After submitting my PhD thesis a few weeks ago I was able to spend some time at the Swiss L’Abri as a guest lecturer. Everything about my experience there was wonderful and I thought I’d share a little bit about it.
If you’re not familiar with L’Abri, which was founded by Francis and Edith Schaeffer, you can read more here. The L’Abri community is genuinely one of a kind. Students of all ages, backgrounds, and levels of Christian commitment (including non-commitment) typically go to L’Abri with a particular question they want to answer or, at least, work towards gaining some clarity. These questions range from personal to theological and include everything in between. At L’Abri you’ll experience a non-judgmental community centered around honesty, authenticity, and sincerity. In comparison to some of the Christian communities that I have been apart of—communities that to varying degree promoted cookie cutter Christianity, enforced rigid indoctrination, and downplayed questions and doubts—L’Abri was quite refreshing. “L’Abri,” which means “the shelter” in French, definitely lives up to its name.
Some students go for a few days, often as part of a larger European backpacking trip, but most stay for several weeks, including even an entire semester (or year). Many of the students I met had been there a few times before. People who’ve experienced it know it’s something special and several of the students that were there had adjusted their travels plans because they didn’t want to leave. I was certainly among those who wanted to stay much longer!
For the students the days are structured around working in the community and personal study time, and most lunches include a formal discussion question that the entire group addresses together. Each week the students meet individually with their personal tutor to address their main question(s), and they also attend two lectures and a chapel session. While I was there I gave three lectures. After each session we had a engaging time of Q&A. My presentations were:
“‘The Last Enemy that Shall Be Destroyed Is Death’: 1 Corinthians 15.26 and the Meaning of Death in Harry Potter.”
“Don’t Be Drunk With Wine But Be Filled With the Spirit (Ephesians 5.18): Alcohol, the Jerusalem Temple Cult, and the Church.”
“God Saved The Queen? Rethinking the Traditional Interpretation of Esther.”
Although I was there to give lectures, I couldn’t help but participate as much as possible in the community life. There were so many stimulating discussions about various topics and there were so many fun activities going on all the time. There was an epic Karaoke night in which I experienced the most enchanting rendition of “This Girl Is On Fire” I will ever hear and I even got to perform my very own parody of T.I.’s “Whatever You Like” called “Turkish Delight.” On another occasion we had a movie night where we watched the film Ex Machina and then proceeded to have an absolutely enthralling three-hour discussion. In addition to this there was an infamous game of Telephone Pictionary, popcorn fairy tale storytelling, Harry Potter movie nights, impromptu Scottish Ceilidh dancing, and group readings of an awesomely bad book. Delightful doesn’t do it justice; I had such an absolutely wonderful time out there. I definitely hope to visit some of the other L’Abri locations around the world to see what the community looks like in these other contexts, but even more so I can’t wait to go back to Switzerland. If you’ve never been before you should really consider it!
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