The Unlikely Disciple etc.
Nov. 11th, 2011 05:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerChristian wrestling. It sounds peculiar, doesn't it? Insert "Turn the other cheek" joke here. But it's a real thing: Christian wrestling, just like WWE except with more chances to save your immortal soul.
It's this sort of thing that makes American Evangelical culture endlessly fascinating to me. A vast subculture, tens of millions strong and politically active, in my own country - and aside from VeggieTales I knew nothing about it!
(In case you don't know, VeggieTales is a video series that retells Bible stories with anthropomorphized vegetables as the main characters. They are awesome. They're like Bible Muppets.)
This weekend my reading culminated in Kevin Roose's The Unlikely Disciple, which is awesome. (Thanks for the rec,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
exuberantself!)
Roose, a secular liberal student at Brown University, transferred to Jerry Falwell's conservative evangelical Liberty University for a semester, as a sort of alternative study abroad, on the grounds that for a secular American liberal, American evangelical culture is much more alarming and foreign than many actual foreign countries.
And he's probably right. Most study abroad programs are not going to net you a class in Creationism, or a three-second rule for hugs (four seconds are verging on the lascivious), or an anti-masturbation club or floor prayer meetings or any of the other hundred things that Roose chronicles with admirable compassion and open-mindedness.
Though he doesn't become an evangelical, he comes to appreciate aspects of evangelical culture that he never thought he would: prayer, the willingness to go the extra mile to help people, even the spirit behind the three-second hug rule. Sure, that specific rule may be absurd and legalistic, but it creates a dating culture that is much more genuine and less self-centered than one where the participants are thinking about nothing but "How far are we going to go tonight?"
This book makes a fascinating companion piece to A. J. Jacobs' The Year of Living Biblically. Jacobs' book is much less focused on evangelicalism; rather than moving into an evangelical enclave, he reads the Bible and tries to follow as many of the rules within it as possible. Don't cut your beard. Don't eat fruit from a tree less than four years old. (This pretty much limits his fruit consumption to cherries.) Don't shake hands with women who are menstruating or men who haven't been ritually purified since their last ejaculation…
As you can imagine, Jacobs' experiment makes for a lot of awkward conversations.
Jacobs is Roose's mentor, which accounts for a similarity of spirit between their books. They wend their way to similar conclusions: that evangelicals (or religious people generally) are often excellent people, some of the kindest and gentlest you will ever meet, who nonetheless often whole-heartedly believe some rather awful things.
Roose and Jacobs both tend to emphasize the nice people over the awful things, although they never lose sight of the latter; the dramatic tension is what gives both books their page-turning appeal. Both books are lively, thoughtful reads; either is a good introduction to Evangelical culture in America.
It's this sort of thing that makes American Evangelical culture endlessly fascinating to me. A vast subculture, tens of millions strong and politically active, in my own country - and aside from VeggieTales I knew nothing about it!
(In case you don't know, VeggieTales is a video series that retells Bible stories with anthropomorphized vegetables as the main characters. They are awesome. They're like Bible Muppets.)
This weekend my reading culminated in Kevin Roose's The Unlikely Disciple, which is awesome. (Thanks for the rec,
exuberantself!) Roose, a secular liberal student at Brown University, transferred to Jerry Falwell's conservative evangelical Liberty University for a semester, as a sort of alternative study abroad, on the grounds that for a secular American liberal, American evangelical culture is much more alarming and foreign than many actual foreign countries.
And he's probably right. Most study abroad programs are not going to net you a class in Creationism, or a three-second rule for hugs (four seconds are verging on the lascivious), or an anti-masturbation club or floor prayer meetings or any of the other hundred things that Roose chronicles with admirable compassion and open-mindedness.
Though he doesn't become an evangelical, he comes to appreciate aspects of evangelical culture that he never thought he would: prayer, the willingness to go the extra mile to help people, even the spirit behind the three-second hug rule. Sure, that specific rule may be absurd and legalistic, but it creates a dating culture that is much more genuine and less self-centered than one where the participants are thinking about nothing but "How far are we going to go tonight?"
This book makes a fascinating companion piece to A. J. Jacobs' The Year of Living Biblically. Jacobs' book is much less focused on evangelicalism; rather than moving into an evangelical enclave, he reads the Bible and tries to follow as many of the rules within it as possible. Don't cut your beard. Don't eat fruit from a tree less than four years old. (This pretty much limits his fruit consumption to cherries.) Don't shake hands with women who are menstruating or men who haven't been ritually purified since their last ejaculation…
As you can imagine, Jacobs' experiment makes for a lot of awkward conversations.
Jacobs is Roose's mentor, which accounts for a similarity of spirit between their books. They wend their way to similar conclusions: that evangelicals (or religious people generally) are often excellent people, some of the kindest and gentlest you will ever meet, who nonetheless often whole-heartedly believe some rather awful things.
Roose and Jacobs both tend to emphasize the nice people over the awful things, although they never lose sight of the latter; the dramatic tension is what gives both books their page-turning appeal. Both books are lively, thoughtful reads; either is a good introduction to Evangelical culture in America.
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no subject
Date: 2011-11-12 01:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-12 07:41 pm (UTC)The great tragedy of religion (well, of humanity, really), is that if people come to it without that baseline compassion to be magnified, religion can't give it to them; it ends up magnifying their bad qualities instead.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-12 09:44 pm (UTC)I was just out with my husband, and we were talking about the human condition (LOL, the way one does, right?), and I mentioned this entry of yours. I wish you lived nearer! I'd love to have these conversations in person now and then.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-12 11:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-12 04:04 am (UTC)Did you happen to visit Roose's website? Specifically, have you seen The Jonah Project? I don't know anyone that I'd actually do it with, but the idea is a really interesting one.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-12 07:34 pm (UTC)I looked at the Jonah Project after you mentioned it. Just thinking about doing it stresses me out. The opportunity for misunderstanding and suffering! But I guess you would want to pick someone who you already know you can discuss difficult things with.