Customer Reviews

A Christian Manifesto

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I am just coming to read the books of Francis Schaeffer, and what has impressed me initially is his holistic perspective of Christianity. Schaeffer insists that Christian belief and God's reality necessarily pervade the whole of life, and he justifies his insistence with Biblical/theological evidence that is both reasonable and practical. This book focuses on how Christian belief should extend into the realm of government. He persuasively argues that not only is the United States founded upon the Christian belief in an ultimate truth, God, but also that this is the only foundation upon which a government can truly stand. "A Christian Manifesto" is essentially a warning cry about the encroachment of humanism, but rather than being an alarmist writing (although at times it ventures dangerously close to that ground), "Manifesto" is instead a reasonable, logical presentation of predictable results of the humanist world view. If there is anything alarming about "Manifesto" it is the realization that the humanist world view cannot compel a person to obey the law for any other reason than force.

Equally interesting is Schaeffer's discussion of a Christian's proper response to government, the basis of a government's authority, and the Christian response to government that usurps it's authority. In all of these discussions Schaeffer undergirds his arguments with the ultimate reality of God and the implications of this reality.

I found myself uncomfortable at times as I made my way through this book because I came at it from a liberal Christian perspective. However uncomfortable I felt, I found his arguments difficult to deny.

Francis Schaeffer had amazing insight into the world around him. He looked around and made predictions that others thought impossible to ever come true. He tied together causes that others disregarded. He described a coming world view that others comsidered extreme and alarmist.

Now . . . it has come to pass. Many today will read this book and have trouble believing that Schaeffer's world ever existed. To others, Schaeffer's words will seem as if they were penned only yesterday. Some will probably call him immoral. Others will call him a prophet. He is certainly politically incorrect.

And all of this change happened in the span of about 20 years. This book was penned in 1981. You owe it to yourself to pick up a copy of this book and look around at the change that has happened to society. It is sobering.

Schaeffer wrote his Christian Manifesto as an antithesis to the Communist Manifesto. He imagined the logical progression of a world built upon a morality other than God. Imagine if you will, what a world would be like if the government totally removed God as the basis for law and morality. It might be like a snowball rolling down a long hill with nothing to stop it. What would be the results way down the hill into the far future? How could the snowball ever be stopped once it reached critical mass? How long before it reached critical mass? How should Christians react to this changing world?

Seldom do I read many things that peak my attention such as the works of Francis Schaeffer. "A Christian Manifesto" reads as though it were written today. One can imagine it was a book before its time as the idea of "post-modern" Christianity has now become a forward-moving trend. Above all, I believe what this book succeeds in doing is calling Christians to serious reform in worldview; linking the problems of our society today to a humanistic view of total reality that has lost its morality and spiritual roots. He renounces dualism and admonishes us to look at issues in their totaliy as symptoms of a greater problem. In this book, Schaeffer sites some of the top legal decisions that will affect the people of faith in the coming decade. The issues still stand even today. He challenges the censorship of the open marketplace where people should be able to decide for themselves whose "god" is God. This is perhaps one of the most profound reads in quite awhile. You will be challenged, if not changed.

Like most works by Schaeffer A Christian Manifesto contains Schaeffer's standard rundown of Western Civilization after the Reformation. If you've read any of his books you probably know his take on things. However, the reason I would recommend this book is his emphasis on how Christian truth is not just for Sunday mornings. It affects every facet of our lives, including politics; which, prior to the 80's was a field that most Evangelicals had previously been reluctant to enter. His insight into the acceptance of abortion in Western culture is unique and must be read by anyone who wants to understand the issue.

With these good points, I must point out that some of his historical analysis, with regard to the Reformation, is definitely faulty. He tries to point out how political activism of the Reformers insured the success of the Reformation in Northern European nations. Then he tries to tie it to peaceful (to an extent) anti-abortion activism. His historical analysis is so scant because he probably wouldn't want to point out that the reason the Reformation was successful in those countries because the reformers themselves promised a select group of nobles absolute power and free reign to loot Catholic lands. Once the rulers were in the hands of the reformers they could enforce whatever they wanted to.

Despite flaws like this felt that overall it was a good, thought provoking read.

I love Francis Schaeffer. For my money, there is no one better to express deep thoughts about the Christian worldview, fully and briefly. Reading Schaeffer is like savoring a good meal. I plan to read a lot more of him.

First of all, cool cover. Maybe the best ever.

More than this A Christian Manifesto looks at the theological basis for government and examines the Christian's responsibility toward government that is failing its responsibility to uphold justice. The first fifty pages or so are classic Schaeffer. Biblical philosophy is brought to bear on the origin of government; justice exists outside of law, and so governments are liable to rule on the basis of what is right. Law, on the contrary, does not determine what is right, it only upholds it. Loved it.

Still, where I was excited and challenged by the opening chapters, I lost interest in the last two-thirds. There Schaeffer argues that Christians have the duty to resist unjust or immoral governments. I just didn't buy into public protest as civil disobedience in the US. Too little is said to establish what exactly demands resistance and how far to go. Abortion was the case-in-point, and the book didn't reach much beyond that. Really, I was hoping that the book would shape my thinking of how Christians should participate in politics, but was left wanting.

At the same time, "Christian Manifesto" is worth the read because Schaeffer still provides a great deal of food for thought in just around 140 pages. Though the book is full of legal citations from the early 1980's, Schaeffer was ahead of his time in anticipating the post-modern worldview that we know so well today. His ideas are always challenging, and even where you disagree you will find your worldview sharpened.

This book is not only for God-fearing Christians, but was written also for the relativistic humanists. Some of Schaeffer's points made me jump out of my seat. Are you tired of the moral decay in this world? Are you tired of the attacks on Christian ethics? This book will make you want to get off your "hiney" and do something about it. Schaeffer backs up his points with historical insight and biblical truths.

Francis Schaeffer is a great author. That is why I bought this book.

This book lived up to its reputation--it is very insightful. It is very introspective and deals with a lot of issues and problems pertaining to our society. It shows how in some ways Christians have not compreheneded the nature of the battle and have lost some ground. A must read for the Christian who wants to fight humanism in our society.

I highly recommend this work.
It is similar to other Schaeffer works, that is to say, exceptional, brilliant, thought-provoking.
Explains Romans 13 so that Erastian Christians can stop their state-worshipping and get on with serving the Lord more Scripturally, less worldily. The Scottish Covenanters had it right; Jehoiada had it right; Schaeffer had it right.

I have had a copy of Francis Schaeffer's A Christian Manifesto on my shelf for a while. I purchased a used copy of the original 1981edition from eBay and have been toting it around for years. I finally got around to reading it last week. It was about three years too late! A few years ago I would have affirmed a lot of what Schaeffer talks about. Today I find what he wrote to be misguided and perhaps in some areas a bit dangerous.

I found it troubling in the extreme that in his chapter on the use of force, Schaeffer seamlessly transitions from the American Revolution to Nazi Germany to abortion in the United States. Let me be clear that abortion in the United States is infanticide writ large and is murder most foul perpetrated daily on the most defenseless among us. Yet few Christians would advocate for killing abortionists, overcoming evil with evil. It is a far more cut and dried case than waging war on behalf of one nation-state against another nation-state where innocents will invariably be killed and yet we know that while we are called to strive for the unborn we are not called to gun down abortionists to do so. While Schaeffer is careful to not directly advocate for violence against abortionists, even he recognizes that his arguments could lead to an unhinged person doing something violent.

In other places Schaeffer repeatedly refers to Romans 13 but adds the caveat that only "just" governments that follow God's laws are to be submitted to. The glaring weakness in that argument is that the government in place when Romans 13 was written was....the Roman Empire. The Empire that conquered and occupied Israel, that crucified Christ and that would persecute Christians for many, many years. That was hardly a "just" government and Paul was clearly writing to the contemporary church and not just Christians in a future America. The notion that Romans 13 only applies to governments we decide are "just" is fraught with peril and is a convenient excuse to use force when sinful men deem it necessary, with theological cover built right in.

This was my first exposure to Schaeffer and I was thoroughly disappointed with his writing style as well as the substance of his argument. His arguments seem disconnected with Scripture in spite of the frequent appeals to Christian worldviews and ethics. There are plenty of references to the writings of various Founding Fathers and appeals to Lex Rex but very little real effort at engaging the text itself. Perhaps he did so elsewhere and assumed the reader was familiar with these works. In Schaeffer's A Christian Manifesto I recognize the seed of the movement we see today that is championing a return to a "Christian America" and that mixes political conservatism with Christianity into a seamless garment. As I mentioned at the outset, this would have been a far more favorable review from me just a few years ago but as I slowly grow in maturity as a follower of Christ I have begun to realize that defending the American way of life and all of our cherished "rights" is not the calling of the church and should not be a priority for His people.

An incredible book that I first read back in eighth grade, A Christian Manifesto is Schaeffer's examination of the conflict between the Christian worldview versus the humanistic worldview as it plays out in law and government. It is that shift in worldview which Schaeffer identifies as the fundamental issue in our culture today - and the fact that far too many Christians are fighting this war on various battlefronts, missing the totality of the conflict in which they are ultimately engaged! The battle, according to Schaeffer, is a conflict over Truth, whether there is a comprehensive and absolute Truth about all reality or not.



Schaeffer does an excellent job of reviewing human history and demonstrating clearly and convincingly that Christians have in almost every generation and every culture been at the heart of this continuous battle for truth. Setting the stage from the Protestant Reformation, Schaeffer then turns to the uniqueness of the legal and governmental status found in the United States - a government established on the principle that God supersedes law and that law supersedes man. But, warns Schaeffer, that uniqueness has been slowly eroded away by the humanist worldview and its invasion of the public policy arena with the fallacy that the state is supreme in the absence of the existence of God.



Schaeffer encourages Christians to be an active presence in the political process - and warns that when the state violates the liberties granted by God, civil disobedience is not only an option, but a commandment as well - to submit to an authority in clear violation of Biblical principles is not an option for a follower of Christ - "citizens have a moral obligation to resist unjust and tyrannical government," he writes.



Looking at the United States in the early 1980s, Schaeffer sees a window of opportunity for Christians to make their presence felt in the process, but warns that this window is slowly closing. Schaeffer uses the issue of abortion as his example of an issue where Christians must be a part of the solution, and gives various strategies that can be employed to make a difference in the culture on this particular travesty of humanistic reasoning.



A Christian Manifesto is a great read, especially for a Christian who wants to engage their culture for Christ in the public policy arena. Schaeffer's reasoning is solid, challenging and relevant even today!