Book review on “The Unlikely Disciple”

May 8, 2009 by Daniel Ross-Jones

About two weeks ago, I received one of my regular 15% off coupons from Barnes & Noble in my e-mail inbox.  (I buy most of my textbooks through them, and paid the $25 for a membership at the beginning of the school year.)  Normally I delete these messages and unwanted spam, but I was thinking of summer reading and decided to pick out three books, one of which is the new release, “The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University” by Brown University senior Kevin Roose.

The basic premise of the book is simple: Roose takes a semester off from Brown to study at Liberty University, the Harvard of right-wing evangelicalism founded by the late Jerry Falwell.  His goal is not to completely bridge the divide between the evangelical and secular worlds, but at least to start pouring the concrete footings, searching for the humanness behind the ideology.

For a post-modern, progressive faith bridge-builder like myself, I loved it.

If one is in search of ammunition against the religious right and support for Grinch-like condemnation, “Unlikely Disciple” will be of no use.  If one is in search of conversion and submissive transformation, keep on searchng.  If one is in search of stories like late nights in Dorm 22, boys-will-be-boys joviality, and a fair amount of levity and humor, pick up a copy immediately.

That’s not to say there isn’t pain in the reading.  Roose’s writing brings the characters into 3D living color, causing the reader to share in his challenge of reconciling their often opposite beliefs from everyday actions.  There’s also something to be said about knowing the theological underpinnings of the university’s operation and distinctives and knowing those things playing out.  Multi-million dollar facility improvements for one of America’s most public and influential megachurches in an area of the country characterized for poverty and substandard living is gutwrenching, no matter how its sliced.

I also think, however, Roose’s intentions with this book reflect the modern/post-modern shift than he even addressed in his reading.  In the epilogue, as he touches briefly on the transition of power from the senior Falwell to his sons following his death, Roose expresses some of the changes as Liberty “relaxes” its rules and tight control over academics and student life.  These changes, like the softening of evangelicals in creation/environmental care, and Roose’s own openness to building bridges and the surprising reactions he receives when he spills the beans, so to speak, to his Liberty friends point to a foundational thought process that seeks to transform boxes and binary thinking.  There are beacons of hope throughout the book that the same shift experienced in mainstream society and secular (or mainline Protestant) education is not completely lost among evangelicals.

Finally, I also appreciated Roose’s connections throughout the book to the projections people on the left cast on people on the right.  While he is writing from an almost entirely secular context, I will take a certain amount of liberty with his work and include liberal mainline Protestants in his categorization of secular.  The responses he received from his family members, fellow students at Brown, and others around him when he announced his attentions to “study abroad” and experience immersive cross-cultural engagement were exactly what I would expect from those around me in my own religious context.  He demonstrates the work that is to be done on both sides of the left-right spectrum if we are going to bridge the God divide, and provides an excellent resource for those of us who don’t have the resources to immerse ourselves as he did.

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