L'Abri is an
evangelical ChristianEvangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
organization founded by
Francis SchaefferFrancis August Schaeffer was an American Evangelical Christian theologian, philosopher, and Presbyterian pastor. He is most famous for his writings and his establishment of the L'Abri community in Switzerland...
and his wife
EdithEdith Rachel Merritt Schaeffer is a Christian author and co-founder of L'Abri, a Christian organization which hosts guests...
in
Huémoz-sur-OllonOllon is a municipality in the district of Aigle in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland, sited in the foothills of the mountains to the south-east of the Lake of Geneva. The old German language name Olun is no longer used.-History:...
,
SwitzerlandSwitzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
on June 5, 1955. They opened their
alpineThe Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
home as a ministry to curious travellers and as a forum to discuss philosophical and religious beliefs.
The development of L'Abri
Schaeffer became an evangelical Christian as a teenager. In 1947, Francis and Edith moved to Switzerland to work as missionaries for the
Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign MissionsIndependent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions is a small, independent Presbyterian mission agency, which early in its history became the missions board of the Bible Presbyterian Church. Founded in 1933 by J. Gresham Machen, the IBPFM played a significant role in the Fundamentalist-Modernist...
(IBPFM) in Europe. Following a spiritual crisis in 1951, and disagreements with theologians such as
Carl McIntireCarl McIntire was a founder of, and minister in, the Bible Presbyterian Church, founder and long president of the and the American Council of Christian Churches, and a popular religious radio broadcaster, who proudly identified himself as a fundamentalist.-Youth and education:Born in Ypsilanti,...
, Schaeffer and his wife left IBPFM in 1955, to pursue their dream of working with young people. They moved to Huémoz, where they established L'Abri, without assurance that it would be successful. Word-of-mouth soon led to an increasing stream of visitors, with one period in the summer of 1956 averaging 31 visitors per week. International distribution of tapes of Schaeffer's lectures also helped to raise awareness of Schaeffer's work.
As it grew, the L'Abri organization came to own and operate several buildings in Huémoz. It came to include four kinds of people: short-term guests; students, who divided their time between study and communal work; workers, who participated in discussions and the work of hospitality; and members, who were part of the decision-making process.
Schaeffer died in 1984, but the ministry he founded has continued to grow. Now, L'Abri has operations in a number of different countries, each staffed by workers who encourage visitors to study and consider their religious and philosophical beliefs. As of 2011, L'Abri has residential "Study Centres" in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
(
MinnesotaMinnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
and
MassachusettsThe Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
),
CanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
,
South KoreaThe Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
,
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, the
NetherlandsThe Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, and
SwedenSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, as well as the original centre in Switzerland. It also has non-residential "Resource Centres", run by friends of the organisation, in
BrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
and
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
.
Mode of operation
A L'Abri centre is not a retreat, a
communeA commune is an intentional community of people living together, sharing common interests, property, possessions, resources, and, in some communes, work and income. In addition to the communal economy, consensus decision-making, non-hierarchical structures and ecological living have become...
, or a
seminaryA seminary, theological college, or divinity school is an institution of secondary or post-secondary education for educating students in theology, generally to prepare them for ordination as clergy or for other ministry...
, although it incorporates elements of all of these. Visitors are referred to as students, and personal study remains central to L'Abri's work, but there are no fixed "classes" or courses. Rather students (who may spend any time from one day to a whole "term," usually 2–3 months, at L'Abri) meet regularly with a member of staff to discuss the issues they wish to study, and are recommended resources from L'Abri's library of books and of recorded lectures and talks by L'Abri staff and others. A student's day is divided into "study time" and "work time." During "work time," a student will help with the necessary activities of the community—-cooking meals, cleaning, maintenance etc. This division is based on Schaeffer's constant emphasis that Christianity, and the work of L'Abri, were not only intellectual but had to incorporate all of life, and that a demonstration of "Christian Community" was as central to L'Abri's work as the intellectual demonstration that he believed could be made of the reasonableness and truthfulness of Christian belief.
The importance of Schaeffer's belief in the relevance of Christianity to all of life can be seen in many aspects of L'Abri. Even so, some articles have suggested there is less of an emphasis on serving philosophical skeptics and more of an emphasis on serving disaffected evangelicals. In a recent article on the group, Molly Worthen suggests that students today come with very different questions, and that they tend to look at the politicized evangelical faith that Schaeffer helped create with suspicion.
The L'Abri day revolves around communal meals, often used as an opportunity for formal open discussion, and students are encouraged to pursue interests in art, music and literature.
Apart from
FrancisFrancis August Schaeffer was an American Evangelical Christian theologian, philosopher, and Presbyterian pastor. He is most famous for his writings and his establishment of the L'Abri community in Switzerland...
and
Edith SchaefferEdith Rachel Merritt Schaeffer is a Christian author and co-founder of L'Abri, a Christian organization which hosts guests...
and their children, several notable Evangelical authors have been influenced by working with L'Abri. Such former staff include
Os GuinnessOs Guinness is an author and social critic.-Biography:Born in China, he is the great-great-great-grandson of Arthur Guinness, the Dublin brewer. He was a witness to the climax of the Chinese revolution in 1949, and returned to England in 1951, where he went to school and college. He received a B.D...
,
Hans RookmaakerHenderik Roelof "Hans" Rookmaaker was a Dutch Christian scholar, professor, and author who wrote and lectured on art theory, art history, music, philosophy, and religion....
,
Greg LaugheryDr. Gregory J. Laughery is an American/Swiss theologian. For the past twenty years he has been associated with and is currently living and teaching at L'Abri in Huémoz, Switzerland.-Biography:Laughery was born in San Francisco, California...
, and
Wade BradshawWade Bradshaw is an American theologian. During the 1990s, he served as one of the directors of and now works as a pastor at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Charlottesville, Virginia. Bradshaw is a native of Houston, Texas...
,
The L'Abri study center in
Rochester, MinnesotaRochester is a city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Olmsted County. Located on both banks of the Zumbro River, The city has a population of 106,769 according to the 2010 United States Census, making it Minnesota's third-largest city and the largest outside of the...
also organizes bi-annual "L'Abri Conferences" in the USA and Canada at which L'Abri staff from across the world and other speakers supportive of the vision of L'Abri speak and lead seminars on a wide range of topics.
In 2005, a conference was held in
St. Louis, MissouriSt. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the organization, and over 1,000 attendees were present to hear speakers such as Os Guinness, Harold O. J. Brown, and Chuck Colson.
General references
- Bradshaw, Wade, By demonstration: God - Fifty years and a week at L'Abri, Piquant Editions, ISBN 1903689333 (2005).
- Burson, Scott R. and Walls, Jerry L., C.S. Lewis & Francis Schaeffer: Lessons for a new century from the most influential apologists of our time, InterVarsity Press, ISBN 0830819355 (1998).
- Hankins, Barry, Francis Schaeffer and the Shaping of Evangelical America, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, ISBN 0802863892 (2008).
- Parkhurst, Louis Gifford, Francis and Edith Schaeffer, Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers (1996).
- Schaeffer, Edith, L'Abri, Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House (1969); revised and expanded, Westchester, IL: Crossway Books (1992).
- Schaeffer, Edith, The Tapestry, Waco, TX: Word Books (1981).
- Schaeffer, Frank, Crazy for God, Cambridge, MA: Perseus (2007).
- Veith, Gene Edward. "Taking the roof off". World Magazine
WORLD Magazine is a biweekly Christian news magazine, published in the United States of America by God's World Publications, a non-profit 501 organization based in Asheville, North Carolina. WORLD differs from most other news magazines in that its declared perspective is one of conservative...
, March 26, 2005
- Worthen, Molly. "Not Your Father's L'Abri". Christianity Today, 28 March 2008. Available online. Alternate location.
External links