Please read this note carefully.  This review is very focussed.  I want you to read this book because it is an important one.  You will understand from the review that it contains content that can help us effectively minister to the rising generation. It will be especially helpful for those in pastoral and other leadership roles, though it has a general appeal to Christian laity as well.  I appreciate the fine work done by Burson and Walls, and I highly commend it to you.  However, let me make some up-front statements about the book.  The authors, professors at Asbury Seminary, are not writing from a reformed perspective.  It is obvious that they have sympathy and appreciation for our reformed and Presbyterian theology, but that is not their tradition.  Like many from a more Arminian background, they do not fully understand the teaching of the Westminster Confession of Faith on the sovereignty of God and human responsibility; hence that colors their perspective especially as they deal with Schaeffer.  In a number of places, I believe they demonstrate a misunderstanding of Schaeffer who was in the PCA before his death. He was clearly and unashamedly identified as theologically reformed and was very influential in the life of the PCA, especially in our formative days.

Read this book with careful discernment, and you will find it a good opportunity to rethink and review what the PCA believes and teaches regarding God, man, salvation, the church, etc. At times you will see that the authors seem to be more comfortable with Lewis’s position than with Schaeffer’s. One example and then my review.  C. S. Lewis has a different perspective on foreknowledge and predestination than what is reflected in our Confession of Faith, hence Schaeffer.  The authors write, “But contrary to the teaching of the Westminster Confession, it is a plan that takes human choices into account. In other words, God knows what humans will choose and these free, libertarian choices help determine the ultimate plan that is devised.”    We believe that the Confession does not only deal with the Sovereign God who determines all things that come to pass but also with human responsibility.  Burson and Walls attempt to demonstrate three distinct positions: hard determinism (man has no responsibility), libertarian freedom (God’s actions are determined by man’s), and soft determinism which tries to delicately balance God’s work and man’s responsibility.  While some try to place the Westminster Confession of Faith in the hard determinism camp, others of us believe that the Confession does fairly and carefully present God as the first cause of all that happens and presents man’s role and responsibility in that process as the second cause. 

If you keep those kinds of differences in mind as you read,  I believe you will find this book a great blessing and challenge.  It does deal with two of the most influential Christian men in the 20^th century—Lewis, an Anglican with definite Arminian tendencies, and Schaeffer, a Calvinist and Presbyterian with a willingness to communicate that truth creatively to the 20^th century audience.  The authors refer to Schaeffer and Lewis as the most influential apologists of our time.  I would agree if they had added Cornelius Van Til alongside Francis Schaeffer.  As the book itself indicates, much of Schaeffer’s thinking was impacted by Van Til, and even though the two disagreed at certain points, Schaeffer acknowledged his indebtedness to Van Til and his presuppositional apologetics.

Now, for a look at the great value of this timely book. Each of the ten chapters is important.  If you want to work through those doctrinal chapters (particularly chapter two, “Nature of Salvation,” chapter three, “God’s Sovereignty and Human Significance,” and chapter nine, “Libertarian Freedom and Human Dignity”) you might find it helpful to read and discuss them with someone. 

Chapter one is a biographical precise on both Lewis and Schaeffer. This is the centennial anniversary year of the birth of C. S. Lewis who died in 1963. Schaeffer, thirteen years younger, died in 1984. If you have not read any biography on either man, this inclusive introduction will help you understand two men. While they had numerous differences in their approach to Scripture, theology, and apologetics, they have many similarities as well.  You will read about both men’s testimonies of their Christian conversion, each very different, yet also similar.  This chapter will also help you understand why both men are still quite popular and read by so many Christians and non-Christians. 

Though both men shared a high view of Scripture and commitment to its authority, they had differences which the authors carefully delineate in chapter five, “Biblical Authority and Divine Inspiration.” For example Schaeffer believed in the inspiration and infallibility of Scripture as outlined in the first chapter of the Westminster Confession of Faith, (though some criticism was offered early on about his narrow position). Lewis suggests that while the Bible is the authoritative Word of God, it is not the inerrant Word.

Chapter six entitled “Strategic Apologetics: Delivering the Faith” is one of my three favorite chapters in the book, along with chapters one and ten.  While Schaeffer always maintained that he was not an apologist but an evangelist, this chapter reveals why he was an effective apologist.  He did not want to be confined to any particular camp of the apologetic disciplines.  (The three main “camps” according to Burson and Walls are the presuppositional, the evidential, and the scientific, verification, or rational method.)  Schaeffer wanted to be free to use what the authors call an “elusive methodology.”  While it is obvious to any student of Schaeffer that he was at bottom a presuppositionalist (actually, we all are), he also wanted to be rational, relational, and plausible. These were his four areas of concentration, according to this book. We need to learn from Schaeffer the art of listening, reading your audience, and being presuppositional, rational, relational and plausible as we seek to make the Gospel as attractive and real as we humanly can.  Schaeffer’s “elusive methodology”—his use of such a variety of methods—frustrated even Van Til.  You will appreciate the personal note about the meeting of Van Til and Schaeffer at Westminster Theological Seminary where Schaeffer once studied under Van Til. The authors are probably accurate in showing both Schaeffer’s affinity for and departure from his mentor Van Til’s position.  Schaeffer never pulled any punches about Christianity being a space-time religion that is objectively true, historical, and open to verification and falsification. 

Lewis’s apologetic methodology consisted of his attempt to make Christianity credible.  Lewis said that “we have no particular methodological axe to grind.  We try to use common-sense standards of rationality and universally agreed on principles of logic in all our arguing.”  (Van Til accused Lewis of following the method of Thomas Aquinas.) Lewis demonstrated four key facets in his apologetic: the centrality of truth, the need for fair argument, the comparison of worldviews, and the art of persuasive communication.  Those were common to Schaeffer as well.  Lewis, like Schaeffer, believed that faith and reason harmonized quite well—that faith and reason are allies, not opponents.

Chapters seven and eight deal with offensive apologetics (advancing the faith) and defensive apologetics (guarding the faith).  Chapter nine is one of those sticky, questionable sections mentioned above, because it deals with libertarian freedom and dignity.  Read it carefully. It also deals with the problem of evil which both Schaeffer and Lewis acknowledged to be a genuine problem with out suggesting a logical conclusion.

In one sense, chapter ten is the highlight of the book.  I believe every Christian leader could really benefit from reading this chapter.  It deals with how to present the Gospel to a postmodern, pluralistic world.  If we are to serve God’s purpose in this generation, we must move forward with understanding. What can we learn from these two men that will help us? The authors conclude, much. They list 21 things from Schaeffer’s and Lewis’s apologetics.  I believe that Burson and Walls are on target when they talk about Schaeffer being a man of passion, with a great desire to see people brought to Christ.  They maintain that his effectiveness grew from his passion about his message.  There was something that rang true about Schaeffer’s ministry, as he and Edith opened their home and lives to so many struggling pilgrims.  It is even noted that, as Schaeffer dialoged with individuals from time to time, he shed tears.

Space does not permit listing all 21 lessons from this chapter but here are several: objective reality and absolute truth, honest answers to honest questions, historical texture of the Christian faith, cultural engagement, emotional redemption, virtue epistemology, and the final apologetic. This book about two Christian giants and heroes of the faith is about ministering effectively to people needing the Gospel truth in today’s world.  It is about the methodology of listening and caring and giving honest answers to honest questions.  It is about the importance of community, as well as holding high the authority and integrity of Scripture.  These things are necessary to minister God’s unchanging truth to this postmodern world.

I am grateful to Burson and Walls for their splendid effort in comparing and contrasting these two men.  I believe they were generally fair in their work and certainly demonstrated a deep desire to see the truth of the faith set forth. Even at points of theological difference, I believe the authors were warm, charitable, and desirous to honor the Lord in their work.  I hope that this book will accomplish its potential of encouraging people to continue reading both Schaeffer’s and Lewis’s writings.  There are areas where Lewis’s influence strengthens Schaeffer’s methodology and vice versa.  Both can be of tremendous value to us today as we seek to understand the times in which we live and what God would have us do.

- Charles Dunahoo, CEP Coordinator