Right: Portraits from the Evangelical Ivy League
by Jona Frank

There is a sameness to Jona Frank’s photographs of students at the conservative Christian Patrick Henry College, also known as Harvard for homeschoolers. The subjects invariably wear business attire – often accessorized with American flag-printed flare. Their clothes are amply tailored and vaguely anachronistic, barring the occasional snazzy three-piece suit or lacy blouse. They stare at the camera with assuredness, sometimes smiling, sometimes serious. Whether standing or seated, they tend to have fine posture. Their families are large, and in portraits, are arranged by height. Their homes seem warm and enclosed.

There are occasional breaks in repetition – group shots of students appearing truly casual, while celebrating an engagement or hanging out in a parking lot. But the sameness isn’t artlessness by the photographer or the photographed – Frank’s lined-up portraits capture what she and one interviewed student call a counterculture, complete with its own uniforms, rituals and beliefs. It is populated by young, mostly home-schooled children who “are holding fast to the ideals of a life they believe is right,” as Frank writes in her concluding essay. (The volume also includes essays by Hanna Rosin and Colin Westerbeck and interviews of the students.)

Unlike most countercultures, however, these students are trying to influence the prevailing culture by joining it – taking jobs in government, media and education. As student Jeremiah Lorrig puts it, with bold precision, “Christians failed in the 1900s. They gave up the two most powerful cities in the world: Washington and Hollywood.”

The final photographs in the volume are some of the most telling. They capture students at internships (required at Patrick Henry), stepping into the world beyond their home-schooling families and their tiny college, with a greater sense of self. Rebekah, 23, looks poised and TV-ready in the D.C. offices of Fox News. David, 22, appears right at home at the Slate.com offices, in artfully ripped jeans, carrying a copy of The Atlantic.

Most striking, perhaps, is 22-year-old Abram, who won a coveted White House internship and seems to embody the ambitiousness of Patrick Henry students to keep the faith and fit in. In the portrait, Abram sits on a park bench with the White House in the distance. He stares almost broodingly into the camera below a dark, even brow, his unsmiling lips framed by a goatee of the kind Rosin describes as “a gentle, accepted nod to the demonic.” But his posture is relaxed, his shirt slim fitting, his tie a presidential red, his black shoes gleaming. He resembles the other politically ambitious Patrick Henry students featured; they have a certain swagger, especially beside their more modest peers. He is, like a student approaching graduation at any other school, almost at ease, almost fully himself, but still trying to find his place in the world.

Excerpt: From Jona Frank’s essay, “Elisa, in her trench coat, is self-assured and ready. She is twenty-two. She’s worked with Karl Rove, shook hands with President Bush. One month after this photo was taken, she will be married, her name changed, school will be over, and she will be in her life, on her path. She’s done everything right. Yet when I look at that picture, I feel concern for her. It all seems so fast and she seems so young. But herein lies my fascination with the sense of assuredness these kids possess. Maybe she is not so young. Maybe she is tired of waiting.”

Further Reading: High School and God’s Harvard