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The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University

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I know a church pastor who sometimes encourages his staff to pretend they are visitors during a Sunday morning service. "Walk into this place like it is the very first time. Don't take anything for granted. Look for proper signage, décor and whether or not the bathrooms are clean, consider how the greeters treat you, and observe how difficult it is to find your children's Sunday School Class." The goal is to discover the issues that the church is ignoring because of familiarity, to take care of family dysfunctions obvious to outsiders that perhaps the church has grown tolerant, if not strangely comfortable with.

Sometimes it is very helpful to have a new pair of unbiased eyes catch what you may be missing. Organizations and businesses hire people to critique their services or their products. But when a company knows that a consultant is showing up they put their best foot forward. When a restaurant is expecting a food critique for dinner the chef and wait staff perform to a different standard than normal. The best case for unbiased feedback is when you don't know that it is coming. That is why Liberty University should be so appreciative of Kevin Roose's book, "The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University."

Kevin, on his own (crazy) initiative, took a semester off from college at (liberal) Brown University to experience an extremely different lifestyle than he'd ever known-right at the heart of fundamentalism- Jerry's Falwell's flagship megachurch, Thomas Road Baptist, and its accompanying university. Instead of viewing evangelical Christianity from the outside the glass, Kevin decided to jump into the fish bowl himself. He actually found that swimming with the fishes didn't kill him. He even discovered, with the discipline the Christians called prayer, that he could breathe.

This isn't to say that Kevin went to Liberty without an agenda. From the beginning this was a writing project- a daring, potentially life altering writing project. Yet I didn't experience the story as one that had a pre-scripted concept like a Michael Moore documentary. Kevin knew that he would have to act the part of a born-again believer in order to blend into life on campus, yet he didn't go about this as a cold war spy. He went to Liberty "to learn with an open mind, not to mock Liberty students or the evangelical world." And learn he did- pouring himself into his classes, clubs, dorm life, church attendance, and real, meaningful relationships with both staff and peers. He even faced his own concepts about God, Jesus, scripture and sin, realizing that he was on a personal quest as well. He is honest with his own journey, and the book is worth reading just with that in mind.

What did he find? It would spoil it to share here in a review. This is a story that is best read cover to cover, from the day that he pulls up to Liberty with a new, silver, Jesus fish on his bumper, to the day that he leaves, right after Reverend Falwell's funeral. I found myself cheering and hoping, grimacing and pondering throughout.

Who should read, The Unlikely Disciple?
* Any Christian who wonders how the un-indoctrinated view believers and their practices
* Anyone preparing to be an pastor, evangelist, missionary, or Christian educator - especially in a post-modern society
* Anyone planning to go to a Christian university (you'll understand the pros and cons of these institutions better after reading Kevin's book)
* Anyone on staff at Liberty University
* Liberals who have made sweeping generalizations about fundamentalist Christianity without honestly investigating it themselves.
* Anyone who wants to read a tremendously thought provoking and highly entertaining story.

Will you agree with it all? Of course not. Will you find many answers? Kevin doesn't even try to figure them all himself. But if you read his journey with an open heart you will undoubtedly wince a few times, have your feelings rattled, and come to better, more compassionate understanding of other people, especially those on the other side of the fish bowl from you.

P.S. I can't wait for the sequel when Kevin becomes part of the Focus on the Family staff in Colorado Springs.

I opened this book out of simple curiosity. What /did/ a liberal college student from Brown think when confronted full-on with some of the most fundamentally conservative and literal evangelists around? I was desperate to know whether this book would be judgmental or soft-hearted, whether he would be won over or disgusted.

The happy truth is that it's a little bit of both. Kevin Roose writes with amazing maturity and insight (particularly given that he was 19 when he began this book), and his account of his semester at Liberty University is filled with both heart and nuance. He doesn't shy away from having his assumptions shattered, and he doesn't hesitate to see a very different world with eyes that are fairly close to understanding.

But he also doesn't pull back from delivering the hard truths - where the great divides are, where the unmoveable differences seem to be between his position and that of evangelical Christians.

At the same time, his change throughout the book is clear and moving - he presents the students and faculty at Liberty as complex, diverse, and largely caring people, and he finds some unexpected benefits to their joy in their faith and what it brings them. The good of this book is that it gives you both the good and the bad, and it's not afraid to give you a messy reality.

Roose's thoughtfulness does him credit when it comes to internal evaluation, too. He spends a lot of time wondering about what faith makes those around him, and what faith, or lack of it, makes /him/. His introspection is open, honest, fascinating, and will ring true for many who've brushed along the edges of Christianity, or even dove full-in.

This book is an excellent read for anyone wanting to understand the true passion that drives so many evangelicals to actions that may seem incomprehensible to the outside world (a chapter on a mission trip to Daytona Beach stands out) - but it's also an excellent read for anyone who /is/ a born-again Christian who wants to understand what baffles the outside world about the faith, both good and bad, and what parts drive some of the world away for good.

I didn't expect to like this book as much as I did. I picked it up out of curiousity. It's 10 hours later and I'm putting it down and writing a review. So here's to happy surprises.

This is one of the most enjoyable books I have ever read.

The concept of a secular Ivy Leaguer immersing himself in fundamentalist Evangelical culture is only sort-of interesting, and I assumed this would be a condescending book, written by a wanna-be Bill Maher. However, Roose is self-depreciating, humorous, and skilled enough to make this a fascinating read. I finished it in one sitting.

Jerry Falwell's college, Liberty University, is an intriguing place, as the reader will learn in the first few pages of the book. There are serious punishments for offenses like drinking, swearing, watching R-rated movies, and hugging for more than 3 seconds. Yet what interests Roose, and causes him to write this book is that 10,000 of his peers choose to go there. His sincerity stands out as he tries to understand the "God Divide" with humility, fairness, and an open-mind.

The characters that Roose meets make this book a great read. Contrary to popular opinion, there is a startling amount of diversity at Liberty. Jersey Joey, one of the main-characters, is a foul-mouthed wise-cracking student who is hilarious and, despite his obsession with calling Roose "gay", quite lovable. There are the awkward pastor's kids, the jocks who don't follow the rules, and a few stereotypes: a racist southerner, and more than a few students who make truly offensive homophobic remarks.

Roose never "goes native". At the end of the book, he is still a secular liberal Democrat who never gets comfortable with some of the comments he hears at Liberty or with young-earth Creationism. But, nonetheless, he discovers nuance in his experience, and does a valuable service by humanizing a sub-culture that is otherwise caricatured.

Anyone who has interest in this aspect of American culture, whatever side of the God-Divide they might find themselves on, will find this to be a book worth reading. I can't emphasize enough how hilarious of a writer Kevin Roose is.

When I first heard the premise of Kevin Roose's new memoir The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University, I was immediately intrigued: an Ivy League student from a secular, liberal background plunges himself into the conservative "Bible Boot Camp" world of Liberty University where Evangelism 101 is a core class and a forty-six page code of conduct called "The Liberty Way" governs students' social lives. I wasn't sure to expect, honestly, but I was curious and excited to read his take on the strange world of evangelical America... and very pleasantly surprised by what I found.

The concept is compelling, and on top of that, Kevin is a very talented writer. One minute, he's a perceptive journalist, recording observations with a critical eye and sharp wit. The next, he's a storyteller, weaving the narrative with moments of insight and heartfelt reflections on his own spirituality. The ability to strike this balance between intellect and heart is the beauty of The Unlikely Disciple and what makes it such an engaging read.

Of course, there are criticisms levied at the atmosphere of Liberty, but at the same time, he describes his hallmates in Dorm 22, the students and faculty, and even Dr. Falwell himself with warmth and humanity. There's a reverent sense of love throughout the book that is refreshing, because it would be all too easy to take the "Christians are weird" route. I loved the stories of the incredibly diverse students, and possibly my favorite story from the book has to be the interview with Dr. Falwell. I never was a Jerry Falwell fan myself, but to read this other side of him - a friendly "religious Willy Wonka" that owned 40 red ties and chugged a Diet Snapple Peach Tea every afternoon - I couldn't help but, well, almost like the guy. This different perspective added to the sadness of the final chapter about the week after Dr. Falwell's death (and incidentally, Kevin's final week at Liberty).

I can't recommend this book enough, no matter which side of the "God Divide" you find yourself on. From my Christian side, it was thought-provoking and challenging to my ideas and faith, and, oddly enough, melted a bit of the cynicism I catch myself falling into when I think of all we get wrong. In the closing words of the acknowledgements, he writes to the students, faculty, and administrators of Liberty, "experiencing your warmth, your vigorous generosity of spirit, and your deep complexity, I was ultimately convinced - not that you were right, necessarily, but that I had been wrong." Nice to know that maybe we do get something right.

If you've ever wondered how conservative college students deal with temptation, this book is a good choice. I couldn't put this book down despite the fact I have two small children. Unlikely Disciple is an easy read, but is thought-provoking at the same time. I like the fact that the author comes from a positive, open-minded angle and not from a mean-spirited and judgmental place. Roose has a wonderful sense of humor - I even laughed out loud at times, which is rare for me when reading a book. It's also a good book to read if you've ever wondered whether God exists because Roose enters the bible-thumping culture wondering the same thing and shares his thoughts while along that personal journey. If you are a parent considering sending your child to Liberty or a student considering going, you will learn in-depth answers about what your experience will be like. This book is a well written, riveting account of Roose's secret stay at Liberty college and I highly recommend it to anyone of any faith.

I am still stunned that this book was written by someone only 19 years old. The quality of the writing and the depth of feeling he expresses is some of the best writing I've had the pleasure to read in ages. I picked up this book last weekend because I have been receiving literature from Liberty to enroll as an online student following an enquiry I sent them. I knew very little about this college and this book put it all in perspective. Roose's writings of his three months at Liberty keep you hooked all the way through. He even has a few heart stopping moments in the book which is not what you'd normally expect to find in a book of this genre almost making it a mystery story because you really wonder what will happen at the end... It's page turning journalism at it's best. Well done Kevin.

"It's midnight at Liberty University, and I'm kneeling on the floor of my dorm room, praying" says Kevin Roose in the first line of The Unlikely Disciple. Some 305 pages later, Roose begins his epilogue with "It's midnight at Brown University, and I'm kneeling on the floor of my dorm room, praying." The pages between the opening statement and the epilogue unfold the truly remarkable, and remarkably enjoyable, tale of a largely secular student (Roose himself) leaving Brown University to attend Jerry Falwell's "Bible Boot Camp", Liberty University.

The premise of Kevin Roose's solidly entertaining The Unlikely Disciple: an outsider, non-evangelical Christian (Roose) enrolls in Jerry Falwell's Liberty University for a semester. At Brown, many of Roose's classmates take a semester of classes abroad, the theory being that "experiencing a foreign culture first hand makes us more informed global citizens." Roose, thinking about the deeply evangelical culture of Liberty University in contrast to the thoroughly secular atmosphere of Brown University, seizes on this idea: "Here, right in my own time zone, was a culture more foreign to me than any European capital, and these foreigners vote in my elections!"

What follows Roose's enrollment at Liberty is an unpredictable, sometimes rollicking, often serious, occasionally bizarre, but always respectful, journey through the culture one of the more determined branches of evangelical Christianity. In Liberty's world, planet Earth (usually thought by geologists to be about 5 billion years old) is hardly out of Pampers, with a birthday only six thousand years ago. Noah's ark was big enough to hold dinosaurs, and according to the scientists at Liberty, did hold dinosaurs. Student attendance at, or possession of, an R-rated movie gets you 12 "reprimands" and a $50 dollar fine. Spending the night with a person of the opposite sex earns 30 reprimands plus $500 fine plus 30 hours community service. Actual sex? Just don't. But should the reader be tempted to ridicule, Kevin Roose rapidly fills in the OTHER side of the Liberty experience: the salutary effects of a solidly spiritual lifestyle. For the first time in a year, the author is waking up Saturday mornings without a hangover. Without beer, and with the constant exercise recommended at Liberty, Roose loses 15 lbs and feels physically better than he has in quite a while. Roose feels surrounded by people who sincerely care for him, people who pray for his every need. The pleasure of spending time with girls, without wondering whether intimacy is to follow, is a tonic to the endless sexual game playing Roose has experienced in his previous high school and college environments.

The Unlikely Disciple will fascinate the evangelical "saved" Christian, the militant atheist, and most all people in between those poles. A world in which religious ecstasy is frequently experienced (including by Roose) is also populated by characters like Pastor Seth, who gives Roose his personal cell phone number so that Roose can text him if the urge to masturbate becomes overwhelming. Moments of religious transcendence, "a tingly feeling, like a string was attached to my head, pulling me to the ceiling", are juxtaposed with Roose texting Pastor Seth with a "Red Alert!", and Pastor Seth instantly calling back as if manning the equivalent of a suicide hot line. Remarkable as the book is, though, and as remarkably well written as it is (kudos, Kevin Roose!), the MOST remarkable phenomenon here is not the book. It's Kevin Roose.

In remarkably clear and flowing prose, laced with good humor but never sarcasm, Roose observes the world around him with a steadiness and integrity far beyond his nineteen years (at the time of his Liberty semester). His effervescent but not satirical humor, his impressive good will to fellow humans of all sorts, and his ability to describe his own feelings with honesty and insight, but without narcissism or self-pity, make one want to sing out "Encore! Encore!"

Though there are many reasons to read this book, one segment stands out from a historical perspective. A few days before Kevin Roose left Liberty University, Jerry Fallwell died while at work, on campus. Roose's description of events as the news begins to spread, is enthralling. Though Roose winces at Falwell's Eternal Flame monument, in the form of a burning cross, his respectful description of this striking event is admirably well done.

How does it all end? It ends in a manner befitting the uncommonly honest and intelligent perspective of this promising author. Though the book begins and ends with Roose on his knees in a college dorm room, you're mistaken if you think the bookends of college dorm room prayer even hint at the richness of the final conclusion. Enjoy the read!

As an alumnus of LU, I was immediately drawn to The Unlikely Disciple after seeing it promoted on Matthew Paul Turner's blog. I read the synopsis and discovered that Kevin Roose spent his semester at Liberty at the same time that I was a student. So I knew I had to buy it. Amazon sent me the book, and I was hooked as soon as I started reading it. Needless to say, I finished it in one sitting.

It was an entertaining experience being able to picture Roose's semester and to get a snapshot of his double identity. From beginning to end, his prose was transparent, poignant, and vivid, and I appreciate that he holds back no detail of his open-minded excursion into the unknown world of the conservative evangelicals.

Roose's story took me back to my own encounters, memories, and emotions surrounding the events and issues of the Spring of 2007, including dorm life, the Blasphemy Challenge, and Jerry's passing. It also showed me how much I have changed since then (thankfully, for the better), and it caused me to introspect to see some issues where I could be more moderate in my thinking.

Overall, Roose's story had an excellent blend of humor, honesty, balance, and pizzazz, and I really enjoyed reading it.

As someone quite familiar with American evangelical culture -- encompassing a smattering of endearing qualities and a host of ugly ones -- I had already formed some preconceived notions before embarking on my latest read, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University. The book chronicles the journey of Kevin Roose, the youthful author and aspiring guerrilla journalist, as he transitions into a semester at Liberty University, the late Reverend Jerry Falwell's brainchild and a "conservative Christian utopia," from an undergraduate program at Brown University ("a notch or two above Sodom and Gomorrah"). Warily, I predicted that Roose's reflections would fit neatly into one of two know-thy-enemy categories. Either he would feign empathy with his new classmates and faculty while cloaking all observations in a thinly veiled stream of sarcasm and condescension, or he would overly humanize them, anthropologist-style, like one might see in a probing wildebeest documentary on the Discovery Channel. Even the cover art and various other promotional photographs -- the author in a Liberty University t-shirt with Falwell's books scattered around, sitting alone in a large grassy area directly in front of a spotless white church, etc. -- hinted strongly at satire.

In the end -- spoiler alert -- neither prediction was entirely accurate. Roose's memoir lacked a fatal flaw; perhaps his greatest sin was engaging in a bit of self-indulgent melodrama, but -- and unlike the denizens of Sodom and Gomorrah -- his iniquities are easily forgivable. In fact, if Roose weren't so unnervingly honest in his evaluations of both the school and his own shifting perspectives, his brief jabs of alarmism could easily come off as irony. True, he has a slightly grating tendency to close chapters with sentences like "All semester, I've been worried about getting in over my head at Liberty, but what if it's too late?" And true, it is these passages that ring the least authentically -- a lifelong secular student from an Ivy League school stands on the precipice of conversion while studying at the epicenter of American religious anti-intellectualism? -- but it seems that Roose nevertheless wrote them out of a sincere desire to express his rapidly expanding gray areas.

On the other hand, the author's continuing revulsion with the institutionalized homophobia that he finds at Liberty provides a periodic gut check, both for himself and his readers, against growing too comfortable with the notion of right-wing fundamentalism as warm and fuzzy. This book is thus potent because it illustrates the fragile disconnect between abstract disgust and visceral, well, something approaching fraternité. No, it is not a call to ecumenism. It is also not primarily a repudiation of some of the more disturbing facets of the evangelical lifestyle or, more specifically, of Falwell's most appalling public statements. What this book undoubtedly is, however, is a gentle nudge away from demonization and towards, if not empathy, at least toleration. And although conservative Christian readers may be unlikely to agree, Roose's message applies to their anachronistic edicts on the "outside world" as much as it does to the ill-informed heathens who mock them.

[...]

I picked up this 324-page book last week, noticed that there were 19 chapters including the Epilogue, and thought it would be neat to read through a chapter a night until I finished the book some time in April.

That was before I read the first chapter.

I ended up reading the entire book in one day.

It was a fascinating read for me because it took me back to my own college days, as I attended a school very similar to the one Roose enrolls in for Spring Semester 2007.

There are much better reviews of this book by much more capable reviewers around the web, so I will simply mention what affect the book had personally on me, as I've recently learned from a Literature professor that this is usually the thing that sticks with a person long after the experts have analyzed a text to death.

First of all, I really appreciated the spirit of the book. Roose's approach towards this culture on the opposite side of the spectrum from his own appears to be one of genuine interest and attempted objectivity; and since pure objectivity is impossible, Roose does a mighty fine job of getting close to it, and even then honestly lays his cards out on the table when he disagrees. At one point when mulling over the possibility of conversion, Roose says that he hasn't "been convicted that Liberty's way is the only way." On the next page he gives a possible reason why: "...there's also the problem of my family. I'm still hesitant to accept too much of Liberty's spiritual outlook because I worry what they'd think of me."

I couldn't help but be reminded of a social conformity experiment (you can find it on Youtube) about peer pressure. Simplifying to the extreme, humans believe what they believe in large part because of the social groups they closely associate with.

Case in point: after being embedded in Liberty's culture for several months and then taking a weekend trip to his cousin's house, he notices that the Liberty Way is beginning to find its way into his natural thought processes:

"Things happened inside my head all night that definitely wouldn't have happened six months ago. I didn't pray before eating my chicken tempura at the restaurant, and it made me vaguely uneasy for the next twenty minutes...Most disturbing was when we went on a post-dinner stroll around Beirne's neighborhood. I saw a group of high school-age kids sitting on a stoop, and the first thing that flashed through my mind, before I could quash it, was: are they saved?"

This threw me back to my college days. Many of the things I did then, which I don't do now, were done to fit in with my conservative Evangelical Christian college culture. (Although at the time I would have said I did these things because, obviously, they were true - they were right.)

But the thing I remember most about the book is what Roose learned from observing how his conservative Christian dorm mates reacted towards Henry, a raging homophobe. Even though Henry's beliefs lined up very closely with the rest of the dorm's, he was a jerk, and even the most conservative Christians in one of the most conservative schools in America would rather hang out with a funny, kindhearted Atheist than a "grouchy, misanthropic evangelical like Henry." After all, a Christian jerk is still a jerk.

I'm sure legions of well-meaning believers will want to convert Kevin Roose after reading his book and finding out that after a semester at America's holiest University he has yet to "get saved." What I'm hoping is that this book will actually help save Christians; save us from believing that the God Divide is a thick brick wall rather than a flimsy piece of cardboard; save us from believing that it doesn't matter what kind of person you are as long as you believe the right things; save us from aspects of Christianity that are more cultural preferences than Orthodoxy (and save us from the pride of being certain that we always know which is in which category).

I recommend this book for anybody who wants to be reminded of the humanity in all of us.