The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University

By Kevin Roose
2010
324 pages. Audio: 11 hours and 40 minutes
Nonfiction

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Even though I decided to stay away from straightforward theology books in these reviews, I can’t quite stay away from religion entirely. And this book is so good it must be included. In fact, if you decide to read it, The Unlikely Disciple might be your favorite book of the year.

Roose, who was a student at Brown University, decides to go to Liberty University for a year and let everyone believe that he is an evangelical just like they are. This is very much like going to a foreign country. He even has to have a friend teach him how to speak Christian evangelical because he has no idea. It is one of the funniest scenes in a very funny book. Although the campus minister’s attempt to help him with every college guy’s biggest temptation is equally hilarious.

However, if you’re anticipating a hatchet job this book is certainly not it. I actually think Roose treats the folks at Liberty with remarkable respect, and he makes some great friends. After leaving he indicates that he misses going with a friend to pray in the chapel—and says this with absolutely no irony. He’s nobody’s idea of an evangelical Christian but he is someone who wants to understand them.

Anyone who has attended a conservative Christian college will most likely, like me, howl with recognition watching this outsider trying to navigate these very unfamiliar waters.

The book is certainly not just played for laughs. Roose is clearly baffled by teachers who demonstrably know their fields, especially in the sciences, but will do all sorts of intellectual gymnastics to protect positions like young earth creationism. He also attends the Liberty Baptist Church and, although he is no fan of Jerry Falwell, I was shocked to find his treatment restrained and respectful.

Roose is actually acting like an anthropologist or ethnographer, attempting to understand a tribe or culture that nothing in his experience has prepared him to navigate. And he turns out to be a most congenial and humorous guide.

The book is also relentlessly entertaining. Let me offer a couple of good reasons for reading it. First, after reading the book I have more appreciation of how unfathomable we conservative Christians must seem to those who have little experience with us. It is also good medicine for those Christians (and especially those in Christian colleges) who have lost the ability to find humor in themselves. I wish those of us who fall into that camp would be as generous about understanding others as Roose is.

Second, this book actually provides some hope that in a deeply divided country (far more divided now than when the book was written 10 years ago) it might be possible for us to have generous, gracious, friendly conversations with those who have an entirely different view of the world.

Roose did not have a conversion experience while he was at Liberty. But he did make friends. If you ask me, that’s not a bad start.