The Unlikely Disciple Part 2

Before beginning, Dr. Parks bows his head. Every cla.s.s at Liberty, no matter the subject, starts with prayer led by the professor. He speaks softly into his microphone: Lord, thank you for bringing these students to my cla.s.s. You have them here for a reason, G.o.d, and I pray that you'll allow me to say the right things. Anoint my teaching, Lord, and pour out your blessing on these students as they enter the new semester. In Jesus' name, Amen. Lord, thank you for bringing these students to my cla.s.s. You have them here for a reason, G.o.d, and I pray that you'll allow me to say the right things. Anoint my teaching, Lord, and pour out your blessing on these students as they enter the new semester. In Jesus' name, Amen.

From what I can tell, GNED seems to be about half Western philosophy, half Christian reactionary training. The syllabus puts it thusly: "This course is designed to aid the student in the development of a biblical worldview. This will involve an introduction to critical thinking, an evaluation of contemporary moral philosophies, and an affirmation of absolute truth." We'll be learning about moral philosophies like nihilism, relativism, and utilitarianism, Dr. Parks says, but mostly as opposition research. We'll discuss where they appear in American society, then learn how to combat them from the Christian perspective.

"Let me give you an example," Dr. Parks says. "How many of you have seen The Italian Job The Italian Job?"

A few hands go up.

"It's a neat movie. A bunch of thieves get together to pull off a gold heist, and it works. They get the gold. But then one of them turns out to be a double-crosser, and he steals the gold from the group. So the rest of them have to find this guy and steal the gold back. And the weird thing is, the good guys in the movie are thieves! You find yourself rooting for them. Now, what's wrong with that?"

A small girl in the second row raises her hand. "We're rooting for sinners? I mean, the Bible says, 'Thou shalt not steal.' "

"Exactly! Now, I'm not telling you not to watch that movie. But when you watch it, make sure it's not forming the way you think. When you see something, you have to critically a.n.a.lyze it."

A lot of what we'll be doing in GNED, Dr. Parks says, is dismantling the harmful worldviews we've already developed unwittingly in the secular world. Liberty draws a majority of its students from public high schools, and GNED is one way of getting everyone on the same page, both spiritually and politically. "We'll talk about things your friends have said and things other schools have taught you," he says, "many of which are opposed to the biblical worldview."

It's time to go, but Dr. Parks puts one final slide on the board as we pack our bags to leave: Don't let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ. (Colossians 2:8, NLT) "Oh, I almost forgot," he says. "We will have a quiz next cla.s.s over today's material."

The cla.s.s groans.

"And remember: Can you cheat on a quiz in this cla.s.s without me seeing you? Yes, probably. It's a big cla.s.s. But can you cheat on a quiz without G.o.d seeing you?"

He chuckles. "I'll let you consider that one on your own."

Next up is History of Life, the introductory survey course in Liberty's Creation Studies Department.

"My name is Dr. James Dekker," says the professor, "and I am a real scientist."

He looks like one, anyway. With his lanky frame wrapped in a white lab coat, his gold-framed spectacles, and the frizzy tuft of brown hair atop his head, Dr. Dekker could have been s.h.i.+pped in from Central Casting as a movie extra, perhaps Chemist # 4. The only thing that doesn't quite fit is the novelty tie slung around his neck. On the tie is a picture of the solar system, captioned with five words written in flowing white script: "In the Beginning G.o.d Created . . ." "In the Beginning G.o.d Created . . ."

Liberty's science program, I should explain, is slightly fraught. In 1982, in response to pressure from the ACLU, a Virginia state education board ruled that biology graduates from Liberty University (then called Liberty Baptist College) were uncertifiable as public school teachers, since Liberty's undergraduate biology program was based in creationism. In response, university higher-ups made a quick fix, shuffling the creationism courses out of the Biology Department and into a new department called Creation Studies.

Liberty has since gotten teacher certification approval for its biology program, and the school now teaches courses in both evolution and creationism--sort of. All Liberty students are required to take a creation studies course, while only biology majors are required to learn evolution-based science. And even those evolution courses are sort of Fair and Balanced, if you get my drift. As Dr. Falwell said in 1982, before the Virginia board ruling: "We, with G.o.d's help, want to see hundreds of our graduates go out into the cla.s.srooms teaching creationism--of course they'll be teaching evolution--but teaching why it's invalid and why it's foolish, and then showing the proper way and the correct approach to the origin of the species."

That approach, of course, is young-earth creationism. Every biology professor at Liberty teaches that G.o.d created the universe about six thousand years ago in six literal, twenty-four-hour days, pretty much the way it looks now. This is the most extreme version of creationism, the most literal of the literal, and it makes no compromises. Carbon dating that has revealed scores of million-year-old fossils? Defective. Noah's Flood? As historical as the 1985 World Series.

Before beginning cla.s.s, Dr. Dekker spends five or ten minutes enumerating his scientific credentials: BA from Michigan State, PhD in neuroscience from a top-flight research university, published in "over a dozen" peer-reviewed journals.

"When I was looking for jobs," Dr. Dekker says, pacing the stairs of the lecture hall, "I thought, well, I'm a creationist, and I want to teach biology. There must be a ton of Christian colleges that will hire me. Boy, was I surprised."

According to Dr. Dekker, only about a dozen American colleges still teach young-earth creationism. Many evangelical colleges now teach intelligent design, a newer, arguably sleeker origins model that posits a creator of the universe without specifying who that creator is. Even the conservative Christian schools have moved to a "creation compromise" that allows for an old earth, like the day/age theory (each day in Genesis represented a geological age) or the gap theory (an unwritten gap of billions of years separated the earth's formation and the rest of the Genesis narrative).

Dr. Dekker blames the lack of young-earth creationism in Christian academia on its media portrayal as a pseudoscientific movement. Christian teens, he says, are scared to sign onto young-earth theories for fear they'll be called irrational and backward. Hence the importance of cla.s.ses like History of Life. "As Christians," he says, "we need to be equipped with reasons for our faith. We need apologetics."

The word apologetics apologetics, he explains, comes from the Greek apologia apologia, meaning "defense." It's the same word found in the book of Acts, when Paul is being brought to trial--he gives his apologia apologia in front of the judge. Technically, History of Life is an apologetics course, not a science course. We will study science throughout the semester, but only as needed to accomplish the course's primary objective, which, according to our textbook, is to "equip students to defend their faith and give answers to common questions" raised by people for whom "the Bible is just a book of fairy tales rather than the Word of G.o.d." in front of the judge. Technically, History of Life is an apologetics course, not a science course. We will study science throughout the semester, but only as needed to accomplish the course's primary objective, which, according to our textbook, is to "equip students to defend their faith and give answers to common questions" raised by people for whom "the Bible is just a book of fairy tales rather than the Word of G.o.d."

Next, Dr. Dekker reads a verse from his thick black Bible: Thou shalt love the Lord thy G.o.d with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. (Matthew 22:37, KJV) "Do you hear what that says? 'With all thy mind'! Christianity is a reasoned faith! We have reasons for the doctrines that we believe." He smirks. "You don't hear much about Islamic Islamic apologetics. Or apologetics. Or Mormon Mormon apologetics. But Christians know that it's important to be able to prove, for example, that Adam and Eve were real people." apologetics. But Christians know that it's important to be able to prove, for example, that Adam and Eve were real people."

History of Life is part of Liberty's core curriculum, Dr. Dekker says, because all Christians need to know how to defend creationism, not just biologists. "Any future pastors in here?" he asks. "I guarantee that one day, someone from your church will come to you and say, 'Hey, Pastor, CNN said someone found this dinosaur that dates to sixty-five million years, but you said creation happened six thousand years ago. What's up with that?' You'd better have the answer. Future lawyers, you'll have to defend public school teachers who lose their jobs because they say they don't believe in evolution. And to everyone who plans on having kids--which I a.s.sume is all of you--when your kid comes home and says, 'My teacher told me that we came from monkeys,' you'd better know how to correct them."

Dr. Dekker spends the rest of the cla.s.s going over grade policies and attendance requirements (the syllabus includes cheeky notes like "Your salvation is a free gift from G.o.d; your grade is based solely on works"), and dismisses us for the day.

After History of Life, I shove my notebook into my backpack and hurry over to my next cla.s.s, Evangelism 101. This cla.s.s is taught by Pastor Andy Hillman, the guy who led the Campus Church service yesterday.

Pastor Andy spends the first few minutes of cla.s.s going over logistics. Our study of evangelism, the practice of converting non-Christians, will occupy only the last half of the semester. Until then, we'll be doing a unit called "The Christian Life." Our textbooks, he says, are The Purpose-Driven Life The Purpose-Driven Life, the mega-best seller by evangelical pastor Rick Warren, and the Bible ("any translation will do"). Pastor Andy's lectures will cover topics like "Jesus, the Centerpiece of Civilization" and "G.o.d's Word Brings Life." Like my other cla.s.ses, Evangelism 101 is popular, maybe three hundred students piled into a hall with stadium-style seating.

Evangelism 101's first lecture/sermon is on the topic of purpose. "Regardless of how convinced you are that G.o.d exists," Andy says, "someday you'll lay your head on your pillow at night and wonder: What is my purpose in life? Even atheists ask themselves that question. And when I meet atheists, I tell them, 'Hey, I respect your views, and you don't have to believe me, but I think somewhere in your heart is a desire for G.o.d. I think you were made by G.o.d, for G.o.d, and that when you discover G.o.d's purpose for your life, you'll be living life at its fullest.' "

As far as sermons go, Pastor Andy's seem pretty inoffensive. Still, while he's talking, I find myself thinking back to Dr. Dekker's creationism cla.s.s. Even before today, I knew taking History of Life would be bad for my open-mindedness at Liberty. As a guy who gives evolution two opposable thumbs up (to quote a b.u.mper 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!") I almost didn't take History of Life because I thought it would make me too cynical. But I had to. After all, it's central to the Liberty experience. Not only is creationism taught in science cla.s.ses here, it's also a foundational part of the theological and moral architecture. Spending a semester at Liberty without taking Dr. Dekker's cla.s.s would be like going to West Point and ignoring the whole army thing.

It brings up something my high school friend Laura said during our evangelical crash course. Namely, Liberty is not a middle-of-the-road Christian college. As Dr. Dekker said, only a dozen schools still teach young-earth creationism, and the number of schools with Evangelism 101 cla.s.ses can't be a whole lot higher. Laura said that speaking as a Christian, she wished I were ramping up to this experience somehow. Maybe going to a more liberal Christian school, then to somewhere moderate, and then to Liberty. She thought going from the extreme left to the extreme right would give me ideological whiplash, and I'd be left feeling alienated and confused.

She might have been onto something.

Back in Dorm 22, I'm slowly adjusting to life on the hall. My hallmates are an eclectic bunch. In the past few days, I've met a guitarist from Cape Town, a chef from New Jersey, a graphic designer from Norfolk, and a guy from the Bronx who tries to sell those Amway-type Quixtar products to everyone on the hall.

Then there's Zipper, my next-door neighbor, who comes bounding in through my open door tonight yelling, "Kevin Roooooose! Want to come to Pancake Night?"

Zipper, a short, moon-faced soph.o.m.ore from the Philadelphia suburbs, introduced himself to me the other day. He's a Prayer Leader on the hall, and he may be the happiest person I've ever met. Even in winter, Zipper (birth name: Charles Ziparo) wears Hawaiian s.h.i.+rts and a pair of big, wide-rimmed Ray-Bans with a neon green bungee cord to secure them around his neck. He uses phrases like "super-duper" and "all-righty," and his face carries a perpetual look of glee, like Mister Rogers after a few whippits. Even his breaths seem to have exclamation points.

Here's one thing I can say so far: Liberty students are the friendliest college students I've ever met. They're much friendlier than the students at my old school. Or maybe a different type of friendly. A more overt friendly. The past week has been a constant deluge of "Great to meet you!" and "I can't wait to show you around!" Zipper, within two days of meeting me, has volunteered to help me pick cla.s.ses, shop for textbooks, take me out to dinner--everything except tuck me into bed.

Tonight, he's inviting me to Pancake Night with the sister dorm. Every hall at Liberty is paired with a hall of the opposite s.e.x, and the two halls plan occasional joint activities. Lynchburg's local pancake house has a half-off deal for Liberty students on Tuesday nights, so Dorm 22 and our sister dorm, Dorm 33, have made it a regular meeting place. I decide to go along.

At Pancake Night, I meet a few girls from the sister dorm. They're all at least moderately attractive, at least moderately personable, and seemingly normal. In fact, that's the thing that strikes me hardest: this is not a group of angry zealots. I knew I'd see a different side of Liberty students once I resolved to blend in among them, but I thought it would be a harsher side. I had this secular/liberal paranoia that when evangelical students were among themselves, they spent their time huddled in dark rooms, organizing anti-abortion protests and plotting theocratic takeovers. But that's not true at all. In fact, a lot of the time, the conversations I hear at Liberty are pretty ba.n.a.l. Over pancakes, girls from the sister dorm ask guys from my dorm about their vacations. They complain about their expensive textbooks and gossip about a couple who broke up over break. There's a long discussion about the merits and drawbacks of one of Dr. Falwell's latest construction projects--an eight-acre LU monogram being built on the side of Liberty Mountain. Some people think it's a good marketing tool, others think it's a waste of their tuition money. But that's about as heated as the conversation gets.

After saying goodnight to the girls, Zipper and I head back to campus. Most nights, we're allowed out until midnight, but on Tuesdays, curfew is moved up to ten to accommodate our weekly hall meeting. When all sixty Dorm 22 residents are back on the hall, Fox and Stubbs have us all sit on the floor.

"McGrath, will you start us in prayer?" Stubbs asks, looking at a tanned, strapping guy next to him.

McGrath takes off his Cubs hat. "Lord, thank you for the new guys on the hall. Help us all get to know each other. Help this hall grow in continuity, and help us grow closer to you. In Jesus' name, Amen."

A small black guy named Dylan cackles. "Continuity! That's a big word for you, McGrath!"

McGrath socks Dylan in the stomach, drawing laughs from everyone. "Shut up, queer."

Fox and Stubbs make some general announcements about mission trips, upcoming sports games, and disciplinary issues on the hall. Then, it's time to break into prayer groups.

My prayer group is led by a varsity baseball player named Matthew, a military-looking guy with one arm in a sling from a recent in-game injury. Matthew brings the five members of my prayer group into his room, where I meet my new prayer partners: a soccer player from Virginia named Eddie, a freshman from Bolivia named Carlos, a drummer from New York named Tim, and a shot-putter from Oklahoma named Dave.

"Prayer requests," Matthew says. "Let's hear 'em."

Tim says that a man in his home church has leukemia, and we should pray for his recovery. Eddie's little brother broke his arm playing basketball the other day, and he's in a lot of pain. Carlos's mom has a job interview this week, and she really needs this job, so could we pray for her? Dave wants to get a 4.0 GPA this semester, and "that will take a lot of help from the Big Man."

When it comes around to me, I hesitate. I didn't grow up in a praying family, and I have trouble getting my mind around the idea that G.o.d actively works to give us better grades or new jobs. The closest I've ever come to real, ask-and-ye-shall-receive prayer is the occasional request for my safety during airplane takeoffs and landings. But I decide to partic.i.p.ate in this prayer group regardless. If I'm going to be living with these guys for a semester, I should get used to opening up to them, no matter what I believe about the efficacy of prayer.

Plus, there's been a traumatic incident in my family recently, and I could use the moral support. My eighty-seven-year-old grandfather had a ma.s.sive heart attack a month ago, and survived only with a risky quadruple bypa.s.s operation that even my secular family called a miracle. He pulled through in the end, but he's not completely well yet, and we're all still pretty shaken up.

When I tell the guys about Grandpa Roose, they look genuinely pained. They're all leaning in, asking concerned questions. Is he okay? How's the rest of the family? Is there anything we can do?

"Let's all pray for him extra hard this week," Matthew says. The rest of the guys nod in agreement. Then, Matthew tells us to stand up. "This is our group's tradition," he tells me. "Just follow along."

We form a close circle, arms draped over each other's shoulders. And then, with no preamble, the guys all close their eyes and start praying out loud for each other, all at once, all for different things. Only partial phrases emerge from the mix: "Dear Lord, thank you for . . ." "Dear Lord, thank you for . . .""Father, I pray for Tim's . . ."". . . with leukemia and I pray that you would heal . . ."". . . Kevin's grandfather, Lord, just that you would . . ."". . . and give Carlos the wisdom to get . . ."

As the guys pray--one minute, then two--the voices blend together and a sort of white noise hum rises from the circle. Slowly, the prayers taper to silence.

. . . according to your will . . . G.o.d, I just . . . thank you for giving me the str . . . Eddie's brother and that he might . . . grades this semester, Lord . . . Jesus' name, amen . . . amen . . . Jesus' name, amen . . . in your name I pray . . . amen . . . amen. . . . according to your will . . . G.o.d, I just . . . thank you for giving me the str . . . Eddie's brother and that he might . . . grades this semester, Lord . . . Jesus' name, amen . . . amen . . . Jesus' name, amen . . . in your name I pray . . . amen . . . amen.

The group remains in place for several seconds and then gently breaks huddle.

"Thanks guys," Matthew says. "See you next week."

As we gather our things, Dave from Oklahoma slaps his knee.

"You know what always amazes me?" he says to no one in particular. "G.o.d just heard our prayers through all that chaos. He knows every word we said!"

He throws back his head and laughs. "Man, G.o.d is a stinkin' baller!"

The next night, I have my first big scare. At dinner, one of the guys in Dorm 22, a bulky Virginian named Judd, is telling a story to a half-dozen guys sitting around the table. He was driving on the highway during Christmas break, he says, when he skidded on ice, rolling his Ford F-150 into a ditch. The truck flipped seven times, but he was unharmed.

"That's crazy!" I say. "Holy s.h.i.+t!"

All eyes zoom to me. Audible gasp from Judd.

"I mean, holy . . . shoot."

When I was training for my Liberty semester with my friend Laura, I asked her what the biggest tip-off to Christian teens would be, which gaffe would automatically peg me as an outsider. Without blinking, she responded: cursing.

It was bad news. Like a lot of secular college students, I curse as a way of life. In my old world, epithets were dropped into everyday speech as liberally and mindlessly as "uh" or "like." But according to Laura, cursing is a serious no-go in evangelical circles. And according to "The Liberty Way," each slip-up here will earn me "12-18 reprimands + corresponding fine." Luckily, no RAs were sitting at our dinner table tonight, so unless someone reports me, I'll be okay. But after an excruciatingly long dinner filled with wary looks from my hallmates, I jog back to my room and head straight for my bookshelf.

After Laura told me that I'd have to give up cursing, I bought a Christian self-help book in an airport bookstore called 30 Days to Taming Your Tongue 30 Days to Taming Your Tongue. It's a tiny thing, maybe forty pages in total, but I've never managed to get through it entirely. I thought I could quit cursing cold turkey, through sheer willpower. But now, it's clear that my sin is too deeply ingrained.

So tonight, I read through the book on my bed, marveling at the percentage of my vocabulary I'm going to have to give up if I want to remain inconspicuous here. My four-letter words will have to go, of course, but also my third commandment violations--"Oh my G.o.d," "Jesus Christ," and the like. (The author suggests replacing them with Christ-honoring exclamations, like "Glory!") In addition, the book says that all negative speech--including exaggeration, gossiping, and cynicism--must be jettisoned for true righteousness.

I'm a little worried for what these Christian language rules are going to do to my social life. Telling a Brown student he can't be cynical is a little like telling Monet he can't paint water lilies. Without cynicism and cursing, what will I say to people? What if I want to make a snide comment about a professor? What if I stub my toe on a dresser? Until I get adjusted to evangelical speech, my conversations are going to sound like a censored version of Letters to Penthouse: Letters to Penthouse: a few conjunctions and a lot of blank s.p.a.ce. a few conjunctions and a lot of blank s.p.a.ce.

On Friday, I check my private e-mail for the first time. I read in "The Liberty Way" that all Internet activity on campus is monitored by university administrators, so I decided to keep two accounts, one for Liberty e-mail and one for everything else, and access the outside account only from off campus.

After my morning cla.s.ses, I drive to a Panera Bread with free Wi-Fi just down the road from campus, laptop in tow. From the e-mails I got, you'd think I spent the last week in the Hanoi Hilton. One friend from Brown wrote: "Oh my G.o.d, I've been so worried about you. Is everything okay?" Another friend put it more bluntly: "I can't believe you're there and breathing and haven't been burned at the stake."

The loudest reaction came from my family. I called my mom a few days ago to give her a brief update on Liberty. I summarized my cla.s.ses, my church experiences, and my burgeoning social life. She sounded slightly rea.s.sured, though she told me that my trip to Liberty had inspired lots of interesting conversations among family members. (She said "interesting" very gingerly, the way Brian Williams might tell Mahmoud Ahmadinejad his thoughts on America's foreign policy are "curious.") Somewhere near the end of the conversation, I told my mom that I still winced whenever one of my hallmates called someone a "f.a.g" or "queer." I said that not even Jerry Falwell uses those words anymore, and then made a joke along the lines of "I think Falwell is actually the campus moderate." My mom, bless her heart, called my entire extended family to pa.s.s on this joke. It didn't go over well, especially with my lesbian aunts Tina and Teresa.

Tina, my dad's older sister, is one of my favorite relatives--a retired librarian with short salt-and-pepper hair and kind eyes. Teresa, her longtime partner, works as a ma.s.sage pract.i.tioner and psychotherapist in their hometown of Olympia, Was.h.i.+ngton. Tina and Teresa are dedicated gay-rights activists, and they spend lots of weekends visiting pride parades around the country. At these parades, they dye their white standard poodle the colors of the rainbow and lead her around on a bright purple leash, a stunt that has made them minor celebrities in Olympia's gay community. They've even given themselves a joint name, "T-n-T," to go with their "dynamite activist" personas.

T-n-T was split over the news of my first week at Liberty.

Teresa responded with sympathy. "I am so glad to hear from you and relieved you made it through the first week," she wrote. Tina responded that she, too, was glad to see I was alive. Then, she continued: "I confess to sadness and anger at your hallmates' comments about h.o.m.os.e.xuals. Falwell may sound more moderate, but I don't believe that for a minute. He blamed 9/11 on feminists and h.o.m.os.e.xuals. I believe he encourages hate and violence while perhaps trying to sound more moderate."

Aunt Tina knows I'm not a Falwell fan. She's not worried that I'll be writing home on his stationery at the end of this semester. But she does worry that I'm taking the issue of h.o.m.ophobia too lightly. She sent me three follow-up e-mails with links to gay-rights websites about hate crimes perpetrated by fundamentalist Christians and CC'd my entire family.

She's not wrong to a.s.sume that Liberty is home to more h.o.m.ophobic language than your average college. And so far, the way I've been dealing with the intolerance is by lying to myself. Someone will call someone else a f.a.ggot during a late-night video game session, and instead of thinking about how Liberty students almost certainly vote for ballot measures that disenfranchise people like Tina and Teresa, or how the remnants of a society that still uses a word like f.a.ggot f.a.ggot to mean "idiot" have made gay people's lives a lot harder, I just allow myself to be deluded. It's just a word, I say. Just an unfortunate cultural holdover. No harm meant. Of course, that's not true, and my moral gerrymandering probably isn't helping anyone. to mean "idiot" have made gay people's lives a lot harder, I just allow myself to be deluded. It's just a word, I say. Just an unfortunate cultural holdover. No harm meant. Of course, that's not true, and my moral gerrymandering probably isn't helping anyone.

After seeing Tina's response, my mom wrote me a stern e-mail: "I hope you don't scare anyone with your updates. The scene at Liberty is VERY different from what anyone in the family has ever seen."

She's right, and I feel awful for sending shock waves through my family. They're already dealing with the fact that I'm at Bible Boot Camp. So I'm thinking about sending less frequent updates and being careful what kinds of things I include in them. They don't need to know everything that happens here, and I don't need to do any long-term damage.

O Sing Unto the Lord a New Song

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 10:00 AM AM, all of Liberty's resident students pack into the Vines Center for convocation ("convo" for short), the mandatory chapel service at which schoolwide announcements are given, wors.h.i.+p music is played, and sermons are preached. At today's convo, Dr. Falwell takes the stage. He welcomes the Reverend Billy Graham's daughter, who is visiting her son, a student here. He asks us all to pray for the fifteen-year-old daughter of one of Liberty's senior administrators, who was badly injured in a car accident. Then, he begins his sermon: "If I were to ask you today to write down on a piece of paper your dream for the life that is ahead of you, I would get about ten thousand different answers. But then, I would ask you: Do you plan to do it of your own energy and proficiency? Or do you plan to tap into the anointing of G.o.d's spirit?"

Dr. Falwell slips into his message on "the anointing" by way of a few autobiographical anecdotes. He tells a story of his first Christian job-- a Sunday school teacher in a Missouri Baptist church, with an eleven-year-old boy as his lone pupil. Through prayer, determination, and a bit of guerilla marketing, Dr. Falwell grew that one-student cla.s.s into a cadre of fifty-six within the first year. Soon, he branched off and started his own church, with thirty-five charter members meeting in an old bottling factory in Lynchburg. That congregation, Thomas Road, grew over two decades into a twenty-four thousand-member juggernaut with a worldwide TV audience numbering into the tens of millions.

This story sounded somewhat familiar, because yesterday, I took my first trip to the Jerry Falwell Museum. The museum occupies one wing of the DeMoss Hall Atrium, smack-dab in the middle of campus, and it's free for visitors six days a week, so I spent an hour there between cla.s.ses. It's an amazing place. Among the highlights: * Dr. Falwell's first Bible * Dr. Falwell's first Bible* A copy of his first sermon at Thomas Road* A life-size replica of his father's Model T, with a wax replica of the elder Falwell inside* A screening room with his A&E Biography Biography special on continuous loop special on continuous loop * A stuffed brown bear, "just like the one Dr. Falwell's father kept in his study!" * A stuffed brown bear, "just like the one Dr. Falwell's father kept in his study!"

The first thought I had while walking through the museum was: Wow, this place really is a personality cult. What other living college president has an entire museum dedicated to him? I was slightly rea.s.sured when I read that Dr. Falwell didn't build the museum himself--it was a gift from his sons on his seventieth birthday. But still, it's an odd thing to have.

My second thought was: Man, what a tragic career arc. Before coming to Liberty, I never knew how influential Jerry Falwell was at his peak. I a.s.sumed he'd always had the role in American civic life he does now--a crotchety televangelist who appears on cable news shows as a token arch-conservative. But he actually used to be quite a civic star, beloved by vast swaths of America. He was the Moral Majority's golden boy, the man who was almost single-handedly responsible for corralling America's evangelical population into a motivated political bloc. Time Time magazine once called him the "force of fundamentalism." A 1983 magazine once called him the "force of fundamentalism." A 1983 Good Housekeeping Good Housekeeping poll named him the second most-admired man in the nation, behind only Ronald Reagan. poll named him the second most-admired man in the nation, behind only Ronald Reagan.

The museum leans heavily on the Moral Majority years, and it's easy to see why. The Jerry Falwell of the 1980s was a commanding presence, a preacher who had worked his way up to prominence, who hobn.o.bbed with America's political elite but retained his humble Lynchburg roots. It would have been exciting to be a Thomas Road paris.h.i.+oner back then; Christians were on the move, and Dr. Falwell was leading the charge. In the museum, I saw a row of TVs playing looped Thomas Road sermons from those years, and his charisma oozed from the screens.

The past week has taught me some good, humanizing facts about Dr. Falwell. I never knew, for example, that in addition to Liberty and Thomas Road, he also founded a Liberty G.o.dparent Home for unwed mothers and a home for recovering alcoholics. I never knew that he has eight grandchildren, all of whom call him Poppy, or that he still takes time out of his schedule to visit sick Thomas Road members in the hospital. You don't get to be a religious icon without touching some lives, and it's clear there are more sides to Dr. Falwell than the red-faced demagogue.

Of course, in the interest of fairness, I should mention that the museum omitted certain biographical details, and it's those details that have largely defined Dr. Falwell's public persona in recent years.

For example, the museum's collection doesn't include the controversial February 1999 issue of Dr. Falwell's National Liberty Journal National Liberty Journal, which contained an article called "Parents Alert: Tinky Winky Comes Out of the Closet." The article wrote of the beloved purple Teletubby: "He is purple--the gay-pride color; and his antenna is shaped like a triangle--the gay-pride symbol."

Also not seen anywhere in the museum: The Clinton Chronicles The Clinton Chronicles, an eighty-minute conspiracy film that Dr. Falwell promoted and distributed on his Old-Time Gospel Hour Old-Time Gospel Hour TV show in 1994. The video accused then-President Bill Clinton of cocaine use, drug smuggling, money laundering, involvement in the murder of Vince Foster, and s.e.xual hara.s.sment, among other offenses. It was immediately debunked, but sold a reported 150,000 copies anyway. TV show in 1994. The video accused then-President Bill Clinton of cocaine use, drug smuggling, money laundering, involvement in the murder of Vince Foster, and s.e.xual hara.s.sment, among other offenses. It was immediately debunked, but sold a reported 150,000 copies anyway.

And, of course, there was no mention of the piece de resistance, the speech Dr. Falwell gave on The 700 Club The 700 Club on September 13, 2001, while smoke was still rising from the World Trade Center: "The abortionists have got to bear some burden for [the attacks], because G.o.d will not be mocked," he said. "And when we destroy forty million little innocent babies, we make G.o.d mad. I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way--all of them who have tried to secularize America-- I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.' " on September 13, 2001, while smoke was still rising from the World Trade Center: "The abortionists have got to bear some burden for [the attacks], because G.o.d will not be mocked," he said. "And when we destroy forty million little innocent babies, we make G.o.d mad. I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way--all of them who have tried to secularize America-- I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.' "

Since I first decided to come to Liberty, I've been interested in seeing what Liberty students think about Dr. Falwell. I can understand why conservative evangelical students would find him appealing, but surely, I reasoned, they couldn't agree with his most controversial statements. You couldn't find ten thousand college students in the twenty-first century who supported Dr. Falwell's 9/11 remarks, which Walter Cronkite called "the most abominable thing I've ever heard."

Well, I've got to say--and I'm reserving my final judgment for a time when I've met more Liberty students--if they disagree with Dr. Falwell, they do a great job hiding it. No one seems to object to the portraits of Dr. Falwell hung in high-traffic areas around campus, to the prayer room decorated with quotes from his autobiography, or to the ubiquitous bobble-head dolls. Simply in quant.i.ty, the Jerrymania seems, if not idolatrous, at least a little North Korean.

After today's convocation, Stubbs the RA puts his arm around my shoulder.

"Well, Roose, welcome to Liberty. You've heard the 'one little boy' story. It's official now."

"He tells that story a few times a semester," Fox says.

"Yeah," Stubbs says. "He has about four speeches. Let's see . . . there's that one, the 'I walked every inch of this mountain' one . . . what else?"

"The one about when he learned to t.i.the," Fox adds.

"Oh yeah, that's a great story."