Lies and misrepresentations have earned Washingtonians plenty of things — votes, jail time, illegitimate children. And for Gina Welch, a book deal. The 30-year-old creative writing teacher at George Washington University spent two years lying about her identity and beliefs in order to gain an outsider’s insider view of Jerry Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va. The result: “In the Land of Believers: An Outsider’s Journey into the Heart of Evangelical America.” Welch sat down with The Examiner to explain why she believes her false witness somehow served a higher purpose.
Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith?
No, I’m not religious in any way. I’m technically Jewish because my mother is Jewish, but neither my mother nor my grandmother were practicing. My great-grandfather on my mother’s side was Orthodox, but that didn’t catch. I’m not religious at all. I used to be very anti-religious — that was my starting point.
You lied about who you are in order to write this book. How was that anything but incredibly mean?
I think with any undercover project, the only possibility for redemption — the only way to possibly excuse betraying people and misrepresenting yourself — is if there is value in your work that couldn’t be achieved any other way. And I think in my case that’s true. There’s a real deficit in this country as far as the way people with a background like mine perceive evangelicals and vice versa. There’s tremendous intolerance. And I do think this book is humanizing in a way that it wouldn’t have been had I gone in as a reporter, up front with what I believe.
Does that mean I’m scot-free for the lies I told, and for taking part in their religious rituals? Absolutely not. When I went back to tell people in Lynchburg about the book, I didn’t ask for forgiveness. The responsibility I had was to be accountable. And I can’t control whether or not people think the book’s merits outweigh the questions raised by its methodology.
At any point did you feel yourself affected spiritually?
There were certainly times that I felt moved in ways hard for me to account for. And believe me, I reckoned with that. There were moments especially toward the end of my time at Thomas Road when I wanted it to be true, so that I wouldn’t have to go through with what I’d gotten myself into. I did try — I tried to believe what they believed, and I don’t.
Most of the times I was moved were in church, when there was music, singing — I had never had an experience singing with 6,000 people before, and music is a powerful emotional medium. And there were several traumas while I was there, too — Jerry Falwell died, and shortly before that were the Virginia Tech shootings, in which a number of people at the church knew people who were killed. The stutter step of those two moments resulted in a real tightening of the community, and I felt included in that and moved by that.
What do you miss?
I miss people that I had relationships with — a lot. I miss singing in church, and I have a terrible voice — tone-deaf. But when you’re singing with 6,000, it doesn’t matter. I miss having a place to go every week where there are people looking forward to seeing me and I’m looking forward to seeing them. And a weekly opportunity for self-examination — there’s no parallel institution for that in the secular world — therapy isn’t it. There’s a difference between going to a therapist and being part of a community where everyone is asking the same questions and holding themselves accountable to principles. How do we be good in the world, in small ways, every day? How do we examine our own circuitry to make sure we’re being the best people we can be? Those questions became a really critical part of my life. I haven’t found a substitute for a place like that.
At your core, what is one of your defining beliefs?
I believe in personal accountability. I believe that when you know something is right, you’re responsible to do something about that. And when you know you’ve done something wrong, you’re responsible for the ownership of that.
-Leah Fabel
