As good and useful as ever.
I have heard or read Francis Schaeffer referred to pejoratively as a “pop theologian.” He painted with too broad a brush. Pandered to the disillusioned young. Never pursued a lengthy, serious argument with anyone with whom he disagreed. And so it follows that, ugh, he can only have been a populist.
Schaeffer cared little about how critics saw him. What he cared about were the people from all walks of life, every kind of culture and vocation, and all sorts of spiritual backgrounds (or none at all) who read his books and identified with the situation of the world and their own plight within it, and who turned to believe in Jesus in large numbers or had their faith in Jesus dramatically stretched and clarified.
Myself being one of the latter.
Escape from Reason is the book perhaps most vilified by critics because it covers such a long period of time (late medieval to modern), so many voices (Aquinas to Camus), such a broad scope of culture and thought (art and music to humanism and postmodernism), in a book short enough to fit in your hip pocket. It's been in print since 1968, and IVP has just added it to its Classics series.
That was both the beauty and genius of Francis Schaeffer. He could cut through the weeds of ideas, historical contexts, cultural changes, and current events to help us see that the only way to make sense of or transform any of this is to cling to Scripture and Jesus and, on that foundation, work for restoration in every area of life.
Escape from Reason demonstrates the folly and tragedy of abandoning that “upper story” reference point to make way for all manner of human-centered schemes and notions. We have come to our present relativism, narcissism, tribalism, and confusion by dismissing God and Scripture—either actually or for all practical purposes—and trying our best as (mostly) well-meaning human beings to figure things out and find our way to love.
I first read this book shortly after it came out. It spoke powerfully to me then, and now, reading it some 50 years later, it speaks powerfully still. Nothing of any permanence or lasting meaning can be realized apart from the Word of God—in Scripture and in Jesus Christ. The sooner we as believers recover this view and start living it more consistently, the better off our whole world will be.