Francis A. Schaeffer (1912–1984)

Francis Schaeffer was an American Presbyterian missionary, pastor, and apologist known for engaging modern doubts with biblical clarity and personal warmth. After years of ministry in the United States and Europe, he became a trusted voice for Christians wrestling with philosophy, art, and cultural change. His writings and conversations emphasized that the Christian faith is not a mere system of ideas but truth meant to be lived before God with integrity.

L’Abri Fellowship, Switzerland

L’Abri (“the shelter”) began in the Swiss Alps as Francis and Edith Schaeffer opened their home to students, skeptics, and spiritual seekers. In a postwar Europe marked by disillusionment, L’Abri offered hospitality, rigorous discussion, and daily life shaped by prayer and Scripture. The work was demanding: long conversations, practical needs, and the emotional weight of broken stories. Yet the Schaeffers treated each person as a neighbor to love, modeling persevering service when results were not immediate and questions were not easily answered.

Letter of December 11, 1962: Faith and Tears

In a letter dated December 11, 1962, Schaeffer warned against a false spirituality that treats weeping as unbelief. He insisted that trusting the Lord does not exclude tears, and that Christians err when they pretend faith and sorrow cannot coexist. His counsel resisted stoic denial and sentimental triumphalism alike, calling believers to humble dependence—an honesty that refuses to hide pain behind religious phrases.

This realism echoes the Bible’s pattern of lament joined to hope. “The LORD is near to the brokenhearted; He saves the contrite in spirit.” (Psalm 34:18). Grief is not proof of God’s absence, but often the place where His nearness is most keenly known. Jesus Himself honored sorrow: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” (Matthew 5:4). Christian courage is not the absence of tears, but the decision to bring tears to God and continue in faithful love.

Schaeffer’s note, forged amid the pressures of ministry at L’Abri, commended a quiet heroism: staying tenderhearted, staying truthful, and staying prayerful. Such faith does not deny darkness; it looks through it to the Lord who hears, carries, and strengthens His people for persevering obedience.