More of That Francis Schaeffer Quote
My friend, Chad Canipe (Hey, Chad, will you be my friend?) posted more of that quote from Francis Schaeffer over on his website…
“The Bible is clear here: I am to love my neighbor as myself, in the manner needed, in a practical way, in the midst of the fallen world, at my particular point of history. This is why I am not a pacifist. Pacifism in this poor world in which we live�this lost world�means that we desert the people who need our greatest help.
Let me illustrate. I am walking down the street and I come upon a big, burly man beating a tiny tot to death-beating this little girl-beating her-beating her. I plead with him to stop. Suppose he refuses? What does love mean now? Love means that I stop him in any way I can, including hitting him. To me this is not only necessary for humanitarian reasons it is loyalty to Christ’s commands concerning Christian love in a fallen world. What about that little girl?
If I desert her to the bully, I have deserted the true meaning of Christian love-responsibility to my neighbor. She, as well as he, is my neighbor.
We have, in the Second World War, the clearest illustration anyone could ask for on this point. What about Hitler’s terrorism? There was no possible way to stop the awful terror in Hitler’s Germany without the use of force. There was no way. As far as I am concerned, this was the necessary outworking of Christian love in the fallen world as it is. The world is an abnormal world. Because of the fall, it is not what God meant it to be. There are many things in this world which grieve us, but we must face them.
We never have the luxury of acting in a merely utopian way. Utopian schemes in this fallen world have always brought tragedy. The Bible is never utopian.”
