Create Beauty and Find Peace - Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in GOD

Don't judge this book by its title. This isn't a book attempting to prove or disprove anything like the title seems to say, and it also doesn't offer practical life advice like the subtitle would lead you to believe. I think Schaeffer's goal with the title was to highlight the paradoxical nature of life at large and many of his own beliefs, which I don't think the title successfully communicates (but maybe that's just me).

This is less a book about atheism or theism and more about the messy, complex, contradictory nature of life, art, and our own souls. And the joys of being a grandfather and creating and enjoying art. (I feel like he had at least two books that he ended up cramming into one.)

"Why I Am an Atheist Who Believes in God" is an essay book that shares stories, musings, and sometimes rants by an eccentric, artsy, raw, inappropriate, cranky, hot-tempered old man turned doting grandfather. Frank Schaeffer is the son of Francis and Edith Schaeffer -- famous among Evangelicals for their missionary work in Switzerland and for their many books. So how his political ideologies and theology have changed since his boyhood as son of a famous missionary does come up in passing throughout the book, as well as how he now attends a Greek Orthodox church. But Schaeffer's main loves -- if this book is any indication of them -- aren't theology or politics but art and his grandchildren.

Some of Schaeffer's stories and comments are raw, inappropriate, and laugh-out-loud funny (like how he feels like "the best lie" he's ever told was when he told his now-wife he'd "pull out" because he wouldn't have his daughter or grandchildren otherwise). Other stories are touching and adorable (like the joy and pride it brought him when his very young grandson asked to see the pictures of two classical paintings by name). The first ten or so chapters were, without a doubt, my favorites because he focuses primarily on his love of art and his grandchildren and how life can be messy and complex.

I'd love to give this book a highter rating because I loved his stories of his grandchildren so much, but -- perhaps I'm being too finicky -- the organization of this book made it feel haphazard and in need of another round of editing. The transitions between chapters were strange; they often began with a transitional word like "therefore" and, unless I'd read the previous chapter in the same sitting, I would often have to go back and reread the end of the last chapter to see what he was referring to exactly. And sometimes, especially later in the book, there were some pretty hefty rants that really weren't of interest at all (like how Schaeffer feels museum curators aren't as educated and competent as they once were or how annoying it is that the signs next to paintings in art galleries have become so wordy -- I'm not doubting him, I just honestly don't care).

This book is a mixed bag. I don't feel like I wasted my time reading it, and I did greatly enjoy some of the sections (I also skimmed some of the rants -- which is something I usually never do when reading). But I feel like -- due to a lack of organization and focus -- it doesn't live up to its full potential as an essay book.

I am six years older but much of my religious life parallel's Frank's. My Mother's family, who shaped my childhood, were Southern Baptists and I still have no reason to believe that she, each of her six siblings and Mother were not saints. My father, lifetime Marine and a veteran of both world wars, tried to be a Baptist after he came home from the war. But the church threw him out for teaching children in Sunday school to read the Bible and never just accept how someone else interprets it. Mr. Schaeffer's family provided much more exposure to the Bible, to the arts, to writing and to the world in general than did my family but these subjects were no less important to my family. I often read parts of Frank's books to my wife and there is an uncanny resemblance to something I have already said to her. So how could I not love someone who can express how I feel better than I can?
I do admit that some of Frank's references, to probably famous artists, fell flat for me. In those parts of his book I was simply lost, but even there, I often found a sentence or paragraph that I loved.

WHY I AM AN ATHEIST WHO BELIEVES IN GOD
How to Create Beauty, Give Love and Find Peace

By Frank Schaeffer

Frank writes the story of his journey from life as a son of famous evangelical parents Francis and Edith Schaeffer and his lifelong wrestling with their own views of God and how he was to live that out in his own life. He is honest about the struggles of living under the the views of his parents and his journey out of those traditions to find his own meaning in the universe, in his life with friends and family. In his honest story about his doubts, struggles leaving of the evangelical faith, trying other areas of art to bring meaning in the end he presents a view the importance of the traditions in his life with his parents and now with his wife and grandkids. He has found after years of struggling with fundamentalist christianity a quiet peace about a life well lived that in the universe there is a place for the love of the divine and he has found it in his family, in his friends and the stories about his life. I like how one reviewer commented that that in Frank's life he has found that there is an inbetween place between the almost dead reductionist world of science and the rigid but earnest, and hostile and in his view make-believe world of religious fundamentalism, a place of beauty, of hope, of tenderness, grace, paradox.

As I read this I am reminded of a letter I read this week from Pastor Brian Zahnd to an atheist friend and some pertinent comments that I think may speak somewhat to this place Frank has come to in his own journey:

"Still I would like to talk to you for a moment about God. Not condescendingly, you deserve better than that, but from my heart. Please allow me to have my say.

Is there a God?

Yes and no.

"There" (the adverb denoting place and location) is no God. For God to be God, in the sense of an eternal, self-existent being responsible for all that we call existence, the one thing he cannot be is "there." God is of necessity invisible. There is a place called Timbuktu, there is planet called Neptune, there is a cup of coffee sitting next to me, but in that sense, there is no God. That would be to place God within the universe as another object. That is what he cannot be. Unless he were to choose to in someone way join creation. (This is what Christians believe concerning the Incarnation of Christ, but that is beyond this discussion).

Can I prove that God exists? I don't think so; at least not in the way I might prove that I have three cats living in my house. I'm confident that God can prove his own existence, but he doesn't seem to be inclined to do so. At least not at the present moment. Though, without trying to persuade you to believe me, I do believe that God will, in his own time, erase all doubt of his reality from the mind of every intelligent being. But, as C.S. Lewis said, "When the author walks onto the stage, the play is over."

So "there" is no God.

But I believe God is."

To me it seems that Frank has arrived at this place of "there" is no God, But He believes God is!
I also feel his journey is like so many of us Christians today who ourselves have undergone a journey of deconstruction of many cherished beliefs about what it means to follow Yeshua in western Christianity and in our own reconstructions of our own faiths, have come to similar places that what really matters is that the definition of "God who is" was clearly presented and lived by Yeshua and the word I might say it boils down to is the precise word that Frank ends with "God is Love" I would strongly recommend a reading of this book, for it will open you up to the world in this "inbtween place" where Love is supreme and what matters in relationships with family friends, others and ultimately God.

I felt the best way to conclude my attempt at providing a review of this work would be to quote what Frank says at the end of the last chapter. It really packs in a small space what is important:

"Our best hope is not found in correct theology, the Bible or any other book, but in
creation and thus that the Creator sees us as ever young. Our hope is that when we look at
God through the eyes of the loving Christ we will see who God really is. Our ultimate
hope is that God will be looking back at us as we'd like to be seen.
Scientists have found direct evidence of the expansion of the universe, a previously
theoretical event that took place a fraction of a second after the Big Bang nearly 14
billion years ago. The clue is encoded in the primordial cosmic microwave background
radiation that continues to spread. My hope is that a trillionth of a second before the Big
Bang, the energy animating the mystery of creation of matter out of nothing was love."

As a chaplain, in a hospital, I work with people from all walks of life. And what I've learned to do is to "leave space" for the stories that I hear. I try to listen without judgement. But I know that my experience is different from most people. Many people seem to have room for only one way of understanding because they are so busy that they do not want to take the mental energy for "leaving space" because that means taking time to really listen to the story of the other and then taking time to sit with the difficult questions posed by listening. Frank's book has been a refreshing read for me as he states a lot of what I think on a given day. He seems to have lived with the weird, wrestled with it and now has come to a place of allowing space for it all. He seems OK with recognizing that he does not have all of the answers. "You will always embody contradiction he says," and to that I say "Yes!" And maybe what is most endearing to me about the book is the insights that Frank has received from his own grandchildren, "Lucy and Jack just accept that life is weird, wonderful and defined by imagination." He listens to them and allows their stories to help him make sense of this very weird world in which we live. I appreciate Frank's authentic voice and his courage for putting words to paper. I hope to use this book as a book study with others……..a springboard for talking about what is and what might be.

Wow, that really touched my heart. I felt we have much in common. I take Jesus message into account how I treat people. Its the contradictions between Him and the God of spite, hate and revenge that turned me off toward atheism.

I love how you compare what your mother said and what she lived. The Bible teaches against gays and sex outside marriage but she helped gays even taking them in and she never disowned you.

People are complicated creatures. As George Burns said as God, "The divine truth is not in a building or a book or a story.. Put down that the heart is the temple wherein all truth resides." I think that is what you were saying in your book. And that it does not matter what you believe so long as you treat people with love and respect.

I first opened Frank Schaeffer’s book in a hospital room the night before Easter Sunday. Christ was silent in His tomb, and my 82-year-old mother was writhing in pain on her bed. In his book, I heard the same voice that I hear when I sit in my garden – sometimes comforting, always challenging.

Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God is flush with apparent contradictions in both the seen and unseen. How can a particle of matter occupy two different points simultaneously? How can a person hold onto opposite ideas about God? I am grateful that Schaeffer allows himself to be a vulnerable human as he puts the words to some of the ways I feel and I experience. Life is messy in all of its beauty and cruelty. He makes a wonderful case for shrinking from certainty and embracing paradox.

As I shed my evangelical skin, I am both repelled by dogma and attracted to the ritual of candles and incense. I see God everywhere but continue to search for Him. Schaeffer’s personal life moments give me the “Ah ha. That’s just like me. That’s just like I want to be. I’m not alone.”

It looks like this book will become a touchstone for me. I was actually caught off guard by how it moved me. It all boils down to these words from one of his friends: “Create beauty, give love, find peace.” My new life quote.

This book should be read in the middle of the storms. This book should be read in the middle of the doldrums. You may find comfort, challenge, or apostasy depending on the self you bring to its pages. I recommend this especially to my children who were baptized into a faith that they no longer accept. They may see themselves.

I am a child of the Most High God, as taught since I was a little girl of seven adopted into the family. I truly love the Lord with every fiber of my being! I'm not talking Christianity as what I see in America today, but as Jesus taught while here in the earth. AND there is a difference!! I believe in loving all mankind, no matter what. My job is to love and live righteously that others will come to me and ask how I seem to exist in peace as I do...then I can introduce them to the real Jesus of the Bible. I am not to treat people any differently than I would want to be treated...have compassion, not do evil in retaliation, etc., etc..

I've been reading Frank Schaeffer's books since 2012 and have gotten to "know" him through his writings. The intro chapters to this book were slow, and kinda dull, because of repetition. I understand why written, but I wanted to read why he now considers himself an atheist who believes in God. Mr. Scheaffer grew up in a religion as taught by the religious right in America. What a pity! What is taught is so far removed from what Jesus lived and taught. Jesus was a man of compassion, love, and was interested in reconciliation of all mankind, not some chosen few who are being spiritually led by politicians hell bent on power, control, and being instruments of the god Mammon. As Jesus described them, hypocrites...are what is making a mockery of Christianity. These people are so full of hate, fear, treachery, all of which is the opposite of Jesus which is love, Faith, honesty and all inclusive.

Schaeffer spoke of the Enlightenment doctrine which is closer to the way the Man/God Jesus lived while here in the earth. This doctrine is also what the Declaration of Independence was based on...life, liberty and inclusion of all mankind regardless of race, creed, ethnicity, religion, class, economical situation, etc. This is the opposite of the religion of the religious right [really only for whites/those indoctrinated into the massa/slave mentality of white supremacy, poor and those "others"are to be condemned as takers, welfare recipients of the government undeserving of the true wealth of this nation (which was stolen/built on the backs of slaves), man had to be told what to think/believe based on a leader, who in "fellowship" with his god (Mammon),
oligarchy and presenter of rules/regulations to live by which will produce holiness, piety and have a home in heaven if totally obedient to these leaders.] SHAMEFUL!, Shameful, and Shameful!!! (Father, forgive us for we know not what to do and are being destroyed for a lack of knowledge!)

As I read this book, I was reminded of the wise man, King Solomon. He too went on a spiritual journey trying/evaluating life and came out with the same conclusion as Frank Schaeffer. ALL IS VANITY! Why follow after the religion of the hypocrite which causes nothing but a loveless, no joy, always scheming to stay in control, manipulation of the simple, leading away from the True God and His righteousness all for boredom, uncertainty, unfulfilled existence always in search for answers. What's the use? Why bother mentality.

Jesus said, the thief (god of this world, Mammon/greed) came to steal, kill and destroy but He came that we may have life and that more abundantly. I think this is what Schaeffer is in search. Wanting intimacy with the One True God without all the unnecessary rules/traditions of man which make the WORD of God ineffective. I can't imagine living in his religion/even perpetuating the lie all those years and not coming out as anti religion, but wanting someone to "talk" to and maintain fellowship.

I enjoyed reading this book about discovery into the real and out of that which hindered and kept him blind all those years. I'm not sure what atheism is all about, but do think Frank Schaeffer is waking up/walking away from hell and into enlightenment. Keep on your journey and thanks for sharing with us.

Recommend this book for those searching for identity, self awareness and a right relationship with God away from hate, fear mongering, and works of evil.

Frank Schaeffer’s book Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God is a must read for anyone who has left or is thinking about leaving the Evangelical/Fundamentalist Right-Wing movement. As an ordained minister who walked away from it 11 years ago, his book encapsulates the struggles we face. We know we can’t go back but have a difficult time finding a new church home or completely abandoning organized religion to walk in the footsteps of Jesus with unconditional love.

I feel like Frank stepped into my head and put into words the roller coaster ride of emotions we walkaways face on a daily basis. We are ostracized by our former friends in the church and sometimes told we are going to hell because we turned our backs on God. In reality, we have embraced Him and are allowing Him to guide us to the true person we are meant to be instead of the cookie cutter mold we have been taught.

He showed me that we are not alone in this walk of life.

Polls show that people – especially the younger generation - are fleeing the church and becoming part of the Nones. They want no part of the Jesus as portrayed by the church but the one of scripture; the one that loves the “least of these” and “loves their neighbor as themselves.”

Frank has shown us through the eyes of his grandchildren the beauty and innocence of life and love.

The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. John 10:10

Throughout Frank’s books he has shown us that we can have this more abundant life; we just have to break out of the mold we are told we must be.

There is a raw beauty and equally raw honesty about this book which are hard for me to explain. Frank Schaeffer writes what he is thinkiing with enviable abandon.
Being a minister as well as a minster's daughter, I struggle often with the two concepts of God as portrayed in the Old and New Testaments. I am drawn to the pageantry of the Old Testament, and to the person and humanity of JESUS in the New.
Overall, I understand that man's relationship with God is based in love. And it is love that pours forth from this book.
The kind of Love that JESUS embodied. The kind that embraced the unwanted, the abandoned, the dirty, the untouchable and the least among us.
JESUS offended many by his open rejection of hypocrisy and his ability to love and chastise simultaneously

It is this person of JESUS, his message, his love, his courage that I sense as I read this book. If you are offended by strong language, or get sidetracked by the use of it, you will miss the overall message(s) in this book.

I found it delightful, thought-provoking, and healthily ( I hope ) unsettling. The author questioned Things about God, the Bible, and our interpretation of it that have been my questions as well. (Except, I am too cowardly to admit it.)

I welcome this freshness of thought, this sincere search for the goodness that I believe God intends for us all.

Writing with honesty and humor, Frank Schaeffer faces the reality of the human condition and the mystery of the revelation of God. Those who cringe at the reductionist tendency of some who reject any consideration of the transcendent and at the inflexibility of those who take such a wooden, literal view of the transcendent will relish the approach and the insights found in this book. Schaeffer's insights will help you in your spiritual quest, whoever you are and wherever you are on that path. We can delight in this latest of Frank Schaeffer's offerings.

Frank Schaeffer’s new book is a good read and gives one plenty to mull over. As always, Frank is as honest as we all wish we could be. In this book, he yet again lays his thoughts out and bares his soul for all to see. No matter the topic, Frank tells it as he sees it.

There are probably millions out there who are entrenched in a particular religion but have a difficult time agreeing with some of the particular teachings. As humans, we have minds of our own and it is never a good thing to blindly follow. Frequently, no good comes of large political groups blindly following the leader and this can also sometimes be said for religion. It is okay to have the doubts and feelings Frank tells us throughout his book. How does anyone truly know if they belong to the correct religious group? In the end does it really matter? We can’t know this until we die. Frank hit the nail on the head when he says that he is a different person from 20 years ago (or even 40 years ago.) Like Frank, we are constantly evolving and questioning and he gives us plenty of anecdotal evidence of his personal evolutionary process. One of the beliefs of the Orthodox church is that we are constantly “becoming.” Frank is truly constantly becoming and in his new book “Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God” he gives us much to think about.

This was the first book written by Frank Schaeffer that I have read and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I felt like Frank let me into his studio and allowed me to experience his life from the fundamentalist evangelical beginning all the way up to the more progressive Christian present.
In "Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God: How to give love, create beauty and find peace" , Frank honestly points out his personal successes and failures in a way that anyone with an extended family can relate. The book is full of thought-provoking paradox. We live in this earthly world and at the same time partake in the holy mysteries of the Church. That in itself is a dichotomy of terms and can prove to be a real test of faith. Frank shows that a healthy dose of doubt can be a true motivator for those seeking the truth on our journey through life.
We can theorize and intellectualize until the ‘cows come home’ but life itself and the Church, for that matter, is meant to be experienced. For example, if you believe Jesus said to feed the hungry or clothe the naked or take care of the poor; then don’t just talk about it in church on Sunday, go out on Monday and feed the hungry, clothe the naked and take care of the poor.
Sometimes life is static and predictable and sometimes it’s a mystery. In his book Frank takes us by the hand, as he does his grandchildren, and helps us explore and experience the paradox.
Read it…Enjoyed it…Highly recommend it!
-David C. Black

This is a spiritual memoir: a memoir that focuses on the spiritual and non-materialistic experiences of the author. I don't know if that's a real definition; I just made it up. I won a free copy from Goodreads, and I admit I was intrigued by the title. It's actually a very accurate title, if you can believe it. It is actually about an atheist's relationship with Gd and on-going relationship with the church. It was a touching story about his past and his family and how he has integrated spirituality and non-materialistic values into that life. I only removed a star because I didn't like the author as a person so much based on the book and his writing. The spiritual ideas are very interesting, his dedication to his family is admirable and progressive, and he presents himself in a very honest way. There's much to admire here, and it's nice to see a book that shows how complicated people really are.

Since his memoir "Crazy for God," Frank Schaeffer has been on a quest to overcome his evangelical fundamentalist faith background without moving into what has lately been the very tempting territory of the New Atheists. Much groundwork for an alternative position was laid in "Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don’t Like Religion (or Atheism)," and a semi-autobiographical novel "And God Said, 'Billy!'" reflected much of his own journey. A key element throughout is the embrace of paradox as opposed to its eradication; the acceptance of contradictory ideas as opposed to the false certainties offered by fundamentalist religion and fundamentalist atheism. Frank Schaeffer continues to develop the concept of his “church of hopeful uncertainty” in "Why I Am an Atheist Who Believes in God: How to Give Love, Create Beauty, and Find Peace."

In this, his first self-published book, Schaeffer dispenses with equivocations and accommodations to publishers and pundits and writes from raw passion: the passion of a husband, grandfather, and son, who is no longer comforted by the mythical constructs of his younger years but still encounters truth and beauty in some of those same myths, and even more so in the people he loves. Behind his impassioned reflections one hears, “Is this all we are, or is there something more to us? To existence?”

Though the questions he raises are not necessarily new, the way he engages them is refreshingly direct and accessible. Schaeffer avoids the flourishes of academic theology and philosophy in favor of something far more honest as he bluntly admits that he simultaneously holds contradictory beliefs, and is content to do so. The result is he creates space for many self-identified believers who stopped believing “the right way” long ago, as well as space for self-identified non-believers who are not necessarily reductionists. Along the way, Schaeffer invites you to rethink your last chance encounter with a stranger, your children, art, and even religious liturgy.

Compared to some of his recent work, "Why I Am an Atheist Who Believes in God" is lighter and faster, easily read in a sitting or two. Schaeffer continues his tradition of being deeply personal and self-revealing (though it’s hard to top the revelations of "Crazy for God" and "Sex, Mom, and God"!), and one may feel after his recent works that they know Genie and Lucy. You’ll certainly feel like you know Frank (having hosted him for a lecture, I can say he is as he is presented in his books). This contributes to the work’s accessibility and likeability, even if you find yourself disagreeing with his premise.

More likely, you’ll find yourself nodding as Schaeffer says overtly in writing what many are probably thinking. In doing so, Schaeffer moves the discussion of the role of faith out of the "trench warfare" of recent decades to a place where new life might actually be found. This book should find a place in many a household, and really should find a home in many a church study group.

In his new book, Why I’m An Atheist Who Believes in God, Frank Schaeffer gently, artfully, and passionately proposes a third way when it comes to the religion vs. science debate.

A memoir of the best sort, he combines honesty, humility and humor as he challenges the traditional parameters of faith and science to offer up something both radical and real, heartwarming and healing. His wife, Genie, plays her usually quiet role, but this time Frank gives her more due, in the text and by dedicating the book to her. His own evolution as a human being culminates in his grandfatherhood where he revels in knowing less than he ever has in his life. Using wonderful stories from his own life, he chips away at the hardened lines of the divide to move from ‘either/or’ to ‘both/and.’

As an atheist turned Christian turned pastor, I celebrate this book that surely must be the heart of science and the hope of God. “Embracing paradox,” says Frank, “helped me discover that religion is a neurological disorder for which faith is the only cure.” Why I Am An Atheist Who Believes in God is Frank Schaeffer’s best book yet.

Because he was once committed to suffocating,incoherent, pseudo-Christian tenants of the fundamentalist evangelism characteristic of the self serving, crackpot theology of biblical literalists, Frank Schaeffer's story and conclusions have the clang of truth. He was there in the middle of all that crap. He escaped. He has a POW veracity. That he confesses atheism seems more a figure of speech. To me he's like the sensible, pragmatic, reverent naturalist who refuses to name "something" he can't and doesn't dare handle. What he does see, suggest and likely carries out is the human project of sometimes inconsistent love, awareness of beauty and spirituality lacking in arrogance. His book encourages the pilgrim, validates the honest scholar, inspires religious poets, frees each good person and engenders trust in the spiritual path.

Frank Schaeffer's' latest book is a continuation of his provocative seeking for truth among the often conflicting voices debating god and our place in the world. His is a unique perspective of being witness to the many sides of the "culture wars", and having the honesty to admit that his journey is ongoing and inconclusive. "Out of the box" thinking and writing is all too rare, and also willingness to share his family's intimate moments and struggles. It is likely to irritate those who hold to Biblical certainty, as well as those who discount all religious realities. As one who, in an earlier time, was attentive to his father Francis' earlier take on Christianity and popular culture, I am pleased to recommend this book for our times. He has put into words many of my own questions, and probably those of many others as well.

As a former evangelical Christian, I have struggled to find a place of embracing spirituality without embracing the nonsense of religion- especially the evangelical brand. I have watched from afar as Schaeffer has journeyed a similar path, and he has often provided me with a roadmap and a searchlight- through his books like Crazy for God. He does so again in this book. Frank does a good job here of allowing for the mystery of who or what God may be, and at the same time, exposing the fallacies that so often define religion- especially Christianity. I think the heart of this book is that we can embrace the best of what we all see in humanity- our friends, spouses, grandchildren, neighbors, etc; and in that goodness, we can see God. That is becoming a landing spot for me in my search for what is real about God- for who God may be. Frank does a good job of defining that search for me- of giving me a safe place to land. Thank you, Frank, for your brutally honest efforts at giving voice to the journey we are all on.

My first reaction to Frank's book was " oh-oh. My Evangelical buddies aren't going to like this one". But then I think that is why I loved this book so much. Having grown up in a rather boxy theological system myself, it's rather unsettling to read something that shakes you up to the core, messing with a long and sacred belief system. And yet that shaking is needed, is welcome, and is honestly refreshing. I loved this book. Did I always agree? Nope, but that doesn't matter. He didn't write it to win converts to his way of reasoning. I feel that he wrote it out of a deep sense of sharing his travels through this mystery that we all find ourselves in.

Frank says and writes what so many of us think, and maybe even wish we could say in church - but that wouldn't be allowed, would it. No, we must not venture out beyond the party lines - at least not without the charge of heresy. But Frank isn't afraid to say exactly what he thinks and feels, and the result is a heartfelt and fascinating read. I would encourage you to read this book. Have your family read it. Have your friends read it. And venture out on a limb, and have your church group read it. Then settle in for some long hours of great conversation. It will be worth it.

I really enjoyed “Why I am an atheist who believes In God.” Frank Schaeffer is one of my favorite authors. When I was reading this book one minute I was choked up, and the other minute, I was laughing. I felt like he wrote this book for me. I do believe there is something greater than us, but I also embrace science and I am somewhat moderate in my religious beliefs. I don’t take the bible literally. Franks seems to speak to others like me. One of the special parts in this book that I really enjoyed is how he prays with his grandchildren. He is teaching them to care about others. I like his wisdom into prayers. It’s not about if they come true or not but about “making a connection.” He proposes a new question, not if God exists or not, but what’s God role in our life? It’s a good read. pick up a copy and see for yourself.

Frank Schaefer has provided a dramatic self-portrait of faith and love in the new world in which we live. While being painfully honest about his failures, he calls us to the darkness of doubt, to be honest about our beliefs. The transcendence of his love for his wife, children and grandchildren set the context for the deep mystery that is his faith. The only thing he is adamantly sure of is his uncertainty. I find this “living in the mystery” compelling and life giving.
“Embracing paradox helped me discover that religion is a neurological disorder for which faith is the only cure.”
Schaefer provides an overview of both religious and secular attempts to minimize human significance but recants with brilliant wit by showing the importance of our narrative:

“I feel significant when I tell my stories, therefore I am.”
He remembers his Fundamentalist icon mother with tenderness and describes how she was so much better than her belief system. The story of how she stopped her life with “important people” to lovingly listen to the heartbreak of a hotel worker highlights his parent’s actions that veered away from their strict dogma. Actions, Frank says, are all that matter. Belief systems, whether religious or scientific, don’t define us. It is what we do and how we treat others that, somehow, outlive us.

Recounting his brief attempt to use the same tactics to reject his evangelical past as he used to promote his religious upbringing, Frank offers sage advice for finding a faith community or a bowling league by re-focusing our hearts on community and becoming better people. Whether atheist or believer we should create a story that has others as the focus and that invokes beauty within relationships.

“Where we go to church, or whether we go, isn’t the point. The point is who are we becoming? Does church help you to become the sort of person you’d pick to be stuck on a desert island with? Good! Go! Does it hurt your chances of becoming that person? Run!”

Ultimately, our truth is what brings meaning to our lives even if the objective facts can explain our experience differently. Whether you are reformulating your faith, struggling with uncertainty or are done with any expression of belief, you will find this book helpful and inspiring. Enjoy the adventure!

Schaeffer writes with deep honesty about a topic that engenders strong emotions and often deep dissension. This spiritual autobiography is deeply personal and he doesn't shy away from his own shortcomings and misgivings about faith (and especially religion, and one must be careful to distinguish faith from religion: faith is the belief which, I think can achieve perfection - religion is the institution built to support the practices of faith, which will always be flawed). His often poetic prose and beautiful expression of life and his angst at the thought of mortality, family, and the loss of his friends is familiar ground to this reader and so I found myself in immediate resonance with his spiritual yearnings and his lingering doubts.

This book is not for the faint faith-ed, however, as Schaeffer doesn't candy coat his own theology or spirituality (or language) - and those who attempt a literal reading of the biblical text will struggle with his more open look at the mythological foundations of faith and the implications of scientific inquiry. But for me, I found his approach refreshing and to the point - neither religion nor science offers an adequate view of God. There is a beauty in understanding that the Divine exists in mystery, shrouded in our inadequacy to comprehend and veiled in unknowing. While science struggles to explain, and religions strives to pigeonhole, God remains larger than both. Art and poetry - both built on image, on glimpses of beauty and mystery - seem to bring the deepest glimpses into this mystery. Schaeffer quotes Red Pollard, suggesting that there is a folly to "assessing meaning by anything other than poetry. And poetry is only spirit rather than material, love in action, love of life, love of words, love of beauty, even love of beautifully expressed ugliness. Poetry is play, more like a child's game than serious. Therefore it is the most serious expression of all..."

Indeed much of our biblical text is poetry - images painted with words that try to describe the mystery of the Divine. And in the midst of his mortality, doubts, and yes, faith, Schaeffer suggests that much of our struggle today as people of faith is that we have shaped religion to explain God, making it like a science that attempts to offer proofs of that which is unprovable. And then we struggle when the religion we have built clashes with science. He maintains that we should recapture the witness of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, "For we may not explain what God is but candidly confess that we have not exact knowledge concerning Him." Schaeffer concludes, "In other words, the word God was to be understood by not understanding it."

By trying to create 'objective reality' concerning God, we are, in fact, creating an idol that makes God more like each of us, instead of embracing the idea of our own imperfect reflection of the Divine Creator. Much like J.B. Phillips in his seminal work, "Your God is Too Small" Schaeffer argues that when we do this we remake God in our images, each different and individual with no acknowledgement that God might be inexpressible and beyond our understanding.

The book is honest, thought provoking, and if you are not afraid to think about your faith, to challenge long held beliefs in light of newer and deeper understandings, or to let some fresh air blow through the closed doors and cobwebs of your soul, then this book might be for you. I found it both refreshing and honest, and though I didn't agree with everything he said, it did challenge me to think through some of what I believe. Ultimately, if nothing else, it should challenge all of us to reclaim the mystery of the Divine in the midst of our own mortality and daily existence.

*Disclaimer: I received a free review electronic text copy from the author.*

If you enjoyed *Crazy for God* (a previous title from the author), you'll enjoy this. Except this one doesn't focus on the past battles of evangelical soldierdom, but on the joy of grandparenthood, expressions of love, faith, doubt, art, and other reflections.

It is a breezy read, that spans from creation to death and resurrection. Of straddling the paradox of faith and admittance of truth over observance of rituals. And Schaeffer even shares the joy of peeing on his dew soaked lawn.

A book of the journey that many have embarked on: in search of the God of their childhood. At the same time, the authors attack on modernity and shallowness of atheism and meaninglessness of purpose of life for those who have made science their god is first rate. His call to look for the words of Jesus as if they matter, is a call to all established faiths. Perhaps God is hiding in the eyes of Lucy: He certainly has never given up on making Himself seen by Frank, and perhaps he should rest in Him as Lucy does on his lap: in full trust, and resting to regain peace.

Fundamentalists of any sort—religious, atheist, or otherwise—will not like what Frank has to say. By his own admission he is not atheist enough for the atheists and not theist enough for the religious. To be fair, it seems that Frank’s so-called atheism is actually just his feeling that the concept of “God” does not make much of a difference in his everyday life. Frank’s theism, on the other hand, is the implicit belief in God or “transcendence” that lends credible meaning to life. I think the best way to read this book is not as series of arguments or attempts to convince the reader of his way of thinking, but rather as an open reflection by an intelligent person on his experiences with religion, anger, love, and beauty. The book reads more like a conversation.
Frank is particularly adept at cutting through the scientific nihilism so characteristic of the current milieu of materialism, correctly pointing out that a worldview of scientific nihilism has produced a culture of political warfare that has replaced religion in our society. His criticism goes to the root of this issue as he argues that our so-called insignificance in the universe is totally subjective and ultimately meaningless if there is no universal standard by which to judge significance. He makes a rather nice comparison, saying, “To rate Earth’s place as tiny and insignificant in relation to things we label huge, vast and significant is as absurd as assigning Michelin restaurant ratings based on the weight of a restaurant or the number of tiles on its kitchen wall.” That our society’s short-sighted secularism qua a rejection of the spiritual would leave a vacuum to be filled by science (and, to some extent, politics) is an astute observation and, I think, one of the most important observations that westerners can make. Frank writes, “[If we’re nothing, why bother to convince us of our nothingness? Who cares? I would have liked to ask Sagan why he bothered to write with such poetic skill and beauty about the meaninglessness of writing, given our transitory and diminutive place in the universe.” Frank points out the intuitive hypocrisy of scientific secularism when he states that “The point” (of his book) “is that I live as if my experiences are meaningful notwithstanding religious and secular theologies of human insignificance.” For Frank, even the most altruistically motivated politicos struggle to find justification for their political ideologies if they buy into Western secularism, because it’s difficult to justify morality without the moral compass of an underlying faith or belief system. Further, Frank’s argument is that we should live and act as if life has meaning regardless of whether or not any belief system — be it one such as Christianity that trusts in God’s providence orchestrating the events of the universe, or our society’s secularism that insists on our insignificance — is, in fact, true. See what you think of my revisions here. The only thing I can think of to possibly further add (to the portion in yellow above) would be a simple example of an “altruistically motivated political ideology” that’s hard to justify without religion: All men are created equal? Laws about drug/alcohol use? etc.
Frank puts forth a system where religion is more about being nice than about the actual transformation of the person through worship of God, and I think he does so because he lacks a thoroughgoing anthropology that can explain the phenomenon of religion and has instead tried to live in the tension between materialism and spirituality (broadly speaking). A world view that has room for the tension of paradox is fine, but we must also be honest by acknowledging that holding some beliefs preclude us from holding others. Frank points this out himself in his polemic against strict atheism, but he doesn’t hold to it nearly as strictly when expounding his own version of relativism. Allowing for paradox is not a free pass for holding contradictory beliefs, either. For example, Frank speaks at length about the foolishness of changeless truths. However, he can not consistently believe that it is true that there is no truth as if the statement itself was immune from truth categories. Or, how correct is his idea that “We can never have a fully correct idea”? Is it not an objective fact that “There are no objective facts”? While there is something relatable and humble about the preceding statements, these and others lack meaningful content. Frank’s emphasis on humility, though, is admirable even if, in some instances, it’s poorly explained and executed. Truth or no truth, for Frank there is no merit in meanness or triumphalism. (This paragraph is better. The ideas connect more clearly, and the examples you pull from the book directly relate to what you’re saying.)
As trite as it sounds, I think there is some merit to a theology of “being nice,” but religion (Christianity par excellence) is ultimately about worship, encountering God, and being transformed and recreated by that encounter. Only by adopting a world view that includes transcendence (in some sense for Frank, this means God) are we able to live in a way that is both moral and consistent. “We are spiritual creatures in a material world no matter how we label ourselves or believe or don’t believe.” These underlying intuitions seem to be what keep Frank within the Christian tradition even though he is reluctant to praise Christianity for much.
My most negative criticism of the book is that Frank should leave scriptural exegesis to the theologians. There are a few instances in this book where Frank takes the opportunity to sermonize from the Bible, usually to say that a particular verse means precisely the opposite of what it seems to say, or else to use the verse as a prooftext for anachronistic interpretations of Jesus as an enlightenment thinker. While that might be a useful rhetorical device for a clergyman or theologian, it seems just a bit out of place in this book, which is a call to leave behind categories of correct and incorrect in an existential/religious context. As someone who was raised to have a strong familiarity with the Bible and then to go through a series of identity shattering paradigm shifts (i.e. political conservative to political liberal, evangelical to traditional, theist to atheist in a soft sense), I understand why it is easier for Frank to think of Jesus that way, but it is a clear overstep of his expertise to be trying to interpret Biblical texts in the manner that he does.
I ultimately give this book a good review is becauseFrank is trying to do something I feel is necessary, long over due, and something that many other thoughtful “religious” people have been trying to do for much of the last century; namely, he is trying to turn the conversation on religion toward a more holistic point of view. I also praise the book because he seems to practice what he preaches. Modern secularism attempts to make a hard distinction between the “sacred” and the “secular” in a way that perpetuates a society that can not clearly articulate the difference between so-called “private morality” and “public discourse.” This lack of articulation leads to false dichotomies such as faith and science. It is very much in line with Frank’s religious tradition (Eastern Orthodoxy) to reject on theological grounds the notions of atheism and theism as hard contradictions. This old belief expressed in a new way and to new people is both refreshing and relevant. While I realize that the title of the book is meant to tantalize the reader with ideas and beliefs that do not take a hard line stance, even on deep questions such as the existence of God, Frank would do well to solidify his world view in a slightly firmer belief in God—not as an act of knowledge, but as a leap of faith.

(Disclaimer: I was provided a free copy of this book by the Author for the purpose of writing this review.)

Many thanks and much appreciation for the ARC of "Why I Am an Atheist Who Believes in God: How to Give Love, Create Beauty and Find Peace" authored by Frank Schaeffer, a New York Times bestselling author of more then a dozen books.

The title of the book is a bit misleading, as other reviewers have noted. Schaeffer has been a member of the Greek Orthodox church since 1990. It was really easy to appreciate and agree with many of Schaeffer's spiritual observations: a main focus of Christianity should be the humanitarian service to others, more notably the poor, whom Jesus called "the least of these". Many of the Christian churches today seem to have other agendas, which include selected political involvement.
Historically, the French historian and philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778) was considered a heretic by the Catholic church, he advocated for religious freedom, expression and tolerance. Voltaire was against war and aristocratic privilege, and was among the first to call for separation of church and state.
Only 5% of the Danish people attend church, and yet Denmark has some of the best humane social human services in the world; which include free healthcare and quality (primary and college/university) education for every citizen, along with generous employment, vacation, family leave policies.

Schaeffer is a devoted family man, with many lifelong friendships, and blends the details of working in his studio, his prayer and ordinary life with his stories and observations. Some grandparents believe their grandchildren are the best, brightest, and most brilliant, if the reader can get past this glitch - the book overall, is a solid spiritual read.

With his usual honesty, humor, and remarkable insight, Frank Schaeffer relates his personal spiritual journey. The reader is invited to explore and question the gray area in between the black and white ideology of the Evangelical right and atheism. In the end the author not only embraces but is grateful for the forever shifting truths revealed which had him come to the conclusion “Embracing paradox helped me discover that religion is a neurological disorder for which faith is the only cure”. Having entered the convent in my youth with the goal of doing God’s work and evolving into someone who not only left the Church but has serious doubts of God’s existence, this quote resonates with me. But even if the reader does not embrace Frank’s viewpoint, this book should encourage them to consider and respect new perspectives.

The title alone could make one shake the head. And "How can this be the case?" was a constant question that I asked on almost every page. The subject matter was not at all hard to grasp. Schaeffer is very gifted at writing and communicating his thoughts. I consistently, struggled with the logical of several thoughts in his book. At one point, I actually asked him about it. He reminded me, through an email, of something he specifically mentions in the book: he changes his mind all the time and he may even change his mind on a few things after this book is published.

Beware: if you are comfortable with your faith or with your "no faith," Schaeffer will threaten your paradigm. His book is packed with down-to earth life. He invites you to take a look at his journey with his wife, children and grandchildren. Over every page, one cannot get past the utter honesty and humility that unfolds.

I resonant with Schaeffer, because of my frustration with the evangelical and even religious world. But somehow, like Schaeffer points out in his book, I just keep coming back. I appreciate Schaeffer's alluding to classics and arts to illustrate some points. Schaffer artistically crafts a work that shows us the importance of giving love, creating beauty and finding peace. At the end of the day, Schaefffer with his excellent examples, leads us to believe that that is what life is all about anyway.

Not only did I spend the first 40+ years of my life embedded in a traditional mainline denomination, I raised my 3 children that way, teaching them the "answers". I have now outgrown that tradition. This book says what I would like to tell my grown children in hopes that they will forget the pat answers and come to love the holy questions and beautiful mystery that is God. Thank you, Frank, for giving me an opening into that conversation.

Between two worlds life hovers like a star, twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge. -Lord Byron
Have you ever felt like that? Like you were hovering between one truth and the next? Like when you know you are dreaming and yet somehow feel as though there is certain realness nonetheless? Perhaps it is not unlike the strange freedom I fell in not knowing the answers or even the questions and yet embracing Jesus as real and true and mine.

If we are honest with ourselves I think that we must admit that we have at least a modicum of uncertainty about all that we believe even if it is uncomfortable. In this new book, Frank once again invites us to embrace our doubts and admit that we are at once certain and uncertain. To quote Voltaire, "Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

If you are at a point in your life where you have already embraced this realty or are at least standing on the precipice ready to leap, then Why I Am an Atheist Who Believes in God is for you. In this beautifully written and hauntingly honest small volume, Frank Schaeffer once again reveals to us his heart. Not a cleaned up tissue paper cutout trimmed in lace, but his own bloody, beating heart that he has ripped out with his own hands and laid bare. At no point will you ever feel like Frank is trying to hide any part of his story. And though it is bloody, this work is also pulsing with life; Heartbreaking, breath giving, earth-shaking, faith giving, liberating life.

For me, this quote from the second chapter of Why I Am an Atheist Who Believes in God offers the best summary:

With the acceptance of paradox came a new and blessed uncertainty that began to heal the mental illness called certainty, the kind of certainty that told me that my job was to be head of the home and to order around my wife and children because "the Bible says so." Embracing paradox helped me discover that religion is a neurological disorder for which faith is the only cure.

This book is an intimate portrait of Frank Schaeffer's thoughts on religion and the nature of our varied relationships with God. He so freely shares his innermost feelings about love and loss, and is quick to acknowledge that he is not at all perfect, but has some important things to say both because of and in spite of such imperfection. I particularly liked how Mr. Schaffer wove in stories about his parents, whom he clearly loved if not always admired, in a way that helped me remember how intent and/or modeling loving behavior both matter so much. As with his other books, I will be reading this one again to mine for more treasure, and will be recommending it to others.

My first encounter with Frank Shaeffer was in the book Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don't Like Religion (or Atheism) . So much of what he said resonated with me and the path I’d been walking for the past decade that I couldn’t wait to read this book and see where his journey had taken him. In Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God , it quickly became clear that he’s still exploring his cognitive dissonance about God, and probably always will be.

" I don’t view my embrace of opposites as a kind of agnosticism. I view it as the way things actually are. An agnostic neither believes nor disbelieves in God. I’m not that person. I believe and don’t believe at the same time.”

I could have written that about myself! And for the longest time, I believed I was the only one who felt this way.

This book is so encouraging to those of us who’ve ever felt alone walking the line between belief, unbelief, and everywhere in between. Frank’s story left me with the sincere hope that freedom and inner peace can also be the rewards of letting go and embracing the uncertainties of life.

Yes, that's a real zinger of a contradictory title. But how can an author deliver with that kind of shocking hook? A writer probably can’t, not for readers who want intellectual answers. Nor does Frank Schaeffer in his new book help readers understand or solve the mystery and insanity of faith or doubt.

Instead, as an artist of the written word, Schaeffer brings us into true experiences of caring and beauty. When he shares vivid stories from his unusual life, his new book sings and paints; we live with him and his loved ones, and we, the readers, deeply care, and are transported. But in the middle part of the book when he pontificates, throwing out famous names, even though he says good and right ideas, I yawn. Then he’s gone backward, a latter-day-clone of his former rejected self.

But the vivid narratives of his grandchildren bring us to sincere belief, like the one where he stops regularly under the bridge of a huge passing train for his grandson who gets to hear the engineer toot the train’s horn to that little kid down there again...

Those eternal moments of childhood (and grandhood) really carry heavy freight over the sorrow and absurdity of this, often, tragic life. Such stories thunder over staid theological doctrine and severe doubt, creating care and joy.

Consider another story of again and again and again, the kind of repeatability children so love, how their grandpa, every day does this ‘down-from-the-attic’ stair-prayer ritual, where he beseeches God step-by-step. The children probably don’t know of his intellectual doubts, they know he cares and loves. Yes, his little beloved ones love that vivid, feet-on, mouth-repeating habit. Do it again, Grampa.

How could anyone forget the beauty of being thus mindful? Such stories, endearing intimate family rituals are like stairs to the stars.

As I came down our own stairs yesterday, only hours away from visiting my grandkids, the living ritual came alive for me.

Get the book for the stories and the heart.

This book left me feeling hopeful, comforted and full of love. It inspired me to continue to look for Love wherever I might find it. To not be so preoccupied by my disbelief, or the more troublesome lingering flickers of belief, but to look for love, to give love and to see truth in beauty, in the world, in the faces of those we love and yes even in liturgy.

Frank’s signature honesty is what draws me to his writing every time. I have never read a book of his that I didn’t, at some point, laugh out loud, read a passage out loud to my husband, or say audibly to no one in particular, “Yes! Exactly!”

This book felt like a warm hug from an older, much smarter brother saying, “it’s ok, I understand, don’t give up and don’t fake it.”

While I have many times given up on the faith of my childhood what still draws me back is the hope that behind the unbelievable story is a story that just might be true, that I hope is true. One of love and meaning and connection. For that story and that truth, Frank has inspired me to carry on in my own path of doubt, faith and the search for meaning with unbending honesty.

I am an Atheist.

It is hard to put a date on when that happened. After decades in the Christian faith, it is a little fuzzy to try to pinpoint where amid my years of liberalizing Christianity, to broad Theism and Agnosticism, finally settled into Atheism.

During those transition years, I read a few books and articles by Frank and enjoyed catching him on various TV and radio interviews. Though I felt he might be overly harsh at times, I could completely relate to his religious upbringing and his rejection and critique of American Evangelicalism.

Now that I am on the Atheistic side of the theism divide, I found his new book title to be intriguing. For the most part, I am happy to be out of church life; but I know and have met Atheists who wish they could still keep a foot in religious waters or they HAVE to due to family constraints. Was Frank now an Atheist who still liked religious teachings and hoped for an after-life? If so, what has been his experience navigating between these worlds?

That is not what I found. Frank is still very fixed in his theism and the use of Atheism in the title is a bit of a misnomer.

Let me state upfront that I like Frank. He is an honest writer. His desires, hangups, contradictions, frustrations, and passions are all laid out in this book. He is an engaging wordsmith and there would probably be little difference between reading the book and sitting down with him at the pub for a beer.

When he writes of his thoughts and experiences, he gives you the good, the bad, and the ugly. There is no pretense in his writing. One thing age and experience have obviously bestowed upon him is honesty.

When Frank was telling of his former and present religious experiences, he had me. Pages flew by.

However, as an Atheist, I kept getting hit by buckets of cold water. Frank sets forth a proposition in his book and it is this: Religious Fundamentalism sits on one side of his religious sweet spot, and Atheism sits on the other. Atheism is simply the co-evil twin of religious fundamentalism. He occasionally tries to back pedal from that premise and give some Atheists some credit; but it is clear Atheism brings to Frank a frustrated eye-roll.

Which makes me wonder what prompted the use of the term Atheist in his title. He may be a theist who wavers on his opinion of who or what god is. He may be unclear as to whether humanity survives beyond the point of death, but none of those questions have anything to do with Atheism.

Again and again, Frank went after Atheists throughout the book. That itself was not a problem. If we merely disagreed on conclusions, that would have been fine. However each time seemed to stem from a misunderstanding of the Atheist perspective... and I found myself giving a frustrated eye-roll.

I tried to give grace on those passages. I can't be too frustrated with Frank for not understanding the Atheist perspective... he is not an Atheist. Every commentary he gives on Atheism is made from within the theist framework. It is like the theist lives on a planet Atheists have left. When we look in our rear-view mirror, we now see that planet as one pinpoint of light among a myriad of others... but the theist still references our position as if we are looking at their sky.

So do I recommend the book? Yes, I enjoyed it. If you are a liberal Christian or SBNR, you will probably love it. If, like me, you are an Atheist who came from a conservative religious background there is probably a lot here for you to enjoy... and you will get a good peek into how liberal Christianity tends to view Atheism. I have heard authors like Rob Bell and Brian McLaren echo similar sentiments.

I highlighted and noted a lot in this book, both in frustration and agreement... and occasionally just because I wanted to mull over a thought again later. In the end, isn't that what a good book should cause you to do?

I wanted to read this both because the author is so interesting & the provocative title. As a committed agnostic, I struggle at times to express my wonder & awe at this amazing universe. My heart fills - like the author's - with joy & love & hope. Schaeffer has provided a new way to look at those feelings that doesn't require me to be gullible or irrational. This is a wonderful, hopeful, human book. Reading it is like a long weekend with your favorite smart uncle. Read it, savor it, then read it again. I did & I'm happier for it.

I was fortunate to receive a digital review copy of this book and was engrossed from the first paragraph. Mr. Schaeffer has an engaging writing style. It seemed the book was like one of his paintings, with the subject his life journey so far and his words the paint. He writes as if having a real conversation with a good friend.

Mr. Schaeffer is Eastern Orthodox and writes from a “progressive” Christian outlook. It seems this faith perspective allows him to openly explore doubts about God, hence the atheist slant. I find this point of view interesting, and his honesty refreshing. Even as he draws from the insight of others, his own thoughts and voice are clearly communicated. I felt as if he was saying, “This is how I am and operate in the world, a product of my particular time and circumstances. You probably will not change my mind, but neither will I try to change yours. Let's talk (and argue!)!”

This was, from start to finish, a very enjoyable read.

I was drawn into this book from the opening words. Frank has such a breezy and compelling way of writing, and the book ended far too soon. He writes with such painful honesty, yet with such liberating freedom. His first hand accounts of interacting with the life of Jesus - and what that might mean for our understanding of spirituality - were breathtaking. I also took away a handful of memorable quotes that are now posted on my bulletin board. I highly recommend this book!

Schaffer is taking advantage of the fact that atheism has no actual beliefs, no hierarchy of leadership, no doctrine, nor dogma upon which to subscribe, and thus no structure of authority from which to call out his disingenuous, misleading and fraudulent exploitation of the concept and nature of atheism. Atheism is a lack of belief in god(s), pure and simple, and Schaffer does not seem to even understand what atheism is, much less be an atheist himself, much less be even remotely qualified to wax philosophically about what other atheists believe, how they live their lives, and where they find meaning (hint: he doesn't think they do).

His book is not about atheism, and neither does he have any sort of firm grasp on the concept. It's a catchy marketing ploy to make money while he spams pages of uninspiring dribble about mundane family matters, and occasionally promote his wholly unoriginal, new-agey pseudo philosophy, which is basically liberal christianity in a plain brown envelope. Anybody can do this. And anybody could publish a piece of trash like this and pretend. I encourage others to try it. For it's unlikely they could do as poorly as "Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God" by Frank Schaeffer.

Needs a dictionary to see what atheist means. Wants to be an atheist and and agnostic a d a believer at the same time.
A largely incoherent position.
Two stars for honesty ( though imo deluded ) approach. Has moved a long way from his father's religious nuttery- needs to hear further out. Can't have cake and eat it also

As I sit here clutching the index cards scribbled with near-indecipherable notes (reading books electronically is not conducive to old-school margin writing), there’s a sense of wonder at this glimpse of pieces of one man’s journey of discovery. Wonder, because it captures a truth and sets free “The” (capital ‘t’ intended) truth to expand like the universe in which it was written.

A confession: on my bookshelves sits my 30-year-old hardcover copy of the author’s Bad News for Modern Man, shelved between the copies of his mother’s L’Abri and the five-volume Complete Works of Francis Shaffer, his father. I am not sure where to put this new one. Does it belong there, as a kind of evolutionary lesson? Or should it be among the philosophy, edged up with Victor Frankel’s Man’s Search for Meaning? Would the C.S. Lewis or Tolkien collections welcome a neighbor? Or should it live with the Dan Brown and Frederick Buechner (never mind why those are catalogued together)?

Maybe I will have to wait for the book itself to decide. Maybe it will move from shelf to shelf, as I once moved from table to table in kindergarten – only, eventually, to be strong-armed into one chair by an exasperated maidenly teacher. Or maybe, to borrow from the author’s riff on The Big Lebowski, this book will “flee from exclusionary certainty” . . . or, likely, I will end up with multiple copies distributed to thinking and faith-filled friends.

Let’s just say I liked this book, probably for all the wrong reasons. Or – more likely – for the resonance and honesty with which Schaeffer recognizes that we are all apiece of our many pieces. It is a faith-filled narrative that engages deep consideration of religion, family, community, and the solitary. It is a challenge to complacent acceptance and a confirmation of what just might be glimpsed around the corner of a soul.

What it is not is a textbook treatment of religion, atheistic, traditional or humanistic -- it is a story. And like all the best stories, it prompts us to consider our own.

There are bits that nag at my own sense of orthodoxy (why use a Jesus story from John 8 that is a disputed Canonical inclusion?), contains a bit of the smug recovering-evangelical (or insert your own religion/tradition here) – and simultaneously the best descriptor of communion imaginable in his telling of a single bite into a ripe tomato on a summer’s day.

It is full of a faith that is still growing, and a faith that has hope in the something-greater-than-ourselves that is (I believe) built into all who live and move and breathe. Maybe it does belong with the Buechner, who wrote in 1974 (Wishful Thinking):

“A religious book may not have any religion as such in it at all, but to read it is in some measure to experience firsthand what a religion book can only tell about. A religion book is a canvas. A religious book is a transparency. With a religious book it is less what we see in it than what we see through it that matters…. The attempt to be religious is as doomed as the attempt to be poetic. Thus in the writing, as in the reading, a religious book is an act of grace—no less rare, no less precious, no less improbable.”

Schaeffer’s book, by that reckoning, is an act of grace, penned by a would-be atheist who ultimately understands the integrity of faith.

I think the reviewed above hit the nail on the head when warning that paradox lay ahead. This book is about coming to terms with the fact that we, as humans, can survive with paradox, even as our rational minds struggle with that fact. It is about understanding that life experience yields contradictions, but only because our minds and hearts are predisposed to putting things in particular boxes and orders, and those very things are under no obligation to fit into our boxes and orders.

It is a tale of hope and inspiration as much FROM its conflicts as in spite of them.

Worth reading!

Frank Schaeffer has opened the door into a seemingly contradictory world of belief and unbelief. In “Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God,” Schaeffer takes us on a honest journey through his life as he reconciles his fundamentalist Christian upbringing through his current roles as an artist, a grandfather, a churchgoer and a skeptic. In each of these roles, he lets us sit beside him as he sorts out the depth and meaning of these experiences. As a younger man, he rejected his fundamentalist background and the pendulum swung the other direction into atheism. He now straddles the fence on knowing that God does not exist while at the same time appreciating the unexplainable god-like mysteries that come from creating art, loving people, or appreciating beauty in it's many forms. Schaeffer is trying to make us look at ourselves and see those thing that makes life worth living. Although valid, he wants us to look beyond the evolutionary science explanations of life and accept the human need for beauty, love and peace. He also recognizes that the biblical explanation of life and God are mostly a failure. Schaeffer does, however, points to some specific teachings and examples of Jesus' life of what God is like. He writes, “Jesus' co-suffering love is the best lens through which to reconsider God or at least to reconsider ourselves.” This book challenges its reader to reconsider ourselves as human beings and helps us appreciate our present place in this existence. This book poses interesting questions and could bridge the gap of dialogue between both Christians and atheists. If you have been on both sides of that fence, this book will open your eyes to a different and possibly a more mature perspective.

"Why I am an Atheist who believes in God" is written in a very dialogical, vulnerable, and honest fashion. Frank invites his readers on a journey through his experiences and thoughts. This book will take you on journey through Frank's experiences with his mother's death, his 'providential' encounters with strangers, and his reflections on his own life. It is in that context that Frank will raise 'an issue' or a topic. Schaeffer will invite you to see the world through his eyes, which may be challenging, but worth it; if not for any other reason but to empathize with a fellow human being who is processing life, faith, and non-faith out-loud in this book.

In the course of reading Frank's work over some 25 years, I've seen him explore all manner of territory, say all sorts of blunt and wickedly hilarious things, and kick over more than a few sacred cows. The title thus makes perfect sense - and if it seems self-contradicting, well... that's sort of the point.

In many ways, this book reads as a follow-on to Frank's recent book (and a favorite of mine) *Patience With God: Faith For People Who Don't Like Religion (Or Atheism)". Here, he explores many of the same themes: the marks left by a fundamentalist upbringing (one that was weird and displaced in so many other ways); the paradoxical nature of faith, and of life in general; and the sacredness found in family, work, and everyday life. What takes this book a step beyond *Patience* isn't just the fresh batch of grandkid stories (lots of them, and endearing ones at that). Frank the writer is in full free-swinging mode throughout this book; he writes with liberal doses of sarcasm and blunt, wicked humor, cut with tenderness and open affection for the subjects of his stories. Frank truly wears his heart on sleeve in this book.

And you have to love a writer who can pivot neatly from stories of random airplane meetings with opera singers, to profane phone chats with atheist screenwriters; who can give us beautiful descriptions of Greek Orthodox liturgy by way of *The Big Lebowski*;and who can draw a straight line from his mom's nightly prayers to a four-year-old girl's assessments of Bible stories (Jonah & the Whale = fiction, Gospel stories of Jesus = real). As Frank sums up, "I don't view my embrace of opposites as a kind of agnosticism. I view it as the way things actually *are*." After reading this book, it's hard to argue with him - and hard not to reply "Amen."

I received an advance copy and read with deep appreciation. There are lines that inspire and lines that make you kind of laugh out loud and lines that you think, "God, I wish I had written that." Throughout it all, there is a way of thinking that is liberating, especially for those who grew up with the certainty that comes from a way of thinking about religion, the only cure for which is a new faith. I liked this book. I recommend it without reservation.

This author is not an atheist. He has simply given up fundamentalism for the liberal Christianity that so many people have. His title is completely dishonest. He doesn't seem to be very educated in critical thinking in the scientific and skeptical methods. For example, he says he likes to think that God is love and love started the Big Bang. Love is an emotion made by sentient living beings. How could love start the Big Bang? I finished reading it just to see how it is that he thinks, since many people do think like him. Most of the book is about how much he loves his family and grandchildren and he goes on and on about this. He seems to imply that atheists can't feel awe, appreciate the arts or love. He knows nothing about atheism or the "New Atheists" that he critiques.

I won't be reading this author again.

Reading Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God: How to give love, create beauty and find peace I am left wondering whether or not it was the author’s intent to convince people of the value of Christ’s teachings or whether it was to simply turn interested potential believers away from most people who believe in Christ.

Frank Schaeffer is an interestingly conflicted fellow, smitten with his personal relationships, with art, music, with the Enlightenment and with the teachings of Christ—in that order, it seems. While he does attend Church, there is no evidence in his book here, that negates who he says he is, an atheist who happens to attend to and to cherish the teachings, if not the divinity of Jesus Christ. He is an apparent political leftist who writes a book that is perhaps only a little less interesting and yet a bit more confusing than he is himself. As a Catholic I can understand Schaeffer’s limited view of Christianity; as an engineer (scientist) I can also understand Schaeffer’s desire to precede any public judgements with wisdom he can honestly say that he knows for sure. So to begin with one of his more maieutic statements:

“My brain is not evolved enough to reconcile the collision of my genetic imperative with transcendent experience. My brain recognizes but can’t explain how love and beauty intersect with the prime directive of evolution: survive. Nor can I reconcile these ideas: ‘I know that the only thing that exists is this material universe,’ and ‘I know that my redeemer liveth.’”

These are the twin lighthouses around which Schaeffer seems to steer his own life. One of these he questions, the other unfortunately, he does not. On one hand there is the richness of the words and teachings of Christ, expressions of art (religious or not), which inform much of what he does and thinks about the world; on the other, is the singular impersonal, cynical (and I would say irrelevant) lesson learned from Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species—that life is about survival—which does not inform him so much as place a limit on his personal philosophy.

The problem with such a philosophy is that one can conflate an occasion of sin, misunderstanding, human limitation or error (or all of them together) with not being evolved. One can also do this with goodness too, calling oneself "enlightened" or "evolved". The atheist risks vanity about virtue or obtuseness to immoral things. Schaeffer appears close-minded, but he has personally, it seems more than enough self-awareness to avoid these perils in his own life. He has a well-developed sense of right and wrong. Very interesting is that while he questions his faith in God, with whom he has many disagreements (the God of the Old Testament particularly), he does not seek to question what he might call “Enlightenment” such as the ill-effect of biological evolution on his own very personal philosophy.

Not surprisingly, Schaeffer’s essential Christianity begins with the teachings of Christ, for whom he shows great respect. To find a version of Christian love that he approves after Christ, however, we need to advance in time more than 1600 years to the age of Enlightenment. In a strange way, Schaeffer separates enlightened events like the founding of America and her constitution from religion entirely and associates it with secular advancements in thinking related to seeing, once and for all, “the hypocrisy of the establishment Church.” It was not the Church herself, which advanced at all, you see. In Schaeffer’s view it was rather a spontaneous reaction against the Church that happened to create a better world. In the same breath, Schaeffer moralizes that the enlightenment happened despite the teachings of the Church, and yet he gives the Church no credit for holding and maintaining those teachings over the centuris. Drawing a strange metaphor, he writes the “humanist Enlightenment was a catalyst for Jesus’ empathy time bomb, the message of inclusion for the excluded.”

So oft repeated, it is difficult to take Schaeffer’s ideas about inclusion and exclusion seriously, especially given his open hostility to Christian churches and to many Christians, including his own parents (whom he loved) as “deluded.” He is hung-up on the absurdity of doctrine, but here he is producing a book with ideas in it, which, let us not doubt, he hopes people will adopt.

Still, Schaeffer makes a reasonable case for going to Church regularly, and he makes at least a half-hearted attempt, I suppose, to admonish more militant atheists from entirely dismissing the religions, though he does lump religion in with other potential God-experiences, such as could be found in yoga or walks in the woods.

In one of his more far-fetched statements, he essentially dismisses all of Christian history until the last century. “Two millennia after Jesus taught, Christ-like change is beginning to infuse the world at many levels more widely than ever before.” Then he does what to some degree he accuses the religious of doing, ignoring the teachings of Christ. “So why does it seem that so many Christians still fail to grasp the essential truth of our faith: inclusion and justice?” Indeed, is it easy for Schaeffer to see the liberation of women and slaves (and perhaps the now inchoate gay ascendancy) as products of the Enlightenment; probably much more difficult is for him to see the Enlightenment as a product of medieval times: St. Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus and St. Francis of Assisi. Is Schaeffer so short-sighted to miss 1620 years of Christian history, and to reduce the high-minded aspirations of Christians to inclusion and justice? What about love and salvation, peace and joy?

On the whole he takes priests to task for having too many sexual hang-ups, and he criticizes the Church for being exclusive, for not permitting or encouraging gay marriage and for condoning restricting access to contraceptives. He overlooks many Christian virtues—most of them, in fact—not already associated with modern political correctness.

Confusing at times, Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God does make a reasonable case for the teachings of Christ informing a soul, and for the soul so informed becoming a better person and for that better person improving the world in which he lives—an elegant logic lost on too many people these days. The author also respects that human beings can improve through such God-experiences, if they want to, and that they should want to do so. As unusual it is for an atheist to send a message to other atheists that they should think about church, God and Jesus Christ, I’m all for it. It is reasonable to assume that if atheists were to come to church under these pretenses, but with at least as open a mind as Schaeffer has, they might gain personally from the God-experience at least as much as he has.

I first corresponded with Frank Schaeffer in 2009. We share a common background, having grown up overseas as MK's (missionary kids), and I was familiar with his writings from the 1980s and his father's work in the 1970s. After learning he had moved away from his evangelical and fundamentalist upbringing (my parents were evangelical, though not fundamentalists), I started to read his "God" trilogy (CRAZY FOR GOD, PATIENCE WITH GOD, SEX MOM AND GOD) where he criticizes religious fundamentalism like a contemporary Kierkegaard. Finding more common ground, I wrote him a letter that he published on his blog Jan 4, 2010. A few months ago he offered to send me an advanced copy of his new book, WHY I AM AN ATHEIST WHO BELIEVES IN GOD: HOW TO GIVE LOVE, CREATE BEAUTY AND FIND PEACE, and asked if I would review it. Detailed reviews have been written, so I will try a different approach.

Life is about stories and Schaeffer is a writer of stories ("All we have is our stories"). He shares stories about people, family, friends, art, and relationships as the background for his spiritual doubts and beliefs. He is a kind of contemporary Rudolph Otto (IDEA OF THE HOLY, 1917), appealing to spiritual experience that can't be reduced to rational explanation, like the ballerina who was asked what she was trying to say in her dancing: "If I could tell you, I wouldn't be dancing." Schaeffer experiences God and the spiritual in relationships: when his granddaughter looks at him with unconditional honest trust, when he reads her a book, when his wife forgives him for something he did, when she smiles at the flowers he gave her, when he paints, when he sheds a tear remembering a close friend who died (and inspired the second half of the title of this book), when he exchanges life stories with an opera singer on a plane, when he listens to Bach, Ellington, Mahler and Miles, when he's just relaxing with family doing nothing in particular.

His book may be too religious for some and too secular for others. Or maybe it's what one comparative literature scholar said when asked where he stood on an issue: "In between." Schaeffer often seems to stand "in between" and not always able "to reconcile the collision of [his] genetic imperative with transcendent experience", or the material and spiritual universes where his "brain recognizes but can't explain how love and beauty intersect with the prime directive of evolution: survive." Yet that's where the stories he writes about emerge. It's in between, in relationship ("we are our relationships") where our lives are touched and have meaning, and where the spiritual aspect of life resides.

In his book, REAL PRESENCES (1989), literary critic George Steiner says that a transcendent reality grounds all genuine art and human communication. Without God there can be no real art and meaning, no love, no creativity and no metaphor. Schaeffer's book reinforces this: "If there were no spiritual side to us, there would be no sense of loss when the material universe intrudes on our happiness." "In other words we are spiritual creatures in a material world no matter how we label ourselves or believe or don't believe."

In her book POETIC CLOSURE (1968), Barbara Herrnstein Smith says that "Art inhabits the country between chaos and cliché." Zeami, the 14th century Japanese Noh dramatist and aesthetic critic, said that art rests somewhere between reality and non-reality. Schaeffer seems to write from a similar position, on the fence as it were, thumbing his nose at the certainty of both sides, yet realizing that his own position, where faith trumps religion, is in flux. He doesn't, however, view his embrace of opposites as a kind of agnosticism. "An agnostic neither believes nor disbelieves in God. I'm not that person. I believe and don't believe at the same time."

In his book PENSÉES, Pascal said that "skeptics are rarely skeptical about their own skepticism," and "there has never really been a complete skeptic." He also said that "contradiction is not a mark of falsehood, nor is the absence of contradiction a mark of truth." Schaeffer writes: "You will always embody contradiction." His awareness of his own inconsistency and vulnerability is expressed when he says, "if I change my mind someday, choose to think in black and white categories and become a single-minded atheist, I'll bet the first thing I'll do is ask God to help me forget him, her, or it." Schaeffer would also embrace Pascal's famous words, "The heart has reasons, of which reason knows nothing," and the following quotes: "There is no mind-set in respect of consciousness and of `reality' which does not make at least one leap into the dark (the 'a priori') of the unprovable" (George Steiner), and "You must trust the universe in one respect even in order to condemn it in every other" (C. S. Lewis), and "Temporal life can never properly be understood precisely because I can at no instant find complete rest in which to adopt a position: backwards" (Kierkegaard).

Schaeffer searches for a way to go beyond categories: "Maybe we need a new category other than theism, atheism or agnosticism that takes paradox and unknowing into account". Yet he knows that no category will ever suffice, so he looks elsewhere.

Schaeffer looks to Jesus' life as one that destroys categories and boundaries, the "one defense against the rising, worldwide, fear-filled fundamentalist tide engulfing all religions (including the intolerant religion of the New Atheists) that had once engulfed [him]: the embrace of paradox and uncertainty as the virtuoso expression of love." "Jesus built what I think of as an empathy time bomb," Schaeffer writes. "Essentially Jesus said: To hell with mere survival, choose to evolve into a new and better animal! What Jesus triggered was an inexorable shift to a higher level of ethics that eventually changed the trajectory of human history. Love, fairness, opportunity, freedom and goodness eventually begin to trump mere survival and brute power."

Schaeffer asks: "Is there a frame of reference relative to which we can define not just the motion of all things but the experience of reality, even our meaning?" I recall the French philosopher Sartre who said that "no finite point has meaning without an infinite reference point." Maybe Schaeffer is trying to say what Jesus embodied all along, that love is our only and infinite reference point. The most famous biblical verse is all we need: "God is love." It's ok to embrace paradox and uncertainty because it is love that gives us meaning in all of our relationships. "All You Need is Love," John Lennon said, and, as the song "Nature Boy" says, "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." Remembering the book title, Schaeffer is giving love, creating beauty and finding peace.

This work is a refreshingly honest look at faith. Thank you Frank Schaeffer for writing the thoughts that many of us are already thinking on a Sunday morning in the pews. In the same way that this book shares atheism and faith, meaning and meaninglessness, you will find yourself with an unsettling comfort as you read through his writings...and if you can live in that tension, Schaeffer invites you to experience the beauty and love of life and perhaps find God in the midst.

I am really excited about this book. Having grown up in the church and having a number of friends who no longer ascribe to the teachings of the church I find it really neat that Frank is willing to write about these ideas and that as the title says is "an atheist who believes in God." There are few authors who are willing to discuss the grappling of these ideas. We often live in a divided world, either you totally believe or you totally don't. I find it refreshing that Frank discusses the middle land.

Having grown up in a Christian evangelical household (not quite so in-my-face publicly as Frank, though aware of his family and read one of his mother's books and liked it, also one of his father's and liked it!)I always questioned their religious stand in my own mind, but hey-ho! I just went along with it, unlike my children who rebelled completely at various points in their lives! Later, as they left home I moved more to the left, still going to church like Frank. So I empathise and agree with a lot of what he says in this book. The difference is that his own children and grandchildren seem to be happy for him to pray with them, and talk about the Bible etc, whereas for my children its a no-no, and now that I have grandchildren I am wondering how to deal with talk of religion in any context!

Frank Schaeffer bares his soul in his latest paradoxical and thought provoking book. From spilling his wine on a famous opera singer while seated on an airplane or writing about religious beliefs, Jesus, sex or the Bible, he does so with humor and honesty.
Thank God Frank fled the evangelical scene some twenty years ago or we would not have these insightful books. Today's evangelist stands on his head and claps his feet spouting prosperity gospel. To some, Schaeffer may cause pain because of dispelling myths but it is an enlightening commentary. Like he says, '...maybe we need a new category other than theism, atheism or agnosticism.' This is one book you should not miss.

Ken Wilbur

I'm sure it was a good product. However, unlike all my other the store purchases, I never received this. I tried and tried, and apparently the transaction was completed otherwise I wouldn't be getting this request for a review. I'd still like to read this book. Can someone find out why it didn't come through for me?

For those who love and are challenged by Frank Schaeffer, this is a perfect book. A great mixture of autobiography and theology, it at once challenges and invites. For me the continued drawing back to a Biblical Jesus held in tension with the rest of the Bible (maybe particularly some of the writings of Paul) is worth the whole read. It is so easy to assume that all the New Testament is of one mind. Meanwhile, Schaeffer makes it OK for an Atheist to see glimmers of God and for a Christian to wrestle with doubt, and for us all to confront ourselves -- and for that to be OK too.

I very much enjoyed franks latest book, and found myself over and again drawn into his stories. Refreshingly honest in his confessions (which also brought big smiles as I recognized my own humanness), and full of hope as he paints pictures of pure love and beauty.
'Our best hope is not found in correct theology, the Bible or any other book, but in the love we express through action rather than words.' Indeed an incredibly relevant message for the times we find ourselves in where we'll do wrong things for the sake of right belief.

I’ve read all of Frank Schaeffer’s books. I first read his memoir, Crazy for God, and I was hooked! I was raised a fundamentalist Mennonite and then attended a fundamentalist Bible College in my 20’s. I was well aware of the writings of Frances and Edith Schaeffer. It was rather amazing to later read their son’s writings and reflections on his upbringing and his journey of faith. I found myself relating to his writings in many ways.
This recent book, Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God: How to give love, create beauty and find peace, describes how one person makes peace with the ambiguities of life. It is written with humor, intelligence and great storytelling.
“I don’t view my embrace of opposites as a kind of agnosticism. I view it as the way things are,” writes Frank Schaeffer. Yes, how true! Bravo Frank Schaeffer for writing such an honest, open and thoughtful book on the theology of “Not Knowing”. It is deeply appreciated and I highly recommend this book to the person looking to make peace with the pain of a fundamentalist past or to the person wanting a sense of intelligent spirituality in their lives.

Provocative titles demand attention, and hype is usually leveraged to transform that attention into a sale. This book has no need for provocation or hype yet deserves the benefit of both.

In-between devout religious communities and unreserved non-religious communities, you will find a perplexing vacuum of personal identity. - a social "no-man's land" - Even though some individuals seem to be well equipped to survive and even thrive in that environment, most find it frightening - resembling a personal prison where personal beliefs (or non-beliefs) put them at risk of alienation from loved ones, employers, and friends alike. ... enter "Why I Am An Atheist Who Believes In God"... Frank stands up in the midst of the vacuum, willingly makes his presence known, and talks about faith in ways that most will not.

In this book, Frank Schaeffer adds a strong voice to a very important conversation. In divulging the hopes, dreams, discoveries, and failures that make up his unique personal faith, Frank invites the world to a cup of coffee and conversation and essentially says, "The first round is on me." The book is as comfortable being simplistic and raw as it is complex and heady, and it bounds between the two without a hint of literary insecurity.

For the benefit of all, this is a conversation worth having, and thus, for many, this is a book worth reading.

Grab a beer, a glass of wine, a cup of coffee and settle in your favorite chair to read Frank Schaeffer's latest offering.

"Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God" is a quick read, chapter to chapter you will be engrossed in Schaeffer's conversational style and his engaging stories. And it really is as though you have the chance to sit down with him and hear about his struggles, his joys, and his honest evaluation of his faith in a God that is difficult to comprehend.

This book may not change your life, it may not change your perspective, but you will find your own struggles in the Schaeffer's stories and you'll realize you are not alone as you grapple with your own identity as a child of God.

Frank Schaeffer has done something remarkable with his new book.

Honesty.

When you experience raw and uncompromising honesty it is a strange sensation. It is like when I used to be an oyster fisherman and would see the sun rising over a glass sea, leaving me breathless. Or then the next morning being tossed around on violent waves struggling to see ahead because of the wind and rain. Nature is an honest force that when in the midst of it leaves you in no uncertainty about what it is about and your place within it. Honesty has a habit of doing that to us.

Throughout this book Frank, it seems to me, is being honest. And his honesty is refreshing.

We are taken on a narrative journey of life within faith, love and loss where Frank describes his innermost thoughts, the complexity of relationships, the contradiction of faith and the desire to love and receive love.

In many ways this book is a piece of art more than it is words on a page. As I read it I saw pictures and scenes that were seeking to subvert the way we see the world. Good art challenges the way we see the world, subverts the perceived reality and paints a picture of honesty. Whilst we may not agree with all that the artist is seeking to portray, we can at least discover something that has been hidden from us that needs to be exposed.

As I read Frank's book I was aware of a piece of art unfolding before me. I may not understand every brush stroke and colour and why they are where they are, but as I stand back and view it I see a picture of honesty, an unveiling of things hidden because of such honesty and ways to perceive the Divine spark in each of us. As I read it I felt as though Frank continued to believe in this spark, believed Jesus might still be the One who could fan that spark into flame and that love, not doctrine, might just redeem all things.

Frank is holding before him the experiences and relationships of his life and grappling with how all these things relate to a life of belief and unbelief. What he says is raw towards all people whatever their belief system, and yet generous to those who seek a life beyond their narcissistic desires.

Some will find it offensive and heretical, and there will be evangelicals particularly who will struggle with his view of Scripture. I suspect too that some atheists will equally have a problem for the same reasons in that they will wonder why he still goes to church. But if people can read this as a piece of art, stand back and look at the bigger picture beyond doctrine and belief systems, as an honest expression of life lived with all its pain, joy, mistakes, fears, doubts, faith and love, then you may possibly discover a book that will tap into your heart and soul in surprising ways.

If you are looking for a book that explains the meaning of life. This may or may not be the book for you. Frank Schaeffer challenges both atheist and fundamentalist world views in his book. Some people will find this a bit of a contradiction but I think it will also resonant with a lot of people who believe in God or do not believe in God depending on the day and their mood. In the end the question of whether or not God exist maybe irrelevant. Beauty, love and inner peace are transcendent and spiritual in a way that will never be explained by science. Religion will never explain the the physical world the way science can. In the end belief comes to being honest enough to admit that not everything can be explained. An atheist who believes in God might seem contradictory but to quote the poet Walt Whitman "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes." Full disclosure I was given an advance copy for review purposes.

Frank Schaeffer manages to do it again by creating an entertaining memoir of sacred and profane: parallel realities in Schaeffer's world. Disparaging kitschy evangelical tropes of absolute certainty, Schaeffer sculpts for the reader an image of God hammered out on the bas relief of faith and faithlessness. Definitely a third-option alternative for those who no longer hold to the absolutism of left or right.

If you are one of many children who grew up with evangelical parents, and still feel lost, you might rediscover yourself within the pages of this book. Frank Schaeffer understands what you've been through as he refreshes your thoughts (without the guilt) to a clear path of spiritual satisfaction.

Frank Schaeffer brilliantly describes the path that people like me follow when we don't believe/do believe, and want to believe. Like Schaeffer, I continue on my path in the doing, by attending Mass as a Roman Catholic. I may not believe exactly as they teach, but I find my connection there, and it works for me. A great book for those who are trying to find their own path.

Perhaps you are tired of us/them language. Perhaps you feel torn between longing for meaning and pursuing knowledge. Perhaps you feel like there must be a middle ground between pretending to have all of the answers and ignoring the questions that matter. If you feel you have been waiting for a guide to that middle ground, read this book. "Why..." will encourage those who feel like spirituality has always required them to check their brains at the door, it will enlighten those who seek authentic truth, it will embolden those who see value in tradition and history yet strive for progress, and it will enrich all who are willing to step outside the confines of Western modern thought and consider a different kind of "truth" than they've been shown in either religious or secular culture. There is a place between the warring sides, and Frank Schaeffer has boldly built his home there. He invites us to join him in this no-man's-land with hope to make it an any-and-everyone's-land.

Absolutely fantastic book. The quest for certainty and absolutism in Christian faith are the most damaging and destructive forces that faith has known. Frank shows how uncertainty and doubt are not hindrances to faith but empowerments. For those who were brought up in a rigid faith where doubt was akin to blasphemy, Frank gives an excellent example of how not just to live with doubt but to thrive in it. This book is a must read.

In Why I Am an Atheist, Schaeffer brings his paradoxical and sometimes schizophrenic love-hate for religion to a new reconciliation he has not reached before in his writing. Previous books acknowledged the contradictions in his spiritual life and his acceptance of the incompatible elements. Patience with God: Faith for Those Who Don't Like Religion (or Atheism) expresses this acceptance most clearly in showing how fundamentalist dogma breeds angry ranting whether it's religious or atheist. Yet even that book didn't seem to have the inner peace that comes from moving beyond acceptance of contradictions to a transcendence of contradiction itself, a reconciliation of Self that comes from the realization that contradictions are different faces worn by the same Truth.

This book spends much less time dropping names or alluding to the royal houses of American Christianity than his previous memoirs do, a fact which pleased me as Schaeffer's previous frequent references to celebrity Christians seemed only to underscore his bitter longing for wanting to belong again while never wanting to be again the man who had belonged. I had to laugh--cynically and with a kind of almost-been-there, didn't-quite-do-that smirk--at his wry acknowledgment that leaving the establishment of Christian celebrities hasn't been any too good for his back pocket:

"My dogmatic declarations of faith once provided status, ego-stroking power over others and a much better income than I’ve ever earned since fleeing the Evangelical machine. Certainty made things simple, gave me an answer to every question and paid the bills."

People will pay good money to those who promote the party line in fresh packaging. When you can cut the certainty drug with ever new and exciting fillers and enhancers, you will always have a ready market who will pay good money for their next fix. Why I Am an Atheist is for people who have left behind the party line, have embraced uncertainty, and are beginning to experience a new certainty: that Truth exists beyond dogma, past religion or no religion, in an inner space where neither religion nor atheism exist but both are true.

I really loved this book and wished I had read it several years ago when I went through a crisis of faith. Of all of the authors I have read, Frank comes the closest to where I am on my journey. Some days it is easier to not believe than to believe for me and Frank addresses that with an honesty you just don't see most authors in the faith genre reveal.

If you are happy with your faith background and feel it answers all of your questions, you will not like this book. If you have had an overly legalistic past in church and are ready to quit for good then check this book out. It is a quick read and offers a new perspective on juggling faith and doubt in an honest way.

What is most telling about Frank Schaeffer's writing is his brutal honesty. Sometimes his words feel like a knock upside the head, but he so often says what others won't. His faith journey is raw and real. Sentences such as "We’re living in an acquisitive capitalist society that is fundamentally anti-family and fundamentally uncomfortable with just enjoying being human. We’d rather shop than live, acquire than love and stare into a screen than hold each other," made me angry because they were so honest and bold and I saw myself in those words. Meanwhile, other sentences like "Embracing paradox helped me discover that religion is a neurological disorder for which faith is the only cure" made me smile also because of the truth nestled within them.

Schaeffer is simultaneously a realist and a mystic who fully embraces his humanity and the dilemma of living in a natural world with supernatural desires. He states "I also believe that the spiritual reality hovering over, in and through me calls me to love, trust and hear the voice of my Creator. It seems to me that there is an off-stage and an on-stage quality to my existence. I live on-stage, but I sense another crew working off-stage. Sometimes I hear their voices singing in a way that’s as eerily beautiful as the off-stage chorus in an opera."

Keep listening to the off-stage voices Frank, and teach us how to hear them... As they say at the opera "Bravo."

Atheist: "a person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods:"
How can I trust an author who doesn't understand the definition of the topic about which he's writing?
That said, I'm really looking forward to Mr. Schaeffer's next book: "Why I am a Vegan Who Eats Steak".

Why....is the first book I've read of Frank's and I look forward to more. I must say every time I had some ambiguity as I read it was thoroughly satisfied. The mystery of his thought process is no different than the "mystery of Christ". The challenge to admit we don't have all the answers is refreshing. I found a peace in my soul when I joined Frank in the search for understanding.....complex, paradoxical, sometimes seemingly non-sensical but wrapped in simplicity and clarity. I understood the idea of practical atheism and faith interacting among the transparency and love of family. I appreciated Frank's debunking of American Exceptionalism just as Jesus would have done if he lived today.

Just finished reading this and that darn Frank has filled my mind with more questions, doubts, and uncertainties...and for this I am thankful. For those of us in our second half of life who grew up with western evangelical dogma this book will feel like a sweet affirmation of what we are starting to feel stirring in our souls but can't quite put words to. This book points us to Love.

Frank Schaeffer’s new book speaks to a lot of people who want to believe in something bigger than themselves but cannot believe in the God sitting in judgment over them on a throne in the sky. Frank escaped the fundamentalist teachings of his parents but doesn’t want to give it all up. What’s a person to do? If your Frank Schaeffer you go to church. Frank likes the ritual of church. The music, the prayers, the fellowship. All those things that make us aware of God being in us. He has found a way to live in this imperfect world and yet still love and worship the God in us all. Frank has broken the curse of the 7th generation and is teaching his grandchildren a better way to Love God. Of all Franks books this is my favorite.

One of my favorite Elvis Costello songs is titled "All This Useless Beauty", and this is the phrase that Frank Schaeffer's book "Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God" brings to mind. This is a book it seems like you have to live a couple of lifetimes to write, but Frank Schaeffer has managed to write it. I can't describe quite what this book is, because it refuses to present ideas which are not intimately bound in the flesh of the author. It isn't useful in the way that you would expect a book titled "Why I ..." to be, but it is beautiful.

This book is honest, not in the kind of practiced modesty that people often do, where they tell you two great things about themselves and one mildly bad one, so you know how great they are at everything including humility. This is a deep inside the skin honesty, and there is a determination to write from that place, and to write about God from that place.

The biggest impression this book has left on me is then not a wish to be like the amazing Frank Schaeffer, or a commitment to never be like the awful Frank Schaeffer, but marveling at a theology so deeply woven into the author's own history that it makes no sense in any other context.

I must be an atheist also, as I was quite impressed. I find my views on his beliefs coincided with mine also. I highly recommend reading as I learned how to put religion in perspective as I am sure it will do the same for you.

If any of you haven't read Frank Schaeffer's books, you are missing out. "Why I am an atheist who Believes In God" and "Crazy For God" are my two favorites. Very thought provoking books for people like myself who have a mind steeped in Evangelical Christianity.

With this opening title, it's apparent Mr. Schaeffer simply doesn't understand what an atheist is. He probably also thinks that vegetarians eat meat and virgins get laid daily.

Also to build on what this book is claiming...

1) "...whose love for his family, art and life trump the ugly theologies of an angry god and the atheist vision of a cold, meaningless universe." What I'm getting out of this is, "I haven't read the bible, although I bet god is really mean and hurts people real, real bad, but I don't like atheists either, because life is meaningless without god, so I'm going to pretend god is really nice and stuff."

2) "...only when we abandon our hunt for certainty do we become free to create beauty, give love, and find peace." Translation: Ignorance is bliss, you can't prove anything is true anyway, and facts are ugly and scary.

Is this the way anyone else is reading this? This book and line of reasoning is garbage, pure stupid garbage.

Honest as always, Frank does it again. His books consistently make me think, and always make me feel optimistic about the future of progressive thinkers. If you question main stream "religion", this book is for you.

I was drawn into this book from the opening words. Frank has such a breezy and compelling way of writing, and the book ended far too soon. He writes with such painful honesty, yet with such liberating freedom. His first hand accounts of interacting with the life of Jesus - and what that might mean for our understanding of spirituality - were breathtaking. I also took away a handful of memorable quotes that are now posted on my bulletin board. I highly recommend this book!

A poignant admission of the gut-wrenching doubts and triumphs people raised in a Christian tradition often face and wrestle with. While lovingly honoring his famous parents, he leads the reader on a lifetime's search for truth, while acknowledging the validity of the hard and dark questions that haunt all human beings.

The paradox of being both an atheist and believing in God as espoused in this book gave people like me hope! After disillusionment in religion I left and embraced atheism. This left the mystery and wonder from my life. This great book allowed me to embrace a new paradigm. Thank you Frank for another well written and relevant work!

The title alone could make one shake the head. And "How can this be the case?" was a constant question that I asked on almost every page. The subject matter was not at all hard to grasp. Schaeffer is very gifted at writing and communicating his thoughts. I consistently, struggled with the logical of several thoughts in his book. At one point, I actually asked him about it. He reminded me, through an email, of something he specifically mentions in the book: he changes his mind all the time and he may even change his mind on a few things after this book is published.

Beware: if you are comfortable with your faith or with your "no faith," Schaeffer will threaten your paradigm. His book is packed with down-to earth life. He invites you to take a look at his journey with his wife, children and grandchildren. Over every page, one cannot get past the utter honesty and humility that unfolds.

I resonant with Schaeffer, because of my frustration with the evangelical and even religious world. But somehow, like Schaeffer points out in his book, I just keep coming back. I appreciate Schaeffer's alluding to classics and arts to illustrate some points. Schaffer artistically crafts a work that shows us the importance of giving love, creating beauty and finding peace. At the end of the day, Schaefffer with his excellent examples, leads us to believe that that is what life is all about anyway.

Oh dear, I don't think I'm going to be able to finish this book. It is a like a special egg roll: a wrapper of beautiful prose around a well formed turd, deep fried in the oil of authentic emotional sunflowers and dipped in the sauce of clueless heresy. If is completely devoid of anything resembling an Orthodox phronema, and if that isn't bad enough, his own father, whom he has made a career of calling crazy, would have provided a solution to his dilemma. Francis Schaeffer created the brilliant apologetic called "blowing the roof off", but poor Franky is stuck between floors.

Again, Frank works his way to the heart of what it means to be human with Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God. Poetic, whimsical, endearing, full of insight and far too honest, the book slowly and beautifully unpacks the very paradox of human spirituality that is at once a cocktail of genes, chemicals, love and beauty. Frank has done it again. A spiritual guide and a must-read for atheists who still believe.

The title alone is enough to disqualify this book as worth reading. It makes as much sense as if it said, "Why my favorite hair color is bald." You cannot be an atheist and simultaneously believe in God, because that would make you a theist. He could have titled it, "Why I am Agnostic and Still Believe in God" and the title would make sense. The title for this book is a non sequitur, it makes no sense whatsoever, and it just serves to mislead people by furthering the misconception of what Atheism is.

Frank Schaeffer bares his soul in his latest paradoxical and thought provoking book. From spilling his wine on a famous opera singer while seated on an airplane or writing about religious beliefs, Jesus, sex or the Bible, he does so with humor and honesty.
Thank God Frank fled the evangelical scene some twenty years ago or we would not have these insightful books. Today's evangelist stands on his head and claps his feet spouting prosperity gospel. To some, Schaeffer may cause pain because of dispelling myths but it is an enlightening commentary. Like he says, '...maybe we need a new category other than theism, atheism or agnosticism.' This is one book you should not miss.

Ken Wilbur

Why....is the first book I've read of Frank's and I look forward to more. I must say every time I had some ambiguity as I read it was thoroughly satisfied. The mystery of his thought process is no different than the "mystery of Christ". The challenge to admit we don't have all the answers is refreshing. I found a peace in my soul when I joined Frank in the search for understanding.....complex, paradoxical, sometimes seemingly non-sensical but wrapped in simplicity and clarity. I understood the idea of practical atheism and faith interacting among the transparency and love of family. I appreciated Frank's debunking of American Exceptionalism just as Jesus would have done if he lived today.

I don’t recall ever reading anything by either Frank Schaeffer or his father, and in reading about this book have no interest in reading it either. Frank comes across as a person who is captive to our society’s fundamental values (“success,” wanting the limelight, etc.) and, therefore, not sharing the values attributed to Jesus in the (canonical) gospels. In addition, he seems to wallow in his personal concerns to the extent that he lacks knowledge of the fact that our species seems headed for extinction—by 2040 per Arctic climate scientist John B. Davies, by 2030 per ecologist Guy McPherson. Given that (strong) possibility, the question is: What sort of religion do we need now that would be appropriate for our current situation? I have tried to answer that question in, e.g., my Addressing Our Uncertain Future (https://archive.org/details/AddressingOurUncertainFuture_20140405).

An atheist who believes in god? Right! The whole premise is ludicrous. He is just hedging his bets. He doesn't "believe in" god, but, just in case, he prays? Hypocrisy. Grow a pair and admit your either believe or don't believe. Don't try to make money from this by writing a nonsense book.

Irony - a man who claims there is no objective truth in the universe expects you to purchase his book so he can tell you what the truth is, according to him.

If you give this man a dime, you are the sucker that PT Barnum referred to so famously - and happy birthday to you!

Frank is on both sides of most important issues. So there is something to tickle everyone, and you can get whatever you want out of it.

That sells books!

The first chapter was a hoot. Imagine this singer Camilla being on a cramped flight home and sitting right next to Frank. What a thrill it must have been for her! She got his whole life story. I can't imagine anything better to listen to Frank go on about it. She may have had her doubts, but by the time that flight was over I bet she was thanking God!

Oh, and buy some paintings while you are at it.

"WHY I AM AN ATHEIST WHO BELIEVES IN GOD . . . " is Frank Schaeffer's latest effort to write about himself, his seemingly inexhaustible muse. But in between all that are some of the loveliest stories that reveal what I like to call "the Hand of God" and also some tiniest glimpses of His Beautiful Face as seen in the human faces of Frank's "ever young" bride Genie, their granddaughter Lucy, a new friend, Camilla Tilling, whom Frank's deceased mother, Edith Schaeffer, and his possibly imaginary Friend, Jesus, sent him on a day when Frank needed them most, and even a very un-orthodox Orthodox martyred nun named Elizaveta Pilenko, "Mother Maria of Paris."

About Frank's heresy . . . ah who the hell cares? That's between Frank and his God, or Frank and himself, or Frank and whatever! Frank Schaeffer is my friend . . . and also my Brother in Christ Jesus . . . I'm pretty sure of both these things even though I don't "know" them to be true. How's THAT for paradox? As the subtitle to his new book describes, Frank has found a way to "Create Beauty, Give Love, and Find Peace." Good for him! Try doing that yourself before you criticize Frank too harshly. It ain't as easy to do as criticism is, now is it?

Thirty years ago . . . maybe even for all his life . . . Frank Schaeffer preferred to run with the secular humanists his father railed against, but he's been doomed by his mother's prayers NOT to be damned. Reading "WHY I AM AN ATHEIST WHO BELIEVES IN GOD" reminded me of stories about Christian missionaries who incorporated anything from within a "lost" culture that they could to try and reach the people who had never heard about Jesus Christ in order to offer them the Gospel in a way that they might understand. Frank apparently has articulated for himself . . . maybe the sole member of his lost tribe . . . the good news of a "Jesus" who can save him! For what it's worth, I think that he has succeeded.

Buy Frank's book . . . imperfect as it is . . . and if you want some real unadulterated beauty, also buy Frank's paintings. Therein, you'll find my friend's beautiful soul.

[Disclaimer: I received from the author a free advanced copy of this book with the request that I write an honest review for the store, which I have done.]

I found this book a fine read and challenging in a very intelligent and emotional dimension. No flaccid or mundane argumentation. I had a difficult time putting the book down! I have read through it at least 4 times now and appreciate this work more each time.

Having known Franky personally since the days when his first child was a mere toddler, I find it impossible to take his "atheism" as anything more than rebelliousness, selfishness and sour grapes. In Schaefferian fashion (FRANCIS Schaeffer Schaefferianism that is), I acknowledge that there can be beauty in Franky's artistic efforts despite the depravity of his mind. He can't escape the way God designed him any more than can any of us. But he's vehemently forgotten the lessons we all drew from the art his father analyzed for us in his films and lectures. Idolizing Franky's art (and enshrining it in that delusional 21st century "post-Christian" space that is somehow thought of as outside the realm of moral critique) is as much of a fallacy as placing anyone's personal views in the place reserved for Truth in our thinking. Franky seems comfortable leveraging the fame God gave his parents for his own pecuniary gain (and whatever internal gratification he craves). Ceci n'est pas un Abri, mon ami. The short, gimpy, balding truth of the matter is that Franky is just plain wrong in his thinking about God, the Church, and his own place in the history of his times.

I grew up Christian. I went to a catholic school. I was an altar boy. I read the bible, front to back, many times. In all of this time I had a very specific view of the "word of god" and what it says about how we should lead our lives and it is very very clear, lies and deception are not values in line with those teachings and taken to it's extreme will end you up on the wrong side of the maker's judgement.

An athiest is a very specific thing, a person who does not believe in God. Mr. Schaeffer is neither an Athiest or anything of the type. He is clearly a believer who is attempting another line of deception to counter Atheists. How is this ok? Doesn't the act of such obvious and poisonous deception further harm the very foundation of his belief? Are you not, by these very acts, showing that the belief is nothing but a cloak of many colors that you wear as you see fit, to further your own personal desires? This book titled and written with the clear intent to confuse and incite the less clear thinking of us to buy it in the hopes there might be some magical world where you can at once NOT believe and God but at the same time Believe?

If you wish for a fanciful journey into the soul of a deceiver then please by all means buy this book. Buf you are truly seeking truth then avoid it like the plague. It will do nothing more than corrode what sense of reason you still have.

I do understand his struggle with faith, I went through something like that. And you could take this book as a story about a guy that still doesn't know what to believe and has (maybe) decided to not go into further reasoning.
HE IS OBVIOUSLY NOT AN ATHEIST. He might be some sort of skeptic, but if he hasn't denied god completely, if he lead his day as if a god exists, if he says he's someone "who believes in God" he's not an atheist by definition! it's like saying he's a homosexual who's straight.
I get the idea he is trying to preach about god and he's just using the word "atheist" as a hook to bring humanists and seculars back into faith.

One might hope that this will be the last of Frank (a.k.a., Franky) Schaeffer's vicious attacks upon his parents and the ministry to which they devoted their lives. Apparently even his former publishers have grown weary of his repetitious and self-pitying prose, since he had to resort to self-publishing Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God.

Frank Schaeffer likes to think of himself as a talented movie maker, artist, and much more, who was never able to gain recognition because he had to use his talent to create the so-called "Religious (Evangelical) Right," that is responsible for the current imploding of the Republican Party. In fact, his talent is mediocre at best.

Read this book if you are wondering whatever happened to Franky Schaeffer? Otherwise, try one of the many good books on the shelf.

That line alone makes me unwilling to purchase or read this book. I am an atheist and I know hundreds of others who are atheist, humanist, agnostic, whatever title they choose to use, and not one of them has a vision of a cold, meaningless universe, not one. Indeed, all the atheists I know view this world as one of wonder and beauty and we find meaning however we choose to find it.

"Why I am an Atheist who believes in God" is written in a very dialogical, vulnerable, and honest fashion. Frank invites his readers on a journey through his experiences and thoughts. This book will take you on journey through Frank's experiences with his mother's death, his 'providential' encounters with strangers, and his reflections on his own life. It is in that context that Frank will raise 'an issue' or a topic. Schaeffer will invite you to see the world through his eyes, which may be challenging, but worth it; if not for any other reason but to empathize with a fellow human being who is processing life, faith, and non-faith out-loud in this book.

I read many of Francis Shaffer's books years ago. This, of course, was Frankie's father the world renowned theologian. Upon reading Frankie's book's I've learned that not all of the Shaffer's home life was what it appeared as a casual observer. I find Frankie delightfully honest, yet honoring to his parents and childhood upbringing. Sometimes very difficult to accept that in a Christian home there was this dichotomy of lifestyles. It is for this reason I like Frankie's writing and perspective which gives permission to look honestly at your own life and be transparent and to realize God loves us, just the way we are with no religious trappings to confuse how broken we really are, and how much God loves in spite and because of this brokenness.

Rejecting the certainty created by both religious fundamentalism and new atheism, the author seeks god in less defined places. Part confessional, part expose of the author's inner most thoughts, this book reads like only an artist could have written it!

Encouraging his readers to turn away from intellectual dogmatism, Frank Schaeffer recounts his encounters with the divine in other things. Art, poetry, creation, beauty, relationships and ultimately love is where Frank sees god in action.

This book is not intellectual apologetics nor does it offer cliché answers. It is rather the brutally honest thoughts of a man who was raised in a very damaging form of religion, and his attempts to find life somewhere between dogmatism and nihilism.

Highly recommended.

This book is an intimate portrait of Frank Schaeffer's thoughts on religion and the nature of our varied relationships with God. He so freely shares his innermost feelings about love and loss, and is quick to acknowledge that he is not at all perfect, but has some important things to say both because of and in spite of such imperfection. I particularly liked how Mr. Schaffer wove in stories about his parents, whom he clearly loved if not always admired, in a way that helped me remember how intent and/or modeling loving behavior both matter so much. As with his other books, I will be reading this one again to mine for more treasure, and will be recommending it to others.