Book Review: The Mark of the Christian
In the used bookstore today I found a clutch of short works by Francis Schaeffer. If you're unfamiliar with him, I recommend that you read some of his stuff. It's not the best written stuff in the world, but it's a very accurate pegging of theology and philosophy in the late 20th century. He addresses some of the challenges of post-modernism and Christianity - but he's writing 40 years or more ago!
Also, my early interest in Francis Schaeffer stemmed from his creation of L'Abri, a place where people came to experience community, and to engage in meaningful search for truth within a Biblical context. Something I would love to create another form of someday.
You may also be familiar with Schaeffer indirectly, via his son, Frank, who has denounced much of what his father tried to do, and converted to Antiochian Orthodoxy.
The Mark of the Christian is a 35-page booklet, really (at least the ancient copy I found. The newer edition is longer, so perhaps they're bundling another of his essays). Schaeffer works with John 13:33-35 not to propose a new idea for what should be the distinguishing mark of a Christian, but to recall us to the mark of faith that Jesus himself teaches - Christians loving Christians. While this isn't rocket science, it is something that tends to elude Christians. It's a short work, but worth a read.
What struck me in it is that Schaeffer does what many Christians tend to do. He quotes John 13:33-35 and Jesus' admonitions for Christians to love one another. But then Schaeffer immediately changes direction. He takes the standard line of how a call for Christians to love one another does not mean we shouldn't love those outside the faith. The emphasis is shifted from what Jesus actually says - which is that we're to love fellow believers, to the broader (and still Biblical) teaching that we ought to love everyone.
To Schaeffer's credit, he does return to the original focus of the verse, and makes that the overall focus of the essay. Which is good.
Yes, we're to love everyone. But in moving too quickly away from the special emphasis on loving our brothers and sisters in the faith, we ultimately lose the ability to love anyone outside the faith as well. Love is a hard decision, and it takes constant practice. The most logical places to practice are within our family, and within our family of faith. And yet we don't focus enough on taking this seriously. And in not taking it seriously, we don't practice it, and in not practicing it, we damage our credibility and even, as Schaeffer points out from Scripture, the ability of the world to take the Gospel seriously. Perhaps it would be better if we focused very intentionally on loving our brothers and sisters in Christ. There would be the small risk that a few people might mistakenly think they didn't need to love anyone else, but I think we'd all be rather surprised to find that it would grow easier to love those outside the faith, as we grew better at loving those within.
Also, my early interest in Francis Schaeffer stemmed from his creation of L'Abri, a place where people came to experience community, and to engage in meaningful search for truth within a Biblical context. Something I would love to create another form of someday.
You may also be familiar with Schaeffer indirectly, via his son, Frank, who has denounced much of what his father tried to do, and converted to Antiochian Orthodoxy.
The Mark of the Christian is a 35-page booklet, really (at least the ancient copy I found. The newer edition is longer, so perhaps they're bundling another of his essays). Schaeffer works with John 13:33-35 not to propose a new idea for what should be the distinguishing mark of a Christian, but to recall us to the mark of faith that Jesus himself teaches - Christians loving Christians. While this isn't rocket science, it is something that tends to elude Christians. It's a short work, but worth a read.
What struck me in it is that Schaeffer does what many Christians tend to do. He quotes John 13:33-35 and Jesus' admonitions for Christians to love one another. But then Schaeffer immediately changes direction. He takes the standard line of how a call for Christians to love one another does not mean we shouldn't love those outside the faith. The emphasis is shifted from what Jesus actually says - which is that we're to love fellow believers, to the broader (and still Biblical) teaching that we ought to love everyone.
To Schaeffer's credit, he does return to the original focus of the verse, and makes that the overall focus of the essay. Which is good.
Yes, we're to love everyone. But in moving too quickly away from the special emphasis on loving our brothers and sisters in the faith, we ultimately lose the ability to love anyone outside the faith as well. Love is a hard decision, and it takes constant practice. The most logical places to practice are within our family, and within our family of faith. And yet we don't focus enough on taking this seriously. And in not taking it seriously, we don't practice it, and in not practicing it, we damage our credibility and even, as Schaeffer points out from Scripture, the ability of the world to take the Gospel seriously. Perhaps it would be better if we focused very intentionally on loving our brothers and sisters in Christ. There would be the small risk that a few people might mistakenly think they didn't need to love anyone else, but I think we'd all be rather surprised to find that it would grow easier to love those outside the faith, as we grew better at loving those within.
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