The Unlikely Disciple

Cardinal_Fang
Fri, 01 May 2009 12:49:37 +0000

Kevin Roose, the writer of the book, finds a lot to like in the Liberty students, and so will the reader. They come across as sympathetic, and in many ways typical teenagers, though they are less reflective and more cheerful than students at non-religious schools. Roose doesn’t break his cover until well after he leaves Liberty, but when he does, his Liberty friends remain his friends.

The Liberty education, on the other hand, looks as stupid and ridiculous as expected. In order to get the full Liberty experience, Roose takes only religiously-oriented classes. He finds several of them difficult, but none of them are difficult in a useful academic way other than sociologically. In one of his classes, he studies how all the animals might have been packed on Noah’s Ark in the flood-- not exactly helpful information for his Biology class when he returns to Brown.

Liberty has a lot of rules and parietals: males and females in separate dorms, no kissing, no R-rated movies, no alcohol. One strange section of the book recounts a college counselor’s earnest attempt to counsel students to stop their masturbating habits. It turns out, though, that the rules are often ignored. Some students repent after flouting them. Others happily ignore them: one group of Roose’s friends gather at night in a dorm room to watch forbidden films.

The Unlikely Disciple is a quick read that sheds light on what to a lot of us is a strange and unknown corner of college life. Well worth reading.