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Editor’s note: Readers should be aware of the forum’s format. D. A. Carson, Chad Owen
Brand, C. Ben Mitchell, Russell D. Moore, and Gregory A. Thornbury have been asked
specific questions to which they have provided written responses. These writers are
not responding to one another. The journal’s goal for the Forum is to provide significant
thinkers’ views on topics of interest without requiring lengthy articles from these
heavily-committed individuals. Their answers are presented in an order that hopefully
makes the forum read as much like a unified presentation as possible.

'''SBJT: Will the legacy of Francis Schaeffer endure? Should it?'''

'''D. A. Carson:''' These are surprisingly difficult
questions. Before offering even a
feeble attempt at an answer, I should make
three qualifying remarks.

''First'', it will be easier to answer the
question about whether or not this legacy
will endure if we stipulate how long.
Some people read Augustine, more than
a millennium and a half after he wrote,
and Calvin, almost five centuries after he
wrote. I doubt that the kind of contribution
made by Francis Schaeffer has that
sort of staying power. So let us limit our
horizons to a century or two. On the
assumption that Jesus does not come back
before then, will Schaeffer’s legacy last
that long?

''Second'', because there are different estimations
of what a legacy is, I must specify
my “take” on that matter, or the reasons
for my judgment will be obscured.
Schaeffer’s legacy lies primarily in the
field of apologetics. While retaining a
robust orthodoxy, he sought to understand
and address Western culture, especially
the more intellectual and “front
edge” elements of that culture.
Third, most prognostications about the
future are nothing more than extrapolations
of present trends. But trends can
change rapidly, provoke reactions, and
veer off in new directions. It is not impossible
that much of Western evangelicalism,
snookered by the most subjective features
of postmodern epistemology, will veer off
into communal and subjective notions of
truth, and dismiss Schaeffer as at best
quaint and old fashioned. Alternatively,
in his mercy God may raise up a robust
reaction to such trends, and in that case
Schaeffer will come back into his own.
That brings us to the answers to the pair
of questions.

(1) As much as I admire Schaeffer’s
work, its focus means that it is unlikely to
be read as long as some read, for instance,
the best commentaries, or the best theologies,
or the most pivotal books on Christian
theology, or the finest devotional
works. This is not in any sense to disparage
Schaeffer. Rather, it is to recognize that
the focus of his contribution is primarily
in the domain of apologetics. That, of
course, is why his legacy will not endure
half a millennium: apologetics tends to
have a fairly short shelf-life, precisely
because cultures change.

(2) On the other hand, Schaeffer was
one of the first to understand the drift of
Western culture toward a kind of epistemological nihilism. Although he died
before full-fledged postmodernism took
a firm grip on the dominant voices in
Western media and intellectual centers,
Schaeffer understood the direction in
which Western thought was pressing.
Moreover, he understood that Christians
must simultaneously expose its futility,
and offer a full-blown alternative worldview,
a worldview that is determined by
the Scriptures, by the turning points in
redemptive history, by God himself as he
has disclosed himself to us. As long as
postmodern epistemology fosters various
forms of absurdist frames of reference,
''Escape from Reason'' will remain relevant;
as long as the predominant cultural voices
insist that all human “knowing” must be
disconnected from an omniscient Mind,
''He Is There and He Is Not Silent'' will be read
with profit.

(3) More importantly, Francis Schaeffer’s
approach to such questions is perhaps
more important than the answers he
gave. That approach ''should'' last for a long
time; whether or not it will, I cannot say.
That approach was characterized by a
combination far too rare: on the one hand,
a robust orthodoxy that did not flinch in
its eagerness to maintain the whole
counsel of God, and, on the other, an
extraordinary commitment to “listening”
to the culture.

His was the listening that sprang not
only from wide reading of books and
thoughtful study of trends in art and literature,
but, even more importantly, from
endless conversation. He listened to
people, and engaged them where they
were. An entire generation of young
people, squeezed between evangelical
clichés and cultural malaise, taught him
what they were thinking, and learned
from him how the gospel transforms
every world—not least theirs.

Some of his would-be heirs and successors
simply repeated his answers. That is
helpful, of course, but not as helpful as
what he himself did: he generated fresh
answers out of his deeply-rooted Christian
orthodoxy precisely because he kept
listening, kept thinking his way through
what he was hearing and reading. And we
best honor his legacy if we not only listen
attentively to the answers he himself gave,
but also listen attentively to the dominant
voices of our own day, and learn to craft
faithful responses.

In short, Schaeffer modeled what Paul
well understood. The apostle could
preach, on the one hand, to Jews and to
Gentile proselytes and God-fearers in the
synagogue in Pisidian Anitoch (Acts 13),
and then, on the other, to biblical illiterates
in Athens (Acts 17:16-34), precisely
because he understood both groups, and
knew how to shape his proclamation to
their need. In retrospect, some of the very
freshness of Schaeffer’s language, a freshness
that was no small part of the impact
he made on many of us thirty years and
more ago, already seems slightly strained
and artificial. In other words, his actual
locutions and formulations are unlikely to
endure as long as, say, the more prosaic
writings of a John Stott. But I earnestly
pray that the model of how he engaged
men and women without fear or compromise,
with respect yet with boldness, with
a listening ear and a faithfully proclaiming
voice, will be repeated again and again
for many generations.

(4) There is another sense in which his
work will endure, of course, and thoughtful
Christians must not forget it. Jesus
insisted that even a cup of cold water
given in his name will receive its reward.
How much more a raft of books and tapes
that taught a generation of young men
and women how to integrate biblical faith
into their lives, so as to be able to respond
to a culture teetering on the edge of epistemological
nihilism. In the aeons to come,
there will be hundreds, perhaps thousands,
of redeemed men and women who
will rise up and call him blessed for
helping them to escape from various
intellectual and moral quagmires. That is
rebuttal enough of some critics, who have
occasionally displayed a finer technical
scholarship than Schaeffer could muster,
but little of his grace and even less of his
passionate ability to communicate the
gospel to a generation that cries out for
bread, and not for the indigestible stones
of mere technical competence removed
from the grace of God in the gospel. I can
introduce you to mature Christian leaders
today who began their Christian pilgrimage
under the influence of Schaeffer’s
writings. I cannot find people who have
been similarly transformed by the odd
carping critical essay that rather condescendingly
writes Schaeffer off because of
his generalizations and his occasionally
disputable historical or artistic judgments.
The transformed lives are part of his
legacy. And fifty billion years from now,
they will be the most important part.