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Ever since evangelical Christians rose to national prominence, mainstream America has tracked their every move with a nervous eye. But in spite of this vigilance, our understanding hasn't gone beyond the caricatures. Aiming to find out more, Gina Welch, a young secular Jew from Berkeley, joined Jerry Falwell's Thomas Road Baptist Church. Over the course of nearly two years, Welch immersed herself in the life and language of the devout. Alive to the meaning behind the music and the mind behind the slogans, Welch recognized the allure of evangelicalism, even for the godless, realizing that the congregation met needs and answered questions she didn't know she had.
- Sales Rank: #1760288 in Books
- Published on: 2011-03-01
- Released on: 2011-03-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.50" h x .78" w x 5.50" l, .69 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 352 pages
From Booklist
A secular Jew raised by a single mother in Berkeley, Welch became an outsider in a strange land when in 2002 she moved for graduate school to the heart of the Bible Belt near Jerry Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia. She saw everything around her ironically, treated the South “as a joke” and her time there “as a kind of elaborate performance art project.” Then something miraculous happened. The jaded Californian began to like Virginia. She’d arrived to a Virginia on the verge of a demographic shift as a new, progressive population burgeoned. But she also grew to like the Old South—its manners, easygoing nature, and friendliness. She got serious, cast aside her cynicism, and sought to know her evangelical neighbors “as people.” Why did they think as they did? Why were they so determined “to convert non-Christian America?” She went “undercover” to attend Falwell’s church. The resultant portrayal of evangelicals as she sees them and of how she transcended the popular media caricatures of them constitute an insightful, frequently funny book. --June Sawyers
Review
“Excellent prose with a laudable purpose: to promote understanding of evangelical Christians...
An engaging, personal look at one variant of Christian fundamentalism.” ―Library Journal
“An engaging, personal look at one variant of Christian fundamentalism.” ―Library Journal
“An amazing narrative journey into the heart of the evangelical movement.” ―Washington Life magazine
“Memorable... A genuinely inquisitive memoir about the complicated nature of religious belief.” ―Kirkus Reviews
“Welch is a combination of thoughtful, funny, self-deprecating, and a skilled stylist....I am pleased I accompanied her on her journey.” ―The Charlotte Observer
“With compassion, wit, and verve, Gina Welch has gone where few secular liberals have dared to go--the late Jerry Falwell's Thomas Road Baptist Church--and emerged with a compelling story that transcends stereotypes and builds common ground. Both sides of the Great American Culture War should read this refreshing call for a cease-fire.” ―Kevin Roose, author of The Unlikely Disciple
“Gina Welch's story of her immersion in Jerry Falwell's Evangelical church is riveting. Welch is a fair, compassionate, very smart writer--and one of the most arresting narrators I've encountered in a half-century of reading.” ―John Casey, author of Spartina
About the Author
Gina Welch, a 2001 graduate of Yale University, teaches English at George Washington University. Her writing has previously appeared in Meridian, Time Out New York, and Playboy. In the Land of Believers is her first book.
Most helpful customer reviews
169 of 184 people found the following review helpful.
Spying on the Folk That Read the Good Book
By Smith's Rock
Gina Welch's In the Land of the Believers left me disturbed. To be fair, this might be my baseline state, per friends and family. But if one measure of a book's success is to get under the skin of the reader and stay there for awhile, In the Land of the Believers most definitely succeeds in this category.
The premise of this non-fiction book is simple: Gina Welch, a born and reared non-believer, goes undercover to join Jerry Falwell's Thomas Road Baptist Church (TRBC) in Lynchburg, Virginia, in a purported attempt to understand what she terms "Evangelicals". Welch contrasts herself with the Evangelicals: "I am a secular Jew raised by a single mother in Berkeley.... I cuss, I drink, and I am not a virgin." Falwell's church, ground zero for the now-eclipsed Moral Majority, was close enough geographically to serve Welch's purpose.
Welch starts with a trip to Scaremare, a church sponsored haunted house (termed a "hell house") designed to both metaphorically and literally scare the Hell out of participants. From this spooky beginning, Welch moves on to joining a TRBC sponsored singles group, EPIC (Experiencing Personal Intimacy with Christ), eventually being baptized (full immersion) and travelling to Alaska on a mission to capture one hundred souls for Christ (final tally 101 souls).
While the premise is simple, execution of the plan becomes complicated by Welch's penchant for developing relationships with the people she has gone undercover to observe. What might have been a documentary fact-finding expedition becomes instead a memoir about Welch herself as she gradually discovers that the church members are not caricatures, but humans, and how this discovery affects her. The primary theme evolves into a line written on the last page of the book (excluding the Epilogue): "So this--this became the basis of my love for Evangelicals: I was going to choose to see the mystical oneness. And once I started to see it that way, loving them wasn't very hard to do." Not "very" hard, but still hard. And therein lays a portion of what begins to get under my skin.
In the beginning of this tale, Welch sets the conflict up well. She describes her thoughts about TRBC pastor Jerry Falwell: "I considered him a homophobe, a fearmonger, a manipulator, and a misogynist--an alien creature from the most extreme backwater of evangelical culture." By the end of the story? Gina's feelings are...the same. Except that now she has some sincere affection for the old boy. Welch lays out her pre-conceptions about Evangelicals at the beginning of the story: "They were shrill and prudish, they loved bad music and guns and Nascar, told corny jokes, and spoke in sound bites.." By the end of the tale, she confirms all of the above, and adds on several occasions that Evangelicals have a very raunchy sense of humor. Additionally, we know that Evangelical men have an affinity for heavily pomaded hair (or conversely, shaved heads), and Evangelical women have a propensity for bright lipstick and clothing that brings to mind the Confederate Railroad country song lyrics "I like my women a little on the trashy side."
Why might this be disturbing? Welch states "The collateral damage of going undercover, I thought, was mitigated by the possibility that the enterprise would open channels of understanding writ large between Evangelicals and the rest of us." Given that the Evangelicals in the book, with rare exceptions, conform to Welch's pre-conceptions, it's a reach to say that her justification for deception succeeded in its aim.
One might ask about the notion of going undercover in the first place. Keep in mind that going undercover is something usually, if not always, done to investigate criminal activity. The FBI infiltrates extremist groups, with the aim of preventing terrorist acts. Investigative reporters go undercover to document crimes or corruption in progress. The CIA goes undercover to spy on enemies (ideally). The theme of undercover is this: It is justified only when significant harm to a community or a nation is threatened. Must one go undercover to investigate people legally accessing their freedom of religion? Welch's comment: "I sort of managed to balance the whole messy moral equation on an unsteady ball bearing of cliché: You have to break some eggs to make an omelette." Yes, Gina. But people are not eggs, and your omelette was not improved understanding of Evangelicals, it was a book from which profit will derive.
So, I'll come clean here about being disturbed. Two of my four brothers, and one of my three sisters, are Evangelicals. They are richly developed human beings, and each possess a broad and well developed sense of humor. My brothers don't pomade their hair. My sister dresses impeccably. Each of them contributes to the whole community that they live in, not just the narrow confines of their church communities. Welch would have learned far more about Evangelicals by simply introducing herself and talking to my siblings than by her elaborate deception. My siblings DO open channels of understanding between themselves and others that see the world differently.
Me? I'm a non-believer. I'm a work-my-tail-off-for-my-community, school board member, charity donating, non-believer. I feel no need to lie to my siblings, my patients (I'm a family physician), or my community about my views in order to "open channels of understanding." I just ask people questions, and answer them, a process that works amazingly well to promote understanding. And when a non-believer feels the need to participate in a two year long deception to get information available for the asking, it damages by association the reality of the integrity that so many non-believers take pride in. This disturbs me. In The Land of the Believers is an interesting book, Gina Welch is an above average writer, and discussion will be lively if your book club chooses it. That creepy feeling under my skin, though, will be there a long while.
16 of 18 people found the following review helpful.
The Story of an Atheist at Thomas Road
By Trevin Wax
Ever wonder how a committed unbeliever would feel in your church service?
Have you ever given thought to how evangelicals are viewed by those outside the church?
How many of your friends disagree with you politically? Theologically?
In the Land of Believers: An Outsider's Extraordinary Journey into the Heart of the Evangelical Church (Metropolitan, 2010) tells the story of Gina Welch. The book gives readers a fascinating glimpse into the inner workings of Thomas Road Baptist Church (the church Jerry Falwell pastored) through the eyes of an atheistic, secularist, liberal young woman.
Welch faked a conversion experience, got baptized, and spent two years at Thomas Road. (She even participated in evangelism on a mission trip.) During this time, she kept a detailed journal of her experience, which she has now turned into a book that chronicles her journey into evangelical America.
If you're like me, your first reaction upon hearing about a book like this is to roll your eyes and think, Oh great! An exposé of evangelicals from someone who deliberately engaged in deceptive practices in order to show up evangelical hypocrisy. That was my initial reaction. But after reading a number of reviews, I was intrigued enough to pick up the book. I was pleasantly surprised by Welch's portrayal of evangelicals, and I was riveted by her account. While I abhor the deceit that grounds this book, I recommend that evangelicals read it for a number of reasons.
1. Unmasking Intolerant Tolerance
First, Welch clearly understands that "intolerance" is not a label that sticks only to the Religious Right. Coming from a liberal, secular background, Welch saw people within her circles speaking intolerantly of evangelicals. She realized that relying on the common stereotypes of evangelicals was leading her to an inaccurate picture:
I vacuumed up information about evangelicals, feeling it was necessary to educate myself... And yet the more I learned, the less I understood. My anthropological inquiries lit up only the most alarming fragments of the evangelical picture, turning up the contrast and blacking out the relatable qualities. They were shrill and prudish, they loved bad music and guns and NASCAR, told corny jokes and spoke in sound bites, were unshakably loyal to exposed liars, and their children were going to bully our children into prayer. They were scary, all right, but they didn't seem quite real... I wanted to try to take them on their own terms. Who, exactly, did they think they were?" (4-5)
Welch helpfully demonstrates that ignorance, intolerance and insularity can be just as much a characteristic of the Left as it can be of the Right. I appreciate the fact that Welch recognizes this inconsistency that is common in her circles.
2. Pointing Out Evangelical Inconsistencies
Another reason why this book is helpful is because Welch has no qualms about pointing out things she didn't quite understand. She is remarkably fair-minded in her portrayal of evangelicals, but she doesn't shy away from pointing out our inconsistencies. Some of these are big blind spots that we ought to consider.
Here are some examples:
Is getting saved to avoid hell a good motivation for becoming a Christian or not? Thomas Road gave her a conflicting answer. Welch's first encounter with this church was through "Scaremare" - a sort of "hell house" intended to scare you into the kingdom. But later she recalled a testimony that contradicted this sort of evangelism:
"Woody accepted the Lord when he was nine years old, but he only did it because he was afraid of going to hell. He said this mockingly, as if it was a cowardly reason, which I thought was a little odd considering the whole shake-'em-to-wake-'em conceit of Scaremare." (57)
Is quick conversion an evidence of success, or faithful discipleship? Listen to how she questions the "easy-believism" she sees at the church:
"How can you know if you've saved someone if there's never follow-up, never counseling, never a progress report? How can you be sure the person hasn't instantly reverted to his old ways? In other words, aren't you simply counting the people who prayed the prayer in that instant rather than counting new Christians?... If you're a sincere Christian you believe all it takes is that instant, as long as you're sincere. Once you've prayed the sinner's prayer, you're good to go. God is supposed to abide in you and guide you, but really your `ways' don't matter. Your name is written forever in the Lamb's book of life.' It seemed evident that evangelicals were padding their rosters." (254)
Is tithing motivated by gratitude or by a desire for financial reward? Welch writes that teaching on stewardship seemed like a way to get more from God, a sort of "card game strategy" (38).
Is there any distinction between giving to God and giving to the Church? Welch writes:
"I had always wondered how evangelicals regarded the gap between church and God. The answer, apparently, was that they didn't worry about it. When they gave, it wasn't that they implicitly trusted the church. They trusted God, who would see their offering and furnish their reward in heaven." (149)
If salvation is about making a conscious choice to believe the gospel, why the emphasis on baptizing small kids? Here Welch puts her finger on an issue I have posted about before. Two hundred years ago, most Baptists didn't baptize children under 18. Today, most Baptist congregations outside the U.S. still refrain from baptizing small children. Welch describes children's baptism in a way that should stir up numerous discussions about the nature of true faith:
"Here at Thomas Road, they baptize a lot of children who grow up in the church. When this happens, the child is often so small that he can't walk down into the pool - one pastor floats the child off into the arms of the baptizing pastor like a paper boat. When the child is immersed, sometimes he's so light that he has to be pushed under. And sometimes his legs fly up out of the water. This seemed strange to me: Woody had told me they didn't baptize babies at the church because they believed a person had to choose to get saved, had to understand what it meant to be a sinner and to have Jesus sacrifice on your behalf. How could a little child apprehend these concepts?" (82)
3. An Outsider's View of the Evangelical Church
Here's one more reason why you should read this book: Welch alerts us to the kind of vocabulary we employ, including the use of some words which seem to have no meaning. For example, what exactly is a "personal relationship with Jesus"? Welch writes:
"You often hear evangelicals use an inscrutable expression to describe their faith. They call it `a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.' For a literal thinker like me, those words had a corporate-speak detachment from content." (91)
"I still had a hard time holding on to an understanding of these words - a personal relationship with God. As in you and God stay up late talking? As in you and God are secret shares? I mean, I knew the rhetoric - an intimate relationship with God and a willingness to put Jesus first was the outward manifestation of real Christianity..."
"Evangelical language was a language of its own, where the rhetoric often didn't mean what the words seemed to signify in English. Words were encoded symbols used to describe feelings evangelicals understood. Sometimes I was able to understand these feelings and crack the code on a turn of the phrase. But not so with the personal relationship with God. With this I scraped and scraped for a more direct meaning, but each layer I revealed was just another picture of a picture." (236)
Welch also points out the subordination of the mind to the heart as a common theme in her evangelical journey:
"Brains could rationalize sin; hearts would hold us accountable. And so evangelicals acted according to what God told their spiritual organ, following whatever feelings were glowing inside them." (123)
This anti-intellectualism is certainly a problem in many evangelical circles, although not in all.
Final Thoughts
Reading through this book, I sometimes cringed at the portrayal of evangelicals here - not because Welch's picture was inaccurate, but because it was so on target. But I fear that my embarrassment at some of the expressions of low-culture evangelicalism is rooted in pride. So... despite my distaste for some of the typical expressions of evangelical faith, I must remember that these people are my brothers and sisters. Part of Christian maturity is recognizing that we are all a bunch of bungling believers. I'm often just as inconsistent and embarrassing as they seem to be.
I also felt torn between my distaste for Welch's journalistic tactics and a sincere desire for her to see beyond some of the evangelical silliness to the glory of Jesus Christ. I found myself hoping for a different ending, that she might recognize her sin and her need for a Savior. I still hope and pray that may be the case.
I wonder how her story would have been altered had she chosen a different church. Evangelicals are a diverse bunch of people. What if she had gone to Redeemer Presbyterian in New York? Or Saddleback Church? Or First Baptist Dallas? How would her story have changed?
In the end, get this book. It's well worth your time. Read it. Learn from it. Pass it on to others.
38 of 48 people found the following review helpful.
A viewpoint worth exploring
By Kay Harrisonburg, VA
When Gina Welch, a secular Jew from California, decided to infiltrate the world of Thomas Road Baptist Church (Jerry Falwell, founding pastor) in Virginia, it seems she had preconceived ideas of what she would find. She was surprised.
Instead of discovering a people who mindlessly followed charismatic leaders, Gina found sincere believers who were part of a loving community. She soon found herself drawn into the fellowship of people who honestly cared about her. Somewhere along the way, she came to love the music and found genuine friends.
While reading this book, I was surprised and challenged at several points. Because I am a Christian, sometimes it was a stretch to understand Gina's viewpoint and why she found certain aspects of the Christian culture peculiar. What she pointed out was often I the way I think and talk. I found it revealing and important to see the Christian culture from an outsider's viewpoint.
As I looked closely at my motivation for choosing this book, I realized my expectations were also unsupported. While the followers of Falwell's ministries are professing Christians, I express my Christian beliefs differently in some ways. As I read, I realized I had hoped that Gina would confirm my approach to the faith as a better approach.
To the contrary, I found myself humbled. As Gina described her experience, I found I have more in common with the people she encountered than differences, especially in terms of love for others and the essentials of faith.
Gina, the people you met at church are the people who accepted you, forgave your deception and still desire a relationship with you. They pointed to a God who still desires a relationship with you. Keep searching.
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