Frank Schaeffer

This novel is set over the summers of 1962 and 1965 when Calvin Becker vacations with his family at the Italian beach town of Portofino. They are Americans, but have been living in Switzerland where his missionary parents are attempting to convert heathen Roman Catholics to their one true Christian sect. Calvin is 10 yrs old in the first section, and starting to have serious questions about big life questions, but his two older pious sisters, his fundamentalist mother, and his moody show more self-absorbed father are not giving him the answers he needs. So he forges new friendships with the Italian locals and Jennifer from England.

Portofino is wonderfully evocative of holiday life at a magical Italian beach resort and the sort of adventures a 10 and 14 year old boy might get himself into when he’s trying to have a fun time despite his dysfunctional family. The scenes where he attempts to distance himself from his embarrassing family, especially when he’s mortified by his mother’s attempts to evangelize, are hilarious in a cringe-worthy way. show less

I haven't read any Franky Schaeffer since he abandoned his youthful evangelicalism in favor of the ineffable God of Orthodoxy. He has since repented from his part in creating the religious right (with his dad and others).

This book repeats intimate details of the Schaeffer house. If you want to know about Francis and Edith's sex life, the time little Franky put his *ahem* franky into an ice sculpture, the physical and verbal abuse that Francis inflicted on Edith, and the time Edith almost show more left with another man. I think it is impossible to read this book and maintain uncritical respect for any of the Schaeffers.

But it isn't a smear campaign. Frank speaks warmly of both parents, especially his mother, of where their practice was better than their theology.

Frank thinks that the God-of-the-Bible promotes misogynistic tendencies and unhealthy sexuality. He is critiquing a version of biblical literalism which is worth critiquing, but is not really fair to the Bible.

Enjoyed the book for the most part, but there is enough here that is kinda ugh. show less

This book appears to be either loved or hated by the majority. I read it out of curiosity; and I found myself right in the middle of the extremes of opinion. The descriptions of an Italian seaside resort are realistic and evocative, and some of the narrator's thought-processes humorously logical. Yet there's violence and sordidity which mean I'm unlikely to want to read the sequels.

Evidently at least part autobiographical, I found this novel at times amusing - sometimes against my better show more judgement - and at times disturbing. I hope that the horrors of the protagonist's Calvinist upbringing are exaggerated; the hypocrisy is bad enough, the verbal abuse upsetting, and the violent 'punishments' described unbelievable in their viciousness.

And yet, there's a lot of clever irony as the 11-year-old protagonist - whose name (Calvin) is itself an irony - quotes his parents' fundamentalist beliefs, and wonders about the logic of a theory of 'election of saints' which doesn't guarantee anyone salvation, and makes something of a mockery of the whole idea of evangelism.

It was an interesting read - and by the last few chapters I found it quite hard to put down. Yet it left something of an unpleasant taste in my mouth. If even half of the violence is honestly true, why fictionalise it? If it's not true, why exaggerate, and paint Calvinist missionaries in such a poor light? show less

I read Francis Schaeffer's books back in the late seventies when I was in college. I never thought much of him. To me, he was a wannabee Christian evangelical intellectual ( an oxymoron if there ever was one) who wrote bad philosophy books. My thought was 'really, this is all you got? No wonder the modern religious right, who descends from him and others like him, is intellectually bankrupt.

The author, his son, who is now an atheist, describes what it was like to grow up in this family. If show more you are interested in what is what like to grow up having a dad who was one of the 'bright lights' of the religious right, read it.

I can't wait until Michael Behe's son ( Michael Behe helped invent intelligent design - essentially a form of young earth creationism ) who is now an atheist, writes Crazy for Intelligent Design show less