The Daily Campus

Issue date: 2/17/09 Section: Focus

Media Credit: Matt Lin Susan Campbell reads aloud from her novel 'Dating Jesus' at the Co-op on Tuesday night.

Susan Campbell's writing career began early. At age nine, in exchange for candy money from her grandmother, she would rewrite the books of the Bible, always careful to expand the women's roles.

She had to stop editing the sacred texts when her mother found out, but she hasn't stopped writing since. Campbell is now a reporter and columnist for the Hartford Courant and the author of Connecticut Curiosities, a study of the state's more offbeat and eccentric attractions. But Monday night at the UConn Co-op, Campbell gave a reading that went back to her roots.

"I vow to do a good deed every day, and several nights a month I sit up fast in bed realizing I'd forgotten, and that I'd disappointed Jesus. So I double up the next day. I set the bar unbearably high, because Jesus died for my sins," said Campbell, in an excerpt from her latest book, "Dating Jesus: a Story of Fundamentalism, Feminism, and the American Girl".

So began Campbell's story of growing up a fundamentalist Christian in the Missouri Ozarks, as told to a packed audience of UConn students, staff, and fans. She divulged old fears and childhood obsessions with a breezy, easygoing manner that kept her listeners engaged and laughing.

"She was really witty and entertaining. She brought a lot of humor to a serious topic," said Samantha Buzzelli, a 6th-semester English major. "She connected to the audience with some very personal stories.

Though Campbell has since been officially disfellowshipped from the Fourth and Forest Church of Christ, her religious life began smoothly. As a young girl, she was a self-declared "champion Bible reader," a passionate Sunday-school teacher, a puppeteer in a fake, hand-puppet gospel choir, and a church youth group volunteer. She was such a devoted follower that she often felt like she really was "dating Jesus," and that Jesus, asking for nothing more than her faith, was the perfect boyfriend.

So what could possibly interfere with such a loving relationship?

"No matter how perfect I tried to be, I was not a man, I could never be clergy. My brother was, and that pissed me off. He could go up and give 45 second sermons and get carried around on a pillow like he was some kind of King David," Campbell said.

Continued...

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