Yes, you can absolutely find that same behavior at those schools. But those schools don’t call themselves “Christ-followers.” That’s the difference. You can expect it from them. I can go to Brown, and I expect to find a party scene on the weekends, but if someone from Brown came to LU, they would call us hypocrites for doing the same. If Roose wrote a book on that, no one would read it because we already know it goes on.

1.) I’ve heard homosexuals slammed to the floor by students to the point of where I’ve had to stand up and say something because it just went beyond the pale. Sometimes students think that being intolerant of behavior lets them make hateful and derogatory remarks. It happens, and it happens a lot.

2.)I know several of those Liberty girls. Can’t say I’m proud of it, but I do. It makes me wonder what goes on inside their heads… but I definitely overheard one of those conversations in the CLAB just last week.

4.)Bible Bootcamp is absolutely Liberty lingo. I’m surprised you haven’t heard it! Also, the part about the bubble and so forth… ask any LU student and they’ll be the first to tell you that it’s a bubble. It absolutely is. In many ways it’s a good bubble. But even professors etc., joke about that.

5.) Johnnie Moore and Dwayne Carson are always throwing around sayings like that. Yes, it can be taken out of context. Also, if you don’t understand what that means because you weren’t raised in a conservative Christian home, you’re bound to understand it in the wrong way.

Wow, that was a fast response. I was editing my comment (I have super powers) when you replied. I inserted another paragraph (the second one) which I think you should read if you haven’t.

OK — I see your point. Roose may have very well observed those things because, even at Liberty, there are people with mental problems. But, could you find the same negative behavior or — dare I say — more at secular schools? I think you could. So Roose is making an error by emphasizing those things.

I promise you, I’m not lying about hearing more offensive things than Roose brought up in his book. But since a “promise” on a blog post isn’t worth a whole lot, I’ll do one better.

In the Spring of 2005, there was a student attending liberty named Aaron (I’ll leave his last name out). He had some mental-health issues, and ended up leaving Liberty. But if you asked around, you could find some other graduates who remember him (he was a VERY memorable guy). In GNED 2, he made a comment in class about how “he hates homosexuals so much that he wants to crucify them”. Ask enough graduates, or perhaps some of the GNED profs, and someone else will verify this.

The professor immediately pointed out how inappropriate this was, and not a single other student had anything but opprobrium for his comment. It was certainly an outlier. But the point is that it did happen.

I think you’re missing my point about this; I don’t doubt your sincerity that you have never heard anything outlandish about homosexuals, or girls talking to guys about their sex lives. But it’s not mutually exclusive; your being right doesn’t make my comment wrong. It does tend to make the comments more outliers than the norm – sure – but it’s not unfathomable that Roose heard the things that I heard, and I bet if you took a poll many other LU students heard as well.

That being said, very interesting point about how it was in Roose’s interest to paint Liberty in a somewhat favorable light. I haven’t thought of that before, but you make good arguments. IMO, he really is sincere, but you’re certainly correct that it was to his own advantage to write that way.

And sorry that I missed the sarcasm. I read your post too quickly – reading it again, it’s clear that you’re not calling the rules idiotic.

1. I can’t call you a liar but I can offer testimony that is contrary to yours. I have never heard students exhibit animosity towards gays at the level Roose wrote about. It simply doesn’t happen at the Liberty I go to. We don’t hate gays and are taught not to. We have ex-gay speakers talk about homosexuality and even the RAs offer counseling for homosexuality. We have a (virtually militant) gay organization that comes on campus every year and talks to students about why they think homosexuality is not a sin. We don’t agree with that of course but we allow for debate. It would be extremely outlandish if someone were to rant about killing gays like what happened in the book with Roose’s roomate. I am not saying that such a thing could not happen in a school of 10,000 people, I am just saying it would not be normal. It would be against the current not flowing with it.

Ask yourself this: Could you find the same negative behavior or — dare I say — more at secular schools? That is the question that really should be addressed. I am of the impression that Liberty students are pressed with higher moral standards than most student bodies. Tell me if I am wrong. And If there is a student body which operates with higher moral standards, then tell me, by what standard do they do so? They must have a standard if we are going to determine whether they are more moral or not. I would laugh if you came to me with a student body that was Christian because you are only proving my point that Christians are far more moral than secularists. And yet I can’t imagine you coming to me with anything else … Would you say that makes Roose’s point moot?

It is not right to cherry-pick bad experiences with an institution and then write a book that paints the institution in a negative light. I am of the impression that Roose cherry-picked things as well as fabricated things to create content for his book. Why? because I have been here longer than he has (3 years) and I have not experienced the same Liberty that Roose wrote about. That is just my opinion. Some students may read the book and discover that Roose did paint the university in a positive light. Many students I have talked to about the book told me that. I think that many of them are not putting the book into proper perspective and are not looking closely at the implications Roose makes.

Think about it this way — Roose comes up with a plan to attend an evangelical university and write a book about his experiences. Roose is not even out of college and has had no prior work. He knows that the story must be a good one if it is going to be a success or be at least published. Writing something completely positive about Liberty is out of the question because it goes against everything he believes and secular academia teaches. Also, it would not sell. Writing something completely negative is not an option either. He would isolate much of his base (Liberty University) and there are law suites to worry about. It is also likely that a complete basher approach would not sell or be as highly regarded by the publishing world. After all, how many right wing basher books do we have that are written by very prominent people like Al Franken, Maurenn Dowd, Bob Beckel and such? It would not make sense for a student to attempt such a thing. The most viable option then, is to appease both sides and take the middle ground approach. It would certainly be unique in this circumstance. That doesn’t say anything about whether Roose uses fabrications but it gets rid of the idea that Roose is somehow a hero for taking the role of appeaser. It is simply the path to success, so forgive me if I don’t want to give this guy the nobel peace prize.

The reason why I have disdain for the middle ground approach is because it does not reflect his true feelings. His true feelings are evident in the implications he makes (e.g. Jerry is a racist, students hate homosexuals, professors confine reason, etc.).

2. It is also a simple fact that in a school of 10,000, you could find someone with an IQ of 140, near genius. Does that mean that Liberty students are near geniuses or at least a minority? My point is that, using outliers, you can say just about anything about a group of people. Roose has a vast number of outliers (with a group of 10,000) to choose from. I guess my argument is that a scientific approach to determine if Liberty students held more animosity towards gays would be more appropriate. Of course that would never sell.

3. The sentence is: “Idiotic rules like curfew, complete alcohol abolition, and strict no-touch dating might seem a little controlling or over the edge. But what really is so praiseworthy about the contrary — which is an embrace of these things, the typical notion that college is “a time in every young person’s life when work takes a back seat to fun, when nothing is off limits and parents aren’t around to pick up the mess,” as Roose said in his book trailer.” I refer to rules as ‘idiotic’ sarcastically because I refute the idea that they are idiotic in the very next sentence. Sometimes sarcasm doesn’t translate well on paper, which is why we are taught not to use sarcasm unless large portions or the entire piece is a satire. I can see how you misinterpreted that.

4. I came the year after Jerry’s death. It is such a shame because I have come to love the man through his autobiography, other works and the way professors talk of him. Nevertheless, it is likely that I did not hear “Bible Boot Camp” terminology because I went to school when Jerry was not chancellor.

5. Hmm, OK I see what you are saying. The meaning would be that education should not be the highest goal in your life if it is not the highest goal God has for you. But that is not the meaning I came across in Roose’s book. “My hope is that you won’t become educated beyond your obedience,” without any explanation reinforces the stereotype that Christians hate knowledge and reason. That is quite possibly the worst thing you can say about a Christian academic institution.

This is an interesting and well-written review. I’m a Liberty alum, and I wanted to point out a few things to you:

1. I heard more outrageous statements from some Liberty students about homosexuals than Roose recounted. Much, much worse. They were certainly not the norm, as you’re correct to point out, but it’s far from unfathomable that Roose heard what he claims to have heard.

2. Some liberty girls talk to some liberty guys about their sex lives. In a school of 10,000, it’s just a simple fact.

3. Your referring to Liberty rules as “idiotic” is more damning than anything Roose ever said.

4. “Bible boot camp” is Jerry Falwell’s phrase for Liberty. He used it many times when I was there.

5. My Evangelism 101 teacher, Pastor Johnnie Moore, either directly said “my hope is that you won’t become educated beyond your obedience”, or something very similar to that. It wasn’t anything controversial or nefarious; he simply meant that it is important to trust God more than ourselves (my conclusion of what he meant, anyway), and that if we put too much faith in our own intellect, we’ll miss out on God’s plan for our lives. I think it was a perfectly reasonable statement, and I’m often a Liberty critic.

The whole using homosexual terms thing puzzled me, as I know that I hear those quite often outside of Christian circles.

Likewise, the Falwell’s death comment made me shudder…not rejoicing but not exactly distraught…yet, when Virginia Tech students are murdered (which was just as bad) he was speechless and emotionally hurt – especially at the comments coming from Christians?

I mean, I enjoyed the book. I read it quickly. As a pastor, it hit home with me in some of the ways that non-Christians view the evangelical community – but in some ways it reaffirmed the fact that, as Francis Chan has said in a matter of words – “Your life shouldn’t make sense to unbelievers…”

It was a good read, but I appreciate your views of how life really is on campus – which seems to be how it was for me when I was in college not too long ago. Facts are facts – but creating facts for stories is never a cool thing to do.