The more I think about it the more I think you should walk by. Look annoyed. Look them right in the eye without blinking while saying “ghinka chtulga modoor. dark lord I summon you by your ineffable name to inhabbit these souls with everlasting hell fire in your all consuming fury and seduction”
Then walk off smiling a malign smile.
All-request going to hell fridays!
There was a point in time where I volunteered to record one of his sermons for a day. For the sole purpose of the Willard Preacher Techno Remix.
He says “Fornicate” at like 225bpm when he’s mid-froth.
I wish I still had that mp3.
I get the feeling that some of those sidewalk preachers haven’t fornicated in a long, long time.
So, in other words, the Campus Crusade for Christ did exactly what your friends did and you hated them for it.
The Irony, it burns!
That was just one of the annoying things they did. I never said that what my friends were doing wasn’t annoying. I hated CCC for repeatedly ripping down fliers that took us hours to make and put up. But you’d know that if you read my post.
I did read your post. I came away with the feeling that if it had been your friends tearing down CCC fliers you wouldn’t have been filled with outrage.
Thanks to the campus newspaper, I found out the organization name: Soulwinners International, who have training materials on their website, so you can be just as crazy as them!
Others on campus have taken up the challenge, and today there were student made posters put up by the Students for Equality group advocating rainbows and unicorns. Another group, seeing as listening to rock and roll will send you straight to hell, set up with guitars nearby and played music. Only one more day, then the group is moving on to another state university about an hour away, and are supposedly not coming back until sometime next year, maybe.
A couple of fliers, maybe? Probably not. But if I had seen that they had organized to methodically tear down any and all fliers they disagreed with, like we saw with CCC, then yeah I would have.
And you can only have a picture of Wilford Brimley or Estelle Getty to work with.
There’s no need to get so angry at them. They’re free entertainment. Their sole purpose is to be pointed at and mocked. They’ve hit rock bottom and are determined to show everybody how they’re languishing in their own shit.
I remember several “brickyard preachers” from NCSU. One was a homeless guy named Samuel. He had long ratty hair and no shirt and just basically screamed all the time. He didn’t gesture with a bible or anything. He just stood there and ranted.
One time another brickyard preacher showed up, prattling away with his Jesus this and God that, when Samuel showed up next to him holding a dead chicken. While the other preacher was going a mile and minute, Samuel would occasionally pipe in with “God made all the animals” and “God made all the little birds.”
Another time a husband and wife team showed up. The wife was the opening act, apparently. She dressed like a puritan and brayed and croaked with pure spite. She would single out a certain group of sinners, like gays, with “How about all you little QUEEEEEEERS out there? Lemme ask all you little QUEEEEEERS something…Do your FATHERS know you like to SUCK OTHER MEN’S PENISES??? You little QUEEEERS are going straight to hell!!! You’re going to fallllllll and hit rock bottom! splat splat splat…and God won’t hear your pleas for MERCY! He won’t HEAR you BEG for FORGIVENESS! All he’ll hear is your WEEEEEEEEEEPING and WAAAAAAAAAAILING! You little QUEEEEEEERS are gonna burn FOREVER…IN THE LAKE OF FIRE!!!”
She growled and hissed quite a lot, used a lot of spitty sound effects, and wrenched her face like putty. She drew her lips back and ground her teeth and clenched her fists and stuff. Every time she got to the LAKE OF FIRE part, the crowd would chant it along with her. Plenty of people were shouting derisions back at her, but she was immune to embrassment.
Her husband came on after that, but he wasn’t as interesting. He looked like a used car dealer (maybe he was) and walked around in figure four patterns as he speeched. He mainly was trying to explain to the women their proper roles in society, but he didn’t have any LAKE OF FIRE in his deliberations, so everybody lost interest.
Some of these preachers are good, some not so good. I’m one of the type of people that is fascinated with these folks, and I ended up debating street preachers multiple times in college. (Usually quietly, off to the side, with one of the ones who was on break - they generally work in teams.) I’ve eaten more than a few for breakfast because they are so damn ignorant about Christianity.
Brother Jed was always the best of them. If you see him, ask him to tell you the story of his conversion at Burger King. It’s a crowd favorite. Also, his coloring books - does he still use them - are AWESOME. I literally cried laughing. I think he really tries to go over the top sometimes because it sure makes the students stop and listen. However, he’s actually a very reasonable man, although I definitely disagree with him - he’s just very passionate about his beliefs, and honestly thinks that he is doing the right thing. The hate is there, but, it never seems to take on the “You all suck!” tone that a lot of the amateurs had. He told people they were sinners, but repentance and atonement (as well as avoiding risky behaviors) had a big part in what he said as well.
I ended up getting to know him a little bit over the years I was in college. I always ran down when he was in Wisconsin or later when he was at Iowa State and I was working in Ames after college. I debated on his message board, and even ran a partner board for skeptics interested in street preachers (though some of the preachers came over, too, to debate us). It was really quite interesting. I still have several of Brother Jed’s books that he gave to me on various occasions. You have to actually ask him for them, but he gives them out, free. He signed one,
"Dear <Fluiddruid>,
Repent!
Love, Brother Jed"
I cherish it.
Now that’s something I’d want to hear, too. Even though I don’t like techno or the Willard Preacher.
Hmm, I remembered a little story I thought you all might enjoy.
I went over to see Brother Jed preach for what would be the last time. Because of the message board, he knew I was coming. I waited for him to take a break and approached him, and introduced myself. (I’d met him many times over the years, but, he meets a lot of people and didn’t remember my face.) He offered me one of their folding chairs and we chatted a little bit. He didn’t seem eager to debate, but, he did ask me, if there was no God, what the motivation was for me to be so interested in him and his group.
I said honestly that I didn’t know entirely for sure why I was interested at first, but, that I felt that many street preachers and those that agree with them are reasonable people. I explained that in a weird way, I was trying to ‘save’ them back - that I truly believed they were misguided and that their views were destructive.
He had a little smile, and he explained that he felt the same way about me and other skeptics. He said that if I pursued truth honestly and with an open mind that I would end up finding what I was looking for. I’ve always remembered that, and they are actually words that I live by - albeit, I daresay, not in the way that he meant.
Good for you!
In my few encounters with Max & Jed, I found Jed to be smarter than most people would count on- and friendlier. When I posted here last week with his site’s addy, I was amazed to see that he discussed Pelagianism, and proudly owned up to being a Pelagian.
How much of a deep theological discussion would one really expect out of most of these street preachers?
If I ever did take up street preaching (alas, I have to actually WORK for a living :D), I would just for fun one day do a complete explanation of the Eternal Generation of the Son and the Eternal Procession of the Spirit, and to if the Spirit procedes from the Father alone or from the Father and the Son.
Coloring books? I never knew about his coloring books!
He is smart. That’s what so odd and fascinating about him. Most street preachers are boring and predictable, but Brother Jed isn’t. I find that I respect him, even though I find his ideas disturbing and at times abhorrent. It’s a strange thing.
He also knows the Bible in a very serious way. Many, many students tried to debate him publicly and he held his own impressively.
I’ve seen him experiment once or twice with props. My memory is sketchy but he had a big ‘coloring book’ (more than one, actually, but I just saw one, as I recall) that was all about Mary Sue (or whomever) get an STD from getting drunk and sleeping with frat boys. Of course, it ended with her burning in Hell. He’d mimic storytime with children and invite the students to circle around to listen and look at the pictures.
I thought it was interesting that you didn’t like Cindy, his wife. As I recall she did not like to rub elbows with the ‘heathens’ much in person, so she was a bit cool-acting, though she was exceptionally nice to me online. We talked several times and she even invited me to come visit her family and stay at her house (!). I respectfully declined, but, I thought she was very sweet and nice.
The fact that you go to college and willingly, not only accept, but use the term “free speech zone” frightens me.
Yeah. I’d never attend any school where I couldn’t run down the halls screaming “FIRE!”
We had people like that at my old university, too.
One of the funniest incidents involving them was when one of the men preaching started shouting about how he used to have sex with cats before he found Jesus. And if he could find Jesus after cornholing a cat, you can bet that you lesbians and homosexuals can, too!
These guys came almost every day, so people did get annoyed of them. One day, a friend of mine came up with a brilliant way to piss them off. There was a guy down our hall in the dorm who looked JUST like Jesus as portrayed in Western culture. Straggly brown beard, long hair, etc. etc.
We asked him to be in on it and he agreed, so we dressed him up in a big white sheet and escorted him to the free speech zone. On the way, someone ripped a branch off a bush and made a “crown” for him, too. The costume was complete! As soon as he arrived, other students got in on the act and began “worshipping” him and faking injuries. He “healed” quite a few that day, and the screaming from the pulpit was music to our ears.
I wonder if he was the same person as the Pit Preacher at UNC-Chapel Hill. Same area, same general modus operandi. There was another guy who used to come to UNC with a sandwich board listing all of the different categories of people who were damned, of which I fell into at least three, including “uppity feminists.”
At my undergrad school, we had a guy who used to come to campus and pass out broadsides entitled “Aliens? Where? Or should I say – WHO???” (I don’t remember all the details of his theory, but apparently, both George Washington and George Bush, Senior, were aliens. You can tell them because their name is George.) He was more amusing than annoying, though.