Francis Schaeffer’s Relevance to Contemporary Apologetics

Thirty-five years have elapsed since the passing of evangelist/apologist Francis Schaeffer. He has been criticized by many but lauded by more. He was one who could not escape the ire of his own son, but one thing remains true: he has touched more people than one could count. His legacy as a gentleman evangelist remains and a number of aspects used in his apologetics approach that came so naturally for Schaeffer can not be emulated even three and a half decades after his death. The context in which Schaeffer taught and lived in the tumultuous sixties and seventies were not so different than the context in which we live today. Culture has largely abandoned Christianity and hedonism is one of the hallmarks of (post)modern culture. We might find a resurgence of spirituality in the twenty-first century but we discover that this spirituality is largely based on personal experience and preference. We are called to confront this culture that has abandoned the truth and is steeped in a materialism and consumerism that have somehow been made part and parcel of the spiritual experience of those living in the twenty-first century. In this regard, in order to be most effective, our apologetic task must be biblical, reasonable, relational, conversational and incarnational.