CrossCurrents: Making Sense of the Christian Life

Chapter Two: A Needed Correction

Chapter Two

A Needed Correction

Decline of the West

Books: How Should We Then Live?[1] and The Great Evangelical Disaster[2]                                                             by Francis A. Schaeffer

Issue: Will Christians Join Western Culture in its Decline?

1. The Waters Become More Choppy!

Carroll and I, like most young Christians of our generation, were tugged in various directions by conflicting voices in the public square. Some books, and the philosophies that they represented, were negative. We have seen how the hugely popular book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, seemed to give comfort to many grieving people, at the cost of offering them a diminished concept of God. Still, not all influences were negative.

Carroll and I attended a seminar put on by Bill Gothard, called Basic Youth Conflicts.[3] We were challenged by the concepts that he taught, but even more were we challenged by the vision that it is possible to live lives based on the principles set forth in the Bible. Not only was it possible, Gothard said, but this kind of life is the only one that has meaning and purpose. We had never before heard teaching like his that advocated homeschooling of children. We were also confronted by the idea that American "dating" was a terrible system, which should be replaced by courtship where young couples respect the authority of their parents. Gothard has been criticized through the years, and perhaps some of the criticism is even justified, but we found his ministry helpful at that time in our life. A life verse that we adopted was (and is): "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished to all good works."[4]

We also became more concerned about the growing wave of abortion that was sweeping the nation. When the Supreme Court Decision Roe v. Wade[5] was issued in January 1973, we did not take much notice. We were dismayed, of course, but did not foresee the full horror of the ruling; neither the implacable way in which it would be implemented nor the number of lives that would be lost.[6] I had at first naively believed that there would be a great deal of protection to the unborn by the concept: "It should be between a woman and her doctor." I reasoned that surely no doctor that had taken the Hippocratic Oath could ever agree to an abortion except in the most extreme circumstances. As the years went by, it became obvious that my faith in the medical community had been misplaced. In fact, America had abortion on demand, for any reason, or even for no reason at all. A live puppy had more protection in our country than did an unborn human baby, if the baby's mother wanted him or her dead!

It became more and more clear that something was amiss in our culture. School prayer had been forbidden by the Supreme Court in 1962.[7] We were seeing an alienation of young people (only a few years younger than we were), with an explosion of drug abuse, promiscuous sexuality, disrespect for authority, and civil disobedience. The divorce rate rose abruptly, which then was followed by more and more couples moving in together without marriage. We could see a cheapening of values in the media with films that would have been considered pornographic, only a few years earlier, now showing at our local movie theater. We discussed these problems with our Christian friends, and occasionally heard a sermon that touched on these issues, but we did not seem to be able to articulate very precisely what was wrong.

All that was changed when Francis A. Schaeffer published in 1976, his insightful book, How Should We Then Live?[8] Schaeffer, in a mere 288 pages, swept across the entire field of Western civilization. He began with the Roman Empire (and the first Christians) and discussed the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the rise of modern science. Then he began to trace a long period of decline, discussing the breakdown in science, modern philosophy and theology, and modern art forms, culminating in a devastating assessment of contemporary society. He seemed to be saying that we had gained an incomparable treasure in the Reformation by recovering much of the Apostolic Christian faith of the early Church. That treasure had served the West well, and was a major reason for its spectacular advance. He showed that the West had abandoned its Reformation base, which created its greatness, and now has no firm base at all.