Product Description

Since 2000, Americas most ambitious young evangelicals have been making their way to Patrick Henry College, a small Christian school just outside the nations capital. Most of them are homeschoolers whose idealism and discipline put the average American teenager to shame. And Gods Harvard grooms these students to be the elite of tomorrow, dispatching them to the front lines of politics, entertainment, and science, to wage the battle to take back a godless nation. Hanna Rosin spent a year and a half embedded at the college, following the students from the campus to the White House, Congress, conservative think tanks, Hollywood, and other centers of influence. Her account captures this nerve center of the evangelical movement at a moment of maximum influence and also of crisis, as it struggles to avoid the temptations of modern life and still remake the world in its own image.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #909679 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-15
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .1 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Envisioned by its founder as a "Christian equivalent of the Ivy League," Patrick Henry College positions itself as a training ground for God's cultural soldiers to take on the secular mainstream; at the seven-year-old Virginia school for evangelicals, religion and political journalist Rosin reports, girls are warned by e-mail if their bra strap is showing, dating requires parental permission and students fast forward through sex scenes in movies. Though they might seem out of touch, students here are as ambitious as any Ivy Leaguers, interning in the White House and Hollywood, volunteering on political campaigns and doggedly pursuing studies like baraminology (creationist biology). Having spent a year and a half immersed in the campus culture, Rosin weaves a deft and honest narrative of evangelical education, combining historical background (the roots of evangelism, the story of founder Michael Farris), close observation and skeptical wit. Among other students and faculty, Rosin introduces Derek, the fresh-faced, idealistic political volunteer; and Farahn, who gave up dancing for the Lord. Making it clear that the American evangelical population is growing in political and cultural influence, Rosin provides an illuminating, accessible guide to the beliefs, aspirations and ongoing challenges of its next generation.
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From Booklist
Patrick Henry College, just outside the nation's capital, is a small school preparing Christian Fundamentalist youth to become the elite of the future, permeating politics and American culture to change what they see as an ungodly nation. Washington Post reporter Rosin spent a year and a half among the faithful, watching the efforts of school founder Michael Farris to mold the next generation of evangelicals. She follows the lives of students, nearly all of them previously homeschooled, as they cope with college life, the world of Washington politics, and questions about their faith and their futures. Farahn, a ballet dancer, is an attractive, somewhat cynical misfit, who struggles through the year. Daniel Noa is trying to reconcile his conservative persona at school with the greater tolerance of his hometown of Hollywood, where growing numbers of Christian filmmakers are making their mark. Elisa is a bright, earnest young woman, chafing at the expectations that she will curb her ambitions and devote herself to a future husband and children. A captivating look at struggles within the conservative movement. Bush, Vanessa

Review
"God''s Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save America, is a rare accomplishment for many reasons - perhaps most of all because Rosin is a journalist who not only reports but also observes deeply. Her insights come through in her balanced portrayal of each student, the nuance with which she inserts her own first-person narration, and - not least - her dry and sometimes acerbic sense of humor." (San Francisco Chronicle )

" ... how can a school introduce some of the country''s most sheltered youth to the ways of the secular world--even in hopes they will reshape it--without their being corrupted in the process? It''s a dilemma that makes for constant tension in Hanna Rosin''s nuanced and highly readable God''s Harvard." (The Washington Post )

"Whether these kids terrify or delight you has everything to do with your political and religious views but, one way or the other, they are people that you should probably start getting to know. God''s Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save America by Hanna Rosin offers an intriguing introduction." (The Christian Science Monitor )

"A superb work of extended reportage ..." (Chicago Sun-Times )

"It''s easy, based on the book''s title alone, to assume that Rosin is out to demonize the young evangelicals at Patrick Henry, to damn them in the scathing light of their own inflexible beliefsBut Rosin is a better and more honest writer than that. Despite her own aversion to fundamentalist dogmashe steers largely clear of political ax-grinding." (Salon.com )

"Hanna''s Rosin''s wonderful book is as insightful as it is witty. Rarely is a book on such an important subject such a joy to read."

"Hanna Rosin has gotten incredible access to a subculture that is fast becoming a mighty political force. This insightful book reveals the new face of the Christian Right: highly educated young people brilliantly trained to advance their world view into mainstream America. Rosin''s frank and candid portraits of these fiercely dedicated youth leave the reader wondering: what will my world be like when these kids are in charge of it?"

"I believe deeply in this amazing book by Hanna Rosin. With clarity, honesty, and equal measures of surprised delight and foreboding, she takes us into a new world of Christian higher education that few outsiders knew existed but the entire nation will be dealing with for decades to come."

"By reporting among America''s young Christian elite with curiosity, empathy, and persistence, Hanna Rosin has produced a book that is humane, surprising, and very unnerving. This is journalism at its best--never preachy, but honest and revealing."

"Hanna Rosin reminds us in God''s Harvard why there is no substitute for good reporting and beautiful story telling. Rosin enters some of the most contested terrain of American public life, the world of evangelical Christianity, and provides readers with both an outsider''s view and an insider''s perspective. Human beings, not stick figures, populate this book, reflecting Rosin''s approach, which is simultaneously tough-minded and sensitive. Readers who never expected to read about this subject will find themselves drawn in, and fascinated."