For some reason, I read a whole bunch of "infiltration memoirs" kind of close together. Joel Derfner (in his totally awesome and delightful memoir, Swish, which I mentioned above) infiltrated an ex-gay organization's weekend, and then felt horribly guilty about it. I also read a book called The Unlikely Disciple in which a guy from some liberal arts college transferred for a semester to Liberty U. The fascinating thing about that one was that he managed to do it WITHOUT lying ... he just didn't always fill in all the details. When people asked him why he'd come there from Wesleyan, he said he wanted to know what it was like at a Christian university. Which was true. The other thing that really made me love that particular book was that even though he was writing about people he profoundly disagreed with, he managed to go into this experience with genuine openness, and wrote with love and respect about the parts of the experience that he really enjoyed. (For instance, at Liberty, along with getting a roommate, he was assigned to a small prayer group, which was expected to meet every night, share concerns, and pray for each other. He grew to really love this, and missed it when he went back to Wesleyan.)
Anyway, I don't blame you for not wanting to read Voluntary Madness ... although it was better than Self-Made Man.
(Sorry for yapping endlessly on this ANCIENT post, but better here for this tangent than back on the "books about psychology!" thread.)
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Date: 2011-09-02 02:54 am (UTC)For some reason, I read a whole bunch of "infiltration memoirs" kind of close together. Joel Derfner (in his totally awesome and delightful memoir, Swish, which I mentioned above) infiltrated an ex-gay organization's weekend, and then felt horribly guilty about it. I also read a book called The Unlikely Disciple in which a guy from some liberal arts college transferred for a semester to Liberty U. The fascinating thing about that one was that he managed to do it WITHOUT lying ... he just didn't always fill in all the details. When people asked him why he'd come there from Wesleyan, he said he wanted to know what it was like at a Christian university. Which was true. The other thing that really made me love that particular book was that even though he was writing about people he profoundly disagreed with, he managed to go into this experience with genuine openness, and wrote with love and respect about the parts of the experience that he really enjoyed. (For instance, at Liberty, along with getting a roommate, he was assigned to a small prayer group, which was expected to meet every night, share concerns, and pray for each other. He grew to really love this, and missed it when he went back to Wesleyan.)
Anyway, I don't blame you for not wanting to read Voluntary Madness ... although it was better than Self-Made Man.
(Sorry for yapping endlessly on this ANCIENT post, but better here for this tangent than back on the "books about psychology!" thread.)