Edith Schaeffer and the Apologetics of Beauty
What most impressed me in knowing Edith at L'Abri was her emphasis on everyday beauty.
Arriving as a critical agnostic, I was surprised to meet Christians who actually cared about the world of ideas and the arts. It was not merely that Francis Schaeffer lectured about the arts, however.
It was also that Edith thought it important for the Christian to incorporate beauty into all of life -- such as simple but elegant table settings with a flower and a candle. Not expensive items, not conspicuous consumption. But creative (expressing your unique personality) and natural (using items and themes from nature when possible).
Though I had grown up in the church, I had never before met Christians who understood that our souls hunger for beauty just as much as for truth and goodness.
For me, as for many others who studied at L'Abri in the days when Edith still presided, there was an apologetics of beauty that made me want Christianity to be true, at the same time that I was working through a philosophical apologetics that was persuading me intellectually that it was true.
Edith described her love of everyday beauty in Hidden Art (the title was later expanded to The Hidden Art of Homemaking).
Related
Francis Schaeffer -- "The Central Problem of Our Age"
