Frances Schaeffer is one of the most important theological thinkers of the 20th century. He urged fundamentalists and evangelicals to think outside of their separatism and consider how they could reach the world and expand their worldview. He began his career as a preacher in the United States, but a foreign missions board asked him to assess the state of fundamentalism in Europe after WWII. While there he saw great works of art and met fascinating people. Eventually, Schaeffer moved to Switzerland to start L’Abri, a chalet community where wanderers could come, live, and discuss the gospel.
Frances Schaeffer and the Shaping of Christian Nationalism
That’s where the story may have ended. But his lectures were turned into audio cassettes and books. Then, from this small mountain village, Schaeffer became one of the best-known evangelicals in the world. Once he returned to the United States, his books took on a Christian nationalist tone which sticks with us today.
Historian Barry Hankins on Frances Schaeffer
Our guest for this episode is Barry Hankins. He’s the author of Frances Schaeffer and the Shaping of Evangelical America. He is a professor of history at Baylor University.
Sources:
Francis Schaeffer and the Shaping of Evangelical America by Barry Hankins
What is your “worldview”? How did you get it? How did you become aware of that concept?
Should all Christians have an idea of their worldview? Should it look a certain way?
What do you think about the middle part of Schaeffer’s ministry when he was preaching in L’Abri? How does it differ from the last third of his ministry?
How have you seen Christian nationalism? What parts of the Bible do people use to justify it?
William Bell Riley was the real “Mr. Fundamentalist”. And few have heard of him.
So far this season I’ve covered William Jennings Bryan, a man who enjoyed the nickname “Mr. Fundamentalist”. But he wasn’t really a fundamentalist. Experts point to another man as the true face of fundamentalism. That man was William Bell Riley. He was a famous preacher in his day, bouncing around the midwest until he settled in Minnesota. He founded the Northwestern schools to spread his vision of Christianity and picked debates with modernists at the University of Chicago. He formed the World’s Christian Fundamentals Association to help deliver denominations from modernism.
But… he lost. A bunch.
In this episode we explore the life of William Bell Riley to discover why he and the fundamentalists burned brightly, only to fizzle out a few years later. William Bell Riley was the real “Mr. Fundamentalist”. And few have heard of him. That is for good reasons. Riley was popular in his circle and had a big impact. But his lasting legacy is now tied to his schools because he helped take the movement underground and out of the usual channels of public life.
The Great War Helped Create the Modernist-Fundamentalist Controversy
The modernish/ fundamentalist controversy was heating up in the early 1900s. Conservatives saw this coming a long way off but could not stop modernism from taking control of seminaries and popular pulpits. It was everywhere. It all came to a head with WWI.
Theological conservatives saw WWI as evidence that the world was getting worse. To them, it was a chance to fight for patriotic reasons. Modernists were also pro-war because they thought this was the “war to end all wars”. There would be no more war after this and democracy would take over the world. The liberals fired the first shots in this theological battle because they thought that premillennialism encouraged people to root for the end of the world. That is how the Great War helped Create the Modernist-Fundamentalist Controversy.
William Jennings Bryan was Secretary of State in the US during this time and did his best to keep us out of the war.
This episode features the voices of George Marsden (author of “Fundamentalism and American Culture”) and Michael Kazin, professor at Georgetown University and author of “What it Took to Win”.
Special thanks to the National Museum of Military Vehicles in Dubois, Wyoming for letting me record with permission.
