I experienced a sense of déjà vu in returning to my underscoring and annotations of the chapter “An Open Window” from Francis A. Schaeffer’s A Christian Manifesto. It appears in my original red hardback of his 1982 Complete Works. I first read this work over thirty-five years ago, and since Schaeffer was the first distinctive Christian worldview thinker I encountered, it inspires fond memories today.
Schaeffer wrote A Christian Manifesto in 1981, and in his chapter “An Open Window” he was buoyed by Ronald Reagan’s recent election in 1980. Schaeffer did not vest ultimate hope in political change, but he believed politics was an indicator of culture. Reagan was both a political and cultural conservative, and his election indicated, at the very least, a favorable conservative cultural shift. By conservative, Schaeffer meant a belief in basic Christian principles and a strong emphasis on freedom and the free society. He saw conservatism as the only valid alternative to the secular humanist hegemony marked by philosophical materialism and coercive utopianism. Humanist elites had commandeered cultural fulcrums by which they wished to reorder society. Reagan’s election kept the window open to permit a biblical counterinsurgency.
The window opened to two possibilities, two “tracks,” to use Schaeffer’s second metaphor. The first track is the recovery of what he calls a Christian consensus that characterized the United States and northern Europe over the previous centuries. By Christian consensus, he did not denote all or even most citizens were actually converted, but, rather, they were committed, even if only intuitively, to a Christian worldview: belief in biblical absolutes; the reality of God; the recognition of a fallen world; and the necessity of a free society with checks and balances on sin, including on sinful politicians. This is the valid Christian heritage of northern Europe and the United States, and what bequeathed its blessings and greatness.
The second track confronting Christians in the early 1980s was more ominous. This is the continuation and consolidation of the reigning secular humanist culture. In response, he writes, “It is our task to use the open widow to try to change that direction at this very late hour” (75).
Schaeffer’s prescience shines through when he predicts that, if Americans take track two, they won’t revert to the older mild-mannered, allegedly neutral liberalism of the earlier twentieth century, but rather they will capitulate to a coercive elitism. Consider the recent advent of Covid statism and lockdowns, the designation of churches as “nonessential,” the criminalization of voluntary “conversion therapy” in Canada, and cancel culture prevalent almost everywhere—how many of these decisions were made by a relatively small number of powerful elites? Schaeffer was a prophet.
Which track did America take? Actually, both, but the darker track has more foot traffic. The course of Leftist elitism has increased since 1981, most visibly in the 2015 Obergefell decision codifying so-called, same-sex “marriage.” On the opposite side of the cultural ledger, Donald Trump, the consummate populist anti-elitist, was elected the next year in part as a conservative reaction. The secular Leftists keep trying to slam the door shut, and conservatives keep putting their foot in the doorway. Schaeffer wrote:
And let us hope that the window stays open, and not on just one issue, even one as important as human life — though certainly every Christian ought to be praying and working to nullify the abominable abortion law [Roe v. Wade]. (73)
Almost exactly 40 years later, the Supreme Court, which Schaeffer warned could easily become the chief embodiment of coercive elitism, reversed that truly abominable law in the landmark Dobbs decision. It’s significant to recognize, in this context, that while Schaeffer’s book successfully lays out a biblical rationale for civil disobedience, Roe wasn’t overturned by extralegal means, but fully within the law. Conservative organizations like the Federalist Society and the Alliance Defending Freedom, donations of millions from sympathetic pro-life Christians and other conservatives, as well as the election of several consistent pro-life presidents all coalesced to peacefully abolish Roe within the American system.
At a time when many “conservatives” wish to quickly resort to violence and civil disobedience under the fear of “progressive” dominance, it is well to remember that our free society, rooted in Protestant classical liberalism (the opposite of “progressive” liberalism) affords the milieu in which to keep that window open.
To Christians, Schaeffer offers two additional warnings. First, don’t assume secular conservatism is any better than secular Leftism. Secular conservatism, whether in today’s libertine libertarianism (“free markets and free sex”) or populist nationalism (“keep the immigrants out and fight Leftists with their own thuggish tactics”) is merely another form of godless humanism.
Second, don’t relax and assume the final battle is over and revert to “false views of spirituality” (79), by which Schaeffer implies an otherworldly pietism that takes Jesus and the Bible seriously in our individual lives and family and church but not in the wider culture, including politics. Don’t think that political participation is necessarily worldly-minded or that apathetic lack of involvement is godly stewardship. Moreover, don’t let the reversal of Roe make you over-confident; humanism is licking its wounds and preparing for a surprise counter-attack. The window is open for an abiding Christian influence in our society, but it closes a centimeter each day that Christians retreat from the wider culture.
But take heart! There is another window that no man can close—the window of Christ’s gospel advancement. Due to God’s sovereign operation in history and according to his biblical promises, this window will be wide open until our Lord comes, and nothing can prevail against it—not even secular humanism.
When God opens a window, no man can shut it.
