Discipling through Words: Francis Schaeffer’s Impact on my Life and Teaching
Jim sat behind me in high school homeroom. He was an all-county soccer player and at the early age of sixteen, an ardent atheist. I will never forget what he whispered in my ear one morning during announcements.
“How can you believe in something you cannot see?”
Everyone in my high school knew I was a Christian. My nickname in those years was “Padre” because I was always preaching the Bible. But during the early 1970’s I had no answers for the questions my unbelieving friends were asking. My fundamentalist church offered little help since separation from the world meant separation from the world’s questions.
It took a one sentence interrogation one morning in homeroom to create a thirst for answers to those queries. It was during high school that I found satisfying explanations by reading the published works of Francis Schaeffer. I have read everything Schaeffer had written and continue to scrutinize his writings as if he were penning a personal epistle to me. Early in my life I realized discipleship can be maintained at a distance through words.
Schaeffer’s approach to Christian apologetics – what is normally understood as “defense of The Faith” – would be wedded to every aspect of my life. His case for Christian thinking was a double door: The Personal Eternal Triune Creator exists, and this God has spoken. A Christian lifeview depends on opening both doors. The ultimate questions of life – Who am I? Where did I come from? What is right and wrong? What happens when I die? – are addressed through those entrances. During my high school days at football practice, or English class, or talking with friends over lunch, my concern in conversation was to open essential discussions. Schaeffer taught me that our deepest internal questions must have an external answer.
In his book The God Who Is There Schaeffer began to answer the questions people ask with responses outside of humanity. The book assumed that there was no separation between the sacred and secular: all created things are sacred. A person could study anything with a Christian mindset because all of life comes from and is sustained by God. The carpenter builds buildings mirroring the order, the structure of creation. The biologist could discover the mysteries of life because the Creator of life had made human discovery possible. The businessperson could follow financial pathways that might generate blessings for seller and buyer. The list is endless. The idea that everything is sacred transformed my thinking.
Not only does everything come from and belong to God, but God has spoken to humans. He is There and He is Not Silent was the second book that altered my approach to life. It is one thing to believe the Bible, to read it, to hear The Book preached, and find comfort in Scripture’s pages. It is altogether something else to understand how God’s Word addresses the concerns of everyone everywhere. Schaeffer wrote on the arts, the environment, politics, history, science, interacting with all of culture. I began to see that the Bible did not sit on a shelf by itself but Scripture both identified human needs and gave a solution to them. I can hear myself in classrooms over four decades of teaching recalling Schaeffer’s story of the Alpine hiker lost in a snowstorm on the side of a mountain. The voice of a guide who could not be seen but who had spoken giving direction and hope, gave purpose to my teaching of Scripture’s importance.
Schaeffer’s stories sustained both my teaching and my approach to teaching. Susan Schaeffer Macaulay’s book How to Be Your Own Selfish Pig was a staple in my courses: the only book outside of the Bible that was required reading in my classes. Schaeffer’s daughter distilled her father’s brilliant insights and pages of his stories culled from his books into a book that could be understood by junior high students. I learned that the greatest teaching method was the simplicity of the compare-contrast model Schaeffer used repeatedly. My classes became accustomed to looking for similarities and differences between two points of view. “The Truth needs no defense” was one of my many mantras born of evaluating other belief systems brought alongside a biblical worldview.
I found myself developing curricula influenced by the Schaefferian twin tenets of God’s Person and God’s Word. Two of my published curricula – Let God Be God and Timeless Truth – are premised on God’s person and His communication to humanity. Students had to invest time in the Bible’s claims about God from His point of view. Then they had to evaluate competing truth sources with The Source. Schaeffer’s view that people should be confronted by true Truth was based on the idea that there are many so-called “truths” which must be evaluated by the claims of Hebraic-Christian teaching. Based on the teaching of Scripture, students practiced that people must decide for themselves what and why they believe. Forcing one’s viewpoint on another was not only coercive but unloving. My teaching was suffused with the attitude of love, what Schaeffer called “the greatest apologetic.”
It was Schaeffer’s loving attitude that prompted me to bring people with very different points of view into my classroom instruction. I wanted my students to hear directly from others what they believed and why they believed it. Atheists, agnostics, evolutionists, or thoroughgoing heathens were heard inside my classroom. Local DJs from community radio stations were brought to class so students could discuss sexuality in music. Physicians were invited to panel discussions on medical ethics. Psychologists who believed humans are animals were asked to speak. In every instance young minds were able to grapple with ideas very different from their own, discovering, often to their amazement, that other viewpoints did not hold up very well in open discussions.
Schaeffer himself held open-ended conversations with anyone about anything. I was being molded into an interdisciplinarian. The multi-faceted engagement with all subjects directed my thinking to engage whatever cultural issues my peaked student interest. Teenagers would ask me to listen to the latest CD so I could discuss the lyrics with them. I never turned down such an opportunity. I wanted young minds to understand that no matter what question or problem they faced, anything could be interpreted with a biblical mindset. Movies became a central focus in my teaching. I was realizing that investment in the visual world would train young people to filter the story with Christian thought. Showing movie clips or full-length feature films in my classes revealed to students that they could enjoy what Hollywood produced while not being led away by the erroneous viewpoints. Schaeffer’s interaction with worldviews in film had woven itself into my classrooms.
Of course, once I think about Christian interpretation of film – I wrote a book about the Christian practice of film review – my mind immediately goes to reading. I dropped by my science colleagues’ classroom one day to discuss Steven Hawkins A Brief History of Time with her. My teacher friend asked why I was reading Hawking’s work as a theologian. “I believe my role as a theologian is to evaluate everything in God’s world,” I said. Opening to the earliest pages I pointed out Hawking’s assumptions and how his baseline ideas were the beginning of his scientific analysis. From the 1980’s I analyzed writings about artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, euthanasia, environmentalism, gender studies, popular music, philosophy, history, technology, and so much more. How was it that I was reading outside of my theological discipline? I had been discipled by Francis Schaeffer to think biblically about everything.
My interest in and interpretation of culture was born of a Schaefferian interdisciplinary mindset. I paid attention to all things. My teaching took on an “’All’ means all and that’s all ‘all’ means” perspective. Study of Scripture continually exposed the phrase “all” throughout the pages of Holy Writ. Prophets proclaimed the apologetics of Moses in Deuteronomy 4:6 that following all God’s statutes would be “wisdom and understanding in the sight of the peoples.” Apostles preached the cultural apologetics of Paul in 2 Corinthians 10:5, “We take every thought captive to Christ.” My interests in Flannery O’Connor’s short stories, Hitchcockian horror, W. H. Auden’s poetry, Cormac McCarthy’s novels, Coen brothers’ films, Joseph Campbells’ mythology, Herbert Butterfield’s history, Frederick Douglass’s speeches, Maya Angelou’s memoirs, or Robert Cole’s therapies all fell under the lens of Scriptural interpretation; something I had learned from Schaeffer.
But there was no fragmentation in Schaeffer’s thinking, as diverse as his interests were. The very name of my personal website, “warp and woof,” bears the stamp of my mentor’s thinking. Everything is sacred and should be understood as the tapestry of the Godhead’s work. The phrase “warp and woof” comes from the textile industry; vertical and horizontal threads make up fabric. So was born in my thought process the importance of the biblical doctrine of coherence, manifest in my every written and verbal teaching. I view my students as whole people, not simply brains to be filled with content. Young people are bombarded with many pressures that consume their persons. It behooves me as their professor to care for their needs giving them space and grace in classroom performance. Part of my acceptance of students as whole persons is to be as excited about their academic endeavors as they are. Whether they want to study chemistry or the latest science fiction thriller, I applaud their interests as if they were my own. Appreciating the warp and woof of their person is the reverberation of Schaeffer’s teaching in me.
Coherence prompted me as much as I could to synthesize other disciplines within my own. Soon after I began to teach full time, I changed the name of my classes from “Bible” to “Christian Life and World Studies.” An acronym was birthed: CLAWS. The title of the course signified to all that “everything is theological,” a sign that hung on my office door for years. The sacredness of all life, the Scriptural interpretation of all the world had been woven into my person, it was the fabric of my teaching. My classes and I did not just study “the image of God” but the image of God in art. For instance, projects included interpreting the worldview of impressionism as we viewed Pissarro’s “Red Rooves.” We cared for the vocation of the homemaker as much as the businessperson while we studied God’s view of work. Criticism of Charles Darwin’s evolutionary concepts that promoted racism were attacked for their anti-human perspective. No matter what theology we studied, sociology was brought under the microscope. Schaeffer would have been pleased by my students’ discovery: a person’s theology always produces their sociology.
Even now former students contact me with notes of encouragement. They thank me for what they refer to as “your imprint on my life.” I am humbled by such wonderful generosity. The saving work of Christ in my life has transformed my person. And the Lord used Francis Schaeffer to disciple me, to mold my thinking, writing, and teaching, which left his imprint on me. Visitors to our home see the thousands of books on my shelves which explore hundreds of topics. I am an interdisciplinarian because of Francis Schaeffer. Movie lovers are brought to our theater room to watch and discuss film. Schaeffer’s influence permeates the light on the screen. Groups that ask me to speak hear my passion for everything from A to Z all because of the biblical approach I learned from Schaeffer’s books. And the millions of words I have written through curricula, books, essays, encyclopedia entries, magazines, and online posts have been marked by caring for the audience, knowing that love is the greatest apologetic.
If I heard my atheist friend’s question today, I would be prepared to discuss my fellow student’s obvious bent toward naturalism. But Schaeffer’s influence on me would have prompted an approach of questioning rather than debating. Francis Schaeffer’s imprint on my life first left its mark on my thinking, my acumen, my interest in the whole of life. Schaeffer’s words then molded my care for people; not for intellectual combat but for academic curiosity, knowing it is The Spirit’s job to transform others, not mine. My behavior, how I have practiced my craft of teaching, begins with The Word of God then looks at the world God has made.
My teaching principles have stayed with students over decades, having heard my repetitious plea, “Don’t believe anything I tell you but go back to Scripture to see if it’s so.” They knew we did not study “Eckel-ology” but biblical theology. Something obvious in the life and work of Francis Schaeffer was his compassion for the next generation. And so, it should come as no surprise to anyone reading these words that the centerpiece of my life is found in Psalm 71:18, “Until I am old and gray, I will teach Your might works to the next generation.”
Dr. Mark Eckel is Executive Director of the Center for Biblical Integration at Liberty University. Support MarkEckel.com (here). Find the MarkEckel.com YouTube Channel (here). Mark is President of The Comenius Institute (website) and interprets culture from a Christian vantage point through Truth in Two videos (here).
Pictures: Josh Collingwood, Snappy Goat, Wikipedia
Bravo, brother! Everything flows from our theology. No separation in sacred and secular. Lived this. Loved this.
Amen. I am one who has been discipled by Dr. Eckel’s words, and pray that the cycle continues with my students.