{"id":3406,"date":"2013-08-27T10:07:29","date_gmt":"2013-08-27T16:07:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/takeandread\/?p=3406"},"modified":"2013-08-27T10:10:05","modified_gmt":"2013-08-27T16:10:05","slug":"frank-schaeffer-reads-from-his-latest-novel-and-god-said-billy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/takeandread\/2013\/08\/frank-schaeffer-reads-from-his-latest-novel-and-god-said-billy\/","title":{"rendered":"Frank Schaeffer Reads From His Latest Novel: And God Said, “Billy!”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>Over on Frank Schaeffer\u2019s blog<\/a>, this famous former Evangelical-turned-Progressive-Christian-son is reading excerpts from his newest book, And God Said, \u201cBilly!\u201d <\/em>It\u2019s a real treat to hear Frank read from his funny and poignant\u00a0work. The book has been warmly endorsed by the likes of Brian McLaren and Kevin Miller.<\/p>\n

<\/em>And God Said, \u201cBilly!\u201d<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0is a darkly comic coming-of-age story.\u00a0The story is set in the 1980s and is about Billy, a young fundamentalist Christian who feels called to go to Hollywood to make \u201cGod\u2019s movie.\u201d But everything goes off the rails when he accepts a job to direct a soft-porn slasher\/exploitation film in apartheid-era South Africa. He makes this \u201cIt\u2019s a deal not a movie\u201d picture even though he has to bust the US entertainment industry\u2019s anti-apartheid sanctions in hopes his \u201cworldly movie\u201d will be \u201cused by God\u201d as a \u201cstepping stone\u201d to making his own divinely sanctioned \u201cEnd Times\u201d picture. Billy loses his fundamentalist faith, his film career, his family and more but he finds a strange kind of peace in a most unexpected place\u2026<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the first reading:<\/p>\n