I’ve been reading a book that I randomly picked up on monday while at a bookstore in New Port Richey. It is called “The Unlikely Disciple” by Kevin Roose.
The subtitle is “a sinners semester at america’s holiest university”.
I picked it up when I was walking towards the checkout counter with a Bart Erhman book in my hands, and I spotted this little gem summoning me in, so I picked it up and gave it a thumb through, then quickly replaced the Erhman book with this one. It’s allong the lines of A.J. Jacobs “A Year of Living Biblically”, and it comes highly recommended by Jacobs.
The premise of the book it thus: A student of Brown University (possibly the most liberal school in the country) decides to spend a semester at Liberty University to learn about the Right Wing Fundamentalist lifestyle and mindset. He lives under all of the rules set forth in “the Liberty Way” (libertys 60+ pg rule book), joins the Thomas Road Baptist Church choir, and even goes on an Open Air Evangelism trip to daytona beach to partake in some street preaching.
I myself am an alumni of Liberty University, even though I would not fair well there now (I’m not a dispensationalist, not a 7 day creationist, not a hardline “literalist”, only slightly a republican, and I’m barely an evangelical), but I must say that my experience at Liberty University was one that I look back on with the utmost joy and pride in. When I tell people that I attended the late Falwell’s school, I usually get some odd looks, but I never shy away from telling them.
This book is one of the most pleasant books that I’ve read in a while, and it is truly a breath of fresh air. It is a VERY fair handed book, and it exposes much of the dark side of evangelicalism (racism, homophobia, pride, judgementalism…etc) while also exposing how the other side of the political and religious spectrum bears much of the same clout (classism, bigotry, closemindedness, fearmongering, pride…etc). Some of most entertaining parts of the book are when he attends many of the same classes that I did, namely GNED 1 & 2, and apologetics. Some of the books that are required reading in the Apologetics class (which is an entire class about learning how to defend a literal [non-apocalyptic/poetic] reading of Genesis) have theories that were debunked years ago, but are still used today as though they were “gospel”. I personally remember being in that class, when the professor mentioned that Moses wrote the books of the Pentateuch. One of my peers lifted his hand and asked a question about how he could have written the account of his own death… to which the professor answered “he was writing a prophecy…” (which is a complete addition to scripture, and there is absolutely NO scriptural basis for something like this).
Many such questions were raised while I was at liberty, but I never thought too deply about it… after all, liberty is a pretty diverse school doctrinally amongst students. But when you read about a non-Christian attending these classes, it makes you see these things in an all new light.
Perhaps the most eye-opening chapter of the book so far is when he traveled to Daytona for open air evangelism. He was schooled in the methods of Ray Comfort, and was armed to the teeth with tracts and sent out to preach the gospel. The amazing thing is that he really humanizes the events that he experiences. Many times in this book he actually starts to see the love that Christians have for the world around them. Several times he stands up to defend the heart of the fundamentalist mindset to his liberal friends. And he even talks about the Christians whom he came to know as the most loving, happy, encouraging, and flat out nicest people that he’s ever been with. At the end of his evangelistic tour, he writes about a young woman sitting in the rain, with her arm around a homeless man, and she is weeping because she feels so burdened for him to know the Lord and to know salvation. He contrasts this behavior with some of the other tactics they used like yelling through a blowhorn at drunken teenagers. One of them made him feel inhuman, and the other made the world look like a beautiful place with a loving God.
You need to read this book. I’ve often thought that if we could just see ourselves from the outside, it would really change the way that we do things. I’ve also thought that if people would stop attempt to see Christians from the angle that this young man did, they would see a side things that would be life-changing.
Im 2/3 of the way through, and I’m actually starting to wonder if he will become a disciple of Jesus… I’ll let you know.
