Francis A. Schaeffer

Francis August Schaeffer was an American evangelical theologian, philosopher, and Presbyterian pastor whose work reshaped how a generation of Christians engaged with secular culture.

Schaeffer III and Bessie Williamson. He converted to Christianity in 1930, then graduated magna cum laude from Hampden-Sydney College in 1935. He studied at Westminster Theological Seminary before transferring to the newly formed Faith Theological Seminary, where he graduated in 1938. By some accounts he was the first person ordained by the Bible Presbyterian Church. He pastored churches in Grove City, Pennsylvania, Chester, Pennsylvania, and St. Louis, Missouri, before moving his family to Switzerland in 1948.

In 1955, he and his wife Edith Schaeffer opened their home in the Swiss Alps as L’Abri, a community whose name means “shelter” in French. It drew students, seekers, and intellectuals who wanted to think seriously about Christianity. Os Guinness, who came through L’Abri, described Schaeffer as having “a passion for God, combined with a passion for people, combined with a passion for truth.” That combination is rarer than it sounds, and it’s what made L’Abri something that formal institutions rarely are: a place where doubt was welcomed rather than managed. The community eventually expanded internationally.

Influenced by philosophers Cornelius Van Til and Herman Dooyeweerd, Schaeffer argued that secular worldviews can’t sustain their own premises. He called his apologetic method “taking the roof off,” exposing the internal contradictions in non-Christian thought. His books The God Who Is There (1968), Escape from Reason, and He Is There and He Is Not Silent made him, alongside C. S. Lewis, one of the most consequential intellectual figures in twentieth-century evangelicalism. His 1981 book A Christian Manifesto pushed evangelicals toward direct political engagement, particularly on abortion, and helped shape what became the Christian Right. Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Chuck Colson all count among those he influenced.

Schaeffer died on May 15, 1984, at the Mayo Clinic.