The church before the watching world; a practical ecclesiology

This is a short book, written in the 1970s, bemoaning the rise of liberalism in the Christian Church in both the US and Europe. Schaeffer, who was quite a popular Christian writer of his era, stands up for Protestantism and Biblical theology in a way that was probably helpful in that era;

Show More

unfortunately he has been credited with the rise of the so-called 'Christian right' in America who apparently took his views on board in extreme measures.

In this book, Schaeffer does continually stress the need to balance love with holiness, although I found that much of his thinking seemed overly abstract without many examples. He quotes Scripture extensively, and also looks at some of the history of denominations in the US (quoting people I had never heard of) but says little about the actual dangers he perceives.

In the final section, Schaeffer gives some useful pointers to dangers to which we can fall in two possible directions if veering away from orthodox Christian belief, which alone makes this book worth perusing. He also acknowledges that there is a wide circle of acceptable diversity on specific beliefs about many topics. However the overall tone seems dated and rather judgemental; more like a rant than a useful indication of the problems within the worldwide church.

Show Less