The church’s or Christian group’s methods are as important
as its message. It is to deal consciously with the reality of the supernatural.
Anything that exhibits unfaith is a mistake, or may even be a corporate sin.
The liberal theologians get rid of the supernatural in their teaching, but the
unfaith of the evangelical can in practice get rid of the supernatural.
May I put it like this? If we woke up tomorrow morning and
found that all that the Bible teaches concerning prayer and the Holy Spirit
were removed (not as a liberal would remove it, by misinterpretations, but really removed) what difference would it
make in practice from the way we are
functioning today? The simple tragic fact is that in much of the Church of the
Lord Jesus Christ – the evangelical church – there would be no difference whatsoever. We function as though the supernatural were
not there.
If the Church does not show forth the supernatural in our
generation, what will? The Lord’s work done in the Lord’s way does not relate
only to its message; it relates also to the method. There must be something the
world cannot explain away by the world’s methods, or by applied psychology.
- Francis Schaeffer, True
Spirituality, in Complete Works of
Francis A Schaeffer, 4.363.
