Francis August Schaeffrer was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, and became a Christian in 1930 at the age of eighteen, and graduated magna cum laude from Hampden-Sydney College, VA in June, 1935. Schaeffer entered Westminster Theological Seminary in 1935 and transferred to the newly formed Faith Theological Seminary in 1937, graduating from there in 1938.
Following graduation, he was by some accounts the first person ordained by the Bible Presbyterian Church and became pastor of the Covenant Presbyterian Church in Grove City, PA. In 1941 he was elected moderator of the Great Lakes Presbytery [BPC] and began serving as associate pastor of the Bible Presbyterian Church in Chester, PA. From 1943 to 1947, he pastored First Bible Presbyterian Church in St. Louis, MO, and served as moderator of the Midwest Presbytery [BPC].
During this time Schaeffer and his wife founded the Children for Christ ministry in St. Louis, which soon became widely adopted by other evangelical churches. In 1947 he traveled throughout Europe as a representative of the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions and as the American Secretary for the Foreign Relations Department of the American Council of Christian Churches. In 1948 he moved with his family to Lausanne, Switzerland to begin mission work, and moved the following year to Champery, Switzerland, where he wrote Basic Bible Studies.
In 1953 he returned to the United States on furlough and began an extensive speaking tour. Later that same year, he returned to Switzerland and moved to Huemoz, Switzerland. By 1955 he had resigned from the mission board and began L'Abri Fellowship, which became the primary focus of his life. In 1971 he received the honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Gordon College, Wenham, MA.
In 1981 he reedited and pubished The Complete Works of Francis Schaeffer. The Simon Greenleaf School of Law awarded him an honorary Doctor of Laws degree in 1983, but he was forced to return in critical condition from Switzerland to the Mayo Clinic. Despite the debilitating illness, he was able in 1984 to complete The Great Evangelical Disaster and a seminar tour. On May 15, 1984, he died at his home in Rochester, MN and was buried at Oakwood Cemetary in Rochester.
Showing 1 to 12 of 12 items.
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Sermon
A Christian Manifesto
This address was delivered by the late Dr. Schaeffer in 1982 at the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It is based on one of his books, which bears the same title.
Christians, in the last 80 years or so, have only been seeing things as bits and pieces which have gradually begun to trouble them and others, instead of und ...read
Sermon
A Day of Sober Rejoicing
An address by Dr. Schaeffer to the 10th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America on the occasion of the receiving into its' body of the Reformed Presbyterian Church Evangelical Synod.
It is a profound privilege to be asked to speak today as this day we are one church.
It is a day of rejoicing. It must primarily be that. And ...read
Article
A Review Of A Review
Considerable interest in the question of Presuppositionalism and traditional Christian evidence in evangelism has been created by recent book reviews and articles in The Bible Today. We are delighted to present this article by the Rev. Francis Schaeffer, a former student and a friend and admirer of Dr. Van Til's. Ed.
The material which has appea ...read
Article
A Step Forward
A Step Forward of One in Christ, the Bulletin of the National Presbyterian and Reformed fellowship.
Shortly after the formation of the Presbyterian Church in America, on 4 December 1973, Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer composed the following thoughts in observance of that event. Notable in his mind was the contrast between the divisions of the 1930's ...read
Article
Adultery and Apostasy: The Bride and Bridegroom
In Ephesians 5:21-32, Christ makes a very strong statement concerning the church as His bride. In this passage, God very carefully intertwines His relationship and the church with the marriage relationship between husband and wife. In fact, the two ideas are so fused together that it is almost impossible to divide them in an exegetical study:
Wi ...read
Article
Death In the City: The Universe and Two Chairs
In the course of this book we have focused attention on the way God looks at the culture of our day, and at both the men with the Bible and the men without the Bible who have turned away. In this final chapter we will examine the way God looks at those who have the Bible and have responded by believing in the God who is there and are relying on the ...read
Sermon
Francis Schaeffer on Education
From a speech given in 1982...
Now, moving from public schools to private schools, what is the priority? Notice I am not saying Christian schools, but all private schools, including Christian schools. If you are really going to do something here, you have to think larger than your own interest. What we must do in the private schools, including t ...read
Biography
The Dissatisfaction of Francis Schaeffer - Table of Contents
When Francis Schaeffer first appeared on the American scene in 1965, evangelicals hardly knew what to make of him. He was 53 years old. His Christian faith had been formed in the furnace of the fundamentalist-modernist controversies of the 1930s, and he was a card-carrying member of the impeccably fundamentalist Bible Presbyterian Church. He defend ...read
Article
The Fundamentalist Christian and Anti-Semitism
We live in an age in which anti-Semitism is a powerful force. In many lands it has resulted in the death of countless Jews. Even in our own land it shows itself in various guises from time to time. Even among those who call themselves fundamentalist Christians we find an occasional individual who spends a large portion of his time assailing the J ...read
Article
The Great Evangelical Disaster: What Really Matters?
Time magazine recently, 1983, published a special sixtieth anniversary edition with the title "The Most Amazing 60 Years." In recalling the world into which Time was born, this special issue began with the words: "The atom was unsplit. So were most marriages." Here two things occurring in our era are properly brought together - one, the scientific ...read
Article
We Don't Have Forever
Two biblical principles must be practiced simultaneously, at each step of the way, if we are to be really Bible-believing Christians. One is the principle of the practice of the purity of the visible church. The other is the principle of an observable love among all true Christians.
Those of us who left the old Presbyterian Church USA (the "No ...read
Article
Who was Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer?
The unique contribution of Dr. Francis Schaeffer on a whole generation was the ability to communicate the truth of historic Biblical Christianity in a way that combined intellectual integrity with practical, loving care. This grew out of his extensive understanding of the Bible from a deep commitment to Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior and a cri ...read
