The Unlikely Disciple

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Last month I finished a book, “UNLIKELY DISCIPLE” which is a story of the semester author Kevin Roose spent at Liberty University, the Reverend Jerry Falwell’s “Bible Boot Camp” for young evangelicals. Liberty, which is located in Lynchburg, Virginia, is the world’s largest evangelical Christian university – a 10,000-student training ground for the next generation of America’s Religious Right.

Reading through the book you can’t help but affirm what the author went through. The culture shock, the Christian worldview and the good and bad side of modern evangelical Christianity.

I love how he describes the Christian culture with fresh eyes. Imagine an outsider coming into something new and giving his review of how Christians live out their faith.

One of the most glaring things in the book was how we try to separate the spiritual and the secular world. It reminds me of how people would often ask how our spiritual walk with God is? I do find it strange when people ask that question. It conveys that we live in compartments – that my spiritual life is different from my real everyday life. It tells me that I might have a growing relationship with Christ and it does not need to translate to a growing healthy relationship with others. Don’t you find that quite strange.

The book was well written. In fact it was hard to stop reading. Kevin gets you engaged in every page. It was funny, authentic and disturbing. I highly recommend that every pastor, youth pastor and church leader to read it. It might help you tweak some of the things we do that we don’t usually think about but just accept because it is part of the culture we grew up with.