Faith as an Oppositional Collegiate Subculture

I got a mysterious package in the mail yesterday. I came home to find it propped against my door, with a nameless Oxford, OH return address. Inside was a free book (happy day!). It's called It's All About Jesus!: Faith as an Oppositional Collegiate Subculture. (If you think the title is cheesy you'll love the cover art.) The book culminates years of research and writing by Peter Mangolda and Kelsey Ebben Gross.

When I was in college Kelsey, a grad student, and Peter, a professor in the educational leadership/college student personnel department, decided to do a research project about student organizations. They picked out a handful of organization from a variety of contexts and began attending meetings and learning about each group. They wanted to analyze how each organization worked and how they created their own subculture. One of the groups was the ministry that I was involved in.

During the first year of their research they decided our group was intriguing enough to warrant a deeper look. Our lives were different from the prevailing campus culture, and it wasn't immediately apparent to them why. So they dropped the other groups and broadened the scope and length of the project. For two years (I think) they attended meetings and social events, got to know us, and did a series of interviews with selected students. I was one of the students they interviewed several times, so I got to interact with them and help shape their research. I even got to read a near-final draft of the book and write a response to it that's printed in the book. (They used pseudonyms for everyone.)

Both researchers came at the project from different backgrounds, and while they acknowledged their biases they tried to conduct purely objective research. I enjoyed getting to know them and seeing myself and my beliefs through their perspective. They were able to see the strengths and flaws of our group that were sometimes difficult for me to articulate. I don't agree with every point in their assessment, but in most instances they were on the mark. Overall, I think they were able to understand, at least intellectually, the way I live my life and why.

I'm pretty sure it's not coming to a bookstore near you, so if you're interested in reading it, let me know and you can borrow my copy.