Published digitally through Amazon’s CreateSpace, 2014

Frank Schaeffer is the bull in your spiritual china shop.

Reading Frank’s latest offering, “Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God” reminded me of watching a lull-and-surge action movie after the kids have gone to bed. One moment you’ve allowed the volume to creep up, certain that you’re safely within the storyline and dialogue when BLAM! comes a rocket through the window or the cacophony of gunfire or shouted expletives that have you leaping for the remote.

Like any good action movie, Frank’s book weaves its story around an engaging central thread – once again he faces off with the beliefs of his childhood, drawn into his lifelong inner argument this time by the loss of his mother. Her death at once re-sensitizes him to the mystery of God and electrifies his disbelief, which he is happy to hold in tension. Both are true for Frank, as the title indicates.

Also like the good action movie, when Frank leaves the warmth of the central thread of mom, family, and a chance meeting-turned-friendship, the reader is often caught broadside by the text and left to wonder, “Where did that come from?” Frank isn’t trying to ease anybody into anything, but rather abruptly pours himself unfiltered onto the page and encourages the reader to deal with it. Or not. Totally up to you.

What’s brilliant here, though, is that unfiltered honesty and Shaeffer’s unabashed disinterest in trying to bring it all together. He’s not trying to make what he thinks, feels, or believes around any existing theology or ideology. It won’t work for everyone, but in their own way Frank’s atheistic claims also serve as his strongest apologetic statements. On top of that, Frank isn’t really trying toprove anything. He simply stacks his rational mind’s awareness of the shifting reality of all things, including God, against the realization of the presence of God in intangibles and rituals in his daily existence and proceeds to hold both as true. Look there; no God in a self-serving religious or political process, or even in a process of nature or human development. But look there, God present in the eyes of my grandchild or in the way my wife loves me. How beautifully complex is this God that isn’t there.

“Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God” is challenging, upsetting, heartwarming, offensive, and fascinating. You may not find your spiritual center here, but I think that’s to the point; Frank demonstrates the spiritual center as more of a spiritual smudge. You might hear echoes of your own doubts or find new words for a faith you’re struggling to express. You will certainly find yourself revisiting your own spiritual foundations.

Frank Schaeffer is a writer. His new book is —WHY I AM AN ATHEIST WHO BELIEVES IN GOD: How to give love, create beauty and find peace

Available now on Amazon

 

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