Francis Schaeffer : An Authentic Life

A monumental work that draws on specially collected oral history to fully portray the person, work, and teaching of one of the most important figures in modern Christianity.

Nearly twenty-five years after his death, Francis Schaeffer’s impact as one of the foremost shapers of modern Christianity still reverberates within the church and contemporary culture. A pastor, apologist, best-selling author, and activist whose work and ministry reached around the world, Schaeffer also managed to deeply and personally influence people of every age and position-men, women, youth, and children; the schooled intellectual and the common laborer, the scientist and the artist, the doubting Christian and the skeptical non-believer-in a way that few others have.

His impassioned, genuine life is the focus of Colin Duriez’s authoritative biography, which draws on over 150,000 words of oral history in addition to personal interviews and other resources to portray not just the man and his relationships but his spiritual formation and the development of his ideas, creative works, and worldview. From his working-class childhood in Pennsylvania, to the founding of L’Abri, his personal crisis of faith, and his latter years as a compassionate controversialist in the worldwide spotlight, all the eras of Schaeffer’s life unfold within these pages. But Duriez, who studied under and interviewed Schaeffer, also takes a deeper look, revealing those distinct life phases, as well as Schaeffer’s teachings and his complexities as a person, within their historical context so that contemporary readers may better understand all of who Schaeffer was-and why he still matters today.

Filling an important void in Schaeffer literature, this full-length biography illuminates the complex journey of one whose relentless passion for truth, reality, a full-orbed faith, and meeting the needs of people made him not just a giant within evangelicalism but a shining example of what every Christian in every generation strives after: An Authentic Life lived to the glory of God.