How Should We Then Live?

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The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture
Francis A. Schaeffer
288pp

By the 1960s it seemed like there were only three approaches to culture that Protestant Christians could take. They might elect to live a separatist existence, such as had been pioneered by the fundamentalists. Or they might have the world set the agenda for the church, as the mainline denominations had done. Or they might retreat into worldly evangelicalism, where the Christian life doesn’t really begin until after Jesus’s return.

Along comes Francis Schaeffer, an oddball Presbyterian preacher who had left America to start a student commune in Switzerland, the internationally known L’Abri. Schaeffer turned things upside down by insisting that there was a fourth way—that God’s Word must be regarded as His instructions for building a Christian culture that would confront, conquer, and ultimately supplant the culture of the world.

Schaeffer’s teaching was very effective at engaging and persuading young people with a scholarly bent. He successfully countered the doubt and skepticism that was so fashionable in those days, and many of his students went on to become influential Christian thinkers of the next generation.

Yet it was difficult to access Schaeffer’s thought directly; his definitive teachings—contained in the books The God Who Is There, Escape From Reason, and He is There and He is Not Silent—were difficult to read and understand for folks with little background in the history of philosophy. Fortunately Schaeffer himself was aware of this, and so set out to create a film series and a book that popularized his teachings by presenting them in the context of a historical overview of Western culture.

“This book is a personal analysis of the key moments in history which have formed our present culture, and the thinking of the men who brought those moments to pass. This study is made in the hope that light may be shed upon the major characteristics of our age and that solutions may be found to the myriad of problems which face us as we look toward the end of the 20th century.” With these words, Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer begins How Should We Then Live?, his comprehensive examination of the condition and direction of Western civilization. As one of the foremost evangelical thinkers of the twentieth century, Schaeffer spent his career pondering the fate of declining Western culture, finally concluding that not only have we lost sight of our roots, but of our direction as well.

Schaeffer begins his analysis with the fall of Rome, and continues on to trace Western man’s progression throughout the ages that followed. From ancient Roman times to the Middle Ages, through the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment, up to our present scientific Atomic Age, each step of our cultural development is scrutinized.

Drawing upon forty years of study in theology, philosophy, history, sociology, and the arts, Schaeffer traces the causes and effects of human thought and action as they are played out in life and society. From his depth of knowledge and Christian commitment, Schaeffer contemplates the reasons for modern society’s very sorry state of affairs, and presents his fourth way—living by the Christian ethic, acceptance of God’s revelation, and total affirmation of the Bible’s morals, values, and meaning—as the only viable alternative.