Awhile back, Frank Schaefer launched a decimating attack on the religious right on cable television that has been caroming around the Internet. Now, he is regularly one of the most lacerating and articulate critics of the wingers, offering the insights of someone who understands them from the inside.

Schaefer, the son of founders or the religous right (although from an odd nuance of spartan Puritan self-denial), came to know the leaders of the religous right - and leading GOP politicians including Bush and Reagan --personally before he saw the light. As a result, he has an informed perspective when he says:

"And the fact of the matter is, I think we have come through a very, very bad time and unfortunately, I'm sorry to say, my dad and I, when I was a young man and he in his career had a lot to do with it. Because we were the people, who along with others like James Dobson, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and the others, we put all of this crap in place. And now the reason I wrote "Crazy for God" is because the title is literally that if awe approach God in a certain way, it will drive you crazy. And this has been a period of craziness."

Schaeffer has recently written articles for the Huffington Post entitled "Why Obama Must Not Work With Republicans" and "Why Are the Republicans Such Anti-Obama Liars?." He believes that Obama could be a great president if the Republicans don't willingly and knowingly destroy him:

"Today the Republican Party is rooting for doom. And since the Republicans are now anti-American members of an Obama-must-fail insurgency, lies become a self-fulfilling prophecy: talk doom, and keep the economy in a panic and we may get what we wish for.

Don't conservative Republicans object to the lies? No, because the Republicans don't have any actual and traditional conservative followers left. The Republican base is now made up of religious and neoconservative ideologues, and the uneducated white underclass with a token person of color or two up front on TV to obscure the all-white, all reactionary all backward -- there-is-no-global-warming -- rube reality. Actual conservatives, let alone the educated classes, have long since fled.

The Republican religious nuts are rooting for Jesus to "rapture" them, not for America, and the neoconservatives are rooting for war and the Israeli hard liners, not for America. Truth (and sanity) are out the window.

So, what is the problem with lying to our faces, say, claiming that all American's taxes are going up when 95% of American's taxes are going to go down? Why not claim Obama is a socialist, even if he's not? Why not say anything at all to drive our country into a pit when losing is seen as winning? That, is all the Republicans have to offer America: more lies on a path to destruction from which the Republican "leadership" plans to resurrect themselves and "save" America from Obama."

Why can't the Democrats talk like that? Maybe we need someone like Frank Schaefer who "has been there/done that" to light a fire of indignation, rage, and defiance to obstructionism.

"Crazy for God" is a personal memoir of transformation, epiphanies, and an understanding of how dogma and ego can hijack personal faith. It is in parts of moving, revealing about personal contacts with the "leaders of the religous" right, and humorous.

Publisher's Weekly writes of "Crazy for God," "Schaeffer does not mince words, making his narrative honest, inflammatory and at times quite funny."

The famous author Jane Smiley writes about Schaefer's book and personal background:

"Frank Schaeffer quickly lost all respect for the religious leaders he was meeting, and for himself as the hard-driving, America-hating preacher's son that had become his public persona. As he points out, it's no good to be a member of the elect if the rest of the nation is doing just fine, so of course the religious right must root against America, must hope and pray for the End Times slaughter of most of their fellow citizens. The best title for a movie about the past twenty-five years in religious America would be Elmer Gantry Returns, and Frank is here to tell you its cast of holy rollers is worse than you think: "In private, they ranged from unreconstructed bigot reactionaries like Jerry Falwell, to Dr. Dobson, the most power-hungry and ambitious person I have ever met, to Billy Graham, a very weird man indeed who lived an oddly sheltered life in a celebrity/ministry cocoon, to Pat Robertson, who would have a hard time finding work in any job where hearing voices is not a requirement.""

If there's a voice whom we should be listening to about a religious fundamentalism movement gone crazy with power, egotism, racial politics, and fundraising machines, it's Frank Schaefer's.

He knows well of what he speaks -- and his passion and outrage are palpable.


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