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False conversions are a wart on the face of Christian evangelism.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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...I realized how naive I was. My aunt Tina was right: this stuff does exist, and it does hurt people, and although there are lots of people at Liberty who condemn violence against gays--including Dr. Falwell himself--the number of students who want to give them the Goliath treatment isn't zero. In fact, the number who live in my room isn't zero.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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As frustrating as the battle for purity must be, I suppose it's easier if you've got company.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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A Christian jerk is still a jerk.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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For the first time, it struck me that when Denver said he'd be my friend for life, he meant it-for better or for worse. The hell of it was, Mr. Ballantine never wanted a friend, especially a black one. But once Denver committed, he stuck. It reminded me of what Jesus told His disciples 'Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
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Ron Hall (Same Kind of Different as Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together)
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If prayers emitted light, you'd see ours (Liberty students') from space.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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A recent survey said that 51% of Americans don't know any evangelicals – even casually.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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No community adheres completely to its stereotypes.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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Christian pop culture can be worthwhile if done well, but bad Christian pop culture isn't redeemed merely by the fact that it's Christian.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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i don't think college is something you should tough out.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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When it comes down to it, no matter how pious or like-minded he might be, a Christian jerk is still a jerk.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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At most schools, the social, intellectual, and spiritual components are confined to separate experiential spheres. We party, we learn, and we contemplate the metaphysical, but we rarely do all three simultaneously and en masse. Maybe most college students aren't looking for spiritual euphoria from their schools, but I can't say I blame the ones who are.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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When the author admits to Christians that he was not a Christian himself, he says their dialogue became "distant and rehearsed, like a pitch for Ginsu knives.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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Seen at Liberty University: "I hope the Rapture happens before my student loans are due.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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The author's mentor advises the NAKED method of breaking the ice at the first meeting: Name, Address, Kin, Experience, and Dreams.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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Fellowship" is a Christianspeak for "flirt with unsuccessfully".
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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In the evangelical world, prying can be an indicator of compassion.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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In the irony-in-hindsight department, Dr. Falwell also chided Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1965 for getting involved in public advocacy, saying “preachers are not called to be politicians but soul-winners.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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It’s hard to watch Liberty students singing along to worship songs during convocation, raising their hands and smiling beatifically, and not wonder whether they’ve tapped into something that makes their lives happier, more meaningful, more consistently optimistic than mine.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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The appetite for saints of either sex, gurus, wise women and men, is unappeasable, and this means that the most unlikely material becomes sanctified. I myself have had to fight off attempts to turn me into a wise old woman. All that happens is that disillusioned fans and disciples attack unfairly where once they unwisely venerated.
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Doris Lessing (Walking in the Shade: Volume Two of My Autobiography, 1949 - 1962)
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I’m still adjusting my mind to all the earnest God talk I’m hearing at Liberty. From time to time, it still feels like I walked onto the set of a Lifetime movie. But one thing has become clear: these Liberty students have no ulterior motive. They simply can’t contain their love for God. They’re happy to be believers, and they’re telling the world.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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Misery, iniquity, and utter destruction lurk in the shadows outside its full light, where half-truths snare the faithful disciples, the deeply feeling believers, the selfless followers. “Faith and feelings are the warm marrow of evil. Unlike reason, faith and feelings provide no boundary to limit any delusion, any whim. They are a virulent poison, giving the numbing illusion of moral sanction to every depravity ever hatched. “Faith and feelings are the darkness to reason’s light. “Reason is the very substance of truth itself. The glory that is life is wholly embraced through reason, through this rule. In rejecting it, in rejecting reason, one embraces death.
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Terry Goodkind (Faith of the Fallen (Sword of Truth, #6))
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When Jesus predicted his resurrection from the dead, we are told that the disciples did not seem to have a clue what he was talking about or simply did not believe (Mark 8:31-33; 9:31-32; 14:27-31; Luke 24:13-24). Even when his empty tomb was discovered, it is reported that the first conclusion was that someone had stolen the body (John 20:2, 13-15). When the women reported that they had seen him risen, the disciples thought they were telling an idle tale (Luke 24:10-12). Upon viewing the empty tomb, they still did not know what to think (John 20:9).Thomas simply refused to believe (John 20:24-25). Now it seems quite unlikely that the disciples or early Christians who highly respected them would invent sayings of Jesus that would place them in such a bad light.This is what is referred to as the "principle of embarrassment," which will be discussed later, and argues strongly in favor of the authenticity of the predictions of Jesus concerning his resurrection.
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Gary R. Habermas (The Case For The Resurrection Of Jesus)
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But as the daylight began to come through the curtains, I knew I was facing something for which I had not been prepared. It was a curious sensation, like suddenly feeling cold water round your feet, then feeling it slowly rising up your legs. It took me some time to realize that they were attacking from some part of my mind of whose existence I was unaware. I had been strong because I was fighting them out of knowledge, but I should have known that my knowledge of mind was pitifully small. I was like an astronomer who knows the solar system, and thinks he knows the universe.
What the parasites were doing was to attack me from below my knowledge of myself. It is true that I had given some small thought to the matter; but I had—rightly—postponed it as a study for a more advanced period. I had reflected often enough that our human life is based completely on ‘premises’ that we take for granted. A child takes its parents and its home for granted; later, it comes to take its country and its society for granted. We need these supports to begin with. A child without parents and a regular home grows up feeling insecure. A child that has had a good home may later learn to criticize its parents, or even reject them altogether (although this is unlikely); but it only does so when it is strong enough to stand alone.
All original thinkers develop by kicking away these ‘supports’ one by one. They may continue to love their parents and their country, but they love from a position of strength—a strength that began in rejection.
In fact, though, human beings never really learn to stand alone. They are lazy, and prefer supports. A man may be a fearlessly original mathematician, and yet be slavishly dependent on his wife. He may be a powerful free thinker, yet derive a great deal more comfort than he would admit from the admiration of a few friends and disciples. In short, human beings never question all their supports; they question a few, and continue to take the rest for granted.
Now I had been so absorbed in the adventure of entering new mental continents, rejecting my old personality and its assumptions, that I had been quite unaware that I was still leaning heavily on dozens of ordinary assumptions. For example, although I felt my identity had changed, I still had a strong feeling of identity. And our most fundamental sense of identity comes from an anchor that lies at the bottom of a very deep sea. I still looked upon myself as a member of the human race. I still looked upon myself as an inhabitant of the solar system and the universe in space and time. I took space and time for granted. I did not ask where I had been before my birth or after my death. I did not even recognize the problem of my own death; it was something I left ‘to be explored later’.
What the parasites now did was to go to these deep moorings of my identity, and proceed to shake them. I cannot express it more clearly than this. They did not actually, so to speak, pull up the anchors. That was beyond their powers. But they shook the chains, so that I suddenly became aware of an insecurity on a level I had taken completely for granted. I found myself asking: Who am I? In the deepest sense. Just as a bold thinker dismisses patriotism and religion, so I dismissed all the usual things that gave me an ‘identity’: the accident of my time and place of birth, the accident of my being a human being rather than a dog or a fish, the accident of my powerful instinct to cling to life. Having thrown off all these accidental ‘trappings’, I stood naked as pure consciousness confronting the universe. But here I became aware that this so-called ‘pure consciousness’ was as arbitrary as my name. It could not confront the universe without sticking labels on it. How could it be ‘pure consciousness’ when I saw that object as a book, that one as a table? It was still my tiny human identity looking out of my eyes. And if I tried to get beyond it, everything went blank.
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Colin Wilson (The Mind Parasites: The Supernatural Metaphysical Cult Thriller)
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And like Vera, I know that "truth lies beyond." I know that faith - like chastity, like intimacy, like the journey to the self - is an ongoing process. Yes, we do walk the labyrinth to the center of every greater knowledge of ourselves as we do in books like Gordimer's. We may also learn from them, as Vera learned, that no single human relationship can fulfill us, draw a small circle around who we are or can be. Others, alas, are as limited, as frail - and as mortal - as we are. We will be compelled, somehow, to leave the center we have found, and continue on our journey. For, self-transcending beings that we are, it is not the center that symbolizes our true selves but the entire labyrinth. If we are courageous enough not to give up on life, on human relationships, or on ourselves - as we surmise from the tone of the last passage is the case with Vera - we will walk it many times, inward and outward, each time going more deeply within, each time reaching out in a wider embrace. And we will have, thanks to the writers among us, not a single book - no single book can satisfy us, either - but many books to accompany us like intimate friends at each stage of the journey, to lead us yet closer to the truth that, as long as we live, lies beyond.
Unlike Vera, in the doctrines and dogmas of my faith, to which I could cling even in my unbelief, I have always had at least a small hope, sometimes a blind trust, and finally in these later years, even a quiet confidence that I am not alone on my journey. God doesn't wait for us to reach the goal; God is with us at every step. Like the mysterious stranger with whom Jacob wrestles in the book of Genesis (32:24-30), or who meets the disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-32), God blesses us on the way, is the companion who breaks bread with us, even when we, like them, don't recognize him.
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Nancy M. Malone (Walking a Literary Labryinth)
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The social justice cultists of our day are pale imitations of Lenin and his fiery disciples. Aside from the ruthless antifa faction, they restrict their violence to words and bullying within bourgeois institutional contexts. They prefer to push around college administrators, professors, and white-collar professionals. Unlike the Bolsheviks, who were hardened revolutionaries, SJWs get their way not by shedding blood but by shedding tears.
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Rod Dreher (Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents)
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In 1930, Lord Irwin had waited before arresting Gandhi. It was unlikely that his successor would repeat that mistake. Knowing this, on 3 January 1932, Gandhi issued instructions through the press as to what the public should do when he was taken into custody. They should wear khadi, boycott foreign goods, manufacture their own salt and picket liquor shops, in all of these actions ‘discard[ing] every trace of violence’.
In Bombay, Gandhi was staying as usual at Mani Bhavan. It was his custom to sleep on the terrace, the open sky above him, his disciples on the floor around him. Early in the morning of 4 January, he was woken up by the city’s commissioner of police, who had come to arrest him. It was Gandhi’s day of silence. Asking for a pencil and piece of paper, he wrote; ‘I shall be ready to come with you in half an hour'.
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Ramachandra Guha (Gandhi 1915-1948: The Years That Changed the World)
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The display of power in the midst of a storm helped convince the disciples that Jesus was unlike any other man. Yet it also hints at the depths of Incarnation. “God is vulnerable,” said the philosopher Jacques Maritain13. Jesus had, after all, fallen asleep from sheer fatigue. Moreover, the Son of God was, but for this one instance of miracle, one of its victims: the creator of rain clouds was rained on, the maker of stars got hot and sweaty under the Palestine sun. Jesus subjected himself to natural laws even when, at some level, they went against his desires (“If it is possible14, may this cup be taken from me”). He would live, and die, by the rules of earth.
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Philip Yancey (The Jesus I Never Knew)
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those with doctorates in theology. No, he chose fishermen, tax collectors, and other unlikely candidates. He taught them humility by washing their feet at the Last Supper and then told them, “I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you” (John 13:15). Jesus told his disciples, “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). This theme of humility is seen throughout the New Testament. The entire Christmas story is, in part, a story about the reversal
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Adam Hamilton (Not a Silent Night: Mary Looks Back to Bethlehem)
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I love Johannesburg – like one loves and protects a fragile puppy, like one removes weeds from beds of blossoming tulips and roses. I am drawn to its formless danger, the lurking disquiets of a big city, by how minute and faceless I have become in the vast frontiers of its palaces and dungeons, how my stargazing crawls by unnoticed by my countrymen. There are other stargazers too, there must be, real stargazers who camp and live and thrive in the wild: lantern carriers and owners of books and celestial maps about the history and unknown charms in the world of stars. There must be true worshippers and disciples of these heavenly fires, these celestial corpses that have long died, exploded into trillions of graveyards that adorn the night skies. There seems, if I concentrate long enough, to be a certain secret that draws me to the stars: their ancient silence, their insistence on commanding attention without shouting from rooftops, unlike the shamelessness of thunder and rain, unaffected by their distance or determination. Stars are quiet – arrogant, maybe – but also of a particular crispness that takes refuge in every pore, every fragment of every hair that covers every slope and plane of the body. It is possible that Michael K is peering from behind the night clouds, content not to be bothered. He has seen the zealots and charlatans coming from miles away, preserved his soul in the most elementary of ways: the ways of silence.
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Nthikeng Mohlele (Michael K)
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To put it in Quaker terms, my inner light flickered a lot, like the overhead fluorescent at a Motel 6, and sometimes, it burnt out altogether. The closest I came to consistent faith was during my senior year religion class, when we learned about the Central and South American liberation theology movements and I became briefly convinced that God was a left-wing superhero who led the global struggle against imperialism and corporate greed. Sort of a celestial Michael Moore.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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The satirist P. J. O'Rourke once compared making fun of born-again Christians to "hunting dairy cows with a high-powered rifle and scope." That was a few years ago, before names like Ted Haggard and movies like Jesus Camp came on the scene. Now, it's more like hunting the ground with your foot.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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As a guy who gives evolution two opposable thumbs up (to quote a bumper sticker I once saw), hearing a PhD-toting professor espousing young-earth creationism bothered me on multiple levels, not the least of which was Dr. Dekker’s ultra-sarcastic, oddly defensive delivery. (He kept tugging on the lapels of his lab coat and saying, “Look! A real scientist!”)
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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Then there’s the Day of Purity, which I must admit I don’t understand at all. If the day is a celebration of premarital abstinence, as Dean Staver said, then why was 50 or 60 percent of his convocation speech about homosexuality and the redefinition of gender boundaries? What does that have to do with not having sex? Is the implication that if gay marriage is legalized, Christian boyfriends and girlfriends will turn to each other, shrug their shoulders, and say, Well, gee, might as well? From what I can tell, not a whole lot of forethought has gone into the holiday.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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At first, I was almost offended by the nonchalance with which people probed my soul. Within five minutes of meeting a new hallmate, I’ve been asked how often I pray, which is not something I’m used to. But after answering enough of these questions, I’m starting to realize that in the evangelical world, prying can be an indicator of compassion. In Liberty’s theology, there are only two categories of people: believers and nonbelievers, people headed to heaven and people condemned to hell. So Rodrigo’s attempt to suss out my faith isn’t intended to be obnoxious. He just wants to make sure I’m safe.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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The trick to being a rebel at Liberty, I’ve learned, is knowing which parts of the Liberty social code are non-negotiable. For example, Joey and his friends listen to vulgarity-filled secular hip-hop, but you’ll never catch them defending homosexuality. (On the contrary, Joey’s insults of choice are “queer” and “gaywad.”) And although they might harass the naïve pastors’ kids on the hall by stealing their towels from the shower stalls—leaving them naked, wet, and stranded—they’d be the first people to tell you why Mormonism is a false religion. In other words, Liberty’s true social code, the one they don’t put in a forty-six-page manual, has everything to do with being a social and religious conservative and not a whole lot to do with acting in any traditionally virtuous way.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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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.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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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 Hell” and “God is angry with the wicked every day.” Maybe I’m deluded, but that just doesn’t sound like my hallmates. Most of them believe homosexuality is a sin, yes, but they’re not going to picket pride parades on the weekend.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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I’ve been so eager to make my time at Liberty tolerable that I’ve been sweeping all kinds of dirt under the rug. Homophobia? Nah, they’re just a little behind the times. Using religion to justify violence? Nope, not since the Crusades. But tonight, sitting there at my desk as my roommates reenacted The Laramie Project, I realized how naïve I was. My aunt Tina was right: this stuff does exist, and it does hurt people, and although there are lots of people at Liberty who condemn violence against gays—including Dr. Falwell himself—the number of students who want to give them the Goliath treatment isn’t zero. In fact, the number who live in my room isn’t zero.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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Here’s what worries me the most: I came to Liberty to humanize people. Because humanizing people is good, right? But what about people with reprehensible views? Do they deserve to be humanized? By giving Jerry Falwell’s moral universe a fair look, am I putting myself in his shoes? Or am I really just validating his worldview? What’s the difference between what I’m doing and certain Iranian presidents who want to “do more research” into the Holocaust? Where’s the limit to open-mindedness?
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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I reach this conclusion: humanizing is not the same as sympathizing. You can peel a stereotype off a person and not see a beautiful human being underneath. In fact, humanity can be very ugly.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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I can’t help believing that Liberty’s conservative evangelicalism is just one of many possible outcomes of a centuries-long process of religious evolution. If Jonathan Edwards had decided to become a blacksmith or a pastry chef instead of leading the Great Awakening, would evangelical Christianity still have become America’s dominant religion? I have a hard time thinking so. When you take the historical view, it seems just as likely that Quakerism would have taken over the country’s religious landscape, and instead of Thomas Road Baptist Church, we’d have Quaker megameetings with TV cameras showing twenty thousand people worshipping in silence.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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The reason Dr. Caner’s flameout didn’t make a bigger dent in this school’s spiritual life, I think, is that Liberty students have much more pressing things to do than contemplate the existence of God. There are papers to write, grad school applications to complete, girls to ask out. Even if you were convinced by the Rational Response Squad, entertaining a crisis of faith would mean reevaluating every aspect of your life, from the friends you hang out with to the classes you take to, really, whether you should be at Liberty at all. In a faith system as rigorous and all-encompassing as this, severe doubt is paralyzing. Better just to keep believing, keep living life, and take up the big questions later, when not so much is at stake.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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All week, we’ve heard pep talks like this one from Scott at last night’s post-Razzle’s debrief: “To me, here’s the motivation to evangelize: If I’m a doctor, and I find the cure for a terminal illness, and if I care about people, I’m going to spread that cure as widely as possible. If I don’t, people are going to die.”
Leave the comparison in place for a second. If Scott had indeed found the cure to a terminal illness and if this Daytona mission were a vaccination campaign instead of an evangelism crusade, my group members would be acting with an unusually large portion of mercy—much more, certainly, than their friends who spent the break playing Xbox in their sweatpants. And if you had gone on this immunization trip, giving up your spring break for the greater good, and had found the sick spring breakers unwilling to be vaccinated, what would you do? If a terminally ill man said he was “late for a meeting,” you might let him walk away. But—and I’m really stretching here—if you really believed your syringe held his only hope of survival, and you really cared about him, would you ignore the rules of social propriety and try every convincement method you knew?
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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I couldn’t believe Liberty actually had a course that teaches students how to condemn homosexuals and combat feminism. GNED II is the class a liberal secularist would invent if he were trying to satirize a Liberty education. It’s as if Brown offered a course called Godless Hedonism 101: How to Smoke Pot, Cross-dress, and Lose Your Morals.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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If the Bible is infallible, my professors all say, and if the parts about Jesus dying for our sins are true, then a host of other things must also be true, including the sinfulness of homosexuality, the pro-life platform, and the imminence of the rapture. In Liberty’s eyes, the ultra-conservative interpretation of scripture carries the same inerrancy as scripture itself, and if you don’t buy it all—if you’re a liberal or moderate Christian—you’re somehow less than faithful. That sort of prix fixe theology, where Christianity comes loaded with a slate of political views, is a big part of the reason I’ve been hesitant to accept Liberty’s evangelicalism this semester. Somewhere down the road, I might be able to believe in Jesus as Lord, but I could never believe that homosexuality is a sinful lifestyle or tell my future wife to submit to me as her husband.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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I have to say, after talking to my friend, it was hard not to feel like I have the better deal at Liberty. Sure, it’s frustrating not to be able to relieve sexual tension, but with that option off the table, I’m free to be totally transparent. The whole interaction feels more honest, more straightforward. In the words of I Kissed Dating Goodbye, “our entire motivation in relationships is transformed.” I’ve said things to Aimee tonight that I would never say to girls back in the secular world for fear of alienating them. Strange things to say to a girl who looks really beautiful—like, “You look really beautiful.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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At Liberty, I’ve met hundreds of people whose lives have been made better and more virtuous by their faith. But I’ve also seen a process whereby some reasonable, humble believers are taught to put their religious goals above everything else. This is how you get gentle Christian kids condemning strangers to hell in Daytona Beach, and it’s how you end up with a group of Liberty students sitting around a prayer room talking about the ideological crops that can be reaped from a national tragedy.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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Every day, I’ve heard someone worrying about gay people, praying for gay people, talking about the scientific evidence against the alleged “gay gene.” I’ve heard ten times as many conversations about homosexuality at Liberty than I ever heard any place where gay people existed in the open.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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I love the way Pastor Seth’s faith motivates him to help me in my struggles. I admire his compassion and selflessness. I just wish he were calling to see whether I was returning my mom’s phone calls, or whether I had left good tips at restaurants, or whether I had been nice to everyone I met today. Working on masturbation when I have so many other flaws seems like putting fuzzy dice in a car whose transmission is falling apart.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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So who is the real Jerry Falwell? Is he a rabid, hate-spewing fundamentalist? Or is he a dutiful family man, a talented preacher, and a competent administrator? Was John McCain right when he called Dr. Falwell an “agent of intolerance” during the 2000 presidential campaign? Or was the Wall Street Journal right when, in 1978, it described him as a “man of charm, drive, talent, and ambition”? Well, in a way, both are right. In fact, that’s the overwhelming impression I get from the time I’ve spent watching Dr. Falwell this semester and talking to him this afternoon: he’s a complex character, but he’s not hiding anything. He may be a blundering, arch-conservative provocateur, and he may spew anti-gay venom more often than most people brush their teeth, but I honestly think he believes every word he preaches, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he really does stay awake at night worrying about the homosexual agenda, the evils of abortion, and the imminent spread of liberalism. He really does think America needs to be saved.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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At the end of the day, the two sides of this culture war still have glaring differences, and those differences are likely to continue to define the relationship between the evangelical community and America at large for decades to come. Humans have always quarreled over their beliefs, and I suppose they always will. But judging from my post-Liberty experience, this particular religious conflict isn’t built around a hundred-foot brick wall. If anything, it’s built around a flimsy piece of cardboard, held in place on both sides by paranoia and lack of exposure. It’s there, no doubt, but it’s hardly forbidding. And more important, it’s hardly soundproof. Religious conflict might be a basic human instinct, but I have faith, now more than ever before, that we can subvert that instinct for long enough to listen to each other.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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Luke records the parable Jesus told His disciples. He begins the story this way: “A man had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the estate that falls to me.’ So he divided his wealth between them. And not many days later, the younger son gathered everything together and went on a journey into a distant country, and there he squandered his estate with loose living. Now when he had spent everything, a severe famine occurred in that country, and he began to be impoverished. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would have gladly filled his stomach with the pods that the swine were eating, and no one was giving anything to him.” (15:11–16) Jesus told this parable so that His followers would have an accurate portrayal of His heavenly Father’s love and grace. Many had wondered what God was like. Christ’s description in this story was certainly unlike anything they had been taught. Their lives had been steeped in Jewish tradition and following the letter of the law of Moses. Jesus, however, portrayed God as a loving, forgiving, tenderhearted Father who understands our weaknesses and frailties. He is Someone who hears our prayers and our cries for help. He forgives sin, fills us with His Spirit, and restores us so we can learn to love Him better and honor His name in all that we do.
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Charles F. Stanley (Stuck in Reverse: How to Let God Change Your Direction)
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The goal in handling dragons is not to destroy them, not merely to disassociate from them, but to make them disciples. Even when that seems an unlikely prospect.
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Marshall Shelley (Ministering to Problem People in Your Church: What to Do With Well-Intentioned Dragons)
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Whittenberger thinks, if the resurrection hypothesis were true and Jesus was really standing among his disciples, it is very unlikely that some would doubt. On the other hand, if one or two disciples experienced a hallucination of Jesus and the others did not, then it is very likely that some would doubt.
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Andrew Loke (Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach (Routledge New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies))
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How Good Deeds Conquered an Empire Humanly speaking, no one would have thought it possible to bring the nations to the worship of God through simple good deeds. How on earth could “good deeds” change a realm as mighty as the Roman Empire, let alone the whole world? As unlikely as it may have sounded at the time, Jesus’ call to be the light of the world was taken seriously by his disciples. They devoted themselves to quite heroic acts of godliness. They loved their enemies, prayed for their persecutors and cared for the poor wherever they found them. We know that the Jerusalem church set up a large daily food roster for the destitute among them—no fewer than seven Christian leaders were assigned to the management of the program (Acts 6:1—7). The apostle Paul, perhaps the greatest missionary/evangelist ever, was utterly devoted to these kinds of good deeds. In response to a famine that ravaged Palestine between AD 46—48 Paul conducted his own decade-long international aid program earmarked for poverty-stricken Palestinians. Wherever he went, he asked the Gentile churches to contribute whatever they could to the poor in Jerusalem.23 Christian “good deeds” continued long after the New Testament era. We know, for instance, that by AD 250 the Christian community in Rome was supporting 1,500 destitute people every day.24 All around the Mediterranean churches were setting up food programs, hospitals and orphanages. These were available to believers and unbelievers alike. This was an innovation. Historians often point to ancient Israel as the first society to introduce a comprehensive welfare system that cared for the poor and marginalised within the community. Christians
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John Dickson (The Best Kept Secret of Christian Mission: Promoting the Gospel with More Than Our Lips)
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There is a movement afoot in America that says in order to protect and "save" young boys and men, they must become disciples of the movement of White Jesus. Unlike Jesus Christ, White Jesus is on a violent quest for naked power and influence and wealth.
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Angela Denker (Disciples of White Jesus: The Radicalization of American Boyhood)
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I grabbed at transparency like an addict grabs at a crack pipe.
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Kevin Roose (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University)
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WHERE ARE THE FATHERS? I have seen this cry in countless men and women in the body of Christ. Most of them are young and with a strong call of God on their lives. They cry out for a father, a man to disciple, love, support, and encourage them. This is why God said He would “turn the hearts of the fathers [leaders] to the children [people], and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse” (Mal. 4:6). Our nation lost its fathers (dads, leaders, or ministers) in the 1940s and 1950s, and today our condition is getting worse. Not unlike Saul, many leaders in our homes, corporations, and churches are more concerned with their goals than with their offspring. Because of this attitude, these leaders view God’s people as resources to serve their vision instead of seeing the vision as the vehicle to serve the people.
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John Bevere (The Bait of Satan: Living Free from the Deadly Trap of Offense)
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Philosopher James K. A. Smith reminds us that it is not just religions that disciple—our culture disciples us. According to Smith every structure of a culture carries a worldview and a form of teaching that “shape and constitute our identities by forming our most fundamental desires and our most basic attunement to the world…. They prime us to approach the world in a certain way, to value certain things, to aim for certain goals, to purse certain dreams … to be a certain kind of person.”5 Of
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Mark Sayers (The Road Trip that Changed the World: The Unlikely Theory that will Change How You View Culture, the Church, and, Most Importantly, Yourself)
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In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus prays a lot. And the lesson is not lost on his disciples. They sense that Jesus’ real depth and power are drawn from his prayer. They know that what makes him so special, so unlike any other religious figure, is that he is linked at some deep place to a power outside of this world. And they want this for themselves. That is why they approach him and ask him: “Lord, teach us to pray!”2
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Ronald Rolheiser (Sacred Fire: A Vision for a Deeper Human and Christian Maturity)