# Ivy Leaguer 'infiltrates' Falwell's University



## sastark (Apr 22, 2009)

Ivy Leaguer `infiltrates' Falwell's university



> By ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press Writer Eric Tucker, Associated Press Writer – Wed Apr 22, 1:34 pm ET
> 
> PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Kevin Roose managed to blend in during his single semester at Liberty University, attending lectures on the myth of evolution and the sin of homosexuality, and joining fellow students on a mission trip to evangelize partyers on spring break.
> 
> ...


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## Montanablue (Apr 22, 2009)

Wow, interesting... I'm really interested to read his book.


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## py3ak (Apr 22, 2009)

I wish I could get funding to pull stunts like that.


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## SolaScriptura (Apr 22, 2009)

py3ak said:


> I wish I could get funding to pull stunts like that.



No kidding...


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## sastark (Apr 22, 2009)

Montanablue said:


> Wow, interesting... I'm really interested to read his book.



Me, too.


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## AThornquist (Apr 22, 2009)

Very interesting. The hypocrisy of the LU students makes me want to  but this new found interest in God (or "a god" at least) is intriguing. I'll pray for his salvation.


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## Montanablue (Apr 22, 2009)

So, I just spent 20 minutes reading this guy's blog, and I have to say that I'm fairly impressed with him. I think his book will definitely be worth the read. He's kept up with friends he made at LU and speaks positively about a number of the university's aspects- although he's critical of others. To be honest, he's more charitable to LU than I probably would be.


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## Marrow Man (Apr 22, 2009)

I wonder if he attended one of the Caner anti-Calvin lectures, or if he was there when the founder called Calvinism "a heresy."


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## AThornquist (Apr 22, 2009)

Both Brian McLaren and Rob Bell have positive reviews for it, so it's got to be good!


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## Hamalas (Apr 22, 2009)

AThornquist said:


> Both Brian McLaren and Rob Bell have positive reviews for it, so it's got to be good!


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## unlearnedlearner (Apr 22, 2009)

AThornquist said:


> Very interesting. The hypocrisy of the LU students makes me want to  but this new found interest in God (or "a god" at least) is intriguing. I'll pray for his salvation.



Where were they hypocritical? Where were they pretending to be one thing, but did another? I am sure he found sin there, but I don't read him as saying they were hypocrites.


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## Timothy William (Apr 22, 2009)

Perhaps me need to check the PB more vigilantly for possible liberal infiltrators.


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## Montanablue (Apr 22, 2009)

Timothy William said:


> Perhaps me need to check the PB more vigilantly for possible liberal infiltrators.



uh oh. you caught me.


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## Hamalas (Apr 22, 2009)

Timothy William said:


> Perhaps me need to check the PB more vigilantly for possible liberal infiltrators.



I thought there was something fishy about Theognome.......


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## BG (Apr 22, 2009)

Hamalas said:


> Timothy William said:
> 
> 
> > Perhaps me need to check the PB more vigilantly for possible liberal infiltrators.
> ...



you are on to something, I hear he watches American Idol.


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## Timothy William (Apr 22, 2009)

So, who here has attended a liberal university?


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## AThornquist (Apr 22, 2009)

unlearnedlearner said:


> AThornquist said:
> 
> 
> > Very interesting. The hypocrisy of the LU students makes me want to  but this new found interest in God (or "a god" at least) is intriguing. I'll pray for his salvation.
> ...



They signed a contract when they went to Liberty that they would not engage in certain activities and thus acted as though they didn't in certain company. This is why they had their fair share of sinful fun with locked dorm rooms.

Then again, I knew of this rampant problem of hypocrisy at LU anyway. I know folks who have gone/go there and have read a large number of reviews (since I once considered going there), and their input is very disheartening to me. This is the same with most if not all Christian schools, but that doesn't lift my spirits in any way


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## Zenas (Apr 22, 2009)

If you front my tuition I'll attend a liberal university and get a Masters. I'll write an excellent book about it.


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## SolaScriptura (Apr 22, 2009)

sastark said:


> Ivy Leaguer `infiltrates' Falwell's university
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I find this fascinating and I think it highlights the powerful effect of being immersed in a given culture. While he never came to the point of cognitively rejecting the legitimacy of homosexuality, nonetheless his gut-level (instinctual) response was to find it "shocking." And it took an intentional act on his part to reign in his shock. Interesting, isn't it?

I think this is an illustration of what happens to us when we are inundated by the culture of the world around us.


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## Timothy William (Apr 22, 2009)

I agree, though I'm not sure that this reaction _in and of itself_ necessarily establishes that homosexuality is unnatural (though of course it is): someone who spent months in a racially segregated environment might have a similar reaction to seeing a mixed race couple holding hands. It does, as you say, show the powerful effects of our environments on our instinctive reactions, for good or ill.


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## raekwon (Apr 22, 2009)

He's an interesting guy. He's on twitter, if anyone cares to read occasional thoughts.

Kevin Roose (kevinroose) on Twitter


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## Backwoods Presbyterian (Apr 22, 2009)

Timothy William said:


> So, who here has attended a liberal university?



Me. '05 grad of The University of Pittsburgh...


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## Zenas (Apr 22, 2009)

What seems strange to me is he's an ivy league student but in reading about him, he doesn't seem very academically motivated or accomplished. He simply mislead a lot of people and then poked fun at them by writing about them in a certain manner. I'm sure I could infiltrate a gay pride rally or something and "spin" what they did. Big deal. I'm just not that terribly impressed. I think most of the hub-bub about this is because he did it to a "conservative" "Christian" university.


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## sastark (Apr 22, 2009)

Zenas said:


> What seems strange to me is he's an ivy league student but in reading about him, he doesn't seem very academically motivated or accomplished. He simply mislead a lot of people and then poked fun at them by writing about them in a certain manner. I'm sure I could infiltrate a gay pride rally or something and "spin" what they did. Big deal. I'm just not that terribly impressed. I think most of the hub-bub about this is because he did it to a "conservative" "Christian" university.



While I agree that he is most likely getting press coverage because he went undercover to a "conservative Christian" university, I do think it is a good bit of "investigative reporting" and I give him credit for that. He entered a completely foreign culture, learned their ways, blended in, got out and wrote a book about his experiences. He may write with a bias against Liberty U and "conservative Christians", but then again, he may not. I'll have to read his book and find out.


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## DMcFadden (Apr 23, 2009)

Zenas said:


> What seems strange to me is he's an ivy league student but in reading about him, he doesn't seem very academically motivated or accomplished. He simply mislead a lot of people and then poked fun at them by writing about them in a certain manner. I'm sure I could infiltrate a gay pride rally or something and "spin" what they did. Big deal. I'm just not that terribly impressed. I think most of the hub-bub about this is because he did it to a "conservative" "Christian" university.



Careful, Andrew. Boasting about how easily you could infiltrate and blend into a gay pride event might not be considered an accrediting credential on the PB!  However, it would probably go a long way toward establishing "street cred" in law school.


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## Timothy William (Apr 23, 2009)

I'm just impressed with Andrew's infiltration of a Law School, and look forward to reading of his future covert operations within the Legal Profession.


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## cih1355 (Apr 23, 2009)

Out of all the Christians colleges he could have chosen, why did he choose Liberty University?


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## DMcFadden (Apr 23, 2009)

Fishing in a stocked pond?

By secular standards, few Christians were such blowhards as Falwell. He public personna was lampooned by secular media at every turn. His university would probably be viewed by an ivy leaguer as the quintessential locale for finding evangelical/fundamental Christianity at its most hypocritical. If the TBN folks had a university, he might have gone there.


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## Hawaiian Puritan (Apr 23, 2009)

Timothy William said:


> So, who here has attended a liberal university?




Does U.C. Berkeley count?


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## Backwoods Presbyterian (Apr 23, 2009)

cih1355 said:


> Out of all the Christians colleges he could have chosen, why did he choose Liberty University?



Probably because they have a pretty good Sports program. That is certainly not something he would have seen at Brown.


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## Herald (Apr 23, 2009)

AThornquist said:


> Very interesting. The hypocrisy of the LU students makes me want to  but this new found interest in God (or "a god" at least) is intriguing. I'll pray for his salvation.



Andrew, their hypocrisy is no different than any other Christian college, or sadly, seminary.


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## Kevin (Apr 23, 2009)

The authour shows up in A.J. Jacobs recent book "the Year of Living Biblicaly" as Jacobs intern.

I just finished the Jacobs book, and I look forward to reading Kevin's.


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## Skyler (Apr 23, 2009)

Incredible. This is the kind of thing that needs to happen more frequently.


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## Zenas (Apr 23, 2009)

Timothy William said:


> I'm just impressed with Andrew's infiltration of a Law School, and look forward to reading of his future covert operations within the Legal Profession.



You've got to be kidding. 

Law school is infinitely better than undergrad, liberalism or not. 

The law school population is concentrated so everybody pretty much has to deal with everyone else on some level. In undergrad, you only had to deal with other people within your major, which really didn't involve much then because you could choose not to deal with them outside of class. You're stuck here. 

People are a lot more intelligent here on the average. There are a few pretty dim light bulbs, but they either get themselves kicked out, drop out, or don't hang around the school much because the don't really study. 

My school also has a fairly healthy mix of conservatives with the liberals. On the whole, there are more liberals, but many of them are actually pretty consistent and don't toe the party line. They recognize that some arguments are illogical or otherwise wrong or weak, and really don't die on those hills. Don't ever contest global warming though because you'll start a riot, which is why I make it a point to mock the theory and the cooler temperatures outside. 

The conservatives are, surprise surprise surprise, mostly libertarians and other stripes of paleo-conservatives. Neo-conservatism and ole' George W. are rejected categorically, and we actually get a long pretty well with the more vocal liberal students. We each respect that the other has an opinion, albeit a different one, and that we can civilly disagree about how we think government should work. Both sides usually recognize, I think, that the current Republican party is not conservative, but largely liberal with socially conservative leanings. 

This is an extreme contrast to undergrad where both the liberals and conservatives toed the party line and regurgitated whatever Bill O'reilly or Keith Olbermann said the night before. A political science class was an exercise in futility because the conservatives weren't conservatives, and the liberals just yelled a lot and threw a conniption fit if you disagreed with them.

The environment is undeniably secular though, but you really wouldn't suspect any different at a state university. People know where I stand and only one person ever engages me about it and he's a friend of mine. My views really, really make him angry.


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## unlearnedlearner (Apr 23, 2009)

AThornquist said:


> unlearnedlearner said:
> 
> 
> > AThornquist said:
> ...



There are a myriad of reasons students go to Liberty, so I guess I think very little of them watching an R rated movie in locked room and hardly think that makes them "hypocrites", pretending to be one thing, but really another, i.e. a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Perhaps I am just all too cognizant of my own "hypocrisy", even doing that which I don't want to do, to run off and declare them hypocrites for breaking (ironically named) Liberty's rules.


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## Archlute (Apr 23, 2009)

> "As a responsible American citizen, I couldn't just ignore the fact that there are a lot of Christian college students 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."



As an aside, knowing the level of insight, wisdom, and life experience that is bestowed on those 21 years of age (ahem...) it strikes me as indicative of the undiscerning and entertainment oriented mindset of our culture that anyone would bother to read and/or publish a book written by a 21 year old kid who has not even finished his undergrad degree. Such is the sensationalism of our "American Idol" and reality T.V. show culture.


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## Jon Peters (Apr 23, 2009)

Seth, 

Isn't this sort of what you're doing? A reformed guy infiltrating Biola? Can we expect an expose in the Chalcedon Report (or whatever that thing is called)?


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## sastark (Apr 23, 2009)

Jon Peters said:


> Seth,
> 
> Isn't this sort of what you're doing? A reformed guy infiltrating Biola? Can we expect an expose in the Chalcedon Report (or whatever that thing is called)?



Haha! Too true, Jon! I may write something for the Confessional Presbyterian after I graduate.


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## Jon Peters (Apr 23, 2009)

Archlute said:


> > "As a responsible American citizen, I couldn't just ignore the fact that there are a lot of Christian college students 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."
> 
> 
> 
> As an aside, knowing the level of insight, wisdom, and life experience that is bestowed on those 21 years of age (ahem...) it strikes me as indicative of the undiscerning and entertainment oriented mindset of our culture that anyone would bother to read and/or publish a book written by a 21 year old kid who has not even finished his undergrad degree. Such is the sensationalism of our "American Idol" and reality T.V. show culture.



Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein when she was 19. Great example, eh? 

-----Added 4/23/2009 at 05:35:17 EST-----



sastark said:


> Jon Peters said:
> 
> 
> > Seth,
> ...



Yes, much better choice in my opinion.


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## Montanablue (May 5, 2009)

Just in case anyone cares, I started reading this during my lunch breaks last week. I finished it today. I found it really excellent. I thought the author's observations about christian culture were, in some ways, quite profound. Having grown up immersed in christian culture, it was really interesting for me to see an outsider's perspective/observations. I would recommend it.


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## sastark (May 5, 2009)

Montanablue said:


> Just in case anyone cares, I started reading this during my lunch breaks last week. I finished it today. I found it really excellent. I thought the author's observations about christian culture were, in some ways, quite profound. Having grown up immersed in christian culture, it was really interesting for me to see an outsider's perspective/observations. I would recommend it.



Good to know. I am going to try to read this over my summer break.


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