LIZZIE

Well, Jane and I are feeling quite official as book reviewers now–seems our piece last year on Kevin Roose’s Unlikely Disciple was unearthed by a marketing director at Henry Holt Publishing.  And, as a result, we’ve been asked to review a similar book:  In the Land of Believers:  An Outsider’s Extraordinary Journey into the Heart of the Evangelical Church.  The author is Gina Welch–and, like Kevin Roose, she went "undercover" to discover all that she could about the seamy underbelly of Lynchburg, Virginia. 

Okay, I admit, there is really no seamy underbelly involved.  I’ve just been aching for a chance to use that wonderful cliche.

The premise of the book:  a young secular Jew from Berkeley, California, Gina Welch joined Jerry Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church and spent two years gaining an insider’s view of the congregation. 

Seamy (or seamless) underbellies aside, I’ll open our conversation with a whimsical little thought that fluttered across my mind when I dived into this book.

Wouldn’t it just be very funny indeed if the student population at Liberty University–AND the congregation of Thomas Road Baptist Church–were, at this point, nothing but a teeming mass of competing undercover journalists?  Think of the implications.  One Northern California hipster trying to pose as a buttoned-up Sunday School teacher says to himself, "Hmmm, I’ll bet if I make a really intelligence-insulting, cutesy, alliterative PowerPoint about the plan of salvation, that’ll really help me to pass as an Evangelical Christian."

And then the newest Sunday School student walks in–another faux believer, of course–all ready to cast a jaundiced eye upon the silly fundie PowerPoint slides.   And to write about it.  Because she’s got a book contract too! 

And both leave the church that morning completely unaware that everybody in the room had a book contract to find out the real deal with the Evangelicals.

 Okay, now that I’ve gotten three cliches and that little flight of fancy (oops, make that four cliches!) out of my system, let’s go ahead and talk about this book.

Gotta say, Jane and I chatted on the phone yesterday–and we thought it might be interesting to begin by offering some context.  The ambient noise, if you will, surrounding the actual experience of carrying this book around town.  We both found ourselves doing some reading in our respective neighborhood coffee shops.  I’ll let Jane tell her own story, but here’s one interesting little encounter that I had as a result of burying my face in this book in public.

There I was, reading and underlining and chuckling over Gina’s account of the Scaremare (i.e., Evangelical Halloween haunted house culminating in salvation invitation).  And my favorite supermarket checker walks in and asks if he can join me at my table.  "Jim" is a colorful character–interested in everything and everyone, an artist with stories of living on a barge in France in his youth, and (as I discovered in our conversation) an outspoken religious skeptic.   He bears a striking resemblance to Santa Claus (except with a beret), and he has a booming voice and laugh.

"Oh, you’re reading something about believers and Evangelicals.  Not one of them, are you?"

I give a slightly cagey answer, letting him know there is a "history" there for me–and that it’s sort of a personal matter that I’m not sure I feel like talking about at present.

Jim proceeded to tell me a story that involved his very young son being told by an Evangelical that his daddy was going straight to Hell.  The son had taken some time to process this information–and had then approached his father (Jim) solemnly, saying, "I hear you’re going to Hell, Daddy–and I want you to know that I’ll be running down there too whenever I die so that I can always be with you."

Jim isn’t the type to get choked up over things.  In fact, he gave a big belly laugh as he explained that he’d told his little boy he expected to have so many pals with him in the Big BBQ Pit that his son just ought to plan to rest easy in his own heavenly reward.  Daddy would be ju-u-ust fine, kiddo.

Maybe Jim wasn’t about to get misty, but I did start to well up after he finished sharing that anecdote.  Horror over anyone telling a little boy such a thing about his daddy…and oh so many memories of my own pressing anxiety for the "unsaved."  (As if I could determine such things by sheer virtue of knowing where someone went to church–if at all–and what lifestyle and political affiliations they had chosen.)  And I was also reminded of something–with a pang.  As much as I may smile and chuckle over the scenes in a book like Gina Welch’s (whose smart, ironic voice does resonate with me), it will always be a little painful for me to read an outsider’s perspective on where I have been.  Especially if the Christians end up looking kind of dumb and zombified. And, yes, if, while not realizing they’re being written about, they demonstrate lazy thinking and say stuff about who’s on the express bus to Hell.

Gina has a good eye for people and places, and she tells a story cleverly.  And I do like–and identify with–the soupcon of snark in her voice.  As well as the honest curiosity behind her endeavor.  But I do hope that this book, like Kevin Roose’s, ends up being a story of personal change and increased understanding.  And that the initial ridicule gets balanced with some genuine warmth.  That is what I’m expecting, based on the back-cover blurb:  "a call to comprehend–rather than dismiss–the impassioned believers who have become so central a force in American life."

People are complicated.  Their reasons for belief are complicated.  Evangelicals’ ache to share their worldview can make for easy sport.  Enough said for now.  Gina, if you’re reading this, I am intrigued, and I want to love your book.  Bear with us, please, while Jane and I have our little pre-review coffee klatsch first. I’m looking forward to reading the rest and giving a fully informed review.

Your turn, Jane.

JANE

You know,  Lizzie, I have to say, we are going to have a great time talking about this book.  Discussing and dissecting the evangelical Christian world, comparing it with others, has been an important part of our ongoing conversation.  So it will be a return, of sorts, to Pandoration’s religious roots… (mine, by the way,  need a serious touch up)

And while you laugh at the thought of everyone at Liberty University or Thomas Road Church being undercover journalists and authors – I see an opportunity for an enterprising and literary young Christian student:  spend a year at Yeshiva University in New York City, immersed in the mostly Orthodox Jewish culture and school.  Really, unless someone’s already got a book contract, or a Rolling Stone article in the works, it seems like the next logical place to insert oneself as part of a journey towards understanding Others.  Just sayin’… 

Ambient noise over carrying the book around, indeed.  Was that a major stink eye the latte-drinking man at the other table just shot at me? I am not usually in the habit of carrying books with the words EVANGELICAL CHURCH emblazoned across the cover in a very large font, complete with crosses.    Not that there’s anything wrong with that…  Let’s just say I felt a little funny later,  carrying it into my synagogue to catch up on my reading while waiting to pick up Lulu at Nursery School.  I kept hearing the ensuing commentary and clucking:  "Oh my, Rachel, isn’t that our first grade Hebrew School teacher sitting there, reading that book with the CROSSES all over the cover?  Isn’t your little Sarah in her class this year?"    Hmmm… One would think, after reading The Shack, and Unlikely Disciple, this wouldn’t even be a talking point.  One would think.  Of course this would never happen, but I have a very over-active imagination, which I often indulge with a scooch of paranoia.  More about the paranoia, when I get to the whole Scaremare thing.  Oy…

As I begin this book, I too am impressed with Gina Welch’s descriptive writing style, her clever turn of a phrase, and yes Lizzie, her "soupcon of snark".  I understand the slight catch in your appreciation, your hope for Welch’s sincerity.  I am quite positive our discussion of this book would have been vastly different when we first began our correspondence.  Like Gina Welch, we can now employ the snark with the sensitivity and sincerity.  

Let the Scaremare begin!  

 

Part Two

Part Three