with the word of prayer. Father, thank you that you brought us together again this evening in our various places, literally from coast to coast tonight. We thank you for safe travels for Eli, and I pray that you would be with us this evening as we continue our study of Schaefer, and that we would be encouraged and edified by what we learned tonight, especially as we consider the first years of his life, and his conversion to Christianity. We pray these things in Christ's name. So, I only have eleven pages of notes tonight. It shouldn't take more than three or four hours. I may have to practice on condensing a few things as we go, but I went ahead and gave you the unexpurgated version of the material that you can use for reference even though we won't be able to cover every part of it this evening. We will cover some biographical background in the first hour and then cover the first two sections of the God who is there during our second hour. So that's the agenda for tonight. So for the biographical part Born in 1912 and we're going to consider the first part of his life from 1912 until the age of 19, 1931. And you'll see how that makes a pretty good stopping point as far as looking at different times in his life. It so happens that his conversion occurred just as he was finishing high school and getting ready to make preparations for college, so that also makes a good break point. And we'll leave off this look at his biographical background, hopefully with enough suspense that you'll hardly be able to wait until we pick it back up next week. So that's where we're starting, 1912. And just for a little historical context, what do we think of when we think of the year 1912? World War I. That's what I think of. Pretty close. Started in 1914. Something big happened in 1912. Everybody should know this one. History, you know, that was the year that Jack Dawson and Rose Bukater fell in love, and the Titanic sank, and Jack died. Oh, well, the history might be a little different, but it is interesting to think in terms of just the context of the early 20th century, because this was the rise of the modern era, industrialization, technology, You know, it's only been less than 10 years since the Wright brothers first powered flight. So there are these kinds of things taking place that are pointing to a very bright future with technology. And yet the Titanic obviously was a bit of a setback, let's say, in terms of our optimism. But, well, and if that was a setback, World War I was a bigger setback. And so that kind of leads into the first point here, that Schaeffer was born into an age of contrasts. So we see on the one hand technological advancement that's happening very rapidly, and yet we're on the verge of global conflict. We see lots of competing ideas, both in society as well as in the church. You could say, arguably, that's kind of an emerging kind of culture war that's beginning. We have this notion of progress, which as it begins to form at this time, is going to include some pretty drastic social change. A lot of drastic social change is taking place during the first quarter and first half of the 20th century. And of course, we have continued industrialization and urbanization. Lots of people moving either from the country into the city or moving from one place to another. As we learned in our American Church History class a couple weeks ago, the last part of the 19th century was a time of great deal of immigration from overseas to America. And we'll see how that bears on the Schaffers as well. By this time, we're also seeing a growing acceptance of biological Darwinism, the idea that plants and animals evolve from lower forms, but that also gave rise to something called social Darwinism. And that leads into something called eugenics, which is the idea that with a little effort, we can help out Darwinism and move man on to a higher level. And that became a very important idea, especially in the early 20th century. It's kind of a perhaps a little known fact that eugenics as a philosophy, I won't call it a science, as a philosophy developed considerably in the United States in the early 20th century. So we see those kinds of things taking place. Modernity seemed to be making God irrelevant by this point in time. And so we're seeing a heavy reliance on the advance of technology, including things like medicine, big advances in medicine taking place at this time. We're going to see an increase in lifespans starting around this time. So a lot of things that are changing. and giving rise to kind of a technological optimism that in many ways will turn out to be misplaced. Because man is still man in his fallenness. So, as we start talking about Schaeffer, I'll probably refer to him most often just as Schaeffer. He went by Fran. His father went by Frank. His father was Francis Schaeffer III. his grandfather was Francis Schaeffer the second and he went by Franz and then his son Frankie who is somewhat infamous is the fifth in the line of the Schaeffers so he prefers to go by Frank these days but for differentiation if I refer to him I'll probably call him Frankie just for simplicity so The Schaeffer line goes back a number of generations. The history of this family is that Frank's father, Franz, came from Germany in 1869, so that period right after the Civil War. Schaeffer's mother's ancestry goes back to England, William Joyce was Bessie's grandfather who came from Nottingham just before the middle of the 19th century. So, both from immigrant families, part English, part German. And on both sides of the family of Schaefer's parents, there was a tragedy of losing a father fairly early on. So Franz died in a railroad accident when Schaefer's father, Frank, was only three years old. And a little back story on Franz, when he first came to America, he burned his family's papers. So we know very little about the Schaefer family going back to the time when they came from Germany. I guess that was a way of basically saying I'm starting a new life and what's happened prior to this doesn't doesn't matter anymore. So when Frank was still a child he ended up having to take on adult responsibilities. By the age of 10 he was working in a coal mine And his job was standing over a conveyor belt and sorting rocks out of the material that was coming up that conveyor belt to separate the coal from the rocks. He only finished the third grade. So Schaefer's father was very much a working class guy, did not have the benefit of much education, but came from a very hardworking background. He was also a Navy veteran. When he was a teenager he went off to serve in the Navy. In the Navy he was able to exercise and refine his mechanical skills. It was said that he could hang from the rigging of the ships back in those days in any kind of weather. That was back in the days when you had to climb the rigging. It tells us something about how long ago this was in history. So on his mother's side, Bessie's father, Wallace, died when she was only eight years old. At the time, she was one of four daughters. So she ended up having to take on more adult responsibilities in her household as well. And that led her to a kind of cynicism where she said that she was not going to be a slave to children. So she determined that she was never going to have more than one child. And that child happens to be the topic of our class. So she grew up rather bitter because of that. And consequently, when she became a mother, she could be harsh at times. She did graduate from grammar school. So between his mother and father, they had very little education. In terms of religion, Schaeffer's father came from a Lutheran background. His mother came from an evangelical free background. So there was some church background there, but they were not converts, at least not until much later in life. So during the years that Schaeffer was growing up and when he was converted, he was the only one in his family who was a convert. So here's the date of infamy, January 30, 1912. This is back in a day when at-home birth was still a popular choice. Actually, I think it was about the only choice. So his mother went into labor late in the evening, called for the doctor. He came to her home. And lickety-split, we might say, Fran was born in his mother's bed. The story there is that the doctor that helped deliver Fran had been on a bit of a drinking binge that evening, so he wasn't entirely, not completely sober when Bessie gave birth. And subsequently, I guess with the hangover the next morning, he forgot to file the birth certificate. And it wasn't discovered until Fran tried to get a passport 35 years later that he didn't have a birth certificate. So he was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania. We heard in Dominic's class a couple weeks ago that Germantown was a popular settlement for many of the immigrants who were coming from Europe at that time. That included the Schaffers. Their first house was on Pastoria Street. And we'll see, about the time that Fran starts high school, they'll move into a different home. I can't say a new one, but a new-to-them home on a different street in the same town. So Fran was an only child. They were living in poor, working-class conditions. There were no books in their home. So as far as any kind of spiritual or intellectual life in Fran's upbringing, it really wasn't there. And that's significant because of what will happen a little later on. They had a routine of pretty hard life back in those days. Monday was dedicated to washing. Tuesday was dedicated to ironing. That's back in the day when the irons didn't plug in. They were actually irons that you put on the stove to heat them up. Wednesday was for mending and sewing, making homemade clothes. Thursday was the day to go to market. Friday was house cleaning day. So they stayed very busy but it was a difficult upbringing. Fran used to play in the yard when he was a child. Back in those days there were vendors who would come down the streets in their carts and often time provide many of the things that were necessary selling them door to door. Fran's favorite was the waffle cart. Apparently he enjoyed the sweets from the waffle cart. And again, to kind of put some context to the time that we're talking about, this is the second decade of the 20th century. Back in those days, in the evening when the sun went down, a lamplighter would come down the street to light the gas lamps and he would enjoy watching the lamplighter make his way down the street. Because of this working class background and because of necessity, Fran began learning practical skills from a very early age, things like carpentry and woodworking, mechanical drawing. He seemed to be moving in the direction of some kind of an engineering background, engineering education. The family leisure time was Little, but they would occasionally take trips in the summertime to Atlantic City, spend time swimming and walking on the beach and the boardwalk. And just as a way of reminding you that it wasn't a, you know, hop in the car and drive to Atlantic City kind of thing, they had to use three different forms of transportation to get there and to get back. First a trolley, then a ferry, and then a train. So it was more of a production back in those days. one of Fran's childhood chores including taking his wagon to the ice house about a mile away from where they lived and bringing back a block of ice each week. So I think that was probably the days before electricity and the modern conveniences of refrigeration that we take for granted. His grade school was just a mile from his house And at that time, he had both of his grandmothers alive and living fairly close by. One was close enough to his school that he could spend time with her each day, take his lunch break there. And even though Bessie, his mother, tended to be on the harsh side, it seems to be the case that his grandmother had a bit of a mitigating effect, that she was a bit more kindness in his life, you might say. Although it turns out that he was disciplined fairly often at school for his misbehaviors, that's shocking. He was a little small for his age, but he was also pretty scrappy, meaning that he was not the kid that you want to pick on. Interestingly, it wasn't until later in life that he was diagnosed with a pretty severe case of dyslexia. And the way that we see that show up in his life, even Even when he had his own children in the house, he would occasionally call on one of his daughters to help him with spelling, even simple words. And it also seems to be an explanation for why, if you listen to him speak or see a recording of him preaching or speaking, that oftentimes he will use what seem like strange pronunciations. You might think it's where he grew up, his accent, maybe spending time in Europe, You know, it probably has more to do with his dyslexia and difficulty of understanding exactly how to pronounce words. When he was growing up, he didn't show a lot of interest in schoolwork. He didn't think it was very practical. He was obviously more interested in those things that would be useful skills around the house. He did have a bout of scarlet fever when he was a child and he would suffer from hallucinations. And back in those days, you could have a health inspector come and nail a quarantine card on your front door and force you to stay home until you recover from your illness. So he started junior high school at the age of 11. It was in junior high school where he had a teacher that first introduced him to art. And if you've read Much Safer so far, you know he has an intense interest in art. That's one of those areas where he tries to understand how the flow of ideas has affected that particular discipline. Boy Scouts were new in those days, but he did have an opportunity to join the Boy Scouts. Interestingly, the history here is that the Scouts originally came from England in 1910. They were specifically for reaching out to children through the churches. and their original motto was be prepared for the second coming of Christ. I don't think they have that motto anymore. So the Scouts met at the First Presbyterian Church in Germantown and pretty soon he and his parents were attending that church. So they were, we would say, they were churched as Fran was growing up but the problem is the manner in which they were churched was that the church that they were attending was already under the influence of liberal theology. Fran won a speech contest for his Boy Scout troop. This was 1923, and he was apparently so proud of that trophy that he kept it for the rest of his life. He also had the opportunity to join the YMCA at that time, where he learned swimming and gymnastics, and I'm trying to picture Fran bouncing around on a mat. But there it is. He was very athletic even though he was not very large. Now, his father Frank was pretty cynical with regard to church. He had a low view of pastors generally. His view of pastors was all they do is talk. They don't really do any work. And even at one point he apparently threatened to disown Fran if Fran ever went into the ministry. Now that's obviously going to become significant when Fran later on is going to have to make the decision to pursue the ministry and to do that knowing that neither of his parents are going to be very happy about that decision. And about this time, 1925, we have the Scopes Monkey Trial and even though the defense lost the case, It was one of those things that was really from the beginning intended to be a media stunt and it worked very well for that and it became an opportunity for the culture to mock these fundamentalist Christians who are still wanting to teach Bible stories in the classroom. the defense, or not the defense, but the prosecutor, William Jennings Bryan, helped Clarence Edward McCartney much in some of the, you know, he was, Clarence McCartney was elected. Not Darrow. We're talking about when the Presbyterian McCartney was made head of the General Assembly, I don't know what the title was called, and he used William Jennings Bryan somehow as a material witness or some kind of aid or some kind of expert witness in some of the hearings that went on. I'm not sure what capacity, but he was very, very useful to the conservative side in this battle with the Presbyterian Church that Machen was involved in. But when it turned around, when William Jennings Bryan asked McCartney to help him with the Scopes trial, McCartney refused. So I thought that was kind of like... I don't know, you know, that's... I don't see... maybe it was... Well, even if it, I mean, the prosecution won the case, but maybe part of the effect of that is that it made it easier to criticize the Christians without having that kind of support from the church. So, sorry to interrupt. All right, no problem. So we come to high school, and this is where most of, it's like the next two pages, this is where the action is really starting to pick up. So can you feel the rising tension in the story? It should be building. I'm trying. I'll work on that. I feel it. Okay, Randy feels it. That's enough for me. So he attended Germantown High School. And that'll be important for reasons I'll describe in a minute. It was about this time, I don't know exactly what time in relation to him starting high school, that they relocated to a house on Ross Street, which, in the words of the biographer, was a fixer-upper. And what that meant is that Schaefer would end up spending a lot of time with his father working on that house later on. At any rate, at some point along the way, and it may have been junior high school, he had been tested by the school. And his parents were given the results of the testing, but Schaefer did not ever know the results of the test at this time in his life. He didn't find out until later. It turned out that when he was tested for intelligence, he got the second highest score in what was probably the history of that test. And there was a point in time where his parents considered sending him to a private academy, Germantown Academy, but he ended up going to Germantown High School instead. But Germantown Academy will come back into the storyline here in a few minutes. So in high school, he wasn't really thinking too much about college preparation at this point. So he was doing more along the lines of vocational training, things like drawing, woodworking, electrical skills, metalworking skills, the kinds of things that he could use as a practical matter around the house. Even things like bricklaying and those kinds of things. Now part of the reason that becomes important later on is that when we get to Switzerland, he's going to be using some of those same skills working in and around Labrie. So it's interesting in God's Providence how he brought him up with this kind of practical, hands-on kind of skills that would be needed later on in his ministry. In his high school yearbook, he was described with this acrostic. friendly, restless, ambitious, and nonchalant. And I gather that's a description that was given to him by his classmates. He was a relatively short stature, although for me, five foot six doesn't seem that short, but a little shorter. He was nevertheless strong and athletic. His activities included things like rifle club. He played some basketball, I think a local league, not at school. Did roller skating. So he was always engaged in physical kinds of activities besides the physical work that he was doing. And then also around this time is when he first heard a performance of the 1812 Overture. And again, it's hard for us to think about this, but he grew up in a home where he wasn't exposed to these kinds of things. So that was a significant event at this point in his life. It sparked his interest in music. Historically, during this time, we have Lindbergh crossing the Atlantic in 1927. And you'll like this, I spelled demonstrations wrong. But in 1928, there were demonstrations of color motion pictures. That was a big thing. And something called television, you may have heard of it. And of course, in those days, In the days of silent movies, movies with sound were called talkies. We take some of these things for granted and I throw some of that little historical cultural stuff out there just to kind of put your frame of mind where he was growing up at that time. Now in high school he was starting to experience some disillusionment. He had a searching mind. He hadn't been conditioned by social privilege. So he was a very curious young man. And one of the things that seems to have been formative during this time was that he enjoyed taking Saturday hikes, so he liked the outdoors. But in order to get to the place where he enjoyed hiking, he took a shortcut through the garbage dump. And you might say, well, what's the big deal about that besides the smell? Well, this is how he puts it. Even as a boy, I realized I saw there almost everything people spend their money for. So even in the 1920s, he could walk through a garbage dump and begin to see what we might describe as the futility of materialism. At 17, he started working on a fish wagon. That job didn't last very long. He didn't like the way the fishmonger treated his horse, interestingly. Later he ended up working in a meat market. He also worked at an ice house. At an ice house he was lifting and moving 200 pound blocks of ice just to give you an idea of the strength of this young guy. He also spent some time doing boiler maintenance and that consisted of getting inside the boiler and chipping the slag out of the inside of the boiler. So again physical labor and dirty kind of labor. He attended church and Sunday school, but the problem was that he doubted what he was hearing. So already we're starting to see his mind is starting to ask questions and he's not getting answers. He was going to a church that emphasized good deeds, what we would call the social gospel, as it was working his way through the churches around that time. This is gonna shock you, but his church did not encourage Bible reading. Now, through a series of events, he became an English teacher to a Russian immigrant. And he went to a local bookstore to get a suitable book to use to teach English. And what he ended up with instead, which we would say is in God's providence, was a philosophy book. So he started reading this philosophy book and it opened him up to the world of ideas. And here's where he says that he felt at home. That's an interesting thing because even at this young age, we're beginning to see where the direction of his life is going to go. He's going to spend his life in the world of ideas. What's a Russian duke or noble? Yes, a Russian count. I want to say it was the daughter of a Russian count. And I don't know how he ended up being that individual's teacher. But again, this was a time where there were a lot of immigrants. So there was the need, and he was willing to give it a try. And the funny thing is it opened him to the world of philosophy. So he starts reading the classics. He used to stay up late at night after his parents went to bed reading. The problem is that the more he read, the more questions he had. He wasn't finding the answers to his questions either in his church or in the philosophy that he was reading. So at this point he realizes that he didn't really believe the Christianity that he was professing, and he wasn't a Christian, and so he wondered if he should just discard the Bible. instead and this is obviously in God's providence that led him to this but it was a case you might say of intellectual honesty where he says before I abandon my Christianity I should at least read the Bible. So he started reading the Bible and guess what happened? Well he started in Genesis which happens to be my favorite book. You start at the beginning The Bible starts with Genesis and goes through Revelation. It's in that order. It doesn't mean you can't start somewhere else, but it's, you know, in the Holy Spirit's providence over long ages in delivering those books to us and ordering them in the way that they've been ordered, it kind of makes sense. We start at the beginning. So he started reading in Genesis. And this is how Sam Wellman states it in his biography. The book of Genesis changed Fran's life. It spoke with thundering authority. And then Schaeffer has this to say, yes, as he's reading it, yes, this is what mankind is really like. At last, I'm finding answers, real answers to the meaning of life. Now think about how this is gonna bear on his ministry at Labrie. What is his ministry at Labrie about? providing answers, right? He also said at this time that God is intensely personal. So we start to get a glimpse of how he's going to view this personal infinite God. He says it this way as well. What rang the bell for me was the answers in Genesis. and that with these you had answers, real answers, and without these there were no answers, either in philosophy or the religion I had heard preached. Now still, in spite of this remarkable turn of events, he was still wrestling with the accuracy of those first few chapters of Genesis. Funny thing is, I think we're still arguing about that today, aren't we? Of course, he later wrote a commentary on the first 11 chapters of Genesis, Genesis in space and time. He figured that Genesis had to be historically true because as he read other parts of the Bible, they were referring back to Genesis and even these first 11 chapters as if they were true history. So he simply took it as a reflection that it must be true history or else Jesus and Paul and others wouldn't be quoting from it and referring to it as if it were history. So he was a young author? Well, that's an interesting question. I was recently looking at what he wrote about Genesis and he did not take a firm stand on six literal days. So where he stood exactly on the age of the earth, I'm not sure we can answer that question. But he would affirm the historicity of Adam for sure. an historical atom, historical fall, and so forth. All of those were necessary to understand man's condition. So by the time he reaches this point, he realizes he's going to have to reject both the philosophy that he's been reading and the liberal religion that he's been brought up in. So within six months, he reads through the Bible, he's converted. I don't think we know exactly when during that time he might've been converted. And here's what's funny, as he's doing this, he going through this experience, he's beginning to wonder if he's by himself, if he's the only one who really thinks that the Bible is true, because he's in an environment where nobody else really believes it. Now his conversion produced a remarkable improvement in his schoolwork. At this time, his writing also demonstrated a new clarity of thought. And around this time is also when he started writing poetry. So he's starting to exercise some creative impulses. Now, the back story here is that his parents, as he's going through high school, are expecting him to enroll in Drexel after graduating. His graduation was coming up in June of 1930. And his father's intention, and fathers may have good intentions, but it doesn't always agree with what the child wants to do. His father intended for Fran to get his degree in engineering and then come back and work for him after college. As a graduation present, Fran was given a Model A Ford. And that's pretty significant in and of itself because I'm sure it's the case that the family did not own a car before that time and you kind of wonder how they could have afforded to buy a car at that time. But they awarded him with a Ford as a graduation present. This was back before driver's education in high school. So he got the car and then he had to take driving lessons. And then he used his car to get around Germantown and as a result started spending time at the library and the art museum. Now this is 1930. It was the beginning of something called the Great Depression. So work is getting more difficult to find around this time. So he's looking for some summer work to do. He spent some time painting houses, but also continued to help his dad with their house on Ross Street. It seems like he was going through a bit of a spiritual depression during this summer. And so on a sultry August night, he's strolling through Germantown and is drawn by the sound of singing coming from a nearby tent meeting. Now we tell this story, but it's got providence written all over it, doesn't it? So God brings him to this tent meeting of an evangelist called Anthony Zioli. So he goes into this tent meeting, sits down on the back bench, and he's amazed by what he's hearing because he's hearing for the first time, again, we take this for granted, this is the first time he's hearing someone preach the Bible verse by verse. He was not getting that kind of preaching in his church. At the end, he answered the altar call, but it was apparently kind of an awkward moment because when he got up to the front, he wasn't sure if he was there to get saved or if he was there to rededicate himself. At any rate, he felt compelled, as they called it in those days, to walk the sawdust trail up to the front at the end of that meeting. On that night, he made this entry in his journal. I have decided to give my whole life to Christ unconditionally. A few days later, August 22nd, he goes back to the meeting to hear more. And then he goes back a few days later and guess what? He takes some friends with him the next time he goes back. So by this time, he's starting to feel a sense of calling into the ministry. It seems to be the case that from very early on, he felt a pretty strong call into the work of the ministry. So the plans that were starting to take place for enrolling in Drexel, you can kind of sense that he's losing interest in those plans. Nevertheless, he goes forward and registers for night school. He was expecting to work during the day and go to school at night. By September 3rd, he writes in his journal that all truth is from the Bible. Now I include some of these little benchmarks because of how I think they point to where he will be later in his life. Because these are the themes that will keep coming back with him again and again and again. This is really kind of that formative time in his life that's gonna shape his future ministry. So on September 15th of 1930, he began his classes at Drexel. A few days later, he got a job at RCA, at an RCA factory. And then within a matter of a few weeks, he got fired from that job for inciting a riot. I mean, not a riot, a strike. That was a misspeak. Maybe it wouldn't have mattered. The factory included both men and women who were working there, and the foreman would come out and offer a financial incentive for the men to increase their productivity. The problem was that the extra productivity on the front end of the process was pushing more stuff downstream to where the women were working, and they could not keep up with the work. And so finally, as a result of that, and the unfairness of it, I think that's part of what helped kind of encouraged Fran to jump into this was he saw the unfairness of the men being offered incentive for increasing their productivity, but also seeing that the women downstream were suffering for it, quite frankly. And so... Can you jump up on a table or a surface and scream, strike, strike, strike? Yeah, one or two of the women tried to start the strike. They were calling out strike and he was the one who jumped up and in his squeaky high-pitched voice yelled strike and everything came to a stop at that point and that included his job. So anyway, it was providential because it was a very long way for him to commute to this job. He ended up having to get a job closer to home and he was driving a grocery truck which was a better source of income for him at that time. So, in the midst of his spiritual struggle, oddly enough, he's going to his church and seeking counsel from his church. The first person he talks to is his Sunday school teacher, who apparently is not that helpful. But then he goes and talks to the headmaster at the Germantown Academy, and the headmaster hardly recommends him to attend Hampton, Sydney. that that would be a good preparation for him for attending seminary after his undergraduate degree. And in the meantime, the suggestion was for him to enroll in the local high school to take some language classes before starting at Hampton-Sydney. So by December of 1930, he says in his journal, I shall give my life for God's service. And December was that decisive moment He had to have the uncomfortable conversation with his parents and say, I'm called to the ministry and that's what I have to do. So he told his father that he was quitting Drexel, and his parents were upset, but they started to soften a little bit after a few days. Nevertheless, there was obviously tension there in him having to make that decision, knowing that it was going to go against his parents' wishes. So the following month, January 30, 1931, his 19th birthday, he began night classes at the Central High School taking Latin and German. He achieved high marks in both of those classes, scored in the 90s, and was going to He's distinguishing himself or beginning to distinguish himself as a student and show the kind of work that he's going to do when he gets to Hampton, Sydney. So by that summer, he's able to enroll in Hampton, Sydney, but the hang up at this point in time was, how am I going to pay for college? Because at that time, tuition was running about $600 a year. That should be a little bit funny since you paid $600 tuition for this class. But that was a lot of money at that point in time and he was proceeding not being certain where the money was going to come from, how he was going to pay for it, but I think even by this point in time he was convinced that if he would follow God's leading that he would figure it out along the way. So that's where I'm going to leave you in suspense. We will pick up the story there next week. And we have just a couple of minutes for questions or comments before we finish this section. He was an only child. So I didn't have any siblings growing up. Probably he developed some friendships when he joined the Boy Scouts, but the picture that I get from reading the biographies of him is that he was a bit of a loner. It did not affect his ministry in a negative way. It was like, come on in, the whole world, come on in. I think it was one of the distinguishing marks of his ministry that it was such a personal ministry. And as we think about the question of how do we describe Schaeffer's apologetic It kind of depends on who he was talking to at the time, because he would talk to the person according to where that person was. Whether he was highly educated or not, whether he was young or old, whether he was from one part of the world or another, he would find a point of contact to have that kind of conversation and proceed accordingly. He got his MDiv in Westminster, Philadelphia. Did he That's not true. That's not true? No, I don't want to get too far into the game. Please set me straight about his credentials, because I've heard somebody yakking some tripe about his credentials as a doctor. So what we'll cover next week is his college years. So that'll include Hampton-Sydney and his seminary training. So it is the case that he started at Westminster, but he didn't stay at Westminster. And so he became part of the splits that were occurring in the 1930s both denominationally and in terms of seminaries. So this is where you might want to pull out that chart that I gave you last week, the Presbyterian family tree, because he starts seminary in 1935 at Westminster and then things start coming unravel pretty quickly. So yeah, he started there. So he was under Machen and Van Till initially, but then Machen died rather suddenly in 1937. Then Westminster had a split. He had several who left, started a new seminary, and Schaefer was one of the ones who left. So we'll get into that next time. So any other questions or comments before we take our first break? It's part of his life. Yeah, and I think it's helpful. You only get one part of the picture if you're reading his books. You know, you see that part and I think I mentioned something like this that the books that he wrote basically were kind of the last 15 years or so of his life. But there's a whole other story that leads us up to that point. So I think it's helpful for us to put some context to it and think about what's going on in his life, where he was born, where he was raised, and being in a very interesting place and time in terms of church. So that's where we will conclude our first session. We'll take a 10 minute break and restart at the bottom of the hour. OK? Sure enough.