The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University - Hardcover

"What happens when a Brown undergrad goes undercover at Liberty University? If he's a writer as insightful and open-minded as Kevin Roose, he ends up learning as much about himself as he does about the evangelical Christians he lives with. The Unlikely Disciple provides a funny, compassionate, and revealing look at Jerry Falwell's 'Bible Boot Camp, ' and the surprisingly diverse band of true believers who make it their home." --Tom Perrotta, New York Times bestselling author of Little Children and The Abstinence Teacher "This is a brilliant book. Absolutely brilliant. Roose's wisdom, humanity, and love kept me going. And I laughed. A lot." -- Rob Bell, founding pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church and bestselling author of Velvet Elvis and Sex God "Roose may be young...but he writes like a seasoned veteran." --Publishers Weekly "Kevin Roose has produced a textured, intelligent, even sympathetic, account of his semester at Liberty University. He eschews caricature and the cheap shot in favor of keen observation and trenchant analysis. THE UNLIKELY DISCIPLE is a book of uncommon wisdom and insight. I recommend it with enthusiasm." --The Rev. Dr. Randall Balmer, Episcopal Priest and Professor of American Religious History at Barnard College, Columbia University "Keenly observed, funny, and compassionate. Kevin Roose parachutes us into a seldom-glimpsed and little understood pocket of America, then guides us through a story of religion and country more resonant than any of us could have imagined." --Robert Kurson, New York Times bestselling author of Shadow Divers and Crashing Through "Hallelujah for Kevin Roose. This is a remarkable book. He takes us on a fascinating, funny, nuanced journey that doesn't condescend or make glib judgments. It's just what the culture wars need. If I didn't already have kids, I'd adopt Kevin." --A.J. Jacobs, New York Times bestselling author of The Year Of Living Biblically "Kevin Roose is a delightful writer, and this is a humane book. Read it and I predict you'll have less paranoia, more exposure to 'the other, ' and a larger dose of Roose's generous and hopeful faith." --Brian McLaren, author of A New Kind of Christian, A Generous Orthodoxy, and Everything Must Change "[Kevin] tells his story entertainingly...level-headed, nuanced, keenly observant." --Booklist

As a student Kevin was eager for a term abroad - a break from the mind-numbing sameness of life at Brown University, one of the most liberal colleges in America. Well Kevin found the most foreign place he could in America's backyard. Liberty University is the late Rev. Jerry Falwell's fundamentalist Christian college for hardcore conservative Christians. The 10,000 students learn everything through a strict lens of Biblical literalism, every professor is a born-again Christian, the student code of conduct, lays out a host of rules e.g. no witchcraft allowed and at spring break, they take a bus to Daytona Beach to convert the heathens. But Kevin did not go to poke fun at the students or the way of life there, far from it. He went there to try to better understand the people who are so similar and yet so different from him, to see if perhaps they have found a way to live that is more rewarding than his own. What begins as a journey to reveal what is actually going on at the nation's largest Christian fundamentalist school ends up revealing more about Kevin than he could have possibly imagined.