Reviewing the links between culture and religion

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	• A Francis A. Schaeffer Trilogy: Three Essential Books in One Volume Francis A. Schaeffer Crossway Books, 1990 - 368 pages average customer review:based on 28 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

These books saved me

I'm not exaggerating when I say that Schaeffer's "Trilogy" saved my faith, or at least saved me many, many years of trouble. The distinctions he makes between Biblical faith, church culture, and church history are life-saving to the sensitive and deep thinking. His overview of history and the history of philosophy are likewise lucid and at times revelatory (and echo a similar treatment by American Awakening theologian Jonathan Edwards whose overview of Western history is also simple brilliance).

If you, as I did, feel like you have broken a limb stumbling about in a dark room and colliding with something hard, and everyone around you is telling you the pain in your limb is all in your mind and all you need to do is "get a haircut and sit at the front of church", these books are for you. Schaeffer articulated thoughts and strugglings I had only ever voiced in my heart, and he did it 30+ years before I was ever aware of the problems. They are not easy reads, and you will have to take it piece by piece (I read them all 3 times before I felt all the pennies drop), but I promise you if you come to them with an open heart and mind, you will never regret it.

Schaeffer remains one of my heroes because of these books, and his work with L'Abri. They are more relevant than ever today, and I've reordered several copies to share with new friends who are struggling with the precise issues I was facing when I discovered Schaeffer.

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Reviewing the links between culture and religion

This book contains three books. It is an anthology of Francis Schaeffer's work. The books are "The God Who Is There," "Escape from Reason," and "He Is There and He Is Not Silent." Francis Schaeffer was an author who tried to keep fingers on the pulse of culture. He often related arts and other cultural institutions to the changing world views throughout history.

Schaeffer was indeed a Christian, and one of the most engaging Christians with the world in a period through the 60's when many said, like Nietzsche, that "God is dead." Yet his primary point, notwithstanding, is that the philosophy of the modern west no longer maintained a view of absolute truth which unified fields of knowledge and rational thought.

Schaeffer's primary critique of western culture was its shift from Aristotelian and logical forms of epistemology, to Hegelian synthesis. Where once ideas could be considered distinctly "true" or "false," the modern Hegelian method would be an ongoing syncretism, a synthesis, of different propositions. Sometimes these propositions would even be contradictory ones.

Instead of saying either A or B, A is true, therefore B is false, the new logic says A and B are opposing views, but they can come together to form something new. Thus reason itself is endangered. If neither true nor false can exist, then the weight of authority is ultimately placed on the individual, and a new form of sophistry (man is the measure of all things) is born.

This philosophy of synthesis became the underpinning for moral, theological, and epistemological relativism. Yet if truth which is absolute does exist in the world, then our modern system of thought does not accurately "correspond" to reality.

The Christian believes that absolute truth exists, and is communicated in understandable form through the Bible. Francis Schaeffer suggests the Bible is proof that "He Is There and He Is Not Silent." Through the Bible, important truths, truths which appeal to all people, and are therefore absolute, become known.

As for myself, I can attest that "the hermeneutics of suspicion" and "deconstructionism" are so fully employed as philosophies at our universities and graduate schools today, that views like Francis Schaeffer's are quite literally censored. On the first day of class, my OT teacher came in and the first thing she said was "there is no absolute truth." Considering how strongly I felt to the contrary, I almost got up and left, but I stayed and tried to politely remain a good student. Point being, I have direct experience with Schaeffer's predictions. Love or hate the man, his evaluation of what western culture has become philosophically is nearly flawless in how prevalently it has come true.

I likewise find that critics that say that this is feelgood pap for Evangelicals haven't read the book thoroughly. Schaeffer accuses Evangelicals of being intellectually lazy and decadent. Furthermore, he accuses us of being morally and philosophically complicit in the advances of Hegelian synthesis as a cultural modus operandi.

This man is a man who truly understood the implications, the ripples, caused by the introductions of new philosophy into a culture. Christians and even open-minded skeptics will find Schaeffer to be full of great insights and challenges. I deeply love this man's work, and also recommend "How Should We Then Live?"

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Schaeffer levels the playing field

Those who think Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins have somehow wiped Christians off the playing field of philosophy and morality debates, need to read Francis Schaeffer. Dawkins and Harris are nothing more than pseudo-intellectuals who stand beneath the shadow of men like Schaeffer. Their arguments were answered before they even penned them!!

A wonderful book!

Right to the point

Schaeffer doesn't hesitate to jump right into what he wants to say! He doesn't give a preview of his intentions, he just says it. Which, that is confusing sometimes because you don't always know where he's coming from. But otherwise, great book!

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Life Changer

I grew up in the healing revivals of the fifties and consequently it was easier for me to believe in God than not. However my faith wavered because of intellectual issues until I read Francis Shaeffer's books and the questions were put to rest.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

With the publication of this Trilogy, Dr. Schaeffer's three foundational books are available for the first time in one volume. Schaeffer himself considered these three books to be essential to everything he wrote (twenty-three books in all), and it is here especially that we see his ability to understand the deep need of modern man for truth, beauty, and meaning in life.

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