I have come to the point where, when I hear the word ‘Jesus’ – which means so much to me because of the Person of the historic Jesus and His work – I listen carefully because I have with sorrow become more afraid of the word ‘Jesus’ than almost any other word in the modern world. The word is used as a contentless banner, and our generation is invited to follow it. But there is no rational, scriptural content by which to test it, and thus the word is being used to teach the very opposite things from those which Jesus taught. Men are called to follow the word with highly motivated fervency, and nowhere more than in the new morality that follows the New Theology. It is now Jesus-like to sleep with a girl or a man, if he or she needs you. As long as you are trying to be human you are being Jesus-like to sleep with the other person, at the cost, be it noted, of breaking the specific morality which Jesus taught. But to these men this does not matter, because that is downstairs in the area of rational scriptural content.
- Francis Schaeffer, Escape From Reason
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agnosticatheist
March 24, 2007 at 10:39 am
Well, Schaeffer is finishing his book exploring the evolution of western philosophy from the time of Aquinas until now (well, the 60’s, when the book was written). His premise is the division between the “lower storeys” and the “upper storeys”, or between rational and non-rational respectively. Jesus’ existence and life was in Schaeffer’s time (and even more so today) something that people put in the upper storey, something that is above rational discourse and historical scepticism. Schaeffer is arguing against that, and against an irrational, upstairs view of God (his “New Theology”). Christians and non-Christians alike treat Jesus as some kind of candy fairy who is there to bring happiness and a “blessed” life, which is very different from the scriptural Jesus.
Interestingly, he seems to want the same thing that Dawkins wants in the God Delusion… open, rational, antithetical debate.
exagorazo289
March 24, 2007 at 11:04 am