"Growing up, I never prayed except during airplane takeoffs and landings. Now I try to pray every morning, because even if God is not in heaven checking his cosmic in-box for my prayers, the process of praying helps make me more compassionate and treat people better. Prayer doesn’t change things, prayer changes me, and then I change things," Kevin Roose, a Brown University student who studied at Liberty University for a semester, tells the Religion News Service. Roose, raised secular and liberal, wrote the new book The Unlikely Disciple about his experience at the largest evangelical Christian college, his "shifting beliefs," and his re-examined stereotypes.
"I still pray," he says. "I still read the Bible from time to time, and more importantly, I have a new attitude about how to approach people who are different from me. I used to be scared of Christian culture, the other side of this “God divide,” and now I actively embrace those differences."