Wednesday, Oct. 16—the dog days hadn’t left (a true early-autumn in San Diego) and the sun was scorching at high noon as I walked to my car after literature class. As I moved toward East Commons from the Love Library walkway, I noticed a cluster of people gathered on the pavement to the right of the marketplace. There were fatalistic posters rising above their heads. One poster read, “If you practice sin you will not go to heaven.” The people were clearly incensed—or emotionally charged, at least—and once I pushed myself to the frontline I saw the cause of the commotion.
A pair of Christian evangelists (one a middle-aged man and the other a decade or two his senior), preached words of salvation. Simultaneously, theatre and biology sophomore Jeremy Zaida loudly sang John Lennon songs while dressed only in rose-colored underwear. “Love is all you need” was written across his bare chest. Both parties were shouting, not at each other, but at the unyielding congregation. The older of the two evangelists (I later learned his name was Neil Konitshek) stood passively as the other proclaimed their gospel of a loving god and our inevitable damnation if we don’t purge ourselves of sinfulness. The student embodied a left-wing cause—he stood for sexual liberation and the freedom of choice. While opposing the evangelists, he countered that he felt a loving God would not damn him to hell.
When the crowd began to dissipate, I approached Zaida. He said he was passing by, saw those signs, took his clothes off and stood beside the two men. I asked him his reasons for participating. “I hate these people and I don’t want them to come back,” he said. Ironically, he did thank them for coming—he donated $1 to Planned Parenthood for every minute he was there.
I also interviewed Konitshek, the evangelist standing quietly behind. He has been coming to San Diego State for 25 years to bring the “good news of Jesus Christ.” He said Zaida attracted the crowd when he took off his clothes, which meant he could then “get the message to people.” But, most importantly, he claimed, “Christians don’t hate homosexuals. They’re not supposed to hate anyone. God loves all sinners.” This is a reaction to the condemnatory Westboro Baptist Church, which has gone to several college campuses with signs reading “God hates fags.”
Two SDSU students were frustrated with the demonstration and the behavior of some students who echoed heinous ad hominem remarks.
“I think it’s far better to preach with love than with hate,” sociology senior Chris Lara-Cruz said.
“I don’t think either side was effective because it was just yelling,” added engineering freshman Chris Jones.
Lara-Cruz and Jones, I’m with you. It was handled badly. Free speech was a catalyst for a futile debate, and the histrionics aspects were unwarranted. There was no logic, no rhetoric, just spiritual conjecture vs. emotional convictions. There wasn’t any real authority behind their arguments, either. The evangelists invoked the Bible and Zaida wielded the holy testimony of John Lennon and laws that he didn’t name. How could any rational human being take these parties seriously when they did not present reasonable arguments?
Matters of the spirit, of eternity, the carnal being, faith and philosophy should not be howled to a crowd of sweaty college students at lunchtime. I don’t mean to sound impudent, but it is ludicrous to think the desired effect of these demonstrations is to attract a flock of hungry and quarrelsome spectators.
That’s what they were: spectators, watching a dogmatic bullfight. This is how any religious, political and social (or antisocial) movement is born. One need not dive deeply into history to find a myriad of illustrations to discover the effects of public indictment. It’s because we’re uniquely sentimental creatures. Though some can operate by reason alone, many need a slight nudge off the edge of their emotional cliffs to wake up and realize that they have an opinion.
However, anger is not the ideal emotion to evoke—anger breeds hostility, which builds walls and creates war.
We must look to those who understood that people change with a peaceful, candid love and justice. Look to the original Jesus Christ preaching love to thousands for days on a grassy hill, Ghandi bearing witness by passive resistance, Allen Ginsberg changing a pivotal America through the naked body of his poetry.
The metamorphosis of faith isn’t often cataclysmic or rapidly revolutionary—it happens gradually, like wading into tepid water. One is suddenly immersed without knowing the moment it happened. One only needs a question to take the first step. A question was posed as the students surrounding the epicenter began a dialogue, among murmurings of “I believe X” or “I feel Y.” That’s what we needed: a little conversation, a little introspection on the things that we should all be thinking of.
