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Harold o.j. Brown writes about Francis A. Schaeffer's prolife work

7/13/2022

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The following is an excerpt from Dr. Harold O.J. Brown's essay on Dr. Francis Schaeffer concerning prolife efforts against abortion in the early 1970s:
[page 23]
"[Schaeffer] first became a really well-known figure on the American scene when he began to apply his Christian convictions in the legal and political area. something that the evangelical leadership was not prepared to do. The 1973 decision of the United States Supreme Court mandating abortion on demand, Roe v. Wade, was a kind of spark in the powderkeg for Schaeffer. For twenty years. Schaeffer had been warning that the humanistic value structure that respected individual lives would crumble to expediency as the Christian base of Western society was demolished. Roe v. Wade was unmistakable evidence that this was happening. This atrocious decision and the millions of prenatal deaths it mandat ed struck Francis Schaeffer as a challenge that he could not ignore.
Although the Schaeffers had been asked to lend their names to any number of causes, it was not until the founding of the evangelical antiabortion group, the Christian Action Council, in 1975, that the Schaeffer name appeared on a council of reference for any organization other than L'Abri itself. Together with C. Everett Koop, M.D., now United States Surgeon General. Schaeffer produced the film series Whatever Happened to the Human Race? in 1979. This film series mobilized timid and lethargic evangelicals in support for the antiabortion movement. It provided tremendous encouragement to the vast company of nonevangelical antiabortionists, including millions of Roman Catholics, making them aware of the Biblical foundation for
[page 24]
their convictions, and stimulating them to take evangelical ideas seriously in other areas as well. However, Schaeffer's highly provocative stand against abortion further widened the gap be tween Schaeffer and the evangelical leadership. many of whom adopted a vacillating or even compromising stand. At the same time, it also built up a vast reservoir of support and loyalty for Schaeffer among people who were not interested in theology or the evangelical movement. Unfortunately, Schaeffer's social involvement has had the unintended side effect of giving evangelicals who find Schaeffer's views awkward a new excuse for disregarding him-now he has become "too political." (The political activism of the left-wing evangelicals is often applauded by nonleftist evangelicals because it gives evidence that evangelicals have fully arrived, while the conservative broadsides of Schaeffer-not to mention Jerry Falwell-embarrass them.)"

The above excerpt is from:
Brown , Harold O. J. (1986). Standing Against the World. In Francis A. Schaeffer: Portraits of the man and his work (pp. 23–24).edited by Dennis, Lane T. Crossway Books. ISBN: 
0891073868 
Crossway publisher allows reproductions of up to 400 words, see here. 
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