Holiday Reading

Over the holiday, I did some "light" reading.  Francis Schaeffer, is hardly light reading for me.  Usually, I read a sentence or perhaps a paragraph and then must sort through his meanings and insight.  He was a brilliant man and I have a great deal of respect for him.  His ideas from the 1960's through 1980's all prophesied the world we live in today.  So, if you want to know where this culture, this American Theological aka Western culture went wrong and why - read his numerous books on the subject!

I read again The God Who Is There and How Then Should We Live.  Lightly this time, not analyzing but just refreshing my memory with his ideas and insights.  Then I picked up A Christian Manifesto ...

Never had read it before and I found it quite interesting.  Schaeffer walks you through the history of politics in light of the reformation movement and post-reformation degradation of society and culture.  It was interesting to see that much of what I harp on about today's society, Schaeffer finds the seeds were planted in the reformation.  Hmmmmm.

About half of the book deals with the concept of Christian Disobedience and Civil Unrest.  A subject near and dear to my heart.

Not found on any of  my blogs, even the long dead ones, was a mention that my first book ever was, Christian Civil Disobedience.  Just try to even find a copy of it anywhere on the internet or even anywhere!  All twelve copies I think are now in Canada (LOL!).

I had been writing Bible studies since 1974 and freely distributed them.  One of my "clients" was a protest group in Washington State of the USA.  They were a huge encouragement to me back then, with a heavy traffic of questions, comments and requests in those pre-internet or even email days.

Then one day I was reading the newspaper and saw that those whacky Washingtonians were at it again and protesting nuclear missiles being shipped to a sub base there.  One of them laid down on the railroad tracks and was most surprised to discover that trains do not stop like cars and his next appearance was before Jesus.  I was stunned because I at least knew the guy from the letter traffic of the protest group!  Stunned is perhaps too light of a word.

And I knew in my spirit I had to write on Christian Civil Disobedience.  It was not much of a tome, only 58 pages but it clearly mapped out what the Bible has to say on the subject.  And you might be surprised what the real answer is.

But back to Francis Schaeffer and the Christian Manifesto ...  I am now reading his thoughts and seeing his logic 30 years after my book's publication and interestingly published at about the same time as his.  My work circulated within the Mennonite and Hutterite communities, Schaeffer's within the general Christian community.  Both came at the subject from opposite ends of the argument, mine from the Bible, his from secular history and both pointed to the same conclusion - had Francis of continued his line of reason but he was arguing politics and did not complete the Christian responsibility part.

Now I am challenged to search through all of the boxes to find my original of the manuscript.  Perhaps in February I will be able to break it up and publish it here ....  But, it would also be interesting to reread that manuscript and see if Kris of over 30 years ago still thinks like this new Kris ....