Roose<\/span> had transferred to the Virginia campus from Brown University<\/span> in Providence, a famously liberal member of the Ivy League<\/span>. His Liberty classmates knew about the switch, but he kept something more important hidden: He planned to write a book about his experience at the school founded by fundamentalist preacher Jerry Falwell<\/span>.<\/p>\nEach conversation about salvation or hand-wringing debate about premarital sex was unwitting fodder for Roose’s recently published book: “The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University.”<\/p>\n
“As a responsible American citizen, I couldn’t just ignore the fact that there are a lot of Christian college students<\/span> out there,” said Roose, 21, now a Brown senior. “If I wanted my education to be well-rounded, I had to branch out and include these people that I just really had no exposure to.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\nHow little exposure?<\/p>\n
Roose’s parents, liberal Quakers who once worked for Ralph Nader<\/span>, were nervous about their son being exposed to Falwell’s views.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nSee Berg’s Seventh Law; when libs babble about conservative provincialism, they’re projecting.<\/p>\n
He was determined to not mock the school, thinking it would be too easy \u2014 and unfair. He aimed to immerse himself in the culture, examine what conservative Christians<\/span> believe and see if he could find some common ground. He had less weighty questions too: How did they spend Friday nights? Did they use Facebook<\/span>? Did they go on dates? Did they watch “Gossip Girl<\/span>?”<\/p>\nIt wasn’t an easy transition. Premarital sex is an obvious no-no at Liberty. So are smoking and drinking. Cursing is also banned, so he prepared by reading the Christian self-help book, “30 Days to Taming Your Tongue.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The “Story” involved a lengthy interview with LU founder Jerry Falwell, I wonder what Roose’s parents think about the his conclusion?<\/p>\n
Roose said his Liberty experience transformed him in surprising ways.<\/p>\n
When he first returned to Brown, he’d be shocked by the sight of a gay couple holding hands \u2014 then be shocked at his own reaction. He remains stridently opposed to Falwell’s worldview, but he also came to understand Falwell’s appeal.<\/p>\n
Once ambivalent about faith, Roose now prays to God regularly \u2014 for his own well-being and on behalf of others. He said he owns several translations of the Bible<\/span> and has recently been rereading meditations from the letters of John on using love and compassion to solve cultural conflicts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nPerhaps someday they’ll try having a third-rate comic impersonate a caricatured blowhard conservative talking head…<\/p>\n
…er,no.\u00a0 That’d be too stupid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Remember the old book “Black Like Me?”\u00a0 It’s the story of a white journalist, John Howard Griffin, who pharmacologically dyed his skin black to pass as Afro-American; the book relates his experiences. I knew it was only a matter of time until someone tried it with Christians. Peter Roose, an undergrad at Brown University, went […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,26,18],"tags":[243,282],"class_list":["post-4631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-war","category-faiths-and-their-followers","category-pc","tag-bergs-7th-law","tag-idiot-elite"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4631"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41925,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4631\/revisions\/41925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}