The Unlikely Disciple
The vast majority of the freshmen in my Bible class are confessing Christians. But not all! Just Monday I met a young man who had been in the USA exactly one day — half a world away from Nepal and his Hindu roots. I’ve wondered what it must be like to drop down into a place full of chapel, devotionals, spring break campaigns, and Bible classes.
Kevin Roose, author of The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University
To do that he went undercover — taking on the identity of a born-again Christian. He went to prayer meetings, joined a spring break campaign (more on that below) — even sang in the Liberty Baptist Church choir.
When he went, about his only impression of the school was what he knew about Falwell, whom he dubbed “the arch-conservative televangelist with the least effective brain-to-mouth filter in the English speaking world.” He’d been struck by the irony of how Falwell had reprimanded Martin Luther King in 1965 for getting involved in politics. “Preachers are not called to be politicians but soul-winners,” Falwell had insisted.
Through the semester, his stereotypes about his fellow students fell apart. He came to realize that they all shared secret doubts about the take-no-prisoners form of faith. They were kind. They really did care about one another and about the world (for the most part anyway; he was stunned by the amount of overt homophobia). Throughout the book, he goes out of his way (probably to the point of surprising and offending some of his old friends) to talk about the good things he found on the campus.
Classes posed a challenge. So many of them stereotyped others (outside of that brand of Evangelicalism) as unfulfilled, relativistic, flimsy, immoral, unloving, and hedonistic. They constantly attacked evolution, presenting instead a creationist biology (young earth and all!).
In chapel and at church, he even grew to appreciate aspects of the larger-than-life Falwell. He would just groan and smile at his hacky political jokes. (“Chelsea Clinton was interviewing a marine coming back from Iraq, and she asked him what he was most afraid of. He replied, ‘Osama, Obama, and your mama.’”) Through the campus newspaper, he even conducted the last interview with Dr. Falwell before his sudden death.
Here’s a taste of his writing on a number of subjects:
ON SPRING BREAK CAMPAIGNS TO THE BEACH:
“Cold turkey evangelism provides the shortest, most noncommittal conversion offer of any Western religion — which, I suspect, is part of the appeal.”
“Why not go somewhere where Jesus would be an easier sell? Like Islamabad? Or a Christopher Hutchens dinner party?”
ON THE HOMOPHOBIA:
“This semester, I’ve developed a numbness to homophobia. I don’t like it, but it’s unavoidable when you’re in a climate like this, where homosexuality is talked about at near-Tourettic frequency. Every day, I’ve heard someone worrying about gay people, praying for gay people, talking about the scientific evidence against the alleged ‘gay gene.’ I’ve heard ten times as many conversations about homosexuality at Liberty than I ever heard any place where gay people existed in the open.”
ON CHURCH:
“The stage lights, the one hundred-decibel praise songs, the bright purple choir robes,the tempestuous bellowing of Dr. Falwell — it’s an hour-long assault on the senses. And all you have to do is sit back in your plush, reclining seat, latte and cranberry scone in hand, and take it all in. It’s Church Lite — entertaining but unsubstantial . . . .”
“I used to define church as a series of events — the sermon, the worship music, the collection, the altar call. Now, when I think of church, I think of George, the elderly man in the choir who greets me with a ‘hello there, Mister Kevin’ every week. I think of Mac, the sixty-five-year-old tenor who always updates me on his son and daughter — an engineer in Gary, Indiana, and a sales representative in Charlottesville. On Wednesday nights, I think of Campus Church as the guys I sit with — Jersey Joey, Paul, Eric, Zipper — instead of the laser light shows or the fog machines.”
ON POLITICS AT LU:
“It’s hard to imagine a more receptive audience for this speech [by Sean Hannity] than the LU student body. After a few sincere remarks about the Virginia Tech tragedy, Hannity — who looks a lot more like Fred Flintstone than I remembered — cracks a few Ted Kennedy jokes, then veers into a lengthy assault on liberalism paired with a drooling paean to Ronald Reagan. It’s not a particularly inspired speech, but with this crowd, Hannity could draw an encore by reciting his grocery list. When he mentions FOX News, everyone cheers. John Kerry, everyone boos. (‘See why I love Liberty?’ he says.)
- – - -
This is a seriously good read by someone who’s just 21. It helped me a lot to imagine what my Bible class (and our church assemblies) must seem like from “the outside in.”
Thanks, but no thanks.
Mike, I want to read this book. . . for many reasons.
Regardless of what we perceive or think, I think church leaders need to read this one – if for no other reason than what Mike shares here.
Sorry gang – but growing up in an insular cofC world and living out your days as one devoted to the denomination while warding off all the evil around you won’t cut it anymore. I could spout the falling attendance numbers, but that only fuels the fire of the “narrow gate” folks. Would Jesus feel out of place and uncomfortable at LU?
I thought it was a great book. Kevin’s time at Liberty planted a seed in him. No, he hasn’t fully embraced the Christian life, but he didn’t dismiss it all, either. Would he have had the same results if he’d visited Harding, ACU, or Lipscomb? Now that would be an interesting thing to find out.
I’ve wanted to read this for a while — it sounds fascinating. I’ll have to see if I can get it at the library.
My daughter read it before me… good stuff.
I have been a part of the CofC for all my life. I have preached for 28 years. My daughter is a Sophmore at Liberty University. I am proud of her choice even though I do not embrace all of their theological or political perspectives. Would Jesus feel out of place at such a school? Absolutely not! Jesus is the focus of their lives. He would be honored to experience their discipleship and their efforts to worship and serve Him. He would love them. He might temper their phobic views of people, but he would honor their commitment to the law of God. He may temper their political rancor, but he would honor their commitment to the righteousness of a nation. Rouse experienced the genuineness of the majority of the students and even Falwell himself. He may have scoffed at the “Liberty Way” but it is a way embraced by most and it creates a God-centered and Christ-honoring environment.
What Rouse tells me is that anyone of us can fake godliness and belief. We can convince others of our piety by our platitudes. We can fit into a crowd by deception. We can remain arrogant and defiant against God while wearing a mask of faith. What he found was that despite his deception and arrogance, the Christians were pretty good people. MMMM!
I read this book a few months ago and I cannot recommend it more highly. I could not put it down – It made me laugh, cringe, reflect, and laugh some more.
I spent 8 years as a student at ACU (5 undergrad and 3 M.Div) and now I work for ACU. Roose’s experience mirrored mine in so many ways. And what I really like is that he does not take the cheap shots (that are readily available by the way) but is very balanced and nuanced in his assessment of the Christian bubble.
Now, here’s an interesting idea: take a Liberty (or ACU) student and drop them into a secular, multicultural university for a year. I think he/she might find “that despite his/her deception and arrogance,” the Catholics, Muslims, atheists, Mormons, Hindus, Democrats, Buddhists and homosexuals “were pretty good people.” I have this crazy theory that people are basically the same regardless of creed, color or nationality. Our religious and nationalistic labels and prejudices about those are different only serve to divide us.
Perhaps this could be the beginning of a student exchange program to break down barriers. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. Imagine . . .
I would really love to read this book. I was raised Baptist, although my family were not church goers when I was growing up, and I’d never even heard of the CofC before attending ACU. It was definitely weird, and at first I felt left out a lot and kinda like oh my goodness what did I get myself into here? I can’t imagine what someone like this author or your Hindu student would experience!
Fascinating. I wish I were as brave as Kevin when I was 20. For that matter, when I’m 40. His “experiment” took alot of guts! You’re really expanding my already-too-long reading list.
ex-Preacher – Amazing response. I tend to agree with you!!!
I read a Donald Miller book recently and I want to paraphrase something he said. As Christians we try to wage a war against homosexuality or abortion or politics (remember I am paraphrasing but this is the jist) but what do we do in a war? We try to destroy the enemy or at least imprison them. But in most cases we are destroying the hostage the enemy is holding and not the enemy.
My thoughts: Sometimes as Christians we are our own worst media release.
You are spot on, Leah. My constant prayer for all who proclaim Jesus as LORD and Savior is that we would internalize, trust in and fully believe that God is the only Judge – not us and that The Judge has given us a job , if you wish.
We are to love Him with all our being, thereby be mirror-images of Christ to the world, loving the lost, all of them – NOT judging them, loving them as we would love ourselves. We cannot sanctify ourselves, much less anyone else -God has a pretty good handle on that process, so we can safely take our hands out of His pocket, putting them to the plow of sowing, watering His field, and trusting HE will bring the harvest, not us.
btw-I, like Amy, am adding this to my own ever growing list of “want to, have to, really should” reads.
Good book. It ought to be part of the “field research” reading list of anyone coming as a minister/church planter/what-have-you to the northeast. Of course, the irony is that you may find yourself learning more about yourself and “us” than you will the secular northeasterner.
This article sounds like the flip side of your “How to be a Christian Dsspite Being at a Christian College,” Mike.
(I’d link it at Wineskins.org, but it’s among the dwindling few we haven’t posted yet.)
Posted now: How To Be a Christian Despite Attending a Christian College.