I finished reading The Great Evangelical Disaster by Francis Schaeffer last week. I have read it before, but it was good to read it again, and learn from this incredibly wise man. Several people who have learned that I have read this book have asked, "So what is the great evangelical disaster?". The answer is accommodation. Accomodation to un-biblical ways of viewing the world, the church and reality. In some ways that does not sound that imposing or scary, however it will be the end of evangelical Christianity if it is followed to it's logical conclusion.
Perhaps one of the best mental pictures that comes from the book is of the snow at the top of a mountain ridge. The snow on the east side of the ridge and the the snow on the west side of the ridge are so close together and similar in appearance when they reside near the peak. However, as the sun warms the area and the snow begins to melt and to descend into their respective valleys on the east and west sides of the ridge they could not be farther from each other. In Schaeffer's example, one ends in the Mediterranean and the other in the North Sea. The point is that things that appear to be so similar to evangelical Christianity are shown to be diametrically opposed to it when followed to it's logical conclusion... and that those conclusions are the difference between truth and falsehood, life and death.
The solution is being faithful to the Scriptures (easier said than done), but also using loving, truthful confrontation to bring our (and others) thoughts back to Christ as He is revealed in His Word. Obviously if you could learn everything about the book from a blog posting, you would not need to read the book, so I have only scratched the surface... The book is 20 years old, and yet it is so attuned to the situation of our day. He was an incredible mind.
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