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| The Entertainment Review |
| By: Frank Schaeffer Publisher: Da Capo Press |
“Crazy for God” is Frank Schaeffer's memoir about how he grew up in a Swiss mission, helped to found the anti-
abortion fundamentalist movement, became a mover and shaker within the movement, and finally broke away from it
when he realized how corrupt and irrational fundamentalism was.
Schaeffer grew up in a typical hot-house environment, since a missionary essentially lives off charity. What will
amuse many readers is how aware the kids are about who has how much money, Edith Schaeffer, Frank's mother,
continually talked about how much money someone had and could give if only he was more devoted to God. The
amount of cognitive conflict his parents had must have been considerable, since they were fundamentalists, they
raised their children in strict accordance to the scriptures, but because they themselves had a love of art and the
classics, would go on vacation to Italy and visit museums and teach their kids art history.
Contradictions were apparent and all over the place, whether it came to Frank's own experience with pre-marital sex,
he got his wife pregnant and had to have a rushed wedding, to the horror of the community around the mission, but
with the support of his parents, or the kind of person who showed up at the mission, one of which was a woman who
was hoping to marry someone Asian so she could go to Asia as a missionary. Yet Schaeffer referred to his parents
as tolerant of everyone from hippies to drug addicts.
Things became more relevant to contemporary politics in the middle of the book, where Schaeffer describes how he
persuaded his father to go into the abortion battle, and ended up producing two TV-series that became the heart of
the evangelical movement. Readers will be able to tell Schaeffer is not proud of those years, since the chapters on
his presence in the anti-abortion and fundamentalist movements went by very quickly. He does, however, pause to
explain what most non-fundamentalists already knew, the leaders of the fundamentalist movement consider their
followers little people, who can't think for themselves and are to be exploited at every opportunity, and at the top
levels, the fundamentalist movement is extremely corrupt. He made the comment at one point that while he had
preached that American culture had become secular and humanist and therefore corrupt and was doomed to failure,
he himself had never lived in America, and having to do so was a shock. The chapter where he moved to America as
a person with Swiss upbringing and the many shocks American culture came with was a lot of fun.
Things got to the point where Schaeffer was basically doing his speeches by rote, and blanking his mind whenever
he said something that he patently knew was not true. The result was that he ended up trying to get away from the
movement, first as a film producer, and finally successfully as a novelist. He is now a member of the Greek Orthodox
church, and no longer encourages intolerance.
All in all, the book is entertaining and worth reading for a view of what the evangelical movement looks like from the
inside.
abortion fundamentalist movement, became a mover and shaker within the movement, and finally broke away from it
when he realized how corrupt and irrational fundamentalism was.
Schaeffer grew up in a typical hot-house environment, since a missionary essentially lives off charity. What will
amuse many readers is how aware the kids are about who has how much money, Edith Schaeffer, Frank's mother,
continually talked about how much money someone had and could give if only he was more devoted to God. The
amount of cognitive conflict his parents had must have been considerable, since they were fundamentalists, they
raised their children in strict accordance to the scriptures, but because they themselves had a love of art and the
classics, would go on vacation to Italy and visit museums and teach their kids art history.
Contradictions were apparent and all over the place, whether it came to Frank's own experience with pre-marital sex,
he got his wife pregnant and had to have a rushed wedding, to the horror of the community around the mission, but
with the support of his parents, or the kind of person who showed up at the mission, one of which was a woman who
was hoping to marry someone Asian so she could go to Asia as a missionary. Yet Schaeffer referred to his parents
as tolerant of everyone from hippies to drug addicts.
Things became more relevant to contemporary politics in the middle of the book, where Schaeffer describes how he
persuaded his father to go into the abortion battle, and ended up producing two TV-series that became the heart of
the evangelical movement. Readers will be able to tell Schaeffer is not proud of those years, since the chapters on
his presence in the anti-abortion and fundamentalist movements went by very quickly. He does, however, pause to
explain what most non-fundamentalists already knew, the leaders of the fundamentalist movement consider their
followers little people, who can't think for themselves and are to be exploited at every opportunity, and at the top
levels, the fundamentalist movement is extremely corrupt. He made the comment at one point that while he had
preached that American culture had become secular and humanist and therefore corrupt and was doomed to failure,
he himself had never lived in America, and having to do so was a shock. The chapter where he moved to America as
a person with Swiss upbringing and the many shocks American culture came with was a lot of fun.
Things got to the point where Schaeffer was basically doing his speeches by rote, and blanking his mind whenever
he said something that he patently knew was not true. The result was that he ended up trying to get away from the
movement, first as a film producer, and finally successfully as a novelist. He is now a member of the Greek Orthodox
church, and no longer encourages intolerance.
All in all, the book is entertaining and worth reading for a view of what the evangelical movement looks like from the
inside.
