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 Finding Oneself at Liberty University December 1, 2009
Paul R. Waibel (Clinton, MS)
10 out of 15 found this review helpful
Having taught at Liberty University for four years during the early 1990s, I could not resist reading Kevin Roose's The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2009). I was curious to see whether the Liberty University Mr. Roose experienced was the Liberty University I remembered. Also, I lived in Lynchburg during the 1960s, when Jerry Falwell was just beginning to build a media empire that was to become both the shame and glory of Lynchburg, Virginia.
What I found was a well-written book, an interesting personal account of Roose's experience that was often humorous and occasionally sad. Being familiar with the lack of preparation and motivation of most college students today, I was impressed with the literary abilities of Roose who is himself an undergraduate student at Brown University. Clearly, he no doubt had input from editors provided by the publisher, but still his talent as a writer deserves recognition. And so I say to Mr. Roose: "Congratulations! I hope this is only the first of many books you will write in the future."
Now back to my original motive for taking the time to read this book. Did Liberty University as portrayed by Roose bear any resemblance to the Liberty University I knew? The short answer is very little. So, I must ask myself why? Has Liberty University changed that much since I left in 1993? Or is Mr. Roose's Liberty more a successful response to some editor's discernment of what would sell? Books that portray Evangelical Christians as ignorant, bigoted, eccentric and in short downright weird will sell. There is little market for books portraying them as being no different than members of any other American subculture. After all, remove the cultural baggage that weighs all of us down, and underneath we are all pretty much the same. No, I believe Mr. Roose gives us a true account of his actual experiences. Mr. Roose warns the reader that some names have been changed (to protect both the innocent and the guilty, we assume), some "personal details have been changed," as well as "some bits of dialogue . . . rearranged, and some events appear out of sequence." Such literary liberties are to be expected and do not threaten the integrity of the book.
I think what skews Mr. Roose's narrative is the fact that he did not register for any traditional academic courses such as sociology, psychology, history, English, math, the natural sciences, etc. He went to Liberty University wanting to find what could be characterized as "Bible Boot Camp." Hence, he registered for "Contemporary Issues," "History of Life," "Evangelism 101," and other general education classes that are specific to Liberty University. Frankly put, they are the courses meant to indoctrinate students into a particular theological worldview of American fundamentalism, generously mixed with equal portions of classic laissez-faire economics and Bush-Cheney neo-conservatism. The latter two, but not the former, are common to most evangelicals. Fundamentalism, as one Bible department professor at Liberty told me, is not a theological position, but rather a state of mind. Like so many of the evangelical pop stars who preach to the faithful on religious TV and radio stations, and whose books and CDs compete for space on the shelves of Christian bookstores with WWJD bracelets, coffee mugs, and yes, velvet Jesuses, Jerry Falwell was a gifted entrepreneur and first-class showman. Some would say he was the most successful religious flim-flam man in Christendom. That, however, is simply a matter of opinion.
Kevin Roose describes Liberty University as "Bible Boot Camp." Many of us who labored there were more apt to refer to it as the "Falwell Plantation." Plantation is an image most Americans, especially those in the South, can identify with. Europeans would better understand the "Falwell Manor." Liberty was not, and is not, in the traditional sense an academic institution. It is but one of a number of successful commercial ventures started by Jerry Falwell. That in itself should not surprise anyone. Both private and public institutions of learning are subject to the iron laws of economic reality. At the end of the month the bills must be paid. What sets schools like Liberty University apart from other Christian colleges and ministries is the impression that it is a family business. It is an example of what a colleague of mine, a professor at Reformed Theological Seminary, called "son-ship ministry." He was referring to the fact that many ministries founded by religious pop stars are treated like a family business rather than a true ministry. When the founding father passes on, it is assumed that the eldest son, if there is one, or son-in-law if not, will inherit controlling interest in the firm. We need look no further than Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts and R.C. Sproul for examples. Thus in the case of the Falwells, Junior got the university and number two son got the church.
No doubt one reason for the popularity of son-ship ministry is the desire to maintain the integrity of the founder's vision. But we can be forgiven if we suspect that part of the reason is not to lose control of a very lucrative business. I remember in 1992, a ninety-five year old Lynchburg resident smiling as he commented: "The Falwells. Now there's a money-making family. They always have been. Yes sir, they always have been." One need only read Jerry Falwell's autobiography to learn of his father's business acumen. We are told that he was a successful oilman and bootlegger who shot and killed his brother, a tragedy that he never really got over. The Falwells were not a part of the old Virginia aristocracy, however. Neither were they what in the old days before the Civil Rights struggle were called "poor white trash." They were a living example of the American dream, which is to say, hard-working common folks trying to earn a living, and a little bit more, if possible. Whatever economic successes they enjoyed was earned, not inherited. Perhaps that helps us understand Jerry Falwell's preference for American civil religion over what some of us would call biblical Christianity. No doubt it goes a long way towards explaining the attraction of his message among middle class evangelicals and neo-cons.
But I have again digressed and must return to the subject of Mr. Roose's narrative. Had he enrolled in some more traditional courses, he would not have found so much difference between Liberty and Brown. Admittedly Brown is in a very different league academically. Mr. Roose is himself a good example of the quality academic program offered by Brown University. My personal experience has taught me that institutions of higher learning, whether parochial or secular, have many things in common. One is that much depends upon the individual faculty member. There are many faculty at Liberty University every bit as committed to teaching as their counterparts at Brown. Jerry Falwell was not off mark when he often said, as have many others, that Brown University and many of the elite colleges that were founded as Christian schools have long since abandoned the mission they were founded upon. This is a fate that seems to await virtually all Christian educational institutions, and if history is any guide to the future, it will happen to Liberty University as well. Jerry Falwell was convinced as are many of like mind that academic freedom leads inevitably to the triumph of secularism. Hence, unlike at Brown and most colleges and universities, faculty at Liberty University are not granted any tenure. They are employed on a day-to-day basis. They do not enjoy any job security, and may be dismissed according to the whim of the chancellor.
When I first joined the faculty at Liberty, my contract included a clause requiring me to be a "tithing member of record of Thomas Road Baptist Church." A couple of years later when Falwell was trying to get approval for a bond issue to obtain much-needed funds for the university, he had to remove that requirement as part of an attempt to show that Liberty was no more Christian than Notre Dame and other such universities who, according to his own opinion, were apostate. I remember that those of us teaching there at the time referred to it as the "emancipation proclamation." Many of us chose to leave Thomas Road Baptist Church for other churches where worship services were not weekly political rallies and/or rantings about the spread of "secular humanism," followed by a plea to give additional funds to help Jerry save America. As a crusader against secular humanism Falwell had only one serious rival, the late Dr. D. James Kennedy.
Once again, I think that Mr. Roose's experience of having professors who were more like drill sergeants at Bible Boot Camp was largely the result of the courses he chose, and not necessarily typical of the faculty as a whole. For example, at one point he says that all classes opened with prayer. During four years of teaching at Liberty University I seldom opened a class with prayer, and I was not the only one who felt that to do so trivialized the purpose of prayer. The reader gets the impression from reading Mr. Roose's book that there is more praying than learning going on at Liberty. His portrait of life at Liberty is just the image that public relations and recruiting personnel want the public to have. It is a certain type of person who is attracted to such a school, although many students are there because of their parents' choice, not their own. Falwell used to say that Liberty University was not the right school for everyone, and he would add with a smile, "but it may be for you." The reality is, as Mr. Roose occasionally hints, that students at Liberty are not much different from students at secular universities. Neither rules nor strict enforcement of rules can overcome peer and cultural pressure to conform. Parents may wish their offspring were, like them, defenders of the status quo, rather than heralds of a new age. But no student today wants to be the odd one out.
One of the more interesting things that we learn from The Unlikely Disciple is that Kevin Roose was the last person to interview Jerry Falwell for a newspaper, the university's own Liberty Champion. The experience obviously had a profound impact on him, especially in light of the fact that Falwell died only two days later. One can only imagine how even a seasoned journalist used to interviewing bigger-than-life personalities would have felt, much less a college student. Roose's article on Falwell that came out of the interview was reprinted and distributed at Falwell's funeral.
Like so many of us who at one time or other met Jerry Falwell, Kevin Roose found him to be a very likable person. He was that. One on one, he could charm even the most hostile liberal. Was this a calculated sales tactic of a super salesman, or simply the fact that at his core Jerry Falwell was a man who loved people as individuals and wanted most of all to see everyone he met come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ? I remember Rev. Falwell saying once that the one thing in life he regretted was having been asked to visit a dying man in the hospital and share with him the gospel, and having left without doing so. The man died shortly after. Falwell said that ever since then he was troubled by the thought that the man may have died unsaved. A Calvinist might argue that the individual's destiny is determined by divine providence or predestination. But Jerry Falwell was not a Calvinist. Like Dwight L. Moody and other evangelists, Falwell believed that every individual must choose whether or not to accept the gift of God's grace in Jesus Christ.
Mr. Roose rightly sensed that Jerry Falwell was a very complex personality. Most attempts to characterize him as simply this or that fall short of doing justice to the man. During that once in a lifetime interview, Mr. Roose asked Falwell: "What do you want God to say to you at the pearly gates?" Falwell leaned back in his chair, smiling and answered with a quote from Mathew 25:23: "That's easy. He'll say, 'Well done, good and faithful servant.'" What the Lord said to him when he crossed over only the Lord and he knows. I think the Lord greeted him with a smile, put his arm around Jerry's shoulder and said something like, "Let's go have a glass of wine and a nice long chat." Oh! Did I say wine? I meant to say a cup of cappuccino.
Jerry Falwell both used and was used by the people he came into contact with. At the height of his political influence he had access to the White House and the halls of Congress. Powerful politicians and leaders of the emerging so-called "Religious Right" wanted to be seen with him. And he enjoyed the attention. More than once I sat in faculty meetings at Liberty University and heard him mention a recent breakfast with then President George H. W. Bush at the White House. He was an important person, and knew it. But sometimes he appeared shameless, as for example during chapel service at the university when he read a letter from an admiring elder lady who said that only heaven knows the number of souls there because of Jerry Falwell. Was the letter real, or prepared on demand by one of his staff? Does it really matter?
By the time of his death his star was fading. The sons and daughters of Falwell's "moral majority" were moving closer to a more biblical evangelicalism that is environmentally friendly and is more interested in social justice than free enterprise and the Rush Limbaugh vision of the American dream. In the end not a single important political figure from among those who earlier lined up to have their picture taken with Jerry Falwell attended his funeral. It was the common people who lined up by the thousands for hours to pass by his casket and show their respect for him and mourn his passing. Kevin Roose was among them.
Mr. Roose attended Liberty University undercover for a semester in order to write an expose of life at "America's holiest university." What did he learn from his time spent there? I think the answer is found in this paragraph from his book: "What did I like about Dr. Falwell? Well, I liked his compassion among his people. I liked his Wonka-esque whimsy and his prankster streak, and I appreciated him as a talented pastor. But more than that, what I liked about Dr. Falwell was that he made me question my own assumptions. I sat in the Thomas Road choir loft week after week, listening to him preach to his congregation, and the more I heard, the less angry I became about the fact that any of this existed. In a way, I think Dr. Falwell functioned for me as a sort of human Rorschach test. Over the course of the semester, as my thoughts 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."
Kevin Roose chose not to transfer any of his credits from Liberty University to Brown University. But, if education has anything to do with seeing the world more clearly and understanding oneself better, then Roose's semester at "Bible Boot Camp" was not wasted. After reading The Unlikely Disciple, should you decide to do so, you may wish to do as I have, and take a look at Kevin Roose's blog to see how others have reacted to his book
Refreshingly open-minded November 8, 2009
Justjudy (Shoreline CT)
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
It was refreshing to read this beautifully written account of a student experiencing a year in a polar opposite campus in which he was open-minded. These days so many people rush to demonize the different, and make fun of the stereotype, but Kevin Roose took care to listen to and understand his fellow students at Liberty University setting us all a good example.
informative, entertaining, and well written November 5, 2009
Roberta Green (Cuernavaca, Mexico)
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
This non-fiction book is worth reading. It offers skilled writing, plenty of history, facts and concepts. Amusing at times, I even found myself laughing out loud. This young author is not pushing an agenda. His journalistic approach offers a well balanced view.
 The Other Side of the Story November 5, 2009
Keith J. Johnson
4 out of 29 found this review helpful
The author's reasoning is understandable but I do not condone his lies and deception in writing this book because the end never justifies the means.
I, too, attended Liberty University both as a skeptic and a naysayer ... but later I returned as a person committed to Jesus Christ. As a result, I can attest to the vast differences in my own experiences because they were completely dependent upon my worldview at each individual time. For example, the people I hung with were different, the sermons I listened to were different, my feelings toward the rules were different and the amount of good and evil I saw or experienced was very different.
I believe Kevin has capabilities as a writer but my prayer is that he will allow his heart to be captured by Jesus Christ and then write the other side of the story.
By the grace of God, he succeeds. October 30, 2009
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
Kevin Roose was your typical Brown University sophomore. He studied, he partied, he protested, and he sang in an a cappella group. His social circle included atheists, Buddhists, Wiccans and non-practicing Jews, but no born-again Christians. And then, one weekend, Roose met a couple of students who went to Liberty:
"I wasn't sure whether `go to Liberty' was some sort of coded religious language, like `walk the path' or `seek the kingdom,' so I asked. I had to chuckle when they told me that `Liberty' meant Liberty University, a Christian liberal arts college founded and presided over by Rev. Falwell."
Quick reminder: Rev. Jerry Falwell is the guy who organized the Moral Majority in the 1970s, outed Tinky Winky in the 1990s and blamed the September 11 terrorist attacks on gays and feminists on September 13, 2001. Despite controversial comments like these (or perhaps because of them), Falwell's college, Liberty University, has grown from 154 students to nearly 25,000 over the past four decades.
After meeting with the Liberty students and talking about Rev. Falwell, Roose resolved to see what all the fuss was about. Over objections from his ultra-liberal extended family, he enrolled at Liberty, spent a full semester there and wrote about it in his new book, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University.
Liberty University sticks Roose in a dorm room with an older, homophobic student named Eric (i.e., "I'm telling you, if a queer touched me, I would do what Samson did to the Philistines. Or what David did to Goliath. I would beat him with a baseball bat."). Trouble comes when Eric decides that Roose is gay (i.e., "Put some clothes on, faggot.").
Luckily for Roose, Eric is the exception; most of the guys at Liberty ("there are lots of Lukes, Matthews and Pauls") are nonjudgmental and more like the rest of us than you'd think (i.e., "Dude, Joey, tell me you didn't have the biggest boner when you saw Topanga on [Boy Meets World].").
And then there are the girls. "While Liberty isn't a sexual place in the same way most college campuses are," Roose explains, "it's certainly sexualized. Liberty girls might be virgins, and they might not wear two-piece bathing suits to the pool, but they do wear thigh-hugging jeans, clingy blouses and dresses that leave some, but not all, to the imagination."
Early on, Roose meets a fellow thought-criminal named Anna, who, like the author, has reservations about the school. "Liberty is a pretty ironic name for this place," she comments. This romantic subplot is taken out of George Orwell's 1984 playbook; just as Winston Smith meets Julia at a Two Minutes of Hate rally, Roose meets Anna at a Friday-night Bible-study group. And like Winston and Julia, Roose and Anna bond over their normalness and their humanity.
But Roose and Anna have to keep their emotions in check; at Liberty University, intercourse, oral sex, rubbing, kissing and prolonged hugging are strictly forbidden. If Roose and Anna were to stare at each other for too long, they might be accused of having "optical intercourse."
While Roose and Anna aren't "making eye babies"--another term for staring--the author joins a Masturbators Anonymous group, learns to evangelize like Kirk Cameron and attends a Christian hip-hop performance (i.e., "Tryin' to find purpose in life without Christ/Is like findin' Wesley Snipes in the dark with no flashlight.").
Roose's open-mindedness and writing style resemble those of his literary mentor, A.J. Jacobs. If you've read either of Jacobs' books (The Know-It-All, The Year of Living Biblically), you know this isn't a bad thing; it just means that Roose breezily combines high culture with low, integrates scholarly information into real-world situations and learns a couple of lessons along the way.
Roose succeeds by keeping the stakes grounded. He's a college student, so he writes about college. He doesn't try to unlock the mysteries of evangelical Christianity, just evangelical Christianity at the collegiate level. And by the grace of God, he succeeds.
Oh, and one last thing: The book has an incredible ending.
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