Core Values

What do we believe?

We believe the life-affirming truth of Christianity has bearing on all of human life and thought. This means our lives are not meant to be divided between “sacred” and “secular” activities, but rather growing in integration, coherence and integrity.  Five broad areas of conviction—or “themes”—that animate L’Abri are: 

  • The truthfulness of Christianity

  • The reality of the supernatural

  • The humanness of spirituality

  • The overshadowing reality of the Fall

  • The lordship of Jesus Christ over all of life

To learn more about these themes, listen to The Five Themes of L’Abri Revisited by Ben Keyes. 

The L’Abri Statements of Faith

When L’Abri began in 1955 the Schaeffers produced a short 2-page document called variously, the Consensus of Faith, or the Basic Principles of Operation. In some respects it remains, even to the present, one of the most important documents to come out of L’Abri even though never published. Its use was principally internal, clarifying and controlling the direction of the work as it developed thereafter. 

Approximately 40 years later L’Abri decided to produce a further document having the same objective in mind, yet without displacing the original. Hence the following L’Abri Statements. They are not meant to be exhaustive nor are they designed to be published (though we are happy to have them freely copied). We intend to use them actively within the Fellowship as a guide to those working or studying with us, but we hope they will also be helpful to others whatever their individual or organizational contexts may be. 

As the opening paragraph of the section dealing with ‘Boundaries’ says, “We see the following statements as guidelines to lead us into truth together, not as creedal formulations that would preclude further growth, correction and discussion.” And again, “Faithfulness to God must take shape and have certain parameters in specific, historical and cultural settings. Therefore we have outlined some of the areas where we feel accommodation (i.e. compromise) is a particular danger today.”

The L’Abri Statements, together with a Statement of Faith and the original Consensus of Faith, are available below in PDF format.