Written by Bruce A. Little |
Monday, July 18, 2022
The Christian’s apologetic task, according to Schaeffer, is to show man where the point of tension existed between his false presuppositions and the way the world really is. Of course, this was not a game for Schaeffer and he urged the Christian always to give the answer as understood in light of historic Christianity and to do so in a loving and compassionate tone.

Three books serve as the foundation for all Schaeffer’s other books, forming a trilogy: The God Who Is There, Escape from Reason, and He Is There and He Is Not Silent. Towards the end of his life, he claimed that his message had remained the same throughout his ministry, however, his emphasis did shift. In 1982, the works of Francis Schaeffer were edited by Schaeffer and published in a five-volume set in which the trilogy is in the order in which it was written. This order reveals the development and foundation of his thinking apologetically and is essential to understanding Schaeffer and his apologetic method which I think it is fair to say he would not call it a method. Historic Christianity, according to Schaeffer, was creation centered and central to the fact that God created man in His image. The first apologetic implication of creation was that man had intrinsic worth which meant he was to be treated with respect and love even in his fallen state, that even in his fallenness man had worth, even nobility.
This truth moved Schaeffer to take all men seriously and to answer the honest questions from fallen man. He would say that when confronted with another member of the human race, we should first see a human being—not first a Christian or non-Christian. This made all the difference in the world in Schaeffer’s apologetics. He had a love for humanity and deep sympathy for the brokenness of humanity because of sin.
The Christian’s apologetic task, according to Schaeffer, is to show man where the point of tension existed between his false presuppositions and the way the world really is. Of course, this was not a game for Schaeffer and he urged the Christian always to give the answer as understood in light of historic Christianity and to do so in a loving and compassionate tone. For Schaeffer, the real point of contact with the modern (and the postmodern mind) was reality. Regardless of what presuppositions a man claims as grounds for his worldview, Schaeffer argued that they can be tested for truthfulness when pressed against the reality in which every person must live. In this, Schaeffer shared a view often expressed by C. S. Lewis.
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If ministerial candidates were being taught by some educators that Jesus’ words in John 17:17 were in fact not true, then the future of the denomination as a confessional church faithful to Scripture and the great commission was in question. The concerned Presbyterians made their case through preaching, special informational meetings, and publications increasing their number sufficiently to take action because the divergent views could not continue to coexist in one body. Leaders of the concerned Presbyterians organized the Advisory Convention of the Continuing Presbyterian Church to meet in Asheville, North Carolina, August 7-9, 1973. An important action by the Advisory Convention was calling the first general assembly for the Continuing Presbyterian Church.

This year is the semi-centennial of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). Fifty years is a long time with many members having entered the denomination over the years while others alive in 1973 have passed on. To remember the founding, some of the early history of the PCA is provided below. Pictured in the header is a broadside composed in 1973 by Ruling Elder J. Ligon Duncan, Jr. It appears to be a document that was laid out on a table at a gathering so individuals could sign it, but this was not the case. However, before continuing with the story of the broadside, the question of the relationship of the National Presbyterian Church to the PCA must be answered. For several years there were members of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS) that were increasingly dissatisfied with the position of their denomination regarding the doctrines of Scripture and issues associated with its interpretation and application. Along with this was minimalization or neglect of the teachings of the Westminster Standards subscribed to by all church officers. With reference to Scripture, one signer of the broadside told me that when he confronted one of his professors in a denominational seminary asking him while pointing to a Bible, “Is this the Word of God?,” that after circling around an answer finally said “No.” This was one professor; not all the professors in the seminaries took his position. If ministerial candidates were being taught by some educators that Jesus’ words in John 17:17 were in fact not true, then the future of the denomination as a confessional church faithful to Scripture and the great commission was in question. The concerned Presbyterians made their case through preaching, special informational meetings, and publications increasing their number sufficiently to take action because the divergent views could not continue to coexist in one body. Leaders of the concerned Presbyterians organized the Advisory Convention of the Continuing Presbyterian Church to meet in Asheville, North Carolina, August 7-9, 1973. An important action by the Advisory Convention was calling the first general assembly for the Continuing Presbyterian Church.
It was a cloudy but dry nearly seventy-degree evening when commissioners gathered December 4, 1973 in an earlier sanctuary of Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The Advisory Convention had selected Ruling Elder Jack Williamson of First Church, Greenville, Alabama, convener for the meeting. He was an accomplished Christian jurist who ruled well in his church and was an important contributor to the connectional judicatories as well as the continuing church movement. Respect for him yielded election by acclamation to moderate the first assembly. Also elected by acclamation to continue their temporary positions were Teaching Elder Morton H. Smith as stated clerk and Ruling Elder John Spencer as recording clerk. Notice that the assembly elected a ruling elder for moderator with two of the three assembly offices held by ruling elders. It is an acknowledgement of the two office view of church leadership—the elders function in a ruling or teaching capacity and they work together with the diaconate in its mercy ministry. For the most part, at least through the nineteenth century, the history of American Presbyterianism shows that moderators were ministers, as were clerks. For example, minister-educator-founding father John Witherspoon was moderator of the First General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA) in 1789, but due to ill health he quickly passed the gavel to John Rodgers; when the Presbyterians in the southern states in 1861 formed the church that would become the PCUS, the minister-educator Benjamin M. Palmer was the moderator. Thus, the new church showed its commitment to rule by elders as Moderator Williamson called the commissioners to order at 7:30. One particularly important item of business was selection of a better name for the church than Continuing Presbyterian Church. Three names proposed were—Presbyterian Church of America (previously used briefly by the Orthodox Presbyterian Church), Presbyterian Church in America, and the name that went on to be selected, National Presbyterian Church. In addition to name selection were decisions concerning the governance and direction of the new church such as presbytery boundaries, general assembly committees, inter-church relations, the adoption of doctrinal standards, the examination of ministers, and supplying insurance for ministers. Also, the broadside was included in the Inter-Church Relations committee report given by its chairman, Teaching Elder G. Aiken Taylor. The draft broadside was adopted with the title “A Message to All the Churches of Jesus Christ.”
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All that we can do in great and deep affliction, and sore distresses of soul, is only to look up to Christ as a poor, wounded, bleeding man looks and cries to one who passes on the road for help. And our Savior and Physician is so compassionate that He will regard us, though we are able to say little more than, “Have mercy on us, Thou Son of David.”

The Puritans not only preached to comfort the weary and wounded, but admonished those who had close relations with such saints in how to help them.  So Timothy Rogers gave instructions to those who had to deal with those under a sense of God’s desertion:
Speak kindly and compassionately to those whom you perceive to be under the sense of God’s anger. Job complains in Job 19:2, “How long will ye vex my soul, and break me into pieces?” And as men who have been long used to poring over their troubles, he tells them how often they had vexed him in verse 3: “These ten times have ye reproached me; ye are not ashamed that ye make yourselves strange to me.” It is very likely that they did not vex him with their words purposely; for, being good men, they could not be so extremely barbarous. They made good sermons, but very sorry and mistaken application. It is easy to trample upon those with sharp and cutting speeches whom God and their sorrows have already thrown into the mire. It is easy for those who are in no trouble to silence and upbraid those who are. As Job says to Eliphaz, “Shall vain words have an end? I also could speak as you do, if your soul were in my soul’s stead. I could heap up words against you, and shake mine head at you. But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should assuage your griefs.”
When any of your friends are under spiritual trouble, you must carefully abstain from any passionate or sour word or action that may increase their grief; it will be some small help to them to see that you pity them, though you cannot give them relief. Use all the compassionate and kind words to them that you can, and seek to bind up their sores with a gentle hand. Beware of using any expression that savors of sharpness, reproach, or scorn, for these will, as they did to Job, vex their souls more, and they will be evil in you as well as unpleasant to them. Hence is that complain in Psalm 69:20: “Reproach hath broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness; and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none. They gave me also gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” And Psalm 123:4: “Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease, and with the contempt of the proud.”
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