The Unlikely Disciple
I just finished reading the book The Unlikely Disciple last night. Took me about 4 days to read it, bits and pieces at a time. That is really the only way I know how to read. Kevin is a senior English lit major at Brown University…which makes this the first book I’ve ever read by someone close to my age or younger than me. I’m still figuring out what that means.
Essentially the book is a reality tv show…in written form. It follows a Brown student who decides he wants to attend Liberty University (yes, the Falwell school) for a semester and then write a book about it // he really was an unlikely disciple. In fact, he did the last print interview with Jerry Falwell before his passing.
I would highly recommend the book, and buy it now because you can get it a lot cheaper right now on Amazon. I thought Kevin did a “fair and balanced” job of portraying the inner workings of conservative Christianity, something he was very unfamiliar with before going to Liberty.
I’m not going to do a big book review (mostly because I find them pretty boring), but did want to point out my favorite quote from the whole book.
“Most college students, myself included, talk about entering the real world with a certain level of wariness. But I suspect Liberty students have more reasons to worry than I do…Liberty students going anywhere outside Lynchburg’s city limits will soon find their whole cosmology shaken. They’ll meet people who believe in evolution, don’t believe in Jesus, people who mock them for going to Jerry Falwell’s college. What’s more they’ll see that those people bear no resemblance to the heathen masses they learned about in their GNED classes. For Liberty students who have spent 4 years hearing from their professors about how unfulfilled, relativistic, flimsy, and hedonistic the real world is, meeting hordes of happy, principled, morally sound non-Christians will come as a shot between the eyes. And to be honest, I’m not sure how they’ll take it” (emphasis mine, 271).
My experience at a Christian college (albiet, not a conservative one) was very much like this quote.
Tyler Braun.
Ooooh. This looks good. Just ordered it!
[...] (the author) and asked if I could chat with him about the book (you can read more about the book HERE). So Wednesday night this week (the night before the book came out) I chatted with him and asked [...]
I graduated about a year ago from a Christian College and everyone called it “the bubble” while we were there. It was a really covered, safe place that in a way didn’t get me ready for what I was to encounter after leaving there. It is a great place, the learning was really valuable but I can see how being in such a place can bring a shock factor when we are confronted with reality.I guess being in a place like that can bring interesting experiences that can make a great book. Going to get this one soon.
Ha…I love the quote it can describe the small bible college I went to as well.
What were your thoughts overall of the book? Is worth reading?
Yeah I would definitely recommend it. It will probably bring back a lot of memories from the college you went to.
I started reading this book and looks a very good read. I have to disagree with the above quote. I went to a very conservative Christian school and wasn’t at all shocked when I went out into the “real world”.