Friday afternoon I was catching up on grading, working in my office with the north window open. As I graded, I could occasionally hear a loud voice, shouting at students from the mall in front of the student center (at Sam Houston State University.)
"Brother Jed" Smock is preaching. (So says the student newspaper. I did not go out to check that it was Smock.)
Jed Smock would preach from the quadrangle at the University of Illinois when I was a graduate student in the 70s. (Yes, 70s! Forty years ago!) Brother Jed has followed me to every campus I've been on since then. And less I think it has anything to do with me, he has been on hundreds (thousands?) of other campuses across fifty states over 40 years. His mission, as he sees it, is to visit campuses and tell students that "hell is hot" and that they are headed there. (See this Wikipedia article.)
When I was at the University of Illinois, in the 70s, he was not well received. Students yelled back at him. (He likes to be heckled.) Others use his preaching as a chance to preach their opposition to his beliefs. An agnostic or atheist could point to Smock as an example of the problems of religion. (Sadly, there is some legitimacy to that argument.) More constructively, a few Christian groups tried to gently say, "That is not the Good News of Jesus Christ. If you are interested, can we talk over here more quietly?"
He has been to Sam Houston many times in the past. He always gets everyone angry before he leaves and seems to be motivated by that. (Here is an older campus story on Smock.)
Many see his appearance as a threat and so there have been attempts to crack down on his right to speak. At Central Michigan University there were faculty who attempted to get him banned from campus. Here at Sam Houston, the SGA passed a resolution calling his comments sexually harassing and opposing his speech. Smock has a first amendment right to be obnoxious -- and he takes full advantage of that.
What does this mean to the gospel (Good News) of Christ?
Christian love requires caring for the individual person, for their distinctive aspects and characteristics. It requires time. Surely it hard to really care for individual students if one circulates rapidly from college to college, yelling at students and then moving on. It is now February and "Brother Jed" is in the south, moving between Sam Houston, Stephen F. Austin, Texas A & M and other Texas campuses. In the spring he will slowly migrate north. Does he stay anywhere long enough to see the effects of his visit? From the perspective of those who do stay on campus, he merely gives an opportunity for people to mock Christianity.
To see what Brother Jed thinks of his visit, check out his webpage. (Yes, I was a little surprised to see he had one!)
What motivates Jed? His preaching is motivated by Old Testament images of prophets speaking out against the hypocrisy and idolatry of Israel and Judah. The closest New Testament example might be John, the Baptizer, who called the Jewish leaders, "brood of vipers." (And Jesus had similar language for the religious leaders of his day.) But it is a serious theological mistake to equate ancient Israel with modern society. Whether it was Old Testament or New Testament prophets, the sharpest criticism was always against those who hypocritically claimed religious authority. Jesus could accuse the Pharisees of hypocrisy but spoke gently with the adulteress that the leaders dragged before him. Jesus cleared the moneychangers out of the temple but invited the despised tax collector to eat with him.
I am saddened by Smock's appearance. His appearances have always been a bit depressing to me.
The gospel is "Good News." It is not "hell is hot" and "you are a whore." It is that there is grace and hope for each of us as broken people.
This morning in church I heard a different message from Jed's. A local pastor described the life of Barnabus, as a steady encourager of others. ("Bar-nabus" or "Son of Encouragement.") The Encourager assisted the young church in Jerusalem in the first century and took Saul under his wing, after Saul's conversion. After traveling with Saul across Cyprus and Asia Minor, he insisted on encouraging young John Mark and so had a falling out with the stubborn Saul/Paul who did not want John Mark to travel with them. A question was asked towards the end of the sermon, "Where would the church be without the influence of Barnabas on Paul and Mark?" Paul wrote numerous New Testament letters ("epistles") and John Mark wrote the gospel of Mark, probably used as a guide for the gospels of Matthew and Luke.
When Jed leaves campus, people breathe a sigh of relief.
When Barnabas visited cities and towns, people grew in joy and faith.
I'd like to be a Barnabas.
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