Books

_The Unlikely Disciple_, Kevin Roose

Roose is a journalist major at Brown, starting his sophomore year, when he becomes really curious about fundamentalist Christians. So he does what any liberal semi-agnostic Quaker would do: he enrolls for a semester at Liberty University, Jerry Falwell's school in Virginia. He goes undercover religiously, pretending to be a recent convert. What does he discover? Nothing particularly shocking. The people he meets are mostly like any group of clueless college students. Some are cynical, some are idealists, most are just following their herd.

They seem to be obsessed with rules. The student government makes lots of them -- and most are countermanded by the administration. The administration makes lots of them, right down into what most of my peers would consider unacceptably authoritarian dictates of their lives... and nobody complains. A few rebel.

There is racism, sometimes shockingly overt. Although technically a violation of the rules, a blind eye is turned.

There is rampant homophobia, institutionalized and socialized. Homophobia isn't a strong enough word, in fact -- it's not just fear, it's fear and hatred and loathing. When an actual homosexual - a friend of Roose from Brown - comes to visit, nobody notices. They have been taught fear and hatred without even knowing any of their "enemy". That doesn't stop them from using "gay" and "faggot" as their favorite terms of all-purpose abuse, of course.

What comes through most clearly is that none of the students are mature adults or growing towards that state. They all want to be told what to do. Maturity will, they expect, be thrust upon them along with graduation and a job and marriage.

Roose seems to have a great deal of sympathy for just about everyone he encounters (except his virulently homophobic, racist, and antisocial roommate). Anyone with any intellectual depth, he speculates, is compartmenting off the rational part of themselves from the religious, and the religious side always gets the controlling vote.

Scary stuff.

Books

_The Unlikely Disciple_, Kevin Roose

Roose is a journalist major at Brown, starting his sophomore year, when he becomes really curious about fundamentalist Christians. So he does what any liberal semi-agnostic Quaker would do: he enrolls for a semester at Liberty University, Jerry Falwell's school in Virginia. He goes undercover religiously, pretending to be a recent convert. What does he discover? Nothing particularly shocking. The people he meets are mostly like any group of clueless college students. Some are cynical, some are idealists, most are just following their herd.

They seem to be obsessed with rules. The student government makes lots of them -- and most are countermanded by the administration. The administration makes lots of them, right down into what most of my peers would consider unacceptably authoritarian dictates of their lives... and nobody complains. A few rebel.

There is racism, sometimes shockingly overt. Although technically a violation of the rules, a blind eye is turned.

There is rampant homophobia, institutionalized and socialized. Homophobia isn't a strong enough word, in fact -- it's not just fear, it's fear and hatred and loathing. When an actual homosexual - a friend of Roose from Brown - comes to visit, nobody notices. They have been taught fear and hatred without even knowing any of their "enemy". That doesn't stop them from using "gay" and "faggot" as their favorite terms of all-purpose abuse, of course.

What comes through most clearly is that none of the students are mature adults or growing towards that state. They all want to be told what to do. Maturity will, they expect, be thrust upon them along with graduation and a job and marriage.

Roose seems to have a great deal of sympathy for just about everyone he encounters (except his virulently homophobic, racist, and antisocial roommate). Anyone with any intellectual depth, he speculates, is compartmenting off the rational part of themselves from the religious, and the religious side always gets the controlling vote.

Scary stuff.