Social and political upheaval in the U.S. (and around the world) in recent years has brought matters of public theology back to the forefront of discussions among evangelicals, exposing afresh the complexity of this topic. One aspect of complexity is how to distinguish between approaches to the public square that may be appropriate for evangelicals within a U.S. context from those that may be appropriate for evangelicals in radically different contexts, such as in China. Another challenge to doing public theology is the tendency to be over-oriented to the present moment, lacking the sense of healthy distance from current events which enables the development of a positive public theology that is more than merely reactionary. To help us achieve this, the examination of evangelical approaches to the public square from previous generations can benefit our thinking today.
Ministering for the forty years following World War 2, Francis Schaeffer became a key figure in global evangelicalism through his L’Abri work in Europe and his writings in the U.S. While his first thirty years of ministry were characterized largely by evangelism and cultural apologetics, during Schaeffer’s last ten years he increasingly engaged issues in the public square, such as communism (How Should We Then Live?), abortion (Whatever Happened to the Human Race?), and civil disobedience (The Christian Manifesto). Schaeffer’s own ministry was part of a broader evangelical re-engagement with the public square, led by men like Carl F. H. Henry and Billy Graham.
Today, forty years after Schaeffer’s death (1984), this paper will re-examine Schaeffer’s theology of the public square in order to gain insights for evangelicals today, in the form of both commendation and caution. These insights will be drawn from Schaeffer’s entire corpus (early writings [1943-67], initial prominence [1968-1975], and public square engagement [1976-1984]), with a special focus on his final era of public square engagement, including the television programs he produced (How Then Should We Live? and Whatever Happened to the Human Race?). Furthermore, this paper will add a further layer of analysis, distinguishing between the insights that apply to evangelicals only in Euro-American contexts and those that also apply to evangelicals in non-Western contexts. This layer of analysis will draw particularly from the author’s personal experience of living and ministering for eight years in China.
This paper will also interact with secondary literature, including critiques of Schaeffer’s public engagement offered during his lifetime and the retrospective analysis of Schaeffer after his death, including key biographies (Francis Schaeffer: The Man and His Message [1985], Francis Schaeffer and the Shaping of Evangelical America [2008], Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life [2008], and Francis Schaeffer: A Mind and Heart for God [2010]).