Thoughts from the Thinking

Recently I finished reading Kevin Roose’s The Unlikely Disciple after having it sit in a box of “books to be read eventually” for half a year. Kevin Roose was a student at Brown University when he decided to transfer for one semester at Liberty University out of curiosity. This book is about that semester as the tag line implies: “A sinner’s semester at America’s holiest university.”

Perhaps I should begin with explaining why I read this book in the first place. Why would I, a moderate, stout Roman Catholic, read a book by a wishy-washy, liberal Christian spending a semester at an Evangelical university founded by Jerry Fallwell, the founder of the Moral Majority and the Christian Right? That is a very good question…

To start, this book was recommended to me by an atheist/agnostic teenager living in an evangelical household (oh the irony). After reading a few excerpts from Kevin’s website and Amazon, I decided that I had to have this book. When I finally got around to reading it after graduation I couldn’t put it down. The concept of a person going to a school essentially diametrically opposed to his ideas is fascinating but more importantly, the way that Kevin approached Liberty (with an open mind and willing to try new things) helped him give Evangelicals a human feel. Now, I’m no friend of evangelicalism but nor am I really a friend of liberalism which puts me in an interesting place to read this book.

I enjoyed watching the spiritual growth that Kevin described during his study “abroad” at Liberty but I also found myself empathizing with the students at Liberty: I saw past the labels that we as a society often put on evangelicals. So, not everyone at Liberty is as crazy as Pat Robertson but that doesn’t mean they aren’t still a little crazy. There are times when Kevin distantly (temporally) reflects on his experience and times when you can tell he is writing notes the night of the events. The prose is clear and concise but I wish there were headers or better transitions between sections rather than white space.

Overall, I loved the book and I learned a lot about both the views of your run of the mill Evangelical and Kevin’s secular, liberal friends and family. I appreciate his appreciation for certain aspects of religion such as being prayed for, the charismatic feel of worship, and rules against various vices (drinking, smoking, sex). I particularly liked reading about his quasi-romance with Anne at Liberty and as it was brought up I kept wondering how it was going to work out. As an aside, I laughed that she called him a pansy for not asking her out despite feeling like he couldn’t get involved too much per his role as a journalist.

In a way, Liberty can be paralleled to Franciscan University of Steubenville as a Catholic university that from the outside looking in (and I can say that I have one foot in and one foot out) it seems to be unwelcoming and condescending. To some extent, perhaps, people there can be. There is an aversion from “other” types of people when you live in the extremes portrayed by the media and represented by members of society such as Richard Dawkins and Pat Robertson. I hate to pick on non-Catholics but since I don’t keep up on icons of Catholic extremism (and almost everyone talks about Catholic leaders as if they are extremist), I have no examples outside of a few friends who border (or flat out are) examples of religious and political extremism.

The point is this: every group has its extremists but that loud minority should not represent the whole. As intelligent individuals we ought to seek out the real people behind a movement. The loud mouth pundits don’t represent the whole and the media really does distort everything you say. I should have listened to Animaniacs when I was a kid…

So, yesterday I moved out of my college house in Cincinnati and back into my parents’ basement (for a few months, I’m not one of those people). I won’t reflect much on my time in academia over the past 4 years since I am barely half way done with college classes (grad school is at least 3 more years of course work). However, I would like to reflect, if I may, on things that I learned outside of the classroom…

• First and foremost: you don’t really know how conservative or liberal you are until you meet other people. I thought I was conservative, religious, whatever, and then I met some really fantastic people who have helped to inspire me along the way. I also learned that extremes are very bad because there is a point on both sides of the spectrum where you are no longer Christian.
• You can’t know yourself until you know other people but you can’t judge yourself based on how other people judge you.
• You can’t truly be loved until you learn to love yourself. I wish I had known this earlier in life and I’m glad I had help learning to love myself for who I am.
• Life is pretty pointless if you spend it hiding in your room playing video games or watching movies or reading books. I like to do all of those things (yes, even reading books) but sometimes you have to get out, have fun, be with people. I’m not saying go out and get wasted every night but you have to meet other people and find people who have similar interests.
• On a related note: “moderation in all things” is a truly good saying. Always keep time for your faith and your school work but never lose sight of friends and having a good time. My friend and old roommate said to me: we work the books all week, but Friday night is Friday night. Get the work done, keep your faith (whatever that is, if you have one), and have at least some fun.
• Professors are actually pretty cool people if you get to know them. It also helps your final grade if they are your friend.
• Some people haven’t grown up by the time they get to college and that means you have to learn to live with them.
• There are some people out there that just don’t get along with other people and that is OK. You don’t need to be friends with everyone, you just have to respect everyone.
• Finally, and probably most importantly, I learned that Socrates was right when he said “The only thing I know is that I know nothing.” There is a certain sense of humility in going to college that I am glad I have come to discover. I am not the smartest person I know. My classmates in Honors A.B. are by far some of the most intelligent and hard working people I have met. In the end, there is always someone who knows more than you about something…surely I don’t know nothing.

I suppose this whole thing can be narrowed down to just three things: know yourself, moderation in all things, and you don’t know nothing. Oddly enough, those are all Greek proverbs (Oracle at Delphi for the first two and Socrates/Plato for the last one).

Anyway, now that I have gradamutated, I am now a level 2 Ivory Tower Elitist which means something, I’m sure, I’m just not sure what yet.

The journal of one Gaius Germanicus Thaddaeus, a Roman citizen from the reign of the Divine Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus who has found himself in 21st century America.

I’ve watched these people in this strange place for some time now and I am at an utter loss as to why they constantly seek to not be themselves. Although Divine Nero is accustomed to moments of levity, and there are rumors of various cults including the Bacchic Rites, but generally speaking, we Romans are accustomed to sobriety. There is no virtue in excesses in wine and chemicals. Without virtue, you are no man. I cannot bear this noise any longer. I wonder will these childish people ever grow up enough to accept the responsibilities of a man? Do they even comprehend responsibility and virtue? Is it even something they have heard of? By Jupiter, these people are mad. They constantly seek refuge in Bacchus rather than Wisdom. They are truly lost souls and I should pity them but their constant annoyance is enough to make me hate them rather than pity them.

Minerva, protector of wisdom, pity them but grant me arms to beat them to virtue.