The evangelical giant was sleeping, slumbering behind the high walls of a protective pietism. Meanwhile outside the walls, where the evangelical giant occasionally ventured but did not linger too long for fear of being infected by culture's secularity, humanism was thriving and changing culture. Then along came Francis the Schaeffer and roused the giant from its slumber, challenging it to venture from its protective environment and engage the advance of secular humanism. The giant heeded the challenge, awoke and engaged the battle.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Francis Schaeffer observed changes in America's cultural life that caused him great concern. It led Schaeffer to write A Christian Manifesto. This book awakened the sleeping giant, stirred Christians to action, and gave a theoretical construct for engaging culture. Whether or not evangelicals were successful in all their efforts in the cultural arena, at least this much can be said: As a community there was increased involvement.

Convinced that evangelicals had been silent because of debilitating forms of pietism, Schaeffer challenged evangelicals to put aside these forms of pietism and replace them with a robust Christianity. He claimed, further, that during its pietistic slumber, an aggressive humanistic world view moved into the vacuum and began changing foundational principles that had defined America in the past.

What were the evangelicals doing as humanism was changing the system? They were focused on positive forms of ministry: evangelism, church planting, discipleship and international missions. But in the process the evangelicals had withdrawn from the public square, as Schaeffer said, abandoning the biblical cultural mandate.

How did Schaeffer approach this topic in 1982? He began with outlining an overview of competing world views, showing how a biblical and a humanistic world view are antithetical. Each has a different philosophical foundation, which results in different approaches and outcomes in personal life, ethics, public policy, education, and other areas of culture.

Not only are there different presuppositional and competing philosophies in these world views, but there are also different views within Christianity itself. Schaeffer claimed evangelicals were not involved in cultural issues because of a disengaged pietism, which resulted from Gnostic or Platonic influences, that is, the notion that the spiritual order is of greater value than the material order. If the spiritual order is more significant then that is where most, if not all, of Christian effort will be placed.

Obviously, the spiritual dimension is important. But a balanced reading of Scripture shows that God created all things, visible and invisible. At the end of the sixth day of creation we read: "And God saw all that he had made, and it was very good" (Gen. 1:31). Both the spiritual and material order were created "very good," which means that the physical and earthly are not intrinsically sinful or evil. One of the consequences of the Fall was that all of creation, visible and invisible, was subjected to sin (Rom. 8:19-25); from this developed the idea that the material order was intrinsically sinful and needed to be denied. As a result, attaining true spiritual life was considered a paramount virtue. With pietism focused on the inner and spiritual, with an emphasis on denying self and the things of this world, engaging culture was not high on the evangelical agenda. As Schaeffer would say, this was an abdication of a full orbed biblical world view.

Not only had a pietistic Christianity abdicated its role in culture, it did not challenge the growing influence of secular humanism. Humanism's influence grew in a number of areas. "We live in a secularized society and in secularized, sociological law. By sociological law we mean law that has no fixed base but law in which a group of people decides what is sociologically good for society at the given moment; and that they arbitrarily decide becomes law" (p. 41). The result: there are no fixed absolutes upon which law is based, which makes man and his present circumstances the bases of determining what is good for society.

There was also a shift into materialistic science "based on a philosophic change to the materialistic concept of final reality" (p. 44). Schaeffer argued that this materialistic, chance concept of final reality would never have produced the forms and freedoms that we enjoy as a culture; only the biblical concept of law can produce the freedoms that guarantee a lawful society. Schaeffer quotes Will Durant to demonstrate the deficiency of humanism with regard to personal ethics and social order: "Moreover, we shall find it no easy task to mold a natural ethic strong enough to maintain moral restraint and social order without the support of supernatural consolations, hopes and fears" (p. 45).

Schaeffer provided an overview of the Reformation to show it as a period of history that had a significant impact on theology and culture. One of the works that was foundational for social engagement was Samuel Rutherford's Lex Rex ("The Law is King"). Rutherford developed a Christian philosophy for social order. He argued that government, the magistrate, received delegated authority from God and Christians are to submit to this authority, unless the government requires actions that are contrary to biblical commands.

Rutherford and the Reformation built their philosophical construct on Augustine, who was one of the first to develop a world view for spiritual and social engagement in his City of God. This work helped to shape the church's understanding of the role of believers in spiritual matters and civil affairs. Augustine wrote that the church and the state were two swords, both under God's authority; each sphere was ordained by God for specific purposes: The church to proclaim the gospel, calling sinners to God; the state to restrain human sinfulness, to preserve order, and promote the common good. Each sphere was to be independent of each other, yet Christians were citizens of both. The church as an institution and the state as an institution were ordained by God for distinct purposes and these were not to be confused. While there may be overlap at times, the distinctions were to be maintained.

While Aquinas agreed with Augustine that the state was ordained by God and played an important role in society, he argued that the church as the spiritual authority should oversee and direct the civil authority. In other words, the church as an institution should guide the state in ordering temporal life. However, Schaeffer argued that Christians are to consider themselves as citizens of both institutions and as such engage in each consistent with God's ordained intent for each one. Confusion arises when these ordained distinctions are not honored.

In general evangelical thinking, there has not been a clear distinction made between church and state as separately ordained institutions. Instead of expecting the church as an institution to mandate social and moral reform in culture, evangelicals should expect the Church to instruct its members with biblical principles, equipping them to speak from a biblical world view in the public square. By recognizing the distinction between church and state as institutions, there will be less confusion when these distinctions are honored.

Francis Schaeffer awakened evangelicals to their responsibility to develop a clearly defined biblical world view. Evangelicals today need to review and renew their commitment to this world view so that they can engage culture by speaking cogently, rationally and convincingly in the public square.