The Unlikely Disciple

I just got done reading "The Unlikely Disciple" by Kevin Roose. It was a fascinating true story (which has been featured on programs such as "All Things Considered" from NPR), about the author "studying abroad" for a semester and finding his stereotypes both strengthened and untrue at the same time. Kevin Roose was mostly fair, in my opinion, and was really transparent.

This might not sound that big of a deal or fascinating to anyone, but it hits home for me. To elaborate, Kevin was a student at the left-wing liberal school Brown. He decided to "study abroad" in Lynchburg, Virginia at Liberty University, one of America's largest evangelical schools. Kevin went under cover to Liberty to experience the evangelical schooling with the agenda of writing a book about his experience - The Unlikely Disciple. Other than going to Brown where rules could be compared to Liberty's, with a 180 degree twist on every single one of them, Roose grew up in a liberal Quaker family whose parents worked for Nader in the 70's. More compelling than this under-cover, from liberal to lynchburg, story is the fact that, most of you know, I graduated from Liberty University and the semester I graduated is the semester Kevin was working on his project.

Although I don't recall meeting Kevin personally, I know we ran some of the same circles, and by description (most names changed for privacy sake) I knew several of the people Kevin talked about on a first name basis. At times it was as if he was writing through my eyes as we had similar experiences (not a coincidence as that occurred often in a small school setting). I came from a different upbringing than Kevin, but I can agree on some of his opinions. He was very forthright about his stereotypes, and he was just as explicit when he admitted his stereotypes were false. Although he did a great job of admitting when he was wrong, I felt he still held all Liberty students under a ceiling. It was either Liberty students were sheltered, close minded, and necessarily evangelicals (with making references to being surprised there were Democrats or unsaved people at Liberty) or they were rebellious in sort of a cute way with the core ideologies of Jerry Falwell instilled in their minds with just a little rough edges. He talked about the gay students at Liberty, but talked about them in a way as if they weren't like his gay friends at Brown, because they were gay and going to Liberty.

I agree with his reference to having seen a different Jerry Falwell than most of America. I was fortunate to be able to see that myself. Although I didn't agree with many things with Falwell, I respected him, and Kevin and I would both agree that Falwell is consistent. It seemed as if Roose wanted to speak highly of Falwell, but he couldn't with innate fear that his liberal family, especially his gay aunt and her partner, would feel betrayed and it would be a dishonor. Roose maintained throughout the book that Christians are distinguished from non-Christians because they don't swear, drink, smoke, etc. I would also largely disagree with those statements; however, that may be the evangelical fundamentalist imposition as well, so I cannot say his statements are not self-imposed by Christians.

The loose trigger of the words such as "gay," "faggot," "queer," etc was in fact true, and that is something that I very much hated at Liberty. When a fellow Christian said such things, I would try to explain that we Christians are to love our neighbors and maliciously throwing out names is no way to be loving. I am very adamant about this as my best friend who also happens to be my brother is gay. Yes this obviously throws in kinks to Roose's belief that Liberty students are close minded and don't understand the world out there. At times I felt as if Roose was the close minded person in the story, not the Liberty students. It took me off guard, to be honest, as I stereotyped Brown journalists as necessarily being open and tolerant since that is a big problem secularists have with evangelicals. I would be the first to tell my evangelical brothers and sisters that they should be open minded and tolerable as well. My one question is what is the fear of openmindedness for Christians? Many would say that evil views could get in or Satan could use that as a tool. That sounds like they don't have that deep of faith to me! I say bring on all views and philosophies and theories and pray for discernment. If the God I believe in exists, he will give me discernment and strengthen my belief. It has happened in the past, and I have said before (even on this blog) that I am more open minded than ever and my faith is deeper than ever.

I would love to sit down with Kevin and have dialogue with him about our experiences at Liberty, discuss issues that I think he may have missed or looked past, and open up for questions from both sides. Everyone should read this book in my opinion. I really appreciate Kevin writing this book, and it gives everyone - no matter what you believe in or stand for - a good reason to always be genuine and open and loving. You never know who's listening.