Kevin Roose
The student who went undercover at Liberty University talks about Christian education, conservative Christian views on homosexuality, and why the “God divide” is overblown.
By Bradley Portnoy
March 25, 2009
(Photo courtesy Kevin Roose)By all appearances, Kevin Roose is your typical Brown University senior. He’s an English major, sings in an a cappella group, and was raised as a Quaker in the kind of family where having two lesbian aunts is no big deal. But instead of the typical junior year study-abroad trip to Europe or Africa, Roose took a semester off from Brown to enroll in Liberty University, the world’s largest evangelical university.
Founded in the 1970s by controversial pastor Jerry Fallwell (also responsible for founding the conservative lobby group Moral Majority), Liberty is known as much for its strict rules (no drinking, no dancing, and no kissing—not even on the cheek) as it is for its agenda-driven academics. Liberty teaches evolution in its biology department (necessary for accreditation), but all students are required to take courses teaching young earth creationism. When spring break rolls around, Liberty students hit the beaches like everyone else—but they’re there to proselytize, not party.
Roose dove head first into what Fallwell once described as “Bible boot camp,” living like any other evangelical Christian student. When people on the Liberty campus asked him why he had left Brown to enroll there, he told them he wanted to see what a Christian college was like. This was the truth, but his motives went beyond that. Roose took notes on his experience every night, and his new book, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University, is the story of his semester at Liberty. It comes out tomorrow.
Campus Progress recently spoke with Roose about his time at Liberty, the challenges of returning to Brown after a semester of piety, and how his parents reacted to his “semester abroad.”
Campus Progress: The book follows you through an entire semester spent at Liberty University, and in the end you come away with a surprisingly favorable impression. Going in, were you expecting to receive Liberty so positively, or did you find yourself surprised by the outcome?
Kevin Roose: I really had no idea what to expect at Liberty, since I grew up and lived my whole life in a secular, liberal bubble. All I had to work with were my preconceived notions of Falwell-style conservative Christianity. So it was completely surprising to discover that most Liberty students are perfectly normal kids, and that a lot of them spend their days watching Judd Apatow movies, gossiping about girls, and complaining about the amount of homework they have—the same things my friends at Brown do. I was expecting a college full of students who spent their free time sewing Hillary Clinton voodoo dolls and penning angry letters to the ACLU.
One of the major issues that you have with Liberty and its students’ views is their intolerance for homosexuality. At Brown you have a number of gay friends, and even went so far as to share a room with one of them before leaving for Liberty. Were there ever times that you nearly spoke out against some of the comments that you heard (or even an instance where you did that didn’t make it into the book)?
With that issue, I was in a pretty tough position since I couldn’t really speak my mind without revealing myself as an outsider. But as I got to know the guys on my hall, I did start to pipe up during discussions about homosexuality. I’d say things like, "You know, some people think the Bible doesn’t forbid same-sex relationships at all." And, of course, my hallmates would mostly roll their eyes and keep talking. But a few of them actually seemed open to the possibility, so I felt good about that. Baby steps, you know?
Your parents were apprehensive about your project going in—what have their reactions been to the changes Liberty brought about in you?
"Apprehensive" is a bit of an understatement. They flat-out hated the idea of me studying at Jerry Falwell’s college when I first brought it up. They used to work for Ralph Nader, after all. But I think they came to understand my motives for wanting to do it, and they supported me even though they were worried that I’d be changed permanently by the experience. Now, I think they’re just happy it’s over.
Even though you changed the names and identifying details of everyone in the book, you still spent a semester deceiving them about your true mission at Liberty. Were there any concerns going in about the ethics involved in your project?
Of course. It was unbelievably hard to keep certain parts of my identity shielded from public view, and it only got harder as I grew closer to my Liberty friends. But I decided early on that I wanted to see the real picture of Christian college life, and that required being seen as an insider. I did make a few rules for myself going into the project, one of which was that I’d do as little lying as possible. So I told people I came from Brown, and when they asked why, I said something strictly true, like "I wanted to see what Christian college was like." It probably wouldn’t pass muster in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, but it’s how I slept at night.
By the end of the book, you’re something of a campus celebrity. Do you think you got the full picture of what it’s like to be an average Liberty student or was your experience clouded by the many ways in which you reached into the community in search of more information?
I wanted to see as much of Liberty as possible in one semester, so I joined every club I could and took every class they’d let me take. And I certainly did try to reach out to people, get to know them, and hear their stories. Not being a wallflower allowed me to take in a lot during the four-plus months I was at Liberty, and as a result, I think my portrait of the school wound up being fuller and more authentic than it would have been otherwise.
A major topic is the style of teaching at Liberty: mostly filling in blanks in workbooks that are given out, with little room for discussion or debate. Is that true of all classes, or just the introductory ones that you took as a transfer?
Part of my experience, I’m sure, had to do with the size of the introductory classes I took—almost all of them had more than 100 students—and the content matter, which tends to be pretty dogmatic in the lower-level religion courses. So yeah, the information flow in those classes went almost entirely in one direction, and I did end up answering exam questions like, "True or false: Noah’s ark was large enough to accommodate various kinds of dinosaurs." Since I left, however, a number of Liberty professors and students have assured me that the upper-level classes are taught in a much more traditional style, with all the discussion and debate you’d expect at a liberal arts college.
The summary on The Unlikely Disciple’s book jacket loudly proclaims some of Liberty’s rules: no drinking, no smoking, etcetera. Which of the rules did you find the hardest to follow? Were there any you thought would be tough but weren’t?
The hardest, without question, was the no-cursing rule. I don’t smoke or drink heavily, but I do enjoy a good four-letter word once in a while, so I had a real problem going to Liberty, where curses are punishable with up to 18 reprimands. (For comparison, 30 reprimands is enough to get you expelled.) I actually bought a Christian self-help book called 30 Days to Taming Your Tongue, and as a result, I spent a few days saying things like "Glory!" and "Mercy me!" I sounded a little like Beaver Cleaver, but at least I avoided getting reprimands.
About midway through the book, your friend David (an outspoken gay Jew) comes to visit you at Liberty. Have any of your Liberty friends been to visit you at Brown? What did they think of it here?
None of them have been up to Providence yet, but a few of my Liberty friends have met my best friends at Brown, and they’ve all gotten along really well. It sort of sounds like the premise for a bad MTV show, bringing these two drastically different groups of people together, but it’s actually been great to bridge the gap between my worlds. I think I might be the only person in America who has similar numbers of Facebook friends at Brown and Liberty.
An event that I’m surprised wasn’t included in the book was your trip back to Brown for Spring Weekend, which is widely recognized as the most debaucherous weekend of the year—some students spend 72 hours intoxicated and the weekend often coincides with April 20th, a notorious date for marijuana use. How did that visit shape your perspectives on Liberty, and how much reverse culture shock did you experience during that weekend?
Spring Weekend was a strange experience, simply because what had once seemed so familiar was totally alien to me after spending several months at Liberty. I decided to cut that episode from the book, though, since I thought showing Brown only at the most bacchanalian time of the year would give a slanted picture of the school. It’d be like going to Liberty and only talking about the anti-abortion rallies.
Most if not all of your close friendships at Liberty seemed to be with men, and specifically with the residents of your dorm. How much did gender segregation in the dorms shape your social relationships at Liberty?
Gender plays a huge part in Liberty’s social dynamics, and my experiences there were inextricably dependent on me being a guy. If I’d been a girl, I’m sure I would have seen a completely different side of Liberty, especially with respect to Liberty’s theological teachings on female submission. A female Brown student should go to Lynchburg and write the girls’ version!
What was your reaction to Christopher Hitchens’ remarks and some of the other mean-spirited criticism that followed Rev. Fallwell’s death? What, if anything, would you like such critics to take away from The Unlikely Disciple?
I was actually surprised by my reaction to the Hitchens eulogy. [Hitchens called Falwell an "ugly little charlatan" and quipped that "if you gave him an enema, you could bury him in a matchbox."] I, too, had some pretty big qualms with Falwell’s theological and political views, but when I got to interview him several weeks before his death, I saw a different, more human side of him. He told me about his grandkids and his love of practical jokes, and I actually enjoyed talking to him, even though his affability didn’t excuse the offensive things he did. I think it’s important to recognize the humanity of even the people we disagree with most strongly, and I think Hitchens’ remarks, while funny, reduced a complex man to a one-dimensional villain.
At one point, you compare your study away at Liberty to many students’ study abroad experiences in other nations, and wonder if the divide may be greater even though you spoke the same language as Liberty students. In the end, how different did you find the culture at Liberty from the progressive secular culture you’re more accustomed to? Are we as divided as the culture warriors would have us believe?
Perhaps unsurprisingly, I found that the “God divide” was nowhere near as big as people tend to think it is. There are legitimate differences between the two sides of the culture wars, of course, and those differences are likely to continue for quite a while. But I don’t think this particular religious conflict is built around a hundred-foot brick wall. If anything, it’s built around a flimsy piece of cardboard, held in place on both sides by paranoia and lack of exposure. If someone like me can go to Liberty and find things to like about it, the God divide can’t possibly be all that forbidding.
What’s the one thing that you would want to tell students at Liberty (or any evangelical Christian) to help them better understand progressive secular culture?
I don’t think there’s any one maxim that will do the trick. I think the key is just to spend time with people on the other side, learning why they believe the things they do. I know it’s not likely to happen, but I genuinely think the world would be a better place if every secular progressive spent time getting to know evangelical Christians and vice versa. It’s hard to demonize people when you learn to see things from their perspective.
Bradley Portnoy is a senior at Brown University. He lives in Providence, Rhode Island.
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Fascinating! Hadn’t heard about this. Definitely brings up some questions about ethics, but I think showing the two extremes of the Spring Weekend and an anti-abortion rally shows that someone on both “sides” could find something to be outraged by.
— Tanya - Mar 25, 11:01 AM - #Thanks for drawing our attention to this—I’m going to have to read the book now!
— Emily - Mar 25, 11:44 AM - #Dear Sir, I have one question. How did the unchanging Word OF GOD evolve from the Ten Mommandments to Reagan’s ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT and back again to TEN COMMANDMENTS? Likewise, how did the unchanging WORD OF GOD morph into the BOOK OF MORMON? Clifford Spencer
— Clifford Spencer - Mar 26, 06:50 PM - #Liberty definitely isn’t “america’s holiest university’; in fact, it is known to be one of the more liberal ones among conservative christian colleges. Bob Jones University in South Carolina would have been more appropriate for what you’re doing, and I’m sure you would have had a different experience.
— Dez Clodfelter - Mar 27, 11:13 AM - #This definitely sounds like a fascinating read, but I’m surprised that Campus Progress would include a somewhat derogatory remark about gay people in one of the questions — especially considering the topic.
“At Brown you have a number of gay friends, and even went so far as to share a room with one of them before leaving for Liberty.” [emphasis mine]
Why is having a gay roommate such a big deal? Really CP, you ought to know better.
— Aaron - Mar 27, 12:32 PM - #Thanks for once again demonstrating how open-minded engagement increases tolerance, even acceptance of diversity. Disconnectedness and, at the extreme, isolation shrivels the soul.
“Familiarity (still frequently) breeds contempt,” but as with any area of growth and development, integrating seemingly disparate phenomena into one’s schemas enlarges our capacity to manifest/retain what Buddhists term “beginner’s mind” and this helps us avoid the inconsideration and insensitivity of taking people for granted, i.e. not being appreciative of their strengths/attributes, of which every person has at least some.
— Lew - May 1, 05:41 AM - #