My Message to SHUTDOWN GOP/Tea Party/Jesus “Followers” Re-Crucifying Christ on the Altar of Right Wing Delusion

“There is only one defense against the rising worldwide fear-filled fundamentalist tide engulfing all religions: The embrace of paradox and uncertainty as the virtuoso expression of Christ-like humility. Our egos must be curtailed by what we do not know, which is far more than we do know. This humility is rooted in a fact: we are at the beginning of creation and don’t have any clue as to how things will grow and change.

We can have it both ways: defend the best of tradition, for in- stance our glorious liturgies and the English of Shakespeare’s glorious language, and yet move forward because we know that God’s creation of Creation is ongoing and will never be complete. If creation is judged changeless and “complete” — say in the frozen “roles” of men and women — and if rules cannot be changed, then that militates against the idea that God is infinite. Stasis binds God to time and place, and therefore He, She or It is no longer God.”

This paragraph is from my new book And God Said, “Billy!” (Chapter 39, “Small Minded Reactionaries”) And God Said, “Billy!” is my message to evangelical SHUTDOWN GOP/Tea Party/Jesus-“followers” re-crucifying Christ on the altar of right wing delusion. And here is a review just in on my new book, the 55th on Amazon to date.

A timely warning, October 10, 2013

By Ray Watchman

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This review is from: And God Said, “Billy!” – A Novel (Paperback)

I started reading And God Said, Billy! just prior to the US Government shutdown. New Zealand people are not well served by our country’s media so far as in-depth analysis and explanation of international events are concerned. So I started searching the web to get a handle on the bizarre events unfolding in the US (including some blogs by Billy’s author, Frank Schaeffer.)

For me, Billy progressed from being an entertaining read about a deluded evangelical fundamentalist wannabe film director, to a dire warning to the people of the US about the insanity in their midst – a counterfeit Christianity that has slithered, snake-like, under the church/state divide to inject its venom into the very heart of American democracy.

I have had enough experience of the fundamentalist-pentecostal mindset here in my own country to appreciate that Schaeffer’s character Billy cannot be dismissed as the exaggerated invention of an author trying to exorcise the demons of his own fundamentalist right-wing past.

In this well-written, well-pitched and rather unusual novel, painful experience eventually brings Billy to authentic salvation, the healing of his poisoned humanity and the restoration of his sanity. I pray America will now follow suit.

The paradigms of Christian fundamentalism have been exposed for the falsehoods they are – and the inevitable vociferous cries for the stoning of Frank Schaeffer cannot and will not change that. Schaeffer courageously tells its how it is because he knows how it is – and right now, that makes And God Said, Billy! an important vehicle conveying a timely warning to the American people – and their friends on shores beyond.

Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of And God Said, “Billy!” on Kindle and NOOK for $3.99 and in paperback too.