Post by messengermicah on Feb 3, 2006 14:44:45 GMT -5
Our group here in Miami was preaching with Jed Smock on Tuesday at Florida International University. We had crowds that Jed estimated were up to 300 and they became very irate and picked up and smashed our sandwich board. I will post a report soon. Here is an article written by the school newspaper.
By: Adrian Cordero / Contributing Writer
Issue date: 2/2/06 Section: Opinion
see photo at www.beaconnewspaper.com
If you crossed the fountain niche between Graham Center, Primera Casa and the Green Library anytime between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Jan. 30, it is likely the words 'sinner' or 'hate-monger' reached your ears. Just prior to or after those shrieks of righteous indignation, you doubtlessly sighted a throng of students gathered before a rabble-rousing evangelical demonstration.
I've witnessed few demonstrations since enrolled at FIU. A handful of hunger strikes here and there, sometimes leaf-letters, but this was actually the first time I saw a full on campus demonstration complete with opposing protestors. The agitation was not over an unjust war, abortion-rights nor environmental issues. In actuality, it was a screaming contest with both sides arguing over whether some magician in the sky, more commonly known as God, really hates Gays or not.
The gay issue might not have been what the Campus Ministry USA themed its platform on, but it's what garnered the attention and wrath of the students present. I think a more subtle approach might've better suited them. Less condemnation and accusation of students being an abomination just because they have a different sexual orientation (Ministry members also wore sandwich boards denouncing witches, dopers, fornicators, blasphemers and most other fun recreational activities).
As a realist, I am instantly disinclined to most bombastic ethereal babble but the sheer number and vibrant agitation of the mob attracted me. It would be an understatement to say the crowd was antipathetic. They were very much a crude bunch. Waving make-shift signs and blushing red in the face when they spat words and saliva back at the preachers.
I had few problems with either group. The only time the sermons, chants, parades and flamboyance annoyed me was when they were flaunted in my face. However, this might just be my own small conflict with the great expanse of the first amendment.
All the same, in this age of science and constant refutation of long-held superstitions, I do believe groups like the evangelicals are simply permeating ignorance. Isn't it at least arguable that belief in gods is irrational and that social policy based on belief in the supernatural is absurd and potentially dangerous?
Easing myself into the periphery of the crowd, I asked a fellow bystander what the gist of it all was. "A buncha' crazies screaming nonsensically," he responded, and I couldn't immediately identify which of the two groups he was referring to. The protestors were definitely the more coarse and brutal, at one point even snatching and smashing a sign held by a Ministry member. Is that how you rationally win an argument?
The ringleader of the congregation was George "Jed" Smock, whose followers were called 'Jed-heads' - a play on the name of the Grateful Dead groupies.
"They're too emotional because no one likes being called a sinner. They choose emotion over reality," Smock said - a quote perhaps a bit oxymoronic from someone who follows a religion known historically for preaching faith over science. "That they respond with such bitterness and resentment says a lot about their logic". To me, an evangelist even using the word logic is beyond comedic.
In the end, it's all a matter of first amendment rights. The preachers exercise two clauses in their demonstration: that of freedom of religion and freedom of speech. The protestors exercise just one; their right to yell, get upset and accomplish very little at all. And I, with a smirk on my lips and a pen in my hand, exercise another clause of the first amendment: to write an opinion on the foolishness and futility of it all because, in the end, it was just used up oxygen and dispersed carbon dioxide, little else, little more.
By: Adrian Cordero / Contributing Writer
Issue date: 2/2/06 Section: Opinion
see photo at www.beaconnewspaper.com
If you crossed the fountain niche between Graham Center, Primera Casa and the Green Library anytime between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Jan. 30, it is likely the words 'sinner' or 'hate-monger' reached your ears. Just prior to or after those shrieks of righteous indignation, you doubtlessly sighted a throng of students gathered before a rabble-rousing evangelical demonstration.
I've witnessed few demonstrations since enrolled at FIU. A handful of hunger strikes here and there, sometimes leaf-letters, but this was actually the first time I saw a full on campus demonstration complete with opposing protestors. The agitation was not over an unjust war, abortion-rights nor environmental issues. In actuality, it was a screaming contest with both sides arguing over whether some magician in the sky, more commonly known as God, really hates Gays or not.
The gay issue might not have been what the Campus Ministry USA themed its platform on, but it's what garnered the attention and wrath of the students present. I think a more subtle approach might've better suited them. Less condemnation and accusation of students being an abomination just because they have a different sexual orientation (Ministry members also wore sandwich boards denouncing witches, dopers, fornicators, blasphemers and most other fun recreational activities).
As a realist, I am instantly disinclined to most bombastic ethereal babble but the sheer number and vibrant agitation of the mob attracted me. It would be an understatement to say the crowd was antipathetic. They were very much a crude bunch. Waving make-shift signs and blushing red in the face when they spat words and saliva back at the preachers.
I had few problems with either group. The only time the sermons, chants, parades and flamboyance annoyed me was when they were flaunted in my face. However, this might just be my own small conflict with the great expanse of the first amendment.
All the same, in this age of science and constant refutation of long-held superstitions, I do believe groups like the evangelicals are simply permeating ignorance. Isn't it at least arguable that belief in gods is irrational and that social policy based on belief in the supernatural is absurd and potentially dangerous?
Easing myself into the periphery of the crowd, I asked a fellow bystander what the gist of it all was. "A buncha' crazies screaming nonsensically," he responded, and I couldn't immediately identify which of the two groups he was referring to. The protestors were definitely the more coarse and brutal, at one point even snatching and smashing a sign held by a Ministry member. Is that how you rationally win an argument?
The ringleader of the congregation was George "Jed" Smock, whose followers were called 'Jed-heads' - a play on the name of the Grateful Dead groupies.
"They're too emotional because no one likes being called a sinner. They choose emotion over reality," Smock said - a quote perhaps a bit oxymoronic from someone who follows a religion known historically for preaching faith over science. "That they respond with such bitterness and resentment says a lot about their logic". To me, an evangelist even using the word logic is beyond comedic.
In the end, it's all a matter of first amendment rights. The preachers exercise two clauses in their demonstration: that of freedom of religion and freedom of speech. The protestors exercise just one; their right to yell, get upset and accomplish very little at all. And I, with a smirk on my lips and a pen in my hand, exercise another clause of the first amendment: to write an opinion on the foolishness and futility of it all because, in the end, it was just used up oxygen and dispersed carbon dioxide, little else, little more.