The Unbearable Lightness of Weighty Reads

The Unlikely Disciple 

A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University

ISBN: 978-0-446-17842-6

© Copyright 2009 - Kevin Roose 
- - Grand Central Publishing

The Unlikely Disciple is an engrossing autobiography. Author, Kevin Roose, side-steps the liberal philosophical mindset to capture the upsides and the peculiarities of life at Liberty University while going undercover as a conservative, evangelical student at the school which was founded in Lynchburg, VA, by deceased Moral Majority leader, Rev. Jerry Falwell.

And why, might you ask, would an academically promising student from one of the nation's most liberal Ivies, (Brown University) subject himself to such a Pygmalion experiment? Roose accomplishes the untenable. Through this year-long geopolitical shift, Roose convincingly learns how to both appreciate a sincere Christian's path while isolating the things that give him pause about evangelical Christianity.

His total submersion into Liberty culture, classes, and required worship service activities ooze with honesty in the most unlikely ways, while he questions his own personal spiritual identity and practice. Written with the aspiration of an author twice his age, Roose's prose moves lyrically from page to page, igniting personal reflection in the reader and introducing curious, if not comical narration concerning the traditional value system that animates life at Liberty.

It's a fast read exactly because it engages with lively and believable compilations of students' personal stories about why they attend Liberty. They boldly uphold their Christian ideology by submitting wholly to the path of evangelical Christianity and Liberty conservatism. Surprisingly, the book also explores the paths of other students who genuinely struggle with their Christian identity in the midst of evangelical entrenchment. Smartly, Roose respectfully navigates through his own attraction to a female student who had transferred to Liberty from a less conservative school, ON PURPOSE.

The Unlikely Disciple is a fine read by way of it being Roose's catharsis. He learns a great deal about himself inside the pro-marriage, traditional family values world of Liberty, which balances any of his preconceived notions about the legalism he would face and be forced to denigrate. As the title suggests, Roose becomes the most unlikely disciple for choosing a spiritually aware path on the basis of a personal experience with God rather than a rally for conservatism.