Frank Schaeffer grew up in Switzerland's L'Abri, an idealistic community founded by his parents, the American evangelicals Francis and Edith Schaeffer. By the time he was 19, his parents had achieved global fame as best-selling authors and speakers, l'Abri had become a mecca for spiritual seekers worldwide--from Barbara Bush to Timothy Leary--and Frank had joined his father on the evangelical circuit. By the age of 23, he had directed two multi-part religious documentaries (which are still required viewing at thousands of schools and churches in the English-speaking world) and had helped instigate the marriage between the American evangelical community and the anti-abortion movement. But as he spoke before thousands in arenas around America, published his own evangelical bestseller, and worked with such figures as Pat Roberston, Jack Kemp, Jerry Falwell, and Dr. James Dobson, Schaeffer felt alienated, precipitating his own crisis of faith and eventually resulting in his departure. Schaeffer has since become a successful secular author (Portofino, the first of the autobiographical Calvin Becker Trilogy, was based on his childhood experiences in Europe), but only after an odyssey which included struggling as a low-budget film director. Schaeffer, who Cal Thomas, Vice President of the Moral Majority, once introduced at a huge rally as "the best speaker in America," was reduced to stealing pork chops from the grocery store in LA, rather than take on any more high-paying evangelical speaking gigs. With its up-close portraits of the leading figures of the American evangelical movement, Crazy for God is a uniquely revealing and powerful memoir, which tells its story with empathy, humor, andbite.
