What will it take for the church to be renewed and the world to experience a profound move of God?
At the International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1974, Francis Schaeffer spoke on “Form and Freedom in the Church,” later included in a book of Lausanne papers. Ray Ortlund recently pointed me to this address, which nearly 50 years later remains a prescient and powerful call.
Schaeffer claimed we need two contents and two realities—four indispensable ingredients for seeing a move of God.
1. Sound Doctrine
Schaeffer began by pointing back to the essential elements of Christianity. Even while acknowledging the “borderline things” Christians will disagree upon, he insists that “Christianity is a specific body of truth” and “on the central issues there must be no compromise.” Orthodoxy is essential.
Schaeffer warns about both a conservative and a progressive path to abandoning orthodoxy. Liberal theologians begin to deny that the Bible offers any clear and hard lines at all, adopting a latitudinarian approach to all Christian belief. Evangelical theologians confuse middle-class, contextually specific standards with unchanging truth, making their own preferences or expressions of Christianity “equal to the absolutes of the Word of God.” Both result, over time, in the dissolution of orthodoxy and the destruction of the church’s witness.
Lest you think Schaeffer’s emphasis on doctrine implies a mere cognitive acceptance of Christian truth, he makes clear that “we must practice the content, practice the truth we say we believe,” demonstrating “to our own children and to the watching world that we take truth seriously.” Doctrines are something we walk in, teaching is something we abide in, and the gospel is something we obey. “Do you think for a moment we will have credibility if we say we believe the truth and yet do not practice the truth in religious matters?” Schaeffer asks.
2. Careful Contextualization
Schaeffer promotes “honest answers to honest questions,” which I’m describing as careful contextualization. It means thinking like a missionary. We’re called not only to believe the truths of Christianity but to proclaim them in such a way that they can be heard, understood, and received.
We believe sound doctrine—orthodoxy—is vital to the health of the church and that the truth must come into contact with the modern world. “If Christianity is truth as the Bible claims, it must touch every aspect of life,” Schaeffer writes, and “Christianity demands that we have enough compassion to learn the questions of our generation.” This requires listening, not just speaking. “Answering questions is hard work.”
A missionary encounter doesn’t take place when we assume faithfulness is simply reciting the creeds, reveling in our reception of sound doctrine. No, loving our neighbor requires compassion, the ability to listen carefully to the questions of a generation and then “pray and do the hard work” necessary for answering honest inquiries. Schaeffer himself, in his work at L’Abri, was a model of hospitality and generosity of spirit in the way he dialogued with those seeking truth.
3. True Spirituality
The first of Schaeffer’s two essential realities is true spirituality. “The end of the matter,” he writes, “is to be in relationship to God.” It isn’t enough for the church to believe and proclaim the right things unless our hearts are gripped by the beauty of the gospel and the power of a relationship with God.
Schaeffer is describing here a “true spirituality” summed up by “the moment by moment work of the whole Trinity in our lives.” This means our interior life is to be a deep well of wisdom, grace, and love.
No, we will not attain perfect righteousness or spirituality in this life. Schaeffer realizes that when we look back from the perspective of eternity, all our growth will appear paltry and poor. “And yet there must be some reality,” he writes. “There must be something real of the work of Christ in the moment by moment life, something real of the forgiveness of specific sin brought under the blood of Christ, something real in Christ bearing his fruit through me through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.”
I wonder if today, with the superficial trivialities of a digital age so prevalent in our world, this kind of spiritual depth—the force that comes from realities developed in unseen and hidden practices—will stand out all the more, simply for how rare it has become. Shallow people cannot showcase gospel depth. Without true spirituality, the sound doctrine we proclaim is worthless and even destructive to the cause of Christianity. “There is nothing more ugly in all the world, and which turns people aside, than a dead orthodoxy,” he writes.
4. Relational Beauty
Schaeffer’s second essential reality is the beauty of Christianity’s effect on human relationships. The beauty of the church must adorn the truth of the gospel.
First, we’re to relate well to unbelievers. We can argue all day long against the determinism of B. F. Skinner, he says, but what’s the point if we treat the people we meet every day as “less than” really made in the image of God?
Schaeffer considers the person he may encounter for just 10 seconds or so, sharing a revolving door. “We do not think consciously in every case that this man is made in the image of God, but, having ground into our bones and into our consciousness (as well as our doctrinal statement) that he is made in the image of God, we will treat him well in those ten seconds that we have.” Even when battling our theological or cultural opponents, “we try from our side to bring our discussion into the circle of truly human relationships.”
Second, we’re to showcase the beauty of human relationships in the church. If we’re called to love our unbelieving neighbor, how much more (“Ten thousand times more!”) should we showcase “beauty in the relationships between true Bible believing Christians, something so beautiful that the world would be brought up short.”
Love for one another is the mark of Christianity, even across denominational lines. Lovelessness destroys orthodoxy. “If we do not show beauty in the way we treat each other,” Schaeffer writes, “then in the eyes of the world and in the eyes of our own children, we are destroying the truth we proclaim.” And later, he urges evangelicals to ask God for forgiveness for “the ugliness with which we have often treated each other when we are in different camps.” Perhaps this call to repentance is needed more today than 50 years ago when he issued it.
Summing Up
Schaeffer calls the church to embrace “two orthodoxies,” one of doctrine and one of community. We must be clear on the essentials of the Christian faith and be compassionate as our Savior was, filled with such love that, like the early church, no one could imagine one person being hungry while another was rich.
Two contents and two realities, Schaeffer pleaded. If we have all four, perhaps then “we will begin to see something profound happen in our generation.” May it be so today.
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