'In the Land of Believers' by Gina Welch

A writer goes undercover as a 'church lady' to write an account of being a member of an evangelical church. The book becomes a melodrama, with the author in the role of villain.
By Laura Collins-Hughes
March 2, 2010

In May 2007, deep into her time as a stealth member of Jerry Falwell's Lynchburg, Va., congregation, Gina Welch had become unsettled about her comfort level there. The most recent alarming development: Falwell -- fundamentalist preacher, Moral Majority founder, bête noire of the American left -- had just died, and Welch, a Berkeley native and lifelong atheist, was sad about it.

Grief, however, was not the reason she stood a few days later in the crowd of mourners near the entrance to Falwell's mega-church, a "Jesus first" pin adorning her chest. She was "undercover," as she puts it, "posing as a church lady" to gather material for her first book.