In America, it is increasingly the case that the people who make, support, or protest military policy have no military experience. As Kathy Roth-Douquet and Frank Schaeffer assert in this groundbreaking work, the gap between the "all-volunteer military" and the rest of us is widening, and our country faces a dangerous lack of understanding between those in power and those who defend our way of life.

Dutch director Frank Scheffer collaborates with Andrew Culver for a series of four short films celebrating the theories and music of avant-garde composer John Cage. In 19 QUESTIONS, Cage answers questions on a variety of subjects. In FOURTEEN, the Ives Ensemble performs Cage's composition of the same name, filmed with multiple cameras using chance operations to determine the position, angle, focus, and aperture settings of each shot. In PAYING ATTENTION, Scheffer and Culver combine separate audio and video portions from an interview with Cage. And in OVERPOPULATION AND ART WITH RYONJI, Scheffer combines the audio of Cage's spoken performance with his musical piece for four voices and percussion.

By the time he was nineteen, Frank Schaeffer's parents, Francis and Edith Schaeffer, had achieved global fame as bestselling evangelical authors and speakers, and Frank had joined his father on the evangelical circuit. He would go on to speak before thousands in arenas around America, publish his own evangelical bestseller, and work with such figures as Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Dr. James Dobson. But all the while Schaeffer felt increasingly alienated, precipitating a crisis of faith that would ultimately lead to his departure,even if it meant losing everything. With honesty, empathy, and humour, Schaeffer delivers a brave and important book" (Andre Dubus III, author of House of Sand and Fog ),both a fascinating insider's look at the American evangelical movement and a deeply affecting personal odyssey of faith.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Crazy For God... "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. I love this novel." -- Brian D. McLaren, author/speaker/blogger. "Honest, humorous and sure to rankle those who believe that being human means being certain." -- Kevin Miller director of "Hellbound?" the movie. "When the family business is religion, it is especially perilous. To millions of evangelical Christians, the Schaeffer name is royal, and Frank Schaeffer is the reluctant, wayward, traitorous prince. His crime... is turning his back on Christian conservatives." The New York Times. "Frank Schaeffer exposes the insanity and the corruption of what has become a powerful and frightening force in American politics... As someone who has made redemption his work, he has, in fact, shown amazing grace." -- Jane Smiley Pulitzer Prize winner and author of A Thousand Acres. And God Said, "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. Billy loses his fundamentalist faith, his film career, his family and mo

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

Caught between the beauty of his grandchildren and grief over a friend's death, Frank Schaeffer finds himself simultaneously believing and not believing in God-an atheist who prays. Schaeffer wrestles with faith and disbelief, sharing his innermost thoughts with a lyricism that only great writers of literary nonfiction achieve. Schaeffer writes as an imperfect son, husband and grandfather whose love for his family, art and life trumps the ugly theologies of an angry God and the atheist vision of a cold, meaningless universe. Schaeffer writes that only when we abandon our hunt for certainty do we become free to create beauty, give love and find peace. ***

"As someone who has made redemption his work, Frank has, in fact, shown amazing grace." - Jane Smiley, Washington Post ***

"To millions of evangelical Christians, the Schaeffer name is royal, and Frank is the reluctant, wayward, traitorous prince. His crime is not financial profligacy, like some pastors' sons, but turning his back on Christian conservatives." - New York Times ***

"Frank Schaeffer's gifts as a writer are sensual and loving. He's also laugh-out-loud funny " - Andre Dubus III, author of House of Sand and Fog

In 1998, Frank Schaeffer was a bohemian novelist living in "Volvo driving, higher-education worshipping" Massachusetts with two children graduated from top universities. Then his youngest child, straight out of high school, joined the United States Marine Corps. Written in alternating voices by eighteen-year-old John and his father, Frank, Keeping Faith takes readers in riveting fashion through a family's experience of the Marine Corps: from being broken down and built back up on Parris Island (and being the parent of a child undergoing that experience), to the growth of both father and son and their separate reevaluations of what it means to serve. From Frank's realization that among his fellow soccer dads "the very words'boot camp' were pejorative, conjuring up'troubled youths at risk'" ("'But aren't they all terribly southern?' asked one parent") to John's learning that "the Marine next to you is more important than you are," Keeping Faith , a New York Times bestseller , is a fascinating and personal examination of issues of class, duty, and patriotism. The fact that John is currently serving in the Middle East only adds to the impact of this wonderfully written, timely, and moving human interest story.

Calvin is the son of a missionary family, and their trip to Portofino is the highlight of his year. But even in the seductive Italian summer, the Beckers can't really relax. Calvin's father could slip into a Bad Mood and start hurling potted plants at any time. His mother has an embarrassing habit of trying to convert "pagans" on the beach. And his sister Janet has a ski sweater and a miniature Bible in her luggage, just in case the Russians invade and send them to Siberia. His dad says everything is part of God's plan. But this summer, Calvin has some plans of his own ... Portofino is the prequel to the noted trilogy that includes Zermatt. A huge bestseller, Portofino has been translated into seven languages.

Frank Schaeffer has a problem with the New Atheists. He also has a problem with the religious fundamentalists. The problem is that he doesn't see much of a difference between the two camps. Sparing no one and nothing, including himself and his fiery evangelical past, and invoking subtleties too easily ignored by the pontificators, Schaeffer adds much-needed nuance to the existing religious conversation as he challenges atheists and fundamentalists alike.

When Grandma comes to the Beckers' home to recover from an operation, the Beckers find it very difficult to do the Lord's work because Grandma, with her ill-temper and bad mouth, ruins the spiritual atmosphere of the home.