffer answered that Christianity ties all truth together in the infinite, personal God of the Bible, so that no one needs to escape from reason to believe.¹⁸ The rest of this module follows that picture back through the thinkers he discussed.

He also believed, and said, that argument alone was not enough. Mark Edwards, writing in The Christian Century, reports Schaeffer's claim that Christian community is the final apologetic.¹⁹ L'Abri was that conviction in practice: a house where the truth was spoken and a family was visibly living by it.

Rookmaaker and the Art Behind the Argument

Hans Rookmaaker was born in The Hague in 1922. In 1941 he was arrested for possessing anti-Nazi literature, and he was held as a prisoner of war. He read the Bible in the camps and came to faith, and in the camp at Stanislau he met J. P. A. Mekkes, who introduced him to the Dutch philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd.¹ After the war he studied art history. His doctoral thesis, finished in 1959, was on Gauguin and nineteenth-century art theory. In 1965 he became the first professor of art history at the Free University of Amsterdam, and in 1970 he published Modern Art and the Death of a Culture.²⁰

Rookmaaker visited and lectured at L'Abri often. Hegeman writes that Rookmaaker helped Schaeffer see how a loss of faith had worked its way through European art and music, and later encouraged him to publish his ideas. Schaeffer, for his part, encouraged Rookmaaker to finish his doctorate and to put his scholarship to practical use for the church.¹ Rookmaaker and his wife, Anky, opened a Dutch L'Abri in 1971. He died in 1977.²¹ Lesson 11 returns to the art, and Lesson 18 takes up what later writers built on both men.

Why a Liberty Course Reads Schaeffer

Harold Fickett, reviewing Barry Hankins's biography in Christianity Today, notes that Schaeffer was called the "missionary to the intellectuals" and says he helped turn evangelicals decisively toward cultural engagement.²² The historian Michael Hamilton wrote in the same magazine that perhaps no intellectual save C. S. Lewis affected the thinking of evangelicals more profoundly.³

The reason he belongs here is practical. The Founders wrote the Declaration on the claim that rights come from a Creator and are known through reason, and they built a government of limited powers on a sober view of human nature. If a society stops believing that truth about people is real and can be known, those rights lose their footing. Schaeffer's whole career was an argument about that footing, made to students at a kitchen table and to a mass audience on film. The next lessons follow the argument from the Enlightenment forward and test it against the thinkers' own words.

Keyes tells of walking with Schaeffer in the Alps in 1964, he and a roommate, both unbelievers. The talk went on all day, and the three of them were lost on the mountain until midnight.²³ Keyes says that day helped him see Schaeffer's integrity.

Learn more

• Swiss L'Abri, About L'Abri: the community's own short account of how it began and how a stay works.
• Dick Keyes, L'Abri: 40 Years: a longtime L'Abri director on daily life there and on Schaeffer the man.
• David Hegeman, The Importance of Hans Rookmaaker: the friend who taught Schaeffer to read art as evidence.
• Douglas Groothuis, Francis Schaeffer: Pastor, Evangelist, Apologist, Prophet: a clear summary of his method and main ideas.
• A Brief Chronology of the Life of Francis A. Schaeffer: a dated outline of his whole life.
• Harold Fickett, Our Contentious Catalyst: a review of the standard scholarly biography by Barry Hankins.

Notes

1. David Bruce Hegeman, "The Importance of Hans Rookmaaker," Comment, November 1, 2004, on the meeting with Schaeffer in Amsterdam, Rookmaaker's life, his 1959 dissertation, his 1965 chair, Modern Art and the Death of a Culture (1970), the Dutch L'Abri of 1971 and his death in 1977. Read it online. ↩
2. "A Brief Chronology of the Life of Francis A. Schaeffer," Christ Over All, covering birth, conversion in 1930, marriage on July 26, 1935, Westminster and Faith seminaries, pastorates, the 1947 trip, the moves of 1948 and 1949, the 1951 crisis, the founding of L'Abri in 1955, the 1960 notice in Time, the lectures of 1965, the 1974 and 1977 events, the 1978 diagnosis, the 1984 tour and his death on May 15, 1984. Read it online. ↩
3. "Francis Schaeffer," Wikipedia, on his birth in Germantown, Hampden-Sydney (1935), study under Van Til and Machen, the Bible Presbyterian ordination, the book list, the film series, Koop, and the quotation from Michael Hamilton of Christianity Today. Read it online. ↩
4. "A Brief Chronology," on the 1936 deposition of Machen, the 1937 founding of Faith Seminary in Wilmington under Allan MacRae, and Schaeffer's graduation in 1938. Read it online. ↩
5. "A Brief Chronology," on the three-month trip of 1947, the move to Lausanne in 1948 and Champéry in 1949. Read it online. ↩
6. Swiss L'Abri, "About L'Abri," on the 1955 founding at Huémoz, the meaning of the name, the origin in Schaeffer's period of doubt, his conclusion that Christianity was "true truth," and Edith Schaeffer's role in meals and hospitality. Read it online. ↩
7. "A Brief Chronology," on the 1951 crisis and its link to True Spirituality and L'Abri. Read it online. ↩
8. Dick Keyes, "L'Abri: 40 Years," The Gospel Coalition, May 15, 2024, on the open-door beginning, reliance on prayer, the student schedule of study and work, the 1964 visit and the walk in the Alps. Read it online. ↩
9. "A Brief Chronology," on the 1957 weekend attendance, the English branch of 1958 and the 1960 notice in Time. Read it online. ↩
10. Swiss L'Abri, "About L'Abri," section on what L'Abri believes. Read it online. ↩
11. "Francis Schaeffer," Wikipedia, on the spread of L'Abri to Sweden, France, the Netherlands, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, and on the Rochester branch; Swiss L'Abri, "About L'Abri," for the count of ten branches on six continents. Read it online. ↩
12. Crossway, Francis A. Schaeffer Trilogy, table of contents, listing The God Who Is There, Escape from Reason and He Is There and He Is Not Silent as Books One to Three. The 1968 and 1972 dates follow the Wikipedia entries for the three books, which give 1968 for The God Who Is There and Escape from Reason and 1972 for He Is There and He Is Not Silent; Hegeman also gives 1968 for the first two. The dates for Death in the City (1969), The Church at the End of the 20th Century (1970) and Art and the Bible (1973) follow the Wikipedia entry for the first, a Goodreads edition record for the second and the IVP edition record for the third; they are the least well sourced dates in this lesson. Read it online. ↩
13. "How Should We Then Live?," Wikipedia, on the 1976 book and the ten-episode film series, each episode under half an hour, released in 1977. Read it online. ↩
14. "A Brief Chronology," on the 1977 seminar and speaking tour for the film series (the chronology counts 22 cities, while Colin Duriez, quoted in the Wikipedia article on the film, counts 18 in an initial tour, so this lesson gives no number). Read it online. ↩
15. "Francis Schaeffer," Wikipedia, on Whatever Happened to the Human Race? (1979), the film and the part played by C. Everett Koop. Read it online. ↩
16. "A Brief Chronology," on the 1978 diagnosis and the 1984 tour of thirteen cities and ten colleges for The Great Evangelical Disaster. Read it online. ↩
17. "Francis Schaeffer," Wikipedia, on his death on May 15, 1984, in Rochester, Minnesota, from lymphoma, at age 72. Read it online. ↩
18. Douglas Groothuis, "Francis Schaeffer: Pastor, Evangelist, Apologist, Prophet," Christian Research Institute, from Christian Research Journal 39:4 (2016), on his reply "Neither. I am an evangelist," pre-evangelism, taking the roof off, and the upper story and lower story. Read it online. ↩
19. Mark Edwards, "The Church at the End of the 20th Century," The Christian Century, September 10, 2014, quoting Schaeffer that Christian community is the final apologetic. Read it online. ↩
20. Hegeman, "The Importance of Hans Rookmaaker," on the 1959 dissertation, the 1965 chair and the 1970 book. Read it online. ↩
21. Hegeman, "The Importance of Hans Rookmaaker," on the Dutch L'Abri of 1971 and his death in 1977. Read it online. ↩
22. Harold Fickett, "Our Contentious Catalyst," Christianity Today (2008), review of Barry Hankins, Francis Schaeffer and the Shaping of Evangelical America (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008). Read it online. ↩
23. Dick Keyes, "L'Abri: 40 Years," on his 1964 visit and the walk that ended at midnight. Read it online. ↩