The Unlikely Disciple
Book report time.
You all have got to read "The Unlikely Disciple." It's by a young college student (at the time) who went undercover (sort of) at Liberty Baptist University -- Falwell's school -- to find out what makes fundamentalists tick.
I am only partway through it (started it last night) but having been in the LC and before that fundamental Baptist-ism, this baby is hilarious. And actually, insightful.
Kevin Roose, the author, spends a semester at Liberty away from his regular school, Brown University. He helped A. J. Jacobs with some research in his popular book "The Year of Living Biblically" and that is surely what inspired him to do this.
I started it worried that it would present Liberty through the liberal world-prism no matter how hard the author tried to be objective. And it does ... but to a much smaller degree than I feared. Roose is able to describe some of the insanity of the Young Earth "real scientist" professor's schtick with an honest consideration that maybe, just maybe, Noah's Ark could have been big enough to house all the earth's species. It was, as the professor described it, a "floating skyscraper" after all.
His take on the social side of Liberty -- from courtship to movie-watching to Bible study attendance -- is especially riveting. Read it and think FTTA. There are differences, of course, between young FTTA'ers and the Liberty crowd but really, if you probe deep enough, not that many.
Since I'm not finished yet, I'm wondering, will Roose "receive the Lord" before book's end? Please don't tell me if you already know. I'm really fascinated by this question because he has indicated that he has this secret fear that maybe this experience will affect him more than he wants it to. His parents, two extremely left-wing liberals, definitely are worried about this.
So far I would have to say that this book is step in the right direction for the secular world. They have cartoonized fundamentalism and evangeliscalism and Pentecostalism for far too long. The world from Latin America to Africa to China to Russia doesn't get the joke. They are converting in great numbers (read "God is Back" from the London Times online (link below) for proof) and Hollywood and the MSM (mainstream media) are in danger of really missing the story of the age by continuing to view us whacko Christians as, well, whackos.
I'll post more on this book as I work my way through it.
SC
|