The Unlikely Disciple

The Unlikely Disciple by Kevin Roose. If you have the funds and the time, I recommend it. And really, it doesn't take that much time to read- I just swallowed it whole for my evangelicalism class in a total of maybe 5 hours. It's about a student from Brown University who transfers to Liberty University for his second semester freshman year in 2007. He was raised by non-religious Quaker parents, so definitely in the non-evangelical camp, but decided to spend a semester at Liberty to debunk some stereotypes, stuff like that.

It's been really interesting to read a book like this and to place it in the context of my class (The Evangelical Tradition: America and Beyond) and then to put my class into the context of my life. I never realized how weird it is to hear a professor talk about Jesus. Separation of church and state is so ingrained in me, I guess, that I almost flinched the first time my professor said Christ in class, like it was blasphemy or something. At the same time, it was super weird to read this book and see the two halves of myself staring back at me. Roose writes about all the good little Christian girls that go to Liberty and the prayer groups and the Bible studies and things like that and he also writes about the doubters and the rebels and his own struggles with loving the saint and hating the religion.

I never really took the time to reconcile the kid who could be a counselor at a Christian camp and the kid who can go to college and analytically study the Bible. I mean, they're not irreconcilable, it's not like I'm going to live in two halves the rest of my life, but it does take some thinking to take the devotion of the first, the prayer and the bible study and the wholeness and add it to the reason and skepticism of the second. Not that you're unreasonable if you're an evangelical. Ugh. See what I mean?

Anyway, one point I really wanted to take away from the book was Roose's comments on Jerry Falwell, who founded Liberty and was the chancellor until his death. The first impression I ever had of Jerry Falwell is one that Roose references many times (because everyone does)- he's the guy who made the 9/11 comments, saying it was God's punishment on America because of abortionists and gays. Not exactly what you want representing your faith. But, as Roose says,
"Over the course of the semester, as my thought about faith and people of faith became more nuanced, so did my opinion of Dr. Falwell. I could appreciate his love for his flock in large part because I had learned to love them myself. And at the beginning of the semester, when all I saw in Dr. Falwell was hatred, I may have been saying more about my own heart than his."

I think the last line is really important. It struck me. I'd put it in italics, but I think they're cheesy.

No matter which side of the aisle you're on in the Christian faith, I think you have a lot to learn from the Bible, either by reading its spirit or reading it in the Spirit. We need to work on mending the Church. I've never heard this passage applied to that kind of work, but I like it, for this and for general life application, so I leave you with Ecclesiastes 3: 9-14:

 What does the worker gain from his toil?  I have seen the burden God has laid on men.  He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.  I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God.  I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him.