In a message dated 5/7/02 3:57:15 PM Mountain Daylight Time,
michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk writes:
<< May I make a comment. I began to read Schaeffer when I was converted in
1968
and found his works a great help and they led me onto wider things,
In May 1971 I went to L'abri in Switzerland before going to seminary and
Schaeeffer's son-im=law Udo Middleman gave me a list of books to study to
bring my geology and theology together. None other than Henry Morris and
other stuff. As I wasnt meek and mild then I told Udo that they were
rubbish and started a lively 4 weeks at L'abri. It took me most of a day to
crack Morris and find his fatal flaws. I became disillusioned with Schaeffer
who struck has sitting on the fence and leaning to YEC. I became more
disliiusioned when I actually read Barth and other wirters and found S
incapable of extracting the good in many writers. I agree with Dave that S
tells evangs what they want to here rather than wrestle with fellow
Christians who struggled against their upbring ing (fundi or modernist) to
give intellectual bite to their faith. I also found that S relied more on
pop summaries of thinkers such as Barth, Marcuse etc rather than actuaaly
reading the writer's work.
This was a great loss as S had many good things to say but never left his
fundamentalism which flawed his work. He simpluy had to claim that others
were wrong.
I was lucky at L'Abri as a Wheaton couple guided me in a formative stage and
pointed me to writers such as Warfield and Orr etc.
Looking back S was a great help to me but I had to leave his narrow outlook
behind.
Incidentally at a history of science conference in Shrewsbury last month
another speaker was the son of Hans Rookmaker.
Michael
>>
Thirty-some years ago when some of my high school friends were attending
Wheaton and Schaeffer was alive and at his peak of influence, Wheaton was
using his books to teach how NOT to do philosophy. Unfortunately all too
many evangelicals still think that he is a "major" philosopher.
Schaeffer was originally a right-hand-man for rabid anti-communist,
hyper-fundamentalist radio preacher (Philadelphia area mostly) Carl
McIntyre--who just died a few months ago (in his nineties, I think), still
ranting about communism.
Karl
*************************
Karl V. Evans
cmekve@aol.com
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