One of the finest Christian writers of the 20th century, Schaeffer engages the heart and the mind. A keen commentator on current cultural and philosophical trends, Schaeffer describes the failings of the modern church and what the church must do to survive.

Galileo, Copernicus, Francis Bacon, and Kepler and scientists up to and including Newton believed that the world was created by a reasonable God and therefore we could find out the order of the universe by reason. (9)

"Man by the Fall fell at the same time from his state of innocence and from his dominion over nature. Both of these losses, however, can even in this life be in some part repaired; the former by religion and faith, the latter by the arts and the sciences." - Francis Bacon (9)

The difficulty with modern theology is that it is no different from taking drugs. It is one trip or another. You may try LSD, you can try the modern theology. It makes no difference - both are trips, separated from reason.

What we are left with is God-words. Students coming out of all kinds of backgrounds are saying, "I'm sick of God-words." And I must respond, "So am I." These theologians have cut themselves off from any concept of prepositional, verbalized revelation in the Bible. They are left upstairs with only connotation words and no content.

There are four ways that evangelicals have tended to drift unknowingly in this same direction: (1) by saying, "Don't ask questions; just believe," (2) by decreasing the content of their preaching and teaching until at times the modern man hears their message as, "Drop out and take a trip with Jesus," (3) by praising Karl Barth without realizing that he opened the door to the whole of the theology of the leap and (4) by applying to the early chapters of Genesis the same approach that Barth did to the whole Bible; that is, by separating the Bible's statements in regard to space-time history from 'religious truth'. (21)

Chapter 2: The International Student Revolution - The lack of absolutes will inevitably lead to the destruction of anything which is not part of the majority opinion. A Christian revolution is necessary in which we must take into account 1) the difference between cobelligerent and ally, 2) the preaching and practice of the truth even at great cost in our Christian groups and 3) the observation of true community.

The danger is that the evangelical, being so committed to middle-class norms and often even elevating these norms to an equal pace with God's absolutes, will slide without thought into accepting the Establishment elite. (35)

To young people who want a revolution, I would say this: You cannot be a revolutionary simply by letting your hair grow and growing a beard. To be a real revolutionary you must become involved in a real revolution - a revolution in which you are pitted against everybody who has turned away from God and his prepositional revelation to men, against even the users of the God-words, a revolution in which we may again hope to see good results, not only in individuals going to heaven but in Christ who is Lord becoming Lord in fact in this culture of ours to give us even in this fallen world something of both truth and beauty. (36)

The key here is antithesis. If a statement is true, its opposite is not true. We must take this very seriously. (38)

If others do not see that, upon the basis of what Christ has done, our Christian communities can stop their bickering, their fighting and their in-fighting, then we are not living properly. (39)

Chapter 3: The Church in a Dying Culture

Suppose we awoke tomorrow morning and we opened our Bibles and found two things had been taken out, not as liberals would take them out, but really out. Suppose God had taken them out. The first item missing was the real empowering of the Holy Spirit and the second item, the reality of prayer. Consequently, following the dictates of Scripture, we would begin to live on the basis of this new Bible in which there was nothing about the power of the Holy Spirit and nothing about the power of prayer. Let me ask you something: What difference would there be from the way we acted yesterday? Do we really believe God is there? If we do, we live differently. (47)

There is no such thing as a Christian community unless it is made up of individuals who are already Christians who have come through the work of Christ. One can talk about Christian community till one is green, but there will be no Christian community except on the basis of a personal relationship with the personal God through Christ. (54)

You can have individual Christians and no Christian community, but you cannot have a Christian community without having individual Christians. (55)

Chapter 7: Modern Man the Manipulator

People think they see reality when they see those television pictures, but what they do not realize is that they are looking at pure fantasy. They are looking at an edited situation that does not present what is but what the man at the console wants you to think is. You feel you know everything because you have actually seen the picture with your own eyes, but in every situation you have been given a completely edited version. (96)

Chapter 8: Revolutionary Christianity

I have seen white evangelicals sit and clap their heads off when black evangelicals get up to talk at conference times. How they clap! That's nice because six years ago the evangelicals would not have been clapping. But I want to ask you something if you are white. 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. On the basis of Scripture, open your home to the blacks, and if they invite you, go with joy into their homes. Have them feel at home in your home. Then you will be able to begin to talk with them and your church can jump across this division as it should, but not before. And if you are a black Christian, it all cuts equally the other way: How many whites have you invited to your home in the last year? How many have eaten at your table?

How many times in the past year have you risked having a drunk vomit on your carpeted floor? How in the world, then, can you talk about compassion and about community - about the church's job in the inner city? (107-108)

How many times have you had a drug-taker come into your home? Sure it is a danger to your family, and you must be careful. But have you ever risked it? If you don't risk it, what are you talking about the drug problem for if in the name of Christ you have not tried to help somebody in this horrible situation! (108-109)

But Christian kids who come to L'Abri speaking of the unreality they see among the evangelicals are not talking about this kind of home. If they saw their parents opening the door to the drug kids, to the kids with the long hair, if they saw them opening their home at expense to their furniture and rugs, if they were told to pray not merely for the lost out there somewhere, but for specific people whom they knew sitting at the table in their own home, the unreality could be gone. (110)

Appendix II: The Mark of a Christian

The church is to be a loving church in a dying culture. How, then, is the dying culture going to consider us? Jesus says, "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." In the midst of the world, in the midst of our present dying culture, Jesus is giving a right to the world. Upon his authority he gives the world the right to judge whether you and I are born-again Christians on the basis of our observable love toward all Christians.

That's pretty frightening. Jesus turns to the world and says, "I've something to say to you. On the basis of my authority, I give you a right: You may judge whether or not an individual is Christian on the basis of the love he shows to all Christians." In other words, if people come up to us and cast in our teeth the judgment that we are not Christians because we have not shown love toward other Christians, we must understand that they are only exercising a prerogative which Jesus gave them.

And we must not get angry. If people say, "you don't love other Christians," we must go home, get down on our knees and ask God whether or not they are right. And if they are, then they have a right to have said what they said. (136-137)

In John 13 the point was that, if an individual Christian does not show love toward other true Christians, the world has a right to judge that he is not a Christian. Here Jesus is stating something else which is much more cutting, much more profound: We cannot expect the world to believe the Father sent the Son, that Jesus' claims are true, and that Christianity is true, unless the world sees some reality of the oneness of true Christians. (138-139)

The Christian is to exhibit that God exists as the infinite-personal God; and then he is to exhibit simultaneously God's character of holiness and love. Not his holiness without his love: That is only harshness. Not his love without his holiness: That is only compromise. (142)

A way we can show and exhibit love without sharing in our brother's mistake is to approach the problem with a desire to solve it, rather than with a desire to win. (148)

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