Final Post on Station Six: Saint Francis lead the way
Too many official voices, both in government and the media, have attempted to persuade the American people that giving voice to patriotism or the robust expression of a Christ-centered worldview are hurtful acts.
The Titanic Brigade identifies this political correctness as nothing less than the iceberg that has ripped a gaping hole in our national fabric.
This searing tear, if not repaired, will sink the ship called the United States of America.
The hole must be repaired, the iceberg that tore the hole must melt.
To be less obscure, as St. Paul taught, everything raised up against the knowledge of Christ is to be torn down.
The Institute is not the first to declare that post-modernity is opposed to the Faith Once Delivered. It is no secret and the conflicts have become glaring during the past decades.
The only question is what the Church is prepared to do about it.
One of the inspirations for the ArchAngel Institute said it quite well way back in the 80’s. He is the Saint Francis of the Protestant Evangelicals, and has an honored place in the Institute’s pantheon of Christian leaders:
“Make no mistake. We as Bible-believing evangelical Christians are locked in a battle. This is not a friendly gentleman’s discussion. It is a life and death conflict between the spiritual hosts of wickedness and those who claim the name of Christ. It is a conflict on the level of ideas between two fundamentally opposed views of truth and reality. It is a conflict on the level of actions between a complete moral perversion and chaos and God’s absolutes. Do we really believe we are in a life and death battle? Do we really believe that the part we play in the battle has consequences for whether or not men and women will spend eternity in hell? Or whether or not in this life people will live with meaning or meaninglessness? Or whether or not those who do live will live in a climate of moral perversion and degradation? Sadly, we must say that very few in the evangelical world have acted as if these things are true. …”
[Excerpted from The Great Evangelical Disaster, Francis A. Schaeffer, Crossway Books, p.31,32]
The ArchAngel Institute ended its August 25, 2007 launch with a clip from Schaeffer’s truly profound film series “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?”
Schaeffer’s writings had a profound effect upon many young and idealistic evangelicals in the 1980’s. The principles and exhotations found in Schaeffer’s writings are found in the teachings of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI as well.
Those teachings form a common foundation from which an ecumenical evangelism addressing the whole of the human experience can be explored. Not a mere reactionary Christian Right, but a true Renaissance of the best in Christendom.
If not now, when? If not at 827 Webster Street, where?
The Titanic Brigade will answer Saint Francis’ call to faithful service while building a bridge between Faith communities that have for far too long been separated by walls.
