# A Christian Manifesto Francis Schaeffer's 1981 call to political action — the **single most important text in transforming American evangelicalism from a largely apolitical religious movement into the organized political force that reshaped the Republican Party**. Where Jerry Falwell provided the organizational infrastructure (the [[Moral Majority]], founded 1979) and Tim LaHaye provided the institutional coordination (the Council for National Policy, founded 1981), Schaeffer provided the *intellectual framework*: the argument that Christians not only *could* engage in politics but had a **moral duty to resist** secular government, including through civil disobedience. ## The Author **Francis August Schaeffer** (1912–1984) was an American Presbyterian pastor, philosopher, and theologian who operated the L'Abri Fellowship community in Switzerland from 1955 until his death. L'Abri was an intellectual commune where young evangelicals engaged with philosophy, art, and culture — and Schaeffer became the closest thing American evangelicalism had to a public intellectual. Schaeffer's significance is that he gave evangelicals *permission to think* — and then directed that thinking toward political engagement. His earlier works (*The God Who Is There*, *Escape from Reason*, *How Should We Then Live?*) built the philosophical framework. *A Christian Manifesto* was the political conclusion. ## The Argument Schaeffer frames the book as a direct response to two secular manifestos — the *[[Communist Manifesto]]* (1848) and the *Humanist Manifesto* (1933/1973) — arguing that secular humanism is not a neutral philosophical position but a **competing religion** that has captured American institutions (government, courts, education, media) and displaced Christianity as the nation's operating worldview. The key claims: **1. Secular humanism is a religion.** This is the foundational move. By defining humanism as a religion rather than a neutral framework, Schaeffer reframes the separation of church and state as the *establishment* of a rival religion — making the secular order constitutionally illegitimate on its own terms. This exact argument was later adopted by Tim LaHaye (*The Battle for the Mind*, 1980) and remains central to Christian nationalist legal strategy. **2. America was founded as a Christian nation.** Schaeffer argues — drawing on a historical narrative later elaborated and weaponized by [[David Barton]] — that the Founders intended a government grounded in biblical principles. Secularization is therefore not progress but apostasy, and Christian political engagement is not theocracy but *restoration*. **3. Christians have a duty to resist unjust government.** This is the book's most consequential argument. Drawing on Samuel Rutherford's *Lex, Rex* (1644) — a Scottish Presbyterian argument that law is above the king — Schaeffer argues that when government violates God's law, Christians are obligated to resist, including through **civil disobedience and, in extreme cases, force**. **4. Abortion as the defining issue.** Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop had already published *Whatever Happened to the Human Race?* (1979), which reframed abortion as the central moral crisis of the age. *A Christian Manifesto* makes the political case: abortion is not a policy disagreement but evidence that the secular state has become illegitimate by sanctioning the taking of innocent life. This framing made abortion the non-negotiable issue of Christian political engagement — and it remains so forty-five years later. ## The Schaeffer → Political Pipeline *A Christian Manifesto* was not read in isolation — it arrived into an organizational infrastructure that was already being built: | Year | Development | Connection to Schaeffer | |------|-------------|----------------------| | **1979** | Moral Majority founded (Jerry Falwell) | Schaeffer provided the intellectual justification for what Falwell organized | | **1979** | *Whatever Happened to the Human Race?* published | Schaeffer/Koop made abortion the Christian political issue | | **1980** | Religious Roundtable's National Affairs Briefing (Dallas) | Schaeffer-influenced pastors heard Reagan say "you can't endorse me, but I endorse you" | | **1981** | Council for National Policy founded (Tim LaHaye) | The coordination mechanism for the political movement Schaeffer inspired | | **1981** | *A Christian Manifesto* published | The intellectual capstone — duty to resist, duty to act | | **1993** | Operation Rescue (Randall Terry) | Schaeffer's civil-disobedience argument applied to abortion clinic blockades | | **2004** | Alliance Defending Freedom at scale | The legal infrastructure implementing Schaeffer's framework | | **2022** | [[Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization]] (Roe overturned) | The 41-year culmination of the project Schaeffer launched | ## The Rushdoony Tension Schaeffer's relationship to [[R.J. Rushdoony]] and [[Christian Reconstructionism]] is one of the most important interpretive questions in the KB's religious right coverage. Schaeffer knew Rushdoony, drew on some of the same intellectual sources (Rutherford's *Lex, Rex*, Calvinist resistance theory), and arrived at some overlapping conclusions (Christian duty to resist secular government). But Schaeffer explicitly rejected Rushdoony's theonomist project — the application of Old Testament civil law to modern governance. The practical effect: Schaeffer made dominionism *palatable* for mainstream evangelicals by stripping away Rushdoony's theocratic specifics and presenting it as a defense of religious liberty rather than an imposition of biblical law. The *content* of the political program is substantially similar — Christians should dominate government, courts, and culture — but the *framing* is defensive ("we're resisting secular tyranny") rather than offensive ("we're imposing God's law"). This framing distinction is why Mike Johnson can cite Schaeffer in polite company while Rushdoony remains unspeakable. ## KB Significance **1. The Religious Right's founding text.** *A Christian Manifesto* is to the Religious Right what *[[The Flight 93 Election]]* is to [[the New Right]]: the text that gave a movement intellectual coherence and moral urgency. Without Schaeffer's argument that political engagement is a Christian *duty*, the Moral Majority, the [[Christian Coalition]], the CNP, and the entire infrastructure of the Religious Right lacks its philosophical justification. **2. The secular-humanism-as-religion move.** Defining secularism as a competing religion is the single most consequential rhetorical innovation in the Christian nationalist playbook. It converts every church-state conflict from "Christians want special treatment" to "one religion is being imposed over another" — a framing that has been legally operationalized by the [[Alliance Defending Freedom]] and the current Supreme Court. **3. The Dobbs through-line.** The line from Schaeffer (1981) → Operation Rescue (1993) → ADF litigation strategy (2000s) → Dobbs (2022) is one of the longest and most successful political campaigns in American history. *A Christian Manifesto* is the text that started it. ## See Also - [[Christian Nationalism]] — The political movement Schaeffer intellectually launched - [[Christian Reconstructionism]] — The more radical parallel tradition - [[The Institutes of Biblical Law]] — Rushdoony's theonomist manifesto - [[David Barton]] — The pseudo-historian who extended Schaeffer's "Christian nation" argument - [[The Jefferson Lies]] — Barton's pseudo-historical elaboration - [[Mike Johnson]] — The Speaker of the House who cites Schaeffer - [[Dominionism]] — The theology Schaeffer made mainstream-palatable - [[Seven Mountain Mandate]] — The dominionist framework - [[Alliance Defending Freedom]] — The legal infrastructure - [[Council for National Policy]] — The coordination mechanism [[Manifestos and Founding Documents Hub]]