Francis Schaeffer Quotes & Sayings

Killing of animals for food is one thing, but on the other hand they do not exist simply as things to be slaughtered. This is true of fishing, too. Many men fish and leave their victims to rot and stink. But what about the fish? Has he no rights - not to be romanticized as though he were a man - but real rights? — Francis Schaeffer

No totalitarian authority nor authoritarian state can tolerate those who have an absolute by which to judge that state and its actions. The Christians had that absolute in God's revelation. Because the Christians had an absolute, universal standard by which to judge not only personal morals but the state, they were counted as enemies of totalitarian Rome and were thrown to the beasts. — Francis Schaeffer

I believe that pluralistic secularism, in the long run, is a more deadly poison than straightforward persecution. — Francis Schaeffer

Reality is not meant to be only creedal, though the creeds are important. Reality is to be experienced, and experienced on the basis of a restored relationship with God through that finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. — Francis Schaeffer

We [Christians] have the dilemma of using a symbol system that was not made for our worldview, to give our worldview ... I think the thing we're waiting for is a genius to come forth who can either make a new symbol system which is still modern, or more properly, as symbol systems don't come overnight, a group of people to modify the symbol systems of our day, so that we can use them for our Christian message without a disadvantage. — Francis Schaeffer

He who loses the arts loses the culture. — Francis Schaeffer

Christians, of all people, should not be destroyers. We should treat nature with an overwhelming respect. We may cut down a tree to build a house, or to make a fire to keep the family warm. But we should not cut down the tree just to cut down the tree. We may, if necessary, bark the cork tree in order to have the use of the bark. But what we should not do is to bark the tree simply for the sake of doing so, and let it dry and stand there a dead skeleton in the wind. To do so is not to treat the tree with integrity. — Francis Schaeffer

Isolating the student from large sections of human knowledge is not the basis of a Christian education. Rather it is giving him or her the framework for total truth, rooted in the Creator's existence and in the Bible's teaching, so that in each step of the formal learning process the student will understand what is true and what is false and why it is true or false. — Francis Schaeffer

The overall way of thinking in the United States has shifted away from basic Biblical values, and the media share in the responsibility for this change. — Francis Schaeffer

The arbitrary division between church and state ... is used, as an easily identifiable rallying point, to subdue the opinions of that vast body of citizens who represent those with religious convictions. — Francis Schaeffer

With the Fall all became abnormal. It is not just that the individual is separated from God by his true moral guilt, but each of us is not what God made us to be. Beyond each of us as individuals, human relationships are not what God meant them to be. And beyond that, nature is abnormal - the whole cause-and-effect significant history is now abnormal. To say it another way: there is much in history now which should not be. — Francis Schaeffer

Most people do not realize that there was a paid chaplain in Congress even before the Revolutionary War ended. — Francis Schaeffer

Here we are told that Christ really lives in me, if I have accepted Christ as my Savior. In other words, we have the words of Jesus to the thief of the cross, 'Today thou wilt be with me in paradise.' Christ can say, 'Today thou wilt be with me in paradise,' and mean it. To die is to be with the Lord. It is not just an idea, it is a reality. But at the same time, Christ, the same Christ who gives the promise just as definitely, that when I have accepted Christ as my savior, he lives in me. — Francis Schaeffer

Modern multiple divorce is rooted in the fact that many are seeking in human relationships what human relationships can never give. Why do they have multiple divorce, instead of merely promiscuous affairs? Because they are seeking more than merely sexual relationship. — Francis Schaeffer

We must not only be True. We must be Beautiful. — Francis Schaeffer

Each generation of the church in each setting has the responsibility of communicating the gospel in understandable terms, considering the language and thought-forms of that setting. — Francis Schaeffer

There is a sad myth going around today - the myth of neutrality. According to this myth, the secular world gives every point of view an equal chance to be heard. And it works fairly well - unless you are a Christian. — Francis Schaeffer

The purpose of apologetics is not just to win an argument or a discussion, but that people with whom we are in contact may become Christians and then live under the Lordship of Christ in the whole spectrum of life. — Francis Schaeffer

True spirituality consists in living moment to moment by the grace of Jesus Christ. — Francis Schaeffer

There needs to be an order of office, but in every single office that is presented in the Scriptures there is the personal emphasis within that legal concept. In the Church the elder is an office-bearer. But both the preaching elders and the ruling elders are "ministers," and the word "minister" is a personal relationship, it does not speak of dominance. There is to be order in the Church, but the preaching elder or the ruling elder is to be a minister, with a loving personal relationship with those who are before him, even when they are wrong and need admonition. — Francis Schaeffer

When my conscience under the Holy Spirit makes me aware of a specific sin I should at once call that sin sin and bring it consciously under the blood of Christ. — Francis Schaeffer

Apostasy must be called what it is, spiritual adultery. — Francis Schaeffer

In fact, philosophy is universal in scope. No man can live without a world view; therefore, there is no man who is not a philosopher. — Francis Schaeffer

All men bear the image of God. They have value not because they are redeemed, but because they are God's creation in God's image. — Francis Schaeffer

In the 20th century, evangelical Christians in America have naively accepted the role assigned to us by an anti-religious, anti-Christian consensus in our society. We have been relegated to a cultural backwater, where we are meant to paddle around content in the knowledge that we are merely allowed to exist. — Francis Schaeffer

Eternity will be wonderful, but there is one thing heaven will not contain, and that is the call, the possibility, and the privilege of living a supernatural life here and now by faith, before we meet Jesus face to face. — Francis Schaeffer

To die is to be with the Lord. It is not just an idea, it is a reality. — Francis Schaeffer

What we, the Christian community, have to do is to refuse men the right to ravish our land, just as we refuse them the right to ravish our women; to insist that somebody accepts a little less profit by not exploiting nature. — Francis Schaeffer

Ours is a post-Christian world in which Christianity, not only in the number of Christians but in cultural emphasis and cultural result, is no longer the consensus or ethos of our society. — Francis Schaeffer

Some psychological and sociological conditioning occurs in every man's life and this affects the decisions he makes. But we must resist the modern concept that all sin can be explained merely on the basis of conditioning. — Francis Schaeffer

These are the two factors that lead to the destruction of our environment: money and time-or to say it another way, greed and haste. The question is, or seems to be, are we going to have an immediate profit and an immediate saving of time, or are we going to do what we really should do as God's children? — Francis Schaeffer

As evangelical Christians, we have tended to relegate art to the very fringe of life. The rest of human life we feel is more important. Despite our constant talk about the Lordship of Christ, we have narrowed its scope to a very small area of reality. We have misunderstood the concept of the Lordship of Christ over the whole of man and the whole of the universe and have not taken to us the riches that the Bible gives us for ourselves, for our lives, and for our culture. — Francis Schaeffer

Doctrinal rightness and rightness of ecclesiastical position are important, but only as a starting point to go on into a living relationship - and not as ends in themselves. — Francis Schaeffer

The soul is not more important than the body. God made the whole man and the whole man is important. — Francis Schaeffer

I hesitate to add, but I will, that this is fun. God means Christianity to be fun. There is to be a reality of love and communication in the Christian-to-Christian relationship, individually and corporately, which is completely and truly personal. — Francis Schaeffer

The command is to love him, not just to think about him, or do things for him. We are not to stop with a proper legal relationship - for example, to think of a man as legally lost, which he is, in the sight of a holy God - without thinking of him as a person. Saying this, we can suddenly see that much evangelism is not only sub-Christian, but subhuman - legalistic and impersonal. — Francis Schaeffer

If Christians win a battle by using worldly means, they have really lost. — Francis Schaeffer

Sadly enough, there is a kind of an anti-intellectualism among many Christians: spirituality is falsely pitted against intellectual comprehension as though they stood in a dichotomy. Such anti-intellectualism cuts away at the very heart of the Christian message. Of course, there is a false intellectualism which does destroy the work of the Holy Spirit. But it does not arise when men wrestle honestly with honest questions and then see that the Bible has the answers. This does not oppose true spirituality. — Francis Schaeffer

Christianity is the greatest intellectual system the mind of man has ever touched. — Francis Schaeffer

No work of art is more important than the Christian's life, and every Christian is called to be an artist in this sense ... The Christian's life is to be a thing of truth and also a thing of beauty in the midst of a lost and despairing world. — Francis Schaeffer

They are equal reality. They are two streams of present reality, both equally promised. The Christian dead are already with Christ now, and Christ really lives in the Christian. Christ lives in me. The Christ who was crucified, the Christ whose work is finished, the Christ who is glorified now, has promised (John 15) to bring forth fruit in the Christian, just as the sap of the vine brings forth the fruit in the branch. — Francis Schaeffer

In the flesh rather than the work of the Spirit, it is easy to say we are showing holiness and it only be egotistic pride and hardness. — Francis Schaeffer

This shift from the Judeo-Christian basis for law and the shift away from the restraints of the Constitution automatically militates against religious liberty. — Francis Schaeffer

Truth always carries with it confrontation. Truth demands confrontation; loving confrontation nevertheless. If our reflex action is always accommodation regardless of the centrality of the truth involved, there is something wrong. — Francis Schaeffer

Hudson Taylor said, "The Lord's work done in the Lord's way will never fail to have the Lord's provision." ... The Lord's work done in human energy is not the Lord's work any longer. It is something, but it is not the Lord's work. — Francis Schaeffer

The modern concept of separation is an argument for a total separation of religion from the state. The consequence of the acceptance of the doctrine leads to the removal of religion as an influence in civil government. — Francis Schaeffer

Tell me what the world is saying today, and I'll tell you what the church will be saying in seven years. — Francis Schaeffer

Any denomination or church group that forsakes inerrancy will end up shipwrecked. It is impossible to prevent the surrender of other important doctrinal teachings of the Word of God when inerrancy is gone. — Francis Schaeffer

Humanism is not wrong in its cry for sociological healing, but humanism is not producing it. — Francis Schaeffer

Belief does not change what is. — Francis Schaeffer

Modern man has not only thrown away Christian theology, he has thrown away the possibility of what our forefathers had as a basis for morality and law. — Francis Schaeffer

The beginning of men's rebellion against God was, and is, the lack of a thankful heart. — Francis Schaeffer

There are two main reasons why we may not be bringing forth the fruit we should. It may be because of ignorance, because we may never have been taught the meaning of the work of Christ for our present lives. — Francis Schaeffer

If there is no absolute by which to judge society, society is absolute. — Francis Schaeffer

Our trusting the Lord does not mean that there are not times of tears. I think it is a mistake as Christians to act as though trusting the Lord and tears are not compatible. — Francis Schaeffer

If the church is what it should be, young people will be there. But they will not just 'be there' - they will be there with the blowing of horns and the clashing of high-sounding cymbals, and they will come dancing with flowers in their hair. — Francis Schaeffer

We as Bible-believing evangelical Christians are locked in a battle. This is not a friendly gentleman's discussion. It is a life and death conflict between the spiritual hosts of wickedness and those who claim the name of Christ. — Francis Schaeffer

The Lord is the General, and he has the right ... the sovereign right ... to put us where he wants in the battle. — Francis Schaeffer

The great distinction of a true Christian is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. How careful should he be, lest anything in his thoughts or feelings would be offensive to the Divine Guest.! — Francis Schaeffer

If one starts with an impersonal beginning, the answer to morals eventually turns out to be the assertion that there are no morals. — Francis Schaeffer

Art is a reflection of God's creativity, an evidence that we are made in the image of God. — Francis Schaeffer

If there is no absolute moral standard, then one cannot say in a final sense that anything is right or wrong. By absolute we mean that which always applies, that which provides a final or ultimate standard. There must be an absolute if there are to be morals, and there must be an absolute if there are to be real values. If there is no absolute beyond man's ideas, then there is no final appeal to judge between individuals and groups whose moral judgments conflict. We are merely left with conflicting opinions. — Francis Schaeffer

When I accept Christ as my Savior ... I am immediately in a new and living relationship with each of the three persons of the Trinity. — Francis Schaeffer

Christ's crucifixion was on a hill, by a road, where everybody who passed by could not only see his pain, but also his shame. It was not done in a shadow, hidden away somewhere. — Francis Schaeffer

If we do not show love to one another, the world has a right to question whether Christianity is true. — Francis Schaeffer

The Christian should be the person who is alive, whose imagination absolutely boils, which moves, which produces something a bit different from God's world because God made us to be creative. — Francis Schaeffer

Christianity believes that God has created an external world that is really there; and because He is a reasonable God, one can expect to be able to find the order of the universe by reason. — Francis Schaeffer

If you want a significant man, with absolutes, morality, and meaning, then you must have what the Bible insists upon - that God will judge men justly, and they will not be able to raise their voices because of the base upon which He judges them. — Francis Schaeffer

Christianity provides a unified answer for the whole of life. — Francis Schaeffer

God has communicated to man, the infinite to the finite. The One who made man capable of language in the first place has communicated to man in language about both spiritual reality and physical reality, about the nature of God and the nature of man. — Francis Schaeffer

So our building of the visible Church becomes much like any natural business function, using natural means and natural motives. — Francis Schaeffer

In passing, we should note this curious mark of our own age: the only absolute allowed is the absolute insistence that there is no absolute. — Francis Schaeffer

The inward area is the first place of loss of true Christian life, of true spirituality, and the outward sinful act is the result. — Francis Schaeffer

If man has been kicked up out of that which is only impersonal by chance , then those things that make him man-hope of purpose and significance, love, motions of morality and rationality, beauty and verbal communication-are ultimately unfulfillable and thus meaningless. — Francis Schaeffer

Things, things, things. Always more things, and success is seen as the abundance of things. — Francis Schaeffer

There would have been no Bach had there been no Luther. — Francis Schaeffer

I have come to the conclusion that none of us in our generation feels as guilty about sin as we should or as our forefathers did. — Francis Schaeffer

If men act upon the teaching of the Word of God, and as proportionately men live according to the teaching and commands of the Bible, so they have in practice a sufficient psychological base. I will find you a man dealing with psychological problems on the basis of the teaching of the Word of God, even if he never heard the word psychology, or does not know what it means. — Francis Schaeffer

If Christianity is really true, then it involves the whole man, including his intellect and creativeness. Christianity is not just 'dogmatically' true or 'doctrinally' true. Rather, it is true to what is there, true in the whole area of the whole man in all of life. — Francis Schaeffer

Modern man has no real "value" for the ocean. All he has is the most crass form of egoist, pragmatic value for it. He treats it as a "thing" in the worst possible sense, to exploit it for the "good" of man. The man who believes things are there only by chance cannot give things a real value. But for the Christian the value of a thing is not in itself autonomously, but because God made it. — Francis Schaeffer

Our relationship with each other is the criterion the world uses to judge whether our message is truthful - Christian community is the final apologetic. — Francis Schaeffer

Sometimes the greatest deterrent to a great marriage is believing you have a perfect marriage. — Francis Schaeffer

It is not enough for the Church to be engaged with the State in healing social ills, though this is important at times. But when the world can turn around and see a group of God's people exhibiting substantial healing in the area of human relationships in their present life, then the world will take notice. Each group of Christians is, as it were, a pilot plant, showing that something can be done in the present situation, if only we begin in the right way. — Francis Schaeffer

We should not view men with a cynical eye, seeing them only as meaningless products of chance, but, on the other hand, we should not go to the opposite extreme of seeing them romantically. To do either is to fail to understand who men really are
creatures made in the image of God but fallen. — Francis Schaeffer

You must not lose confidence in God because you lost confidence in your pastor. If our confidence in God had to depend upon our confidence in any human person, we would be on shifting sand. — Francis Schaeffer

The difference between Christian thinking and the non-Christian philosopher has always been at this point. The non-Christian philosopher has always said that man is normal now, but biblical Christianity says he is abnormal now. — Francis Schaeffer

Today the separation of church and state is America is used to silence the church ... The way the concept is used today is totally reversed from the original intent ... It is used today as a false political dictum in order to restrict the influence of Christian ideas ... To have suggested the state separated from religion and religious influence would have amazed the Founding Fathers. — Francis Schaeffer

The moral absolutes rest upon God's character. The moral commands He has given to men are an expression of His character. Men as created in His image are to live by choice on the basis of what God is. The standards of morality are determined by what conforms to His character, while those things which do not conform are immoral. — Francis Schaeffer

If I'm going to be in the right relationship with God, I should treat the things he has made in the same way he treats them. — Francis Schaeffer

But the fact that Christ as the bridegroom brings forth fruit through me as the bride, through the agency of the indwelling Holy Spirit by faith, opens the way for me as a Christian to begin to know in the present life the reality of the supernatural. This is where the Christian is to live. Doctrine is important, but it is not an end in itself. There is to be an experiential reality, moment by moment. — Francis Schaeffer

Eve doubted God, and I as a child of God am now to be exactly the opposite: I am to believe him. Eve doubted, and mankind in revolt doubts God. To believe him, not just when I accept Christ as Savior, but every moment, one moment at a time: this is the Christian life, and this is true spirituality. — Francis Schaeffer

Preaching the gospel without the Holy Spirit is to miss the entire point of the command of Jesus Christ for our era. In the area of "Christian activities" or "Christian service," how we are doing it is at least as important as what we are doing. — Francis Schaeffer

The ordinary Christian with the Bible in his hand can say that the majority is wrong. — Francis Schaeffer

Ignorance is in relationship to content; it is not just a spirit of ignorance. In verse 21 it speaks of "the truth in Jesus." Truth is content, truth has something to do with reason. Truth has something to do with the rational creature that God has made us. The dilemma here in the internal world is not just some sort of grey fog, it is in relationship to content. — Francis Schaeffer

Modern man has both feet firmly planted in mid-air — Francis Schaeffer

Man, made in the image of God, has a purpose - to be in relationship to God, who is there. Man forgets his purpose and thus he forgets who he is and what life means. — Francis Schaeffer

The value of the things is not in themselves autonomously, but that God made them, and thus they deserve to be treated with high respect. The tree in the field is to be treated with respect. It is not to be romanticized as the old lady romanticizes her cat (that is, she reads human reactions into it). This is wrong because it is not true. When you drive the axe into the tree when you need firewood, you are not cutting down a person; you are cutting down a tree. But while we should not romanticize the tree, we must realize God made it and it deserves respect because He made is as a tree. — Francis Schaeffer

This is not an age in which to be a soft Christian. — Francis Schaeffer

The church is something beautiful — Francis Schaeffer

Jesus taught that the mark of the Christian is the observable love shown among all true believers. — Francis Schaeffer