Frank Schaeffer, AND GOD
SAID, “BILLY” (Outskirts Press, 2013).

Frank Schaeffer
is, probably, the most prolific Christian writer in the last two decades who
has, directly and clearly, addressed the dysfunctional nature of the
conservative evangelical family in the USA and beyond. Schaeffer has employed a
variety of genres, in a gimlet like manner, to make it abundantly clear why the
conservative evangelical mind is toxic in a variety of crude and subtle ways.
Schaeffer knows why this is the case—-he has dwelt in the tents of the clan
for many a year—in fact, he often appears to be a traitor to the tribe—dirty
laundry is hung out for one and all to see.

It is one thing
to suggest, in a literary way, what an authentic spiritual seeker should be
wary of and free from. It is quite another thing to articulate, in a convincing
and persuasive manner, to a generation of skeptics and new atheists, why the
spiritual quest is worth the doing. Schaeffer has, in The Calvin Becker
Trilogy, made it limpidly obvious, how good and naive spiritual intentions can
be bent and twisted to serve questionable and destructive ends. It is
significant that Schaeffer has used “Calvin” as his metaphoric portal into such
a journey—-Calvin’s family tree from the 16^th century to the
present is a questionable heritage. The Calvin Becker Trilogy clarified, in a
variety of ways, what a discerning spiritual seeker should be wary of and free
from. What, though, should a person with deeper longings and hungers be free
for? Such is the underlying myth and theme of And God Said, “Billy”.

There is a
convincing depth, time won wisdom and burnished gold in And God Said, “Billy”. The novel is written in a confessional
manner and is a classic bildungsroman—-Billy
tells his tale well from the beginnings of his religious journey, within the
narrow confines of a conservative evangelical congregation, to his departure
from it, through much doubting and legitimate questioning, into a subtle and
spiritually insightful Orthodox way. Billy has had to pass through many painful
and tragic experiences for the eyes of his soul to be cleansed and opened
well—-his pastor (a reformed and charismatic church leader) left his wife and
took up with Billy’s wife (Ruth) when Billy was away in Hollywood and South
Africa doing his stepping stone film. Billy’s confidante, Molly (worship leader
of his congregation), declared she was lesbian (not kosher for a conservative
evangelical). Billy and Ruth were aligned, when young, with the pop evangelical
crowd (Bill Bright/Campus Crusade, Bill Gothard, Pat Robertson/700 Club, RJ
Rushdoony, Pat Boon and Cliff Richards). There is a strong end time theology
and Zionist bent to such a subculture—Billy was a true believer in such a way,
and he would, consistently, use Biblical verses to justify all sorts of erratic
and silly behaviour–almost slap stick comedy at times but a message not to
miss.

Billy’s name is
Billy Graham and just as the American evangelist’s wife’s name was Ruth, so is
Billy’s wife, Ruth. There can be no doubt that Schaeffer is putting a firm elbow
into the ribs of an American evangelical icon who should not be questioned
(just as Calvin, for many reformed types, should not be questioned). What is on
the far side of Calvin and Billy Graham’s Calvinism that has so dominated, in
sophisticated and immature ways, much of American Christianity? The answer to
such a question is at the heart of And
God Said “Billy”.     

It is
significant that Billy wants to make the definitive Christian film—-the
acting persona plays a significant role in the novel. Billy writes scripts,
becomes a co-producer to do a rather crude movie in South Africa in the late
1980s and works with actors who publically present a certain winning image but
in reality lack depth and minimal integrity. How much, in short, is the
conservative evangelical ethos that Billy encounters just another form of on
stage acting (merely prettied up with religious language)? What, though, is the
real nature of spiritual transformation and to what end does it point? –beyond
the acting before the cameras and audience, what remains? Or, is there only
acting and role playing on the stage of life (for both religious and secular
actors)? The obvious apartheid injustices in South Africa are ignored by Billy
and the Hollywood set as they pander to their thin image making. Billy has to
face his shallowness and trite religious impulses (indeed die to them) before
the real spiritual journey begins.

Billy faces the
worst forms of Dutch Boer culture in South Africa when he is taken to the
police station for theft. The Boers, like the Jewish and Christian Zionists,
see themselves as chosen by God to fulfill a divine mandate. Billy slowly feels
his way through such nonsense. It is significant that when Billy is in a morgue
he meets an Orthodox priest and his real transformation begins. A dominant
shift for Billy is the turn from a worrisome need for a brittle certainty to a
vision of mystery that is best lived into by living a loving life—paradox and
uncertainty, faith and love replace the need by textual, confessional and words
of the Lord certainty—certainty, needless to say, is the opposite and enemy of
genuine faith—such is a constant refrain in the novel. Healthy doubt and
questioning is the golden key that frees Billy from his insulated and unhealthy
religious journey. 

Billy is
assisted in his flight from South Africa by rather unorthodox yet Orthodox
monks. Most of And God Said “Billy” (75
%) is about Billy’s immersion in a rather crass Hollywood culture and his inept
attempt to make sense of his religious and Hollywood ethos in South Africa
through his conservative evangelical interpretative lens—such a worldview
cannot explain the painful and tragic reality that Billy lives through at a
variety of personal, ecclesial, ethical and political levels. The latter half
of And God Said “Billly” (25 %) is
pure gold—-desert wisdom, aphorisms and stories that massage soul and heart
and sages who have lived into the centre of Divine Love—indeed, spirituality
at its inviting best wins the day. And yes, Orthodoxy can be as fundamentalist
as the conservative evangelical family that Billy has left behind—Schaeffer
knows this well and exposes the reality wisely. Billy is walked into the
transformative core of Orthodoxy rather than many of the legalistic forms or
idealized portrayals of it.

The final two
chapters of the novel are worth many a meditative read. Billy was killed in the
desert in 1990 and his daughter (Rebecca) had heard nothing from her father for
decades—needless to say, she was hurt and angry. The Truth and Reconciliation
in South Africa brought to light Billy’s murder and an Orthodox monk made sure
Rebecca was sent Billy’s spiritual diary that recorded and recounted his rite
of passage from a conservative evangelical ethos to a healthy and probing
atheism to the white heat core and beauty of Orthodox spirituality. The novel
ends with Rebecca, in 2013, learning about the father she never knew through
his confessional novel—though dead, he lives—the final few chapters are most
tender and evocative.         

And God Said “Billy” is Frank Schaeffer at his literary best—gone is the
reactionary tone by novel’s end—-incisive wisdom, time tried insight and
kindly love are the final message in this mature novel that, in the latter
chapters, needs many a silent and sit reread. The thinner comedy of the earlier
novels has finally been replaced by the deeper meaning of comedic vision in And God Said “Billy”.

Ron Dart