xenia said:
Yes. Not Dancing Alone, which is just mean-spirited. He wrote three novels about his childhood that are quite hilarious at the expense of his family. One novel totally trashes the memory of his father. I read the first and was annoyed; I read the second one, which was more graphic and was disgusted. Not gonna read #3!
I can tolerate a little raciness in a novel, but not from a Christian whose writing is a thinly veiled autobiography wherein he paints his family in such a way that they all look foolish to the max.
He should recall all those novels and burn them.
I don't think I would trivialize Dancing Alone as "just mean-spirited." For me, it seriously challenged me to take a look at the dogmatic positions I grew up believing, merely because they were taught from the pulpit. I am becoming increasingly convinced that Protestants in general are ignorant of Church history, when compared to some Catholics and most Orthodox. Also, I see that many here have been influenced by this book to read other books on Orthodoxy which have eventually led them to convert.
Regarding the Calvin Becker trilogy, they are perhaps slightly more graphic than Song of Solomon, and less graphic than the violence found in many Old Testament books. Arguably, they don't have the redeeming value of any book in canon. Yes, they seiously satirize what it is like to grow up in a "spiritual" family, particularly where the strong sense of piety comes from the mother, rather than the father. I have witnessed firsthand what can happen when false piety runs amok (not necessarily in my own family), so some of Calvin's experiences weren't outlandish from what I saw.
What I found even more interesting was the foreshadowing in the fictional upbringing of Calvin Becker with the eventual conversion to Orthodoxy of the author. Calvin was taken with the ritual and mysticism of the Catholic church in Portofino and found himself seriously questioning the Calvinism his father so staunchly held dear, as well as the ease with which his family would change their denominational affiliation whenever a minor disagreement arose (the same charges he laid against Protestantism in Dancing Alone).
Finally, Frank has written some excellent recent works centered around the sacrifice and dedication of mililtary personnel and their families in the US, starting with his own experiences when his son chose to enlist in the Marines rather than take the usual privileged route via the Ivy League.
Reasonable people can disagree about the raciness of his fictional works and the passions embodied in his non-fiction, but Frank Schaeffer's books are always thought-provoking, in my opinion, and well worth the read.
Welcome to TAW.
