The Unlikely Disciple Part 14

I knew Luke was a flirt. I've seen him hitting on girls in the dining hall, but I always imagined him as a hand-holder. Maybe a cheek-kisser on a bold day. What counts as hooking up, I wonder?

"I've had intercourse with three girls here," he says.

I choke on my breadstick.

"I know, it's a sin," he continues. "But . . . yeah."

For the rest of our lunch, Luke tells me all the stories behind his hookups, including a reverend's daughter and one girl who had a steady boyfriend. He spares no graphic detail, and after he's exhausted his list, he leans in close and explains that there are three types of girls at Liberty: * The I'm-dating-Jesus girls, who don't really consider themselves single. These girls read the book * The I'm-dating-Jesus girls, who don't really consider themselves single. These girls read the book I Kissed Dating Goodbye I Kissed Dating Goodbye, an evangelical cla.s.sic that implores Christian girls to skip the dating process entirely, going straight from friendship to marriage. They accept this book as gospel truth--meaning, Luke says, that "you could be Brad Pitt and you'd still strike out with them." * The FACS women. FACS, short for Family and Consumer Sciences, is Liberty's home economics department. Women (and it's all women) in the department take cla.s.ses like Parenting, Families Under Stress, and Psycho-Social Aspects of Clothing. Luke adds, "That's where you look if you want a good wife, not a hookup." * The FACS women. FACS, short for Family and Consumer Sciences, is Liberty's home economics department. Women (and it's all women) in the department take cla.s.ses like Parenting, Families Under Stress, and Psycho-Social Aspects of Clothing. Luke adds, "That's where you look if you want a good wife, not a hookup." * The closet freaks. "There are girls here," Luke says with a mischievous smile, "who act so virginal, who wear purity bracelets and talk about saving themselves for the Lord, who will knock your socks off." * The closet freaks. "There are girls here," Luke says with a mischievous smile, "who act so virginal, who wear purity bracelets and talk about saving themselves for the Lord, who will knock your socks off."

I probably shouldn't be so surprised to find out that Liberty students aren't as pure as they let on. According to recent studies conducted at Yale and Columbia, 89 percent of teens who pledge to remain abstinent until marriage end up breaking those pledges. The average abstinence pledge, in fact, only delays a young person's first s.e.xual experience by eighteen months. Still, it's disconcerting to hear frank s.e.x talk from a guy who, just a month or so ago, was wearing a white T-shirt to commemorate his Christian purity.

As Luke and I leave lunch, I ask him if Liberty's rules on s.e.xual propriety bother him.

"No, not at all," he says. "I approve of all the rules here." He c.o.c.ks his head upward and smiles jauntily. "I don't follow them all. But they have my approval."

After my conversation with Luke, I walk around campus feeling dazed and confused. I knew there was rebellion at Liberty, but I thought it was limited to the usual suspects--Jersey Joey, Marco, Travis, et al. I never suspected that my hall's Prayer Leaders were doing the dirty. It makes me worry that I've been blind to my surroundings all semester. What other sub rosa sins am I missing? Is there a secret society of Satanists on campus? Does the bas.e.m.e.nt of Dorm 22 have a meth lab in it?

Luckily, after dinner, I'm rea.s.sured that not all Liberty students are closet fornicators. I get a visit from my next-door neighbor Zipper. He's wearing a tie-dyed shirt, a break from his usual Hawaiian prints, and he looks just as exuberant as ever.

"Kevin Rooooooooose!" he says. "Prayer chapel?"

Every few nights, Zipper asks me to accompany him to the prayer chapel, a small, windowless brick building about fifty feet from our dorm. I couldn't turn him down the first time he asked, and he seemed to enjoy it so much that I kept going. We've been four or five times now, and a little routine has coalesced.

Today, Zipper and I sit in the pews and talk for a few minutes about how our lives are going, what's on our minds, what prayers we need. I tell him about my upcoming Old Testament exam, my grandmother's health problems, my issues with l.u.s.t. He tells me about his upcoming job interview at a restaurant downtown, his application to be an SLD next year, and his blossoming crush on a girl named Emily Jaffee. Then, Zipper refers me to a Bible pa.s.sage he thinks will help me get through the day, and I pick one out for him. We sit there in the chapel reading our pa.s.sages silently until we both finish. He prays for me, I pray for him, and we stand up to leave.

The first few times we did this, I was basically humoring Zipper. I sat there and prayed with him, and I even tried to pick out Bible pa.s.sages that fit his spiritual needs. (When he was nervous about an exam, for example, I picked 2 Timothy 1:7--"For G.o.d did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.") But I couldn't get into it the way he did. For me, going to the prayer chapel was a way to spend time with my next-door neighbor. For him, it was a spiritual fix, the highlight of his day.

But the more we go, the more I'm beginning to understand what Zipper sees in it. I like the feeling of being prayed for. I like setting aside regular intervals of time to pray and read the Bible, undistracted by schoolwork or intramural sports or checking my e-mail. I like the way being Zipper's prayer partner forces me to commit all the minutiae of his life to memory. Zipper's prayers for me are always full of hope and optimism ("Lord, I know know Kevin can ace this test, I Kevin can ace this test, I know know you're going to help him, Lord"), and when I hear that for twenty or thirty minutes in a row, it starts to sink in. In Zipper's world, the gla.s.s is always 90 or 95 percent full, and when he's urging you on with that manic cheeriness of his, things start to seem you're going to help him, Lord"), and when I hear that for twenty or thirty minutes in a row, it starts to sink in. In Zipper's world, the gla.s.s is always 90 or 95 percent full, and when he's urging you on with that manic cheeriness of his, things start to seem possible possible.

Of course, I haven't worked out the theological kinks of prayer yet. I still don't believe that Zipper praying for my Old Testament exam will get me a better grade. I don't believe that G.o.d rearranges the cosmos according to what we say in that prayer chapel. And sometimes, it's hard to overcome those doubts. Couldn't I use my time more wisely than praying to a G.o.d who may not even be listening? Should I be doing something that pays more obvious dividends, like studying or doing my laundry or returning my aunt Tina's phone calls?

William James said that the value of a religion lies in its usefulness to the believer, not in the truthfulness of its supernatural claims. And the time I spend in the prayer chapel certainly feels useful. It certainly makes me feel more uplifted, more connected to my Liberty friends. Still, reducing prayer to a pick-me-up doesn't totally satisfy my brain. Does prayer work? Can we change G.o.d's mind? These aren't minor questions, and they seem to demand answers. Therefore, my quest continueth.

At this week's Pancake Night, a few girls from the sister dorm are gossiping about one of their hallmates, a girl named Leslie Hawkins.

"Leslie freaks me out," says one girl. "There's just something weird about her."

"She's a feminist," says another. "That's what's weird about her."

I know Leslie. She's a fast-talking, brown-haired junior from Wichita who wears slightly baggy jeans and roomy polo shirts. She's friends with Anna, the girl I used to quasi-date. But I've never heard about the feminist bit. I'm skeptical. A bra burner at the school founded by Jerry Falwell, who once referred to the National Organization for Women as the "National Organization of Witches"? No way.

The next day at lunch, I find Leslie alone in the middle of a dining-hall table. I put my tray down and plop myself down in the seat across from her.

"So Leslie," I say, "I hear you have some interesting views on gender."

Leslie rolls her eyes. "Did you come over here to chastise me for being a feminist?"

"No, no," I say. "I was just curious. So, you're really a feminist?"

"Sort of."

Leslie and I talk for a few minutes about her views. She tells me that she doesn't agree with the "GNED party line," but before she can elaborate, she tells me she's running late for cla.s.s.

"Could we talk about this more some other time?" I ask.

"Sure," she says. "How's tonight?"

So after dinner, I walk to the sister dorm to hear more about Leslie's feminism. She meets me outside, and we sit on the gra.s.s under a large tree.

"First off," she says. "I am not a feminist. I don't want you to think I am."

Hold on. I'm confused. Didn't she say she was?

"No, no. I'm an evangelical evangelical feminist. Here's the difference: Evangelical feminists don't believe we are better than men. Secular feminists do. They have meetings, and they sit around in a circle and talk about all the bad things men have ever done to them. It's a male-bashing faith system." feminist. Here's the difference: Evangelical feminists don't believe we are better than men. Secular feminists do. They have meetings, and they sit around in a circle and talk about all the bad things men have ever done to them. It's a male-bashing faith system."

Okay, so first things first: Leslie is not your average women's-libber. She's not going to be interning for Gloria Steinem anytime soon. But she explains that she believes in the egalitarian model of evangelical gender relations, the one Dr. Parks dismissed as "greatly skewed" during GNED II the other week.

"I don't believe in role distinctions between s.e.xes," she says. "In my opinion--and I can back this up with all kinds of scripture--everything outside of biology is up for grabs."

Leslie is a women's ministries major, and as such, she hears a lot about the complementarian model. Her degree program includes cla.s.ses like The Christian Woman, described in Liberty's course catalog as "A study of G.o.d's Word as it specifically relates to women today and G.o.d's plan and purposes for them in every sphere of life as women, wives, homemakers, and mothers." Leslie knows of only one other girl in her department who agrees with her. "Neither of us is very vocal, because our professor made it pretty clear that if you try to debate her, you don't have a teachable spirit."

When I ask about the other girls in her cla.s.ses, Leslie laughs. "Honestly, most of the girls in the women's ministries department are just pastors' wives in the making. They're here to get their degrees, get married, and throw church raffles and tea parties for the rest of their lives." Leslie explains that although she doesn't feel called to be a pastor, she would like to be some sort of a traveling evangelist--"stirring up fights in other people's churches and leaving," as she puts it.

"I just can't be that stay-at-home married woman. I love working. It gives me self-satisfaction. I feel like I'm doing something with my life, like I might make a difference for G.o.d."

"Does that mean you don't want to get married?" I ask.

"Honestly," she says, "right now, I feel called to be single. Am I open to G.o.d calling me in a different direction? Absolutely. Would I love to share my life with someone? Maybe. It's a lot of responsibility. I'm a 'tell it like it is, say what I feel' person, not the 'submit to your husband whatever he says' type."

Leslie is not totally unorthodox at Liberty (she clarifies at least three times that she is not a feminist feminist feminist). Still, she's probably the most iconoclastic Liberty student I've met all semester. Though she's "very much pro-life," she describes her views on the "Christian gray areas"--things like drinking, tattoos, smoking--as liberal. She doesn't believe h.o.m.os.e.xuality is morally wrong. She's the second self-professed Democrat I've met here, and she has harsh words for Dr. Falwell. feminist). Still, she's probably the most iconoclastic Liberty student I've met all semester. Though she's "very much pro-life," she describes her views on the "Christian gray areas"--things like drinking, tattoos, smoking--as liberal. She doesn't believe h.o.m.os.e.xuality is morally wrong. She's the second self-professed Democrat I've met here, and she has harsh words for Dr. Falwell.

"I believe that up until the seventies, he was a racist bigot. And I'm sorry, but I don't think he changed because of G.o.d. I think he changed because he knew if he didn't, he wouldn't be as influential as he is now. I think he has a serious power addiction."

I admire Leslie's chutzpah, but I'm also confused. I can't understand why an evangelical-feminist Democrat pro-gay preacher-in-training would choose Liberty. Why not go to a more progressive Christian school?

"I came here to study conservative Christianity," she says. "I knew that I wasn't conservative, but I wanted to know what you guys believe. I wanted to know why we're different."

Leslie would love to talk more, she says, but it's curfew time. She stands up, wipes the gra.s.s off her jeans, and heads back inside. I walk back to my dorm smiling. Could it be true? Leslie is doing exactly what I'm doing--learning about the Christian Right, confronting Liberty as an unconvinced student--except she's doing it without a journalistic motive. It hammers home the big lesson from this semester: Bible Boot Camp is a surprisingly messy place.

Halfway back to my dorm, I start to wonder: what did Leslie think about that conversation? I wasn't exactly being subtle back there. In my excitement, I was tossing her softb.a.l.l.s, not treating her like the renegade she is. I hope she didn't notice anything fishy.

As it turns out, I wasn't entirely smooth. When I get back to the dorm, I see a string of instant messages sitting on my screen.

Leslie Hawkins: why do you ask so many questions but very rarely give any answers?Leslie Hawkins: do you know what you believe?Leslie Hawkins: or are you trying to figure that out still?Dammit! She's onto me. This is no good. I type, "I have to go, sorry" into the window and hit return. Five seconds later, her response comes back. Leslie Hawkins: fine, but know that this is not over, dude Leslie Hawkins: fine, but know that this is not over, dudeLeslie Hawkins: ;)

Last month, I invited a few of my closest friends from Brown to come visit me at Liberty, thoroughly expecting that they would all turn me down. And they did. One by one, the responses came back: "No way." "Not on your life." "When I want to get lynched, I'll give you a call."

My friend David was among those who turned me down on the first pa.s.s. It made sense--he's openly gay, radically liberal, and Jewish. He's a legend at Brown for the huge, creative theme parties he throws (example: the Rubik's Cube party, where everyone comes dressed in multiple colors and you trade clothes with other partygoers until you're clad in one solid color). But a few weeks later, David e-mailed me to say that out of perverse curiosity, he was going to fly down to Lynchburg to see Bible Boot Camp for himself. He's scheduled to arrive today.

I was nervous about letting David into my Liberty life for obvious reasons. If he did anything outlandish during his visit, I'd be guilty by a.s.sociation. But he rea.s.sured me that he would try his best to blend in.

"I can pa.s.s as straight," he said. "I'll just talk about . . . oh, I don't know, killing animals or something."

His comment was eerily prescient, because killing animals is exactly what we are going to be talking about. Today, I'm taking David to Thomas Road Baptist Church's fourth annual Beast Feast, an outreach event for hunters and fishermen. I'm not much of a sportsman, but when David told me he was coming, I couldn't resist signing us up. The invitation said that "hunters, outdoorsmen and the curious of Central Virginia" were welcome to attend. And at an event like this, who could be more curious than a Quaker pacifist and a gay Jewish liberal?

David's plane is late, so we miss the afternoon seminars on topics like "Planning an Out-of-State Hunting Trip" and "Hunting Strategies Using Modern Technology: Fact vs. Fiction." But we arrive at Thomas Road just in time for the "activity stations," a series of try-it-yourself demonstrations of hunting and fishing equipment set up around the church parking lot. Among the offerings: a BB gun practice range in the shape of a Conestoga wagon, a paintball target shoot, and a contest in which guys try to cast their fishing lures into the center of an old tractor tire.

David and I decide to try the archery station. I had a few archery lessons at summer camp when I was ten, so I figure I should get right back into the swing of things. But this is no recreational archery, judging by the bow. When I get to the front of the line, a man with a white beard thrusts something at me that looks like a prop from Star Trek Star Trek. It's a huge red thing with a liquid level, cushy foam grips, and a complex system of four or five pulleys.

"Take these," the man says, handing me the bow and three arrows, "and hit that." He points to a bank of hay twenty or thirty feet away, with a pair of plastic deer nestled beside it and a paper target taped to the front. Squinting for accuracy, I draw back the string, take my aim, and release. The arrow sails over the hay bank, plinks off the wall of the church, and falls to the ground at the deer's feet. The next arrow goes wide right. I flub the third, and it ends up about five feet in front of me.

"Target's that way, Kev," says David. He slaps me on the back and shoots me a surrept.i.tious wink. "What are you, gay?" This sends the line behind us into raucous laughter.

At dinnertime, the Beast Feast organizers begin herding us into the church gym, which has been decorated with ma.s.sive mounted animals, including a brown bear, a set of caribou, and a deer the size of a Toyota Camry. For many Beast Feast attendees, the big draw is the dinner. Hunters from Thomas Road have spent months gunning down all kinds of animals for tonight's buffet, including venison, caribou, alligator, and kangaroo. Everything except the alligator and kangaroo is advertised as "local and fresh."

"Who's gonna try everything tonight?" asks the man in charge. Hands go up all around the gym. "Watch out for those guys. They're going to be sick tomorrow."

As we eat, a pastor from Anchorage, Alaska, named Jerry Prevo comes to the stage to deliver the keynote sermon. He's a board member at Liberty, and he served as a high-ranking member of the Moral Majority back in the 1980s. His sermon tonight, he says, is called "Jesus Was a Man's Man."

"Let me ask you a question," Rev. Prevo says. "Why do men follow Jesus Christ? If you're a follower of Jesus Christ tonight and you're not ashamed of it, say amen amen!"

A huge wave of hearty amens echoes off the walls.

"Now, some people have the impression that only women go to church, only women follow Jesus Christ. You know, in Hollywood, they portray Christ as a feminine-acting person, as a sissy, and quite frankly, I get upset about that. That could not be true! Jesus Christ, while he was here, attracted men. In the gospel of Matthew, four thousand men gathered to hear him speak. That's right--four thousand men. That'd be like two hundred thousand today. He was a man's man.

"When he chose people to become his apostles, Jesus chose fishermen. Fellas, in the year 2005, the most dangerous job in the world was commercial fishing. More people get killed per capita doing that than anything else. Jesus chose commercial fishermen to be his apostles. Tough guys. If Jesus had not been a man's man, those guys would not have followed him.

"Unfortunately, there are some sissy ministers out there. But what you need to do is find a man behind the pulpit like Dr. Jerry Falwell, a man's man. When I met Dr. Falwell, he gave me a bear hug and I thought every rib in my chest was broken. How many of you been punched by Jerry Falwell? Yeah, so you all know. It hurts. He's a man's man.

"Some people think that all preachers are wimps and sissies, so once a year I'll get in the pulpit, on my TV show up there, and I'll say, 'Let me say something to you: If you break into my home, and you try to harm my wife or my house, you better come prepared to die. Because if my .357's not enough to kill you, my .45 will. If that doesn't, my .375 rifle will. If that doesn't kill you, one of my other dozen guns will.' You're not going to get a sermon when you break into my house, you're going to get shot at, and I'll read a scripture verse over your funeral service!"

The rest of the sermon is more of the same muscle-flexing, manlier-than-thou rhetoric designed to refashion Jesus as Rambo, and by the time Rev. Prevo prays the closing prayer, I'm feeling sort of guilty about bringing David here. I thought it would be fun to give him an extreme experience right off the bat, but I almost wish I had eased him in. As entertaining and absurd as Beast Feast has been, I'd feel bad if this were his only experience in the evangelical world. I mean, really--Jesus was a man's man a man's man? What happened to the Prince of Peace? Didn't Jesus weep when Lazarus died? Or was there just something in his eye?

As we walk through the parking lot to my car, David turns to me, looking a little dazed.

"You know that was crazy, right?" he says.

"Yeah," I say.

"Is Liberty always like this?"

"No. I promise, it's not."

He smiles. Somehow, I'm not sure he believes me.

David stays at Liberty for the rest of the weekend, and by the time Sunday rolls around, the oddest thing is happening: he's getting along with my friends.

n.o.body here knows anything about him, of course. Things would get interesting if David were to let it slip that he's gay, or if he started a sentence, "See, at my my bar mitzvah . . ." But so far, he's been pleasantly surprised, like I once was, by how well Liberty students compare to their stereotype. He's spent time with Jersey Joey, Zipper, Eric, and Paul, and everyone seems to be on good behavior. There's been no overt gay-bashing, no anti-evolution rants, no condemnation of non-Christians. They've all been treating him warmly and normally. bar mitzvah . . ." But so far, he's been pleasantly surprised, like I once was, by how well Liberty students compare to their stereotype. He's spent time with Jersey Joey, Zipper, Eric, and Paul, and everyone seems to be on good behavior. There's been no overt gay-bashing, no anti-evolution rants, no condemnation of non-Christians. They've all been treating him warmly and normally.

On Sunday night, David and I head to the campus gym with a few guys from Dorm 22. I do my usual twenty minutes on the treadmill, leaving David with my hallmates, and when I emerge from the cardio room, I see that they've invited him into their pickup basketball game. David's laughing and high-fiving and trash-talking right alongside them.

I stand there watching David run down the court with my Christian friends, and all the unexpected revelations from the past week come flooding into my head. Liberty students who struggle with l.u.s.t. Secular Quakers who enjoy prayer. Evangelical feminists who come to Bible Boot Camp out of academic interest. I used to think that my two worlds were a million miles apart. But tonight, the distance seems more like a hundred thousand miles. It's not a total improvement, but it's not meaningless, either.

I Made a Covenant with My Eyes

Every Monday before convocation, I eat breakfast with Pastor Seth, my spiritual mentor. Our meetings are usually pretty relaxed. We head to the local Panera Bread to talk theology, go over my Bible-reading a.s.signments for the week, and keep each other abreast of the goings-on in our lives.

Today, though, he has an agenda.

"Let's talk about l.u.s.t."

In our first discipleship meeting, Pastor Seth asked me what specific sin struggles I was having. l.u.s.t was the first thing that came to mind. I figured it was a fairly typical collegiate vice, and we put it on the back burner. Now he wants to tackle the issue head-on.

"How would you say your l.u.s.t expresses itself on a day-to-day basis?" he asks.

I shrug. "I mean, I look at girls . . . l.u.s.tfully . . . sometimes."

Seth sets down his coffee cup.

"Let me cut to the chase: do you have a problem with masturbation?"

"Uh," I stammer. "I guess it depends how you define problem." problem."

"Well, how many times a week do you m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e?"

Man. We haven't even finished our chocolate-chip m.u.f.fins, and he's already asking me a question I'm not even sure I'd answer under a grand jury subpoena. Am I really supposed to tell an evangelical pastor? Plus, there's a family with young children in the next booth over. Is there no decency?

But in the spirit of full disclosure, I make a ballpark estimate. (I'll spare you the exact number, but if you're really curious, it's somewhere between zero and my current shoe size.) Pastor Seth nods. "It's a widespread struggle."

You might think that Liberty, with its unforgiving rules about s.e.xual contact between students, would look kindly upon masturbation as a safe, solo alternative. You'd be wrong. As I learned during orientation week, evangelicals of the Liberty ilk frown heavily upon self-love. The problem, in their eyes, lies not with masturbation proper, but with l.u.s.t, coveting, and the other sins that typically accompany the act.

"If you can find a way to m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e without thinking l.u.s.tful thoughts, I suppose it wouldn't be sinful," Pastor Seth once told me. "And if you do, you'll want to take your number out of the phone book. Christian men will be overloading your circuits."

Today, after a brief discussion of my libido, Seth recommends I check out Every Man's Battle, Liberty's on-campus support group for p.o.r.nography addicts and chronic masturbators.

To be clear: I am nothing close to a chronic masturbator, nor am I even remotely addicted to p.o.r.nography. In fact, a semester in Liberty's neo-Victorian s.e.xual climate has caused a significant and perhaps irreparable falling-out with my loin parts. But Seth wants to make sure I have the tools to combat l.u.s.t should it ever turn into a serious problem, so he recommends that I pay a one-time visit to Every Man's Battle, a self-help group so bizarre in premise that to acknowledge its existence is to wonder whether this whole school isn't someone's idea of a practical joke.

That night, I head to the Campus Pastors Office to attend the weekly meeting of Every Man's Battle (which I've taken to calling Masturbators Anonymous). The group convenes in a small, fluorescently lit conference room. When I walk in, I see eight guys seated around the table, talking to Pastor Rick--yes, he of the reparative therapy for h.o.m.os.e.xuals. Apparently, Pastor Rick is also the leader of Every Man's Battle. Lovely. Now he thinks I'm a self-denying h.o.m.os.e.xual and and an inveterate masturbator. an inveterate masturbator.

"Come on in, Kevin!" he says.

I take a seat next to Pastor Rick, and after several minutes of idle chatter, he prays to open the meeting.