Jona Frank

As scary as it is straight-forward, Jona Frank's book portrays suit-or-dress-wearing christians at "God's Harvard", as the founder of Patrick Henry College would like to call it, a newly built center for education of people who think the bible is inerrant.

Of course, this poses more problems and questions than the number of characters I will use to review this book.

But let's not forget the pictures. In this case, they actually do say a lot more than many words. And Jona Frank has taken her pictures thoughtfully, respectfully and brilliantly. They shine. So what are they of?

Youths who are primed, sculpted and used to cast christianity forth into Hollywood and Washington - the two main cities they're aiming for - are on display in their home, at school, working as interns and having fun. Still, I can't help being gripped by the sense that they all seem to have skipped some elemental stages of growing up. They all seem like little kids in their parents' clothing.

Even the fact that a lot of teachers at the college got kicked out for teaching something akin to science is pretty far-flung. Let's read about the spaghetti monster, shall we?

Yes, it's a sect. Yes, disguised as fact. But they're venturing forth, brave christian soldiers, built to last and to procreate. The picture of Rachel on pages 30-31 are scary. At first, you see an 18-year-old girl on her way to this college, semi-messy, seemingly alive. The second picture displays a tightly clad young career-driven woman. Of course I read badness into this picture and have only myself to blame for it, but once you realise that she's had to sign a paper saying God's word is inerrant and final, you're (hopefully) a little scared, too.

The pictures of the manuals which the women living on campus must adhere to, of the bumper sticker on a car saying "Smile! You could have been aborted" while giving love to Bush/Cheney '04, a piece of text saying that George W. Bush's administration paid for an entire class to fly to see them...it's all boggling.

The technique applied when photographing the book is brilliant. The constant sense of humanity, warmth, contrast, depth, clarity and perspective is great. The family portraits and the different parts of the book, e.g. "hoedown" and "interns" are wonderful.

I'll recommend this book to anybody.… (plus d'informations)