@JaniceOCG And God Said, Billy! by @Frank_Schaeffer & @OutskirtsPress about a fundamentalist making a soft-porn movie in apartheid-era SA, is reviewed as LOL funny. Schaeffer is live Thurs., Jan. 27 at 8 pm ET, w/ “If America Fails?” on TWN YouTube channel, for discussion on gender issues.
And God Said, Billy! is a 2013 novel by Frank Schaeffer. I haven’t read it, but it’s reviewed as being LOL funny. It also sounds like it draws on Schaeffer’s actual experience making movies. FYI. — LMO
WATCH Mr. Frank Schaeffer, Artist, Filmmaker & Author, Fall in Love, Have Children, Stay Put, Save the Planet, Be Happy – LIVE – Thursday, January 27, 2022, 8 pm ET, on the TruthWorks Network YouTube channel, when he joins “If America Fails?: The Coming Tyranny,” in discussion on Gender in The Handmaid’s Tale and American culture.
“’Billy!’ is a darkly comic coming-of-age story written by the master story teller that House of Sand and Fog author Andre Dubus III hailed as the funniest American writer since Mark Twain. The story is set in the 1980s and is about Billy, a young fundamentalist Christian who feels called to go to Hollywood to make ‘God’s movie.’ But everything goes off the rails when he accepts a job to direct a soft-porn slasher/exploitation film in apartheid-era South Africa. He makes this ‘It’s a deal not a movie’ picture even though he has to bust the US entertainment industry’s anti-apartheid sanctions in hopes his ‘worldly movie’ will be ‘used by God’ as a ‘stepping stone’ to making his own divinely sanctioned ‘End Times’ picture. In the process Billy loses his fundamentalist faith, his film career, his family and more…” — Publisher
“I love this novel. And God Said ‘Billy!’ is laugh-out loud funny from page one. It’s downright insightful throughout and takes readers deep into the shallow psyche of a sincere Charismatic-Evangelical whose God fails him. That failure turns out, through a hilarious series of tragic-comic reversals, to be – let’s just say something close to miraculous.” — Brian D. McLaren
“It is one thing to suggest, in a literary way, what an authentic spiritual seeker should be wary of and free from. It is quite another thing to articulate, in a convincing and persuasive manner, to a generation of skeptics and new atheists, why the spiritual quest is worth the doing.” — Ron Dart Department of Political Science, Philosophy and Religious Studies at University of the Fraser Valley BC
“And God Said, ‘Billy!’ is honest, very funny and very serious. It’s sure to rankle those who believe that being human means being certain.” — Kevin Miller director of Hellbound?
“Frank Schaeffer is a New York Times bestselling author of more than a dozen books. Frank is a survivor of both polio and an evangelical/fundamentalist childhood, an acclaimed writer who overcame severe dyslexia, a home-schooled and self-taught documentary movie director, a feature film director of four low budget Hollywood features Frank has described as ‘pretty terrible.’ He is also an acclaimed author of fiction and nonfiction and an artist with a loyal following of international collectors who own many of his paintings.
“Frank has been a frequent guest on the Rachel Maddow Show on NBC, has appeared on Oprah, been interviewed by Terri Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air and appeared on the Today Show, BBC News and many other media outlets. He is a much sought after speaker and has lectured at a wide range of venues from Harvard’s Kennedy School to the Hammer Museum/UCLA, Princeton University, Riverside Church Cathedral, DePaul University and the Kansas City Public Library.” — FrankSchaeffer.com
CONTACT US “If America Fails?: The Coming Tyranny” for access to the Zoom chatroom—L. Michelle Odom, Senior Producer
LMOdom@OurCommonGround.com or TWN@TruthWorksNetwork.com
Watch Thursdays, 8 pm ET, January 13 to April 7, 2022, on the TruthWorks Network YouTube Channel. All Are Welcome!
SEE | And God Said, Billy! – A Novel | by Frank Schaeffer | Outskirts Press (September 4, 2013)
If America Fails? 