A fascinating account of the life and influence of Francis Schaeffer. This was a personal read for me, as while a youth Schaeffer was held up as a paragon for me to emulate and a defensive figure against those who would have stopped me from pursuing a life of the mind -- heck I even wrote my admission essay for my lama mater on his work seen by many (invlusing the author of this book) as his weakest. But that same college taught me to see many if the errors and weaknesses in his approach -- while still encouraging me to embrace the same objective of uniting heart and mind, faith and reason.
Scaheffer's legacy is mixed, and this book gives a solid account for why that is, while celebrating the strengths of that, and not hising the weaknesses.
Given how that legacy is in part political, and the fruit that is bearing in current US domestic politics that is no small thing -- and makes this book worth reading for those interested in how the "religious right" came to be and much of what drives it be what it is.

(2023 Review 9) ( )

Francis Schaeffer was probably the single greatest intellectual influence on young evangelicals of the 1960s and 1970s. He was cultural critic, popular mentor, political activist, Christian apologist, founder of L’Abri, author of over 20 books, and creator of two important films. It’s impossible to understand the intellectual world of contemporary evangelicalism apart from Francis Schaeffer.

Barry Hankins has written a critical but appreciative biography that explains how Schaeffer was shaped by the contexts of his life—from young fundamentalist pastor in America, to greatly admired mentor, to lecturer and activist who encouraged world-wary evangelicals to engage the culture around them. Drawing extensively from primary sources, including personal interviews, Hankins paints a picture of a complex, sometimes flawed, but ultimately prophetic figure in American evangelicalism and beyond.

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Hankins, a historian at Baylor University, has provided an excellent, critical, but not unsympathetic, intellectual biography of L'Abri's Francis Schaeffer. We see here the journey of Schaeffer from fundamentalist to cultural critic and back again as he embraced, or rather was embraced by, the Christian Right.

Hankins seems ambivalent towards Schaeffer, on the one hand he recognises the impact he has had on evangelicals in helping them to be more culturally and intellectually aware and on the other he sees the weaknesses in Schaeffer’s position. Schaeffer was good at painting the large picture but was weak and even wrong on some of the key details.

Schaeffer’s strength was that he was a populariser; his weakness was that he was a populariser. This comes through clearly in Hankins biography.

Hankins provides a helpful overview and critical assessment of most of Schaefffer’s works. He shows that “Schaefer's analysis of western history was compelling in its broad outlines, but problematic in its details” p96. Schaeffer’s analysis of the Renaissance didn't acknowledge the difference between the Italian and the northern forms. He was reliant on the now discredited approach, popular at the time, of Jacob Burkhardt's approach to the Renaissance.


Nevertheless, Schaefer struck a chord with modernist Christians. He was the man for that time. But it Is clear that the time for him is not now, as Hankins shows the sales of C.S. Lewis’s far outstrip the sales of Schaeffer’s books today.

Hankins has performed an excellent job of placing Schaeffer in context and showing how he could be so influential and so flawed. The latter comes out clearly in his exchanges with Mark Noll and George Marsden over Schaeffer’s claims in A Christian Manifesto that the US was founded as a Christian country. Hankins insightfully points out:

It seems that for Schaeffer, when a Christian utilised non-Christian thinking [eg Aquinas], the product was sub-Christian, but when a non-Christian [eg Thomas Jefferson and other founding fathers] used Christian influences, the product was thoroughly Christian. (p 170).

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Hankins, a historian at Baylor University, has provided an excellent, critical, but not unsympathetic, intellectual biography of L'Abri's Francis Schaeffer. We see here the journey of Schaeffer from fundamentalist to cultural critic and back again as he embraced, or rather was embraced by, the Christian Right.

Hankins seems ambivalent towards Schaeffer, on the one hand he recognises the impact he has had on evangelicals in helping them to be more culturally and intellectually aware and on the other he sees the weaknesses in Schaeffer’s position. Schaeffer was good at painting the large picture but was weak and even wrong on some of the key details.

Schaeffer’s strength was that he was a populariser; his weakness was that he was a populariser. This comes through clearly in Hankins biography.

Hankins provides a helpful overview and critical assessment of most of Schaefffer’s works. He shows that “Schaefer's analysis of western history was compelling in its broad outlines, but problematic in its details” p96. Schaeffer’s analysis of the Renaissance didn't acknowledge the difference between the Italian and the northern forms. He was reliant on the now discredited approach, popular at the time, of Jacob Burkhardt's approach to the Renaissance.


Nevertheless, Schaefer struck a chord with modernist Christians. He was the man for that time. But it Is clear that the time for him is not now, as Hankins shows the sales of C.S. Lewis’s far outstrip the sales of Schaeffer’s books today.

Hankins has performed an excellent job of placing Schaeffer in context and showing how he could be so influential and so flawed. The latter comes out clearly in his exchanges with Mark Noll and George Marsden over Schaeffer’s claims in A Christian Manifesto that the US was founded as a Christian country. Hankins insightfully points out:

It seems that for Schaeffer, when a Christian utilised non-Christian thinking [eg Aquinas], the product was sub-Christian, but when a non-Christian [eg Thomas Jefferson and other founding fathers] used Christian influences, the product was thoroughly Christian. (p 170).

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Francis Schaeffer pointed modern evangelicals toward hospitality, reason, and political engagement. Although he accepted the Enlightenment's narrow definition of reason, reason has many more roads than this (as indicated by John 1:1).

Hankins's book is a well-written history that is especially noteworthy for being a product of the evangelical academic culture which Schaeffer inspired, even as he fought with them late in his life. This is the second Hankins history book that I've read and I'll be looking at his history of the evangelical movement next: American Evangelicals: A Contemporary History of a Mainstream Religious Movement. Hankins is a reliable guide to this group, but I would be curious to see him broaden his vision a bit to include impact of evangelical history on Catholics of the same time periods. ( )