In the end -- spoiler alert -- neither prediction was entirely accurate. Roose's memoir lacked a fatal flaw; perhaps his greatest sin was engaging in a bit of self-indulgent melodrama, but -- and unlike the denizens of Sodom and Gomorrah -- his iniquities are easily forgivable. In fact, if Roose weren't so unnervingly honest in his evaluations of both the school and his own shifting perspectives, his brief jabs of alarmism could easily come off as irony. True, he has a slightly grating tendency to close chapters with sentences like "All semester, I've been worried about getting in over my head at Liberty, but what if it's too late?" And true, it is these passages that ring the least authentically -- a lifelong secular student from an Ivy League school stands on the precipice of conversion while studying at the epicenter of American religious anti-intellectualism? -- but it seems that Roose nevertheless wrote them out of a sincere desire to express his rapidly expanding gray areas.
On the other hand, the author's continuing revulsion with the institutionalized homophobia that he finds at Liberty provides a periodic gut check, both for himself and his readers, against growing too comfortable with the notion of right-wing fundamentalism as warm and fuzzy. This book is thus potent because it illustrates the fragile disconnect between abstract disgust and visceral, well, something approaching fraternité. No, it is not a call to ecumenism. It is also not primarily a repudiation of some of the more disturbing facets of the evangelical lifestyle or, more specifically, of Falwell's most appalling public statements. What this book undoubtedly is, however, is a gentle nudge away from demonization and towards, if not empathy, at least toleration. And although conservative Christian readers may be unlikely to agree, Roose's message applies to their anachronistic edicts on the "outside world" as much as it does to the ill-informed heathens who mock them.
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