The Unlikely Disciple Part 6

The exam opens with two questions: * True or False: Evolution can be proven using the scientific method. (Answer: False)* True or False: Science is the only way to truly know truth about the world. (Answer: False) Twenty more questions follow, most of which are fairly intuitive. For example, when Dr. Dekker asks if Margaret Sanger (the founder of Planned Parenthood) was a promoter of eugenics (selective breeding, a practice commonly a.s.sociated with the n.a.z.i Party), you sort of know what he's going for.

What rattled me about this exam wasn't the vague, headache-inducing questions like "science is the only way to truly know truth about the world" or the politicized questions about eugenics. It was the questions that took the dubitable for granted. Like: * True or False: Noah's Ark was large enough to carry various kinds of dinosaurs. * True or False: Noah's Ark was large enough to carry various kinds of dinosaurs.

According to Dr. Dekker, the answer is "True"--since dinosaurs and humans cohabited the earth after the Flood, they would have had to find a way to squeeze onto the Ark. He suggested that they could have been teenage dinosaurs, so as to take up less s.p.a.ce.

What's most bizarre about History of Life is that while the scientific propositions Dr. Dekker makes are fairly simple, and while the operating mode of the cla.s.s is reductive (that is, Dr. Dekker wants us to attribute the origins of life to a supernatural process that took place over six twenty-four-hour days), Dr. Dekker himself seems pretty intelligent. As he told us on the first day of cla.s.s, he has impressive secular credentials, and he approaches his job with an amount of scientific seriousness. The last few chapters of our History of Life textbook are filled with phrases like "mitochondrial permeability transition pore" and "amino-acyl-tRNA synthetase." In other words, while young-earth creationism could theoretically be taught by pointing to the first chapters of Genesis, Dr. Dekker's cla.s.s takes the shape of a rigorous scientific examination.

After cla.s.s today, I spend some time in my room Google-stalking Dr. Dekker to see if he's as legitimate as he claims, and while he's no Stephen Hawking, the man is definitely smart. He got a grant from a federal research agency for his work with Alzheimer's disease, and some of his neuroscience research has been published in reputable, peer-reviewed science journals.

While following Dr. Dekker's web trail, I stumble across a paper he presented at a 2003 creationism conference, about the impact of a young-earth creationism course on the worldviews of the students who took it. The study worked like this: Dr. Dekker gave students in his History of Life cla.s.ses a survey about their creationist beliefs on the first day of cla.s.s and repeated the survey on the last day of cla.s.s. He compared several years' worth of these results, and concluded that "when Christian college students are taught from [a young-earth creationism] perspective, they shift toward stronger beliefs in young-earth creationism."

It's a pretty intuitive conclusion, I guess, but I was surprised that there was any room for beliefs to shift. I a.s.sumed that every student coming to Liberty would be a strict creationist already. But according to Dr. Dekker's surveys, apparently not. For example, when faced with questions regarding the age of the earth, the average score of a History of Life student moved up more than 23 points over the semester, from 42.16 to 65.82 (100 being a perfect creationist, and -100 being a perfect evolutionist).

At first, the study seemed heartening. It means that for now, there are probably other students in my History of Life cla.s.s who haven't fully signed on to young-earth creationism. But I'm not sure that's the right tack to take. After all, it also means that many of those students will have changed their minds by semester's end. It means that even if Dr. Dekker's data is sketchy, his goal--getting Liberty students to accept young-earth creationism--is being met.

Which gets me thinking: if they can change their minds, what about me? I'm probably the least likely person at Liberty to convert to creationism, and I certainly can't imagine it happening in one semester. For one, I'd just have farther to go. My cla.s.smates already believe that G.o.d answers prayers, miracles are physically possible, the Bible is infallible, and so on. It's a relatively short hop from there to believing in the historicity of the Flood. Whereas for me to become a creationist, I'd have to pa.s.s through a hundred intermediate steps of belief. And even then, I don't think I could do it.

But here's the worrisome part: almost a month into my Liberty semester, I'm already starting to feel my beliefs shifting under my feet. Not my belief in evolution--I've stayed put on that--but when it comes to my general intellectual and emotional grounding, I'm feeling a little unmoored.

As I expected, Liberty's church services are starting to feel much more familiar, and consequently, I find myself getting swept up in them from time to time. Instead of being put off when one of Liberty's pastors tells us about man's sinful nature, I feel misty-eyed and reflective. Yeah, I am am sinful, I think. Maybe I sinful, I think. Maybe I should should ask G.o.d for forgiveness. ask G.o.d for forgiveness.

I didn't come to Liberty to get a new religion, of course. I came here to spend time with the pract.i.tioners of another faith, to learn how they lived. But it was crazy of me to expect that I could situate myself among these people twenty-four hours a day, befriend them, and adopt their mannerisms without also internalizing and grappling with their beliefs.

When I was getting ready to come to Liberty, I read some work by an anthropologist named Susan Harding, who wrote The Book of Jerry Falwell, The Book of Jerry Falwell, a first-rate examination of the language patterns of fundamentalist Christianity. In that book, Harding wrote about the danger of being converted in a situation like mine, where an outside observer is embedded in a religious community to do research. She wrote: "Anything that makes you more likely to listen, like the work of ethnography, is what actually makes you susceptible [to conversion]." In other words, just by being here, I'm already changing. a first-rate examination of the language patterns of fundamentalist Christianity. In that book, Harding wrote about the danger of being converted in a situation like mine, where an outside observer is embedded in a religious community to do research. She wrote: "Anything that makes you more likely to listen, like the work of ethnography, is what actually makes you susceptible [to conversion]." In other words, just by being here, I'm already changing.

I don't like feeling unsettled like this. I'm starting to wish that I had a PhD in anthropology, so I'd be able to contextualize all this new information immediately, shuffling it into categories and translating it to academic jargon. Campus Church would become Inculcation Exercise 6A in my notes. Distance would be built in. But as it stands, I have no defense but the strength of my will. And knowing myself, I don't think I can stay in my state of religious confusion for long. One way or the other, Liberty is going to force me to make up my mind.

Caught Up Together

A pudgy, bald preacher stands on an otherwise empty stage, balancing an open Bible on the palm of his right hand and tapping it urgently with his left index finger. pudgy, bald preacher stands on an otherwise empty stage, balancing an open Bible on the palm of his right hand and tapping it urgently with his left index finger.

"Jesus Christ is coming back for his church!" he yells to his audience. "I want you to know, church, that Jesus Christ could come this month! He might come next week! He could even come . . ."

CRRRRRRRRRACK!.

White light drowns the room, and a deafening wallop of thunder follows. The preacher's Bible falls to the ground. In an instant, most of the hundred-odd people in the room have vanished, leaving only a few dozen stunned onlookers in their seats. They dart their heads around, glaring open-mouthed at each other, wondering where everyone went. One man in a red polo shirt realizes: this was it--the rapture. The Messiah has returned for his church, and he and the others have been left behind. Grief-stricken, he falls on his knees in the aisle of the church and, taking head in hands, begins to weep.

Dr. Parks turns the cla.s.sroom lights back on to begin our GNED cla.s.s.

"Just thought I'd show you that YouTube video before we got started today," he says. "I thought it was sort of neat."

That video (t.i.tle: "Are You Ready?") was produced by an evangelical church in Texas to warn non-Christians about the second coming of Christ, and despite what Dr. Parks said, it was not just "sort of neat"--it was accurate. The scenario depicted in the clip is within a few hairs of how millions of evangelical Christians expect the rapture to proceed any day now.

In evangelical theology, the rapture refers to the moment when Jesus comes to earth to transport all true born-again Christians to heaven. It comes from the Greek raeptius raeptius, meaning "caught up," which is found in the book of 1 Thessalonians (the Apostle Paul talks about being "caught up . . . in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air"). The rapture is just the beginning of an entire apocalyptic chain of events, which, if we're getting technical, is called "pretribulationary dispensational premillennialism," or "pretrib."

Evangelical Christians make all kinds of apocalyptic predictions, but the pretrib flavor is far and away the most popular. A few weeks ago at Thomas Road's Sunday evening services, Dr. Ed Hindson, a professor of biblical studies at Liberty, gave a sermon t.i.tled "Seven Future Events That Will Shake the World," in which he gave a fleshed-out version of the pretrib storyboard. According to Hindson's telling, it goes something like this: First, the rapture. At some point in the not-so-distant future, all the Christians on earth will be taken up to heaven. ("For believers, this will be a joyous occasion," Hindson said. "For unbelievers, it will be a terrible time. You think of what Hurricane Katrina did to New Orleans--imagine what millions of people disappearing in a flash will do to the world.") Then, while the believers are in heaven, the Antichrist will rise to power on earth. ("People have asked who the Antichrist is for centuries. Is it Nero? Hitler? Stalin? I had somebody ask me the other day, 'Is it Hillary?' Sadly, it is not. The Antichrist has to be a man.") After a seven-year period of tribulation on earth, the believers will storm down from heaven with Jesus to fight the battle of Armageddon. After conquering the forces of the Antichrist, Jesus will establish a kingdom on earth for a thousand years. At the end of those thousand years, the believers will be whisked away to heaven again, and the nonbelievers will be cast, with Satan, onto a lake of fire for all eternity.

Pretrib rapture theology is a relatively new phenomenon. Most accounts have it appearing in the late nineteenth century as the brainchild of John Nelson Darby, a minor British theologian. But Darby's end-times scenario didn't become widespread until Tim LaHaye, a pastor and educator from Southern California, decided to write a novel based on his pretrib beliefs. LaHaye collaborated with Christian author Jerry B. Jenkins, and what emerged was Left Behind Left Behind, the first in a series of blockbuster books (65 million sold worldwide) that secured LaHaye's place in fundamentalist history.

Tim LaHaye's relationship with Liberty goes back several decades. LaHaye was one of the first prominent members of the Moral Majority, and Dr. Falwell has pulled both Tim and his wife Beverly (a well-known conservative figure herself) in as members of Liberty's Board of Trustees. Accordingly, Liberty has received a sizeable chunk of Tim's Left Behind Left Behind mammon over the years. Among his donations: the $4.5 million LaHaye Student Center, the LaHaye Ice Center, and the LaHaye Lounge. Aside from Dr. Falwell himself, Tim LaHaye has had arguably the largest impact on Liberty, both financially and theologically, of any one person in the school's history. He funded a short-lived School of Prophecy in 2001, and he visits campus frequently to give sermons to the student body. (Incidentally, his grandson lives down the hall from me.) mammon over the years. Among his donations: the $4.5 million LaHaye Student Center, the LaHaye Ice Center, and the LaHaye Lounge. Aside from Dr. Falwell himself, Tim LaHaye has had arguably the largest impact on Liberty, both financially and theologically, of any one person in the school's history. He funded a short-lived School of Prophecy in 2001, and he visits campus frequently to give sermons to the student body. (Incidentally, his grandson lives down the hall from me.) All semester, I've been trying hard to figure out exactly how seriously Liberty students take the pretrib apocalyptic beliefs of their elders. While most of them believe it in theory, I've only seen the rapture referred to in an oblique, semi-joking way. A girl in my GNED cla.s.s has a sticker on the back side of her laptop: "In case of Rapture, you can have my computer!" There's a Facebook group called "I hope the rapture comes before my student loans are due."

So do Liberty students really believe the world is ending? It's not easy to tell. If I truly believed the rapture was "imminent," as Liberty's official doctrinal statement says, I think I'd do things a lot differently. I might not buy green bananas, for starters. I certainly wouldn't tell people "See you next week" without some sort of caveat. But n.o.body here seems to be taking any precautions.

Last night, I started asking guys on my hall what they thought of the rapture. Patrick, a music major from Kentucky, summed up what seems to be the general feeling: "I mean, I think it's coming, but the Bible says we can't know the day or the hour, so I don't spend too much time thinking about it." He added, "You should talk to Adams about this stuff. He's a rapture nut."

Jon Adams is a 22-year-old senior from Kentucky, with fiery carrot-orange hair and thick patches of freckles. He lives a few doors down from me, and tonight, when I ask him about his apocalyptic beliefs, he brings me into his room and sits me down at his desk. He puts on his reading gla.s.ses and plucks his Bible from his desk drawer.

"Okay, here we go," he says, rubbing his palms together. Jon opens his Bible and begins laying out his grand theory. It's a bit complex, and it takes him almost twenty minutes to explain, but I'll try to get it down in short form: There's a verse in the Bible that reads, "With the Lord a day is like a thousand years." There's another verse in which G.o.d says, "I make known the end from the beginning." Jon interprets these pa.s.sages as mathematical clues. If a day is equal to a thousand years, and if the end of the world will echo the beginning, then since G.o.d created the world in seven days (including a day of rest), he'll destroy it at the end of seven thousand years (including a thousand-year reign of Christ). "In other words, it's going to be seven thousand years from the beginning of the world to the battle of Armageddon," he says. He pecks out a series of numbers on his calculator. ". . . So, by my count, the rapture will come between 2026 and 2030. We'll be about forty years old."

"I could be wrong," he says. "It's just a theory. But then again, I don't think the Bible wastes s.p.a.ce. If all those numbers and verses weren't about the end of the world, what were they about?"

Jon is an intelligent guy, and he's obviously spent a good deal of time studying a part of the Bible many Christians gloss over. But I'm confused: if Christians believe that the rapture could happen any minute, why don't people at Liberty take it more seriously?

"I have no idea!" he says exasperatedly. "Some people think it's ridiculous to study the rapture. But if you believe the Bible, you have to believe this stuff. It's our future."

"Do you think about it a lot?" I ask.

"Well, I try not to get obsessed with it," he says. "For me, it's just how I focus myself. Think about it: I have less than twenty years remaining on earth. I have no time to waste. I should do all the good I need to do right now."

It still dismays me to see such an intelligent guy spending his time hashing out Jesus' return like a quadratic equation. But what he said at the end got to me: "I should do all the good I need to do right now." I'm not sure what Jon means by "good"--he might be talking about converting heathens or overturning Roe v. Wade. But giving him the benefit of the doubt, I can think of worse scenarios than having a million more Jons in the world. Do I believe the rapture is imminent? No. If all the Christians who did believe it was imminent went around doing good deeds with frantic urgency, would I object? Of course not.

Problem is, a lot of Christians who believe the world is headed for imminent destruction don't use their eschatology to motivate altruism. Some, in fact, use their belief in the coming apocalypse to justify negligence and destruction. Critics of pretrib theology point out that rapture obsession can make Christians overlook glaring social needs in the present, like genocide, disease, and abject poverty. Not to mention the famously dangerous political situation posed when American evangelicals believe that Israeli Jews have to control the Temple Mount, currently an Islamic holy site, for the apocalypse to be set in motion.

So I'm hoping that my friends at Liberty are taking some of the benefits of a sense of immediacy without taking the screw-it-all recklessness.

Luckily, at the college level, people's concerns seem to have a more pragmatic tilt. I walked into the bathroom today as two guys in adjacent stalls were having a conversation over the barrier: "Dude, I hope Christ comes back soon." "Dude, I hope Christ comes back soon.""Me too. That would be freakin' awesome.""I hope he doesn't come for, like, thirty years though.""Why?""So I can have a lot of s.e.x with my wife."

Tuesday morning, I get a call from Tina and Teresa, my aunts in Washington. They've been calling a lot recently, but since there's no way to talk privately with them from Liberty's campus, we haven't connected. This time, though, I happen to be buying some shampoo at Target when the phone buzzes against my thigh.

"Kevin!" they yell in unison. "We're so glad to hear your voice!"

Time has done nothing to ease Tina and Teresa's worries about my semester at Liberty. I've gotten this sense from looking at my e-mail inbox, where by now, they've sent a few dozen articles on Christian-led hate crimes and evangelical anti-gay movements in their home state.

"How's your semester going?" Tina asks. I tell her the truth: my cla.s.ses are hard, but things overall are good. They seem pleased to hear so, or else they're just feigning support for my sake.

"Ooh!" Tina says. "Let Teresa tell you about her high school groups!"

"Oh, Kevin," Teresa sighs. "It has been such a powerful experience."

For the past few months, Teresa has been leading support groups for LGBTQQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bis.e.xual, Transgendered, Queer, or Questioning) students at four different Washington high schools. She teaches her students about the history of alternative s.e.xualities in America, including the Stonewall riots and the Kinsey Reports, and she facilitates discussions about the pressures of being a LGBTQQ adolescent.

"There are just so many teenagers who are so ostracized and hurt because of their s.e.xuality," she says. "And to be able to help a few of them, to give them self-worth and teach them to accept themselves as they are, it's just unbelievable."

I have a conflicted response to phone calls like these. On one hand, I know Tina and Teresa's message is good for me to hear. Sometimes, I get swept up in my day-to-day bustle, and I forget that Liberty is renowned for being the sort of place that makes Teresa's support groups necessary in the first place.

It's hard to keep harping on Liberty's intolerance, though, because just as my aunts are nothing like the demonized stereotypes of gay people that are tossed around at Liberty (they're both psychologically balanced, with stable jobs, healthy family lives, and a long-term, monogamous relationship), the majority of my friends at Liberty aren't the intolerant demagogues Tina and Teresa picture when they think of Liberty students. In Tina's latest e-mail, she mentioned that she and Teresa had run into a group of fundamentalist Christians at an equality rally in Spokane. She described them as "negative and hateful," and reported that they were toting signs with messages like "You deserve h.e.l.l" and "G.o.d is angry with the wicked every day."

Maybe I'm deluded, but that just doesn't sound like my hallmates. Most of them believe h.o.m.os.e.xuality is a sin, yes, but they're not going to picket pride parades on the weekend. You'd never catch Jersey Joey or Zipper with a "You deserve h.e.l.l" sign.

Near the end of our conversation, Aunt Tina says, "We support you, Kevin. We just want to make sure you're keeping everything in perspective."

"I'm sure many Liberty students are very intolerant people, no matter how nice they are to you," Teresa adds. "And those kinds of att.i.tudes have caused real harm to the gay community for many years."

Tina and Teresa are right. They are. But for the first time this semester, I sort of wish they weren't.

This week is Spiritual Emphasis Week, a time every semester when Liberty gives a jolt to its religious life by bringing in an outside pastor for a series of special sermons. This semester's guest pastor is James MacDonald, a Christian leader from Illinois who hosts a popular Bible-themed radio show called Walk in the Word Walk in the Word.

MacDonald is a talented orator, and his sermons (there have been two so far, with three more to come) have been frankly riveting. It doesn't hurt that he's a new face on campus, a break from the preachers we see every week. It also doesn't hurt that the praise band MacDonald brought with him from Illinois has a stunning, bright-eyed brunette as the lead vocalist. Whatever the reason, the Spiritual Emphasis Week services have been packed and pa.s.sionate, a million watts of spiritual energy as opposed to the usual five hundred thousand.

After tonight's service, a bolt of gossip ripples through my hall.

"Did you hear?" a kid named Jonah tells me. "Paul got saved!"

The announcement confused me. Wasn't Paul already saved? Paul told me when we met that his conversion happened during his soph.o.m.ore year of high school, when his football coach brought him to church. Isn't that a one-time deal? But now, Jonah is telling me that at tonight's service, Paul went down the aisle to confess his sins.

"I guess he thought he was saved," Jonah says. "But, man, there are a lot of people like that here. People who got saved as a kid, but didn't really mean it."

This has been one of the more puzzling observations of my semester so far. Almost all Liberty students profess a personal relationship with Christ (97.4 percent, according to a survey cited in my GNED cla.s.s). And yet, at every week's Campus Church service, a few dozen students flood down the aisles to be born again. So where do those students come from?

Well, as I'm learning, in the evangelical world, there's saved and there's "saved," and the difference between the two causes 90 percent of the spiritual anxiety on this campus. I was thinking about this topic even before Paul's news, because yesterday, at the dinner table, my hallmate Rodrigo said he wanted to talk to me about something that was worrying him.

"Roose, do you ever doubt your salvation?" he asked, leaning forward over his tray.

I told him, a bit evasively, that I thought a lot of people did.

"Whew," he said. "I'm so glad you said that. It's been keeping me up at night, man. Just thinking back and forth, worrying about myself. Like, what if I'm out there telling all these people about Jesus, and I don't even accept him myself? There are pastors out there who probably aren't saved. Why am I any different?"

He shook his head and continued: "It's scary, Roose. Think about it: you spend your whole life in peace, thinking you're saved, and then, bam, bam, you're perishing for eternity. I can't think of anything scarier." you're perishing for eternity. I can't think of anything scarier."

When I first got here, I a.s.sumed Liberty students were all ultraconfident in their faith. How could they not be? They're told a thousand times a week that once you're saved, you're always saved--that, to quote a popular worship song, "no pow'r of h.e.l.l, no scheme of man" can change a believer's status before G.o.d. They lead more disciplined lives than all but a handful of modern evangelicals. Surely that must count for something.

Of all the Liberty students I've met, I wouldn't have pegged Rod rigo as a doubter. He's one of the most spiritually mature guys on the hall, constantly quoting scripture and helping younger students grow in their faith. He's a "Servant of the One True G.o.d," according to his Facebook profile.

But that's the secret about a place like Liberty: everyone doubts.

Since the news of Paul's re-rebirth, everyone on the hall has been in a good mood. A half-dozen guys took him out for a celebratory dinner after church, and he's been getting backslaps and attaboys all night. Right now, Paul is retelling the story to a group of rapt guys in the hallway.

"I was sure I was saved when I was sixteen," he says, leaning against the wall. "And then during the service, it finally hit me: I'm not living for G.o.d. All this sin in my life, all the selfish things I do--it's all distancing me from the Lord."

"How is this going to change things for you?" his roommate asks.

"In a big way, man. I mean, I felt like, all this time, I was pretending to be a Christian. I was going through the motions, but it was all empty inside."

Paul smiles and holds up his Bible.

"Now I just want to live for G.o.d, baby."

Wednesday night after curfew, my roommate Eric and I sit at our desks, quizzing each other for our Old Testament exam.

"Who made Israel sin?" he asks, looking absentmindedly at his game of computer solitaire.

"Rehoboam?"

"No, Jeroboam. Close."

"Okay," I say. "My turn: Abimelech."

"Killed sixty-nine of his half-brothers, became king, son of Gideon, blah, blah, blah."

"Who's Gideon?"

He swings around to face me. "Dude, are you serious?"

Of all the problems I thought I'd have this semester, failing my cla.s.ses wasn't one of them. But midterms are approaching, and unless I turn things around, it's not out of the question. I haven't flunked anything yet, but getting my test scores from Liberty's online grade repository is usually bad for my self-esteem. For example: Exodus Quiz: Kevin Roose: 60, Cla.s.s Average: 74.34 Exodus Quiz: Kevin Roose: 60, Cla.s.s Average: 74.34Exam #2: Kevin Roose: 61, Cla.s.s Average: 77.08 I'd feel differently if I were slacking off this semester, but I work twice as hard at Liberty as I ever did at Brown. I make lists. I design charts. For my Theology exam last week, I drew up a set of flash cards and took them everywhere I went. I'm working overtime to catch up, but when it comes to the subjects of my cla.s.ses--the Bible, Christian doctrine, creationist science--I may be starting from too far behind.

Tonight is a crunch night, because in addition to Friday's Old Testament exam, I have a New Testament exam tomorrow. Dr. Towns told us to be ready to name all twenty-seven books of the New Testament in order, from Matthew to Revelation. So after putting away my Old Testament notes, I pull out my Bible and spend a solid hour trying to commit the New Testament sequence to memory.

I'm not a good memorizer, and twenty-seven is no small number of items. When for the tenth straight time, I put Hebrews before Philemon and forget t.i.tus entirely, I decide I need help. I walk down the hall to consult Jonah, a pastor's kid and one of Dorm 22's resident Bible whizzes.

"This exam is killing me," I say. "I have to name the books of the New Testament in order."

"Really?" he asks. "That's so easy, dude. Just sing the song."

"Song?"

"Yeah, you know . . ." He clears his throat. "Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Acts and the-letter-to-the-Roooomans . . ." It's a kid's song with a bouncy melody. He rattles it off in less than ten seconds. ". . . First and Second Corinthians, Galatians and Ephesians. Philippians, Colossians, First and Second Thessalonians, First and Second Timothy, t.i.tus and Phileeeemon . . ." [Pause for breath] ". . . Hebrews, James, First and Second Peeeeeter, First and Second and Third John, Jude and Revelaaaation."

When I applaud him at the end, he looks confused.

"I thought everyone knew that song. You've never heard it before?"

"Uh, I have," I stammer. "But it's been a while."

Jonah shrugs. "You can sing the Old Testament, too." And he clears his throat again and begins listing the books of the Old Testament to the tune of "Ten Little Indians."

When I get back to my room, I spend some time looking for other Bible mnemonics on the Internet. There are dozens of them, for every piece of Bible trivia you could imagine. There's a song to remember the names of the apostles, a song listing what G.o.d made on each day of Genesis, and a song for the twelve sons of Jacob. There are also songs to help you remember the plots of individual Bible stories. ("There was a girl G.o.d used for good, and Rahab was her name-o. R-A-H-A-B . . .") What a great idea. Why didn't I know about these? When I tell a friend from Brown about the Bible songs, he agrees that it's a stroke of genius and suggests some possible adaptations for secular liberal arts students. ("There was an ex-pat lesbian who broke with novelistic convention and Gertrude was her name-o. S-T-E-I-N . . .") Still, until I learn the Bible songs, I'm at a huge disadvantage. The next morning, I walk into New Testament having studied for three or four hours. When I sit down to take the test, I find myself blanking on the order of the books. Then, I hear the girl on my right humming. The guy on my left starts up, too. Pretty soon, a faint buzz fills the room. Mhhew, Mrrhk, Mhhhuke, and Mhhohn . . . Mhhew, Mrrhk, Mhhhuke, and Mhhohn . . .

This morning, I got a call from Laura, my evangelical friend from high school, who wanted to know how my semester was going.

"Not bad," I said. "Not bad at all."

Laura laughed, but I wasn't being sarcastic. I've been at Liberty for more than a month now, and while it hasn't always been the smoothest ride, things could certainly be worse. I'm not doing all that well in my cla.s.ses, true, but my social life is picking up steam, and I haven't cursed in weeks. In fact, at times, I've managed to convince myself that this semester will be a relatively smooth-sailing experience.

Tonight, I am stripped rather violently of my illusions. I'm in my room after dinner, typing up the day's notes while my roommates work at their desks. Suddenly, Eric swivels his chair around.