Made Me Think

Have you ever been to the website makesmethink.com ? I love that site. It's all about different stories (most of them sad, sweet, or bittersweet) that affect a person and make them think. I had one of these moments yesterday, but it was a bit too long to submit to the website, so I'll post it here instead.

Yesterday, I went to school at the University of Minnesota with Shawn. He wanted me to, and we killed almost 3 hours between his classes. But when he went to class, I wandered around looking for something to do.
There was a preacher on campus. A man who wore a big sandwichboard saying that everyone is going to hell and with a big list of people who qualify as sinners on the front (fornicators, drunkards, pot smokers, gangster rappers, feminists, socialists, dirty dancers, homosexuals... the list goes on). He was dressed nicely in a shirt and tie, a cute little vest and khaki pants, and he was just standing in the middle of the courtyard, shouting for all to hear, stories and moral lessons. Naturally, considering we're on a college campus of over 50,000 students, a crowd formed, and many people shouted back. People would antagonize him, and ask him questions, and try to disprove him when he cited some scripture as evidence for his beliefs, but he did quite well under all the pressure.

There's another crazy preacher guy, who is apparently a regular on campus, but who might genuinely be crazy. He was wearing a big purple hat and usually just stands around reading the bible out loud, but today he decided that since other preacher was getting more attention, he would join in. Mostly he just wandered around throwing a football at kids and playing his guitar, but occasionally he would sarcastically mock the other preacher. Again, the first preacher dealt with this remarkably well.

Eventually these two were joined by a student (who I had seen earlier representing the atheist club on campus) wearing a sandwichboard that said "Smile, there is no hell" and just standing there quietly smiling. The entire time I was there watching, for over an hour, he just stood there quietly smiling. I respect that action more than anyone on the sidelines who was shouting, because he never said a word.

Then came the part that made me think, and made me very, very angry. Three students came running out from a building behind me, each with a can of silly string. They sprayed silly string all over the preacher, and ran off the other direction. He pulled up his board over his head to cover his face, and for a split second, I could see fear in his eyes. I mean really, how was he to know that what they were spraying all over him was silly string, and not pepper spray, or mace, or spraypaint, or who knows what else. It just made me wonder, how many times has he been attacked for his public preaching? How many times before has he pulled his board over his head in self-defense?

Yet he continued preaching. He and the crazy guy picked off as much of the silly string as possible, and he just kept going, as if nothing had even happened. It made me think, why is he doing this? Why would anyone put themselves in a position not only of ridicule, but possibly even danger, to preach the bible to a bunch of college kids? What motivates him? What does he think he's accomplishing? What gratification does he get from it? And the biggest question of all... how far would this man go to spread the word of God before enough is enough? How many times would he be willing to be ridiculed, humiliated, and even attacked? How serious would things have to get for him to stop doing it?

And maybe it's just because I'm taking a martyrdom class, but I had a couple more questions. Would he stop? Or would this man, and many others, be willing to give up their lives should the situation come down to it? And separately, the definition of martyrdom involves dying for a cause, but can a person be a martyr before death? What if death is not a requirement, but instead, a certain amount of suffering? Can a living person, willingly suffering for a cause, be considered a martyr?

These are questions I don't have the answer to, and may go much deeper than a situation of a preacher on a college campus, but the whole point is that it made me think, and I hope it makes other people think too.

And a note to anyone who thinks it's funny to attack another person, even with silly string... It's not funny. It's rude and just plain stupid. Have a little respect. I disagree with the guy as much as anyone else: I'm pretty much an atheist, I'm a feminist, I support gay rights, I drink, and I have premarital sex; but that doesn't mean I'm going to insult or attack someone who has the courage to get up in front of a crowd and talk about his beliefs. By publicly humiliating another human being, you're not being funny, you're making yourself look like an ass, probably because you are one.