Our campus has been graced by the presence of the controversial George Smock, better known as ‘Brother Jed’. I saw him the first time last year, along with two other ‘open-air preachers’ or ‘confrontational evangelists’. Having listened to him and his colleagues the first time around, I wasn’t surprised by what he had to say this time.

Most of the time that I’m listening to him, I’m actually laughing and yelling back retorts along with the rest of the crowd. Brother Jed’s arguments rarely make sense, but that’s what he goes for: shock value. He gets people to listen, because when they’re walking by the Amphitheater and they hear “You Michael Jackson sissy men are EMASUCULATEDDDDD”, they can’t help but stop and listen. I don’t know what he hopes to accomplish by putting on such a show.

There is one thing, and one thing only that I admire about Brother Jed. His opinions, ideas, and antics are offensive and ridiculous. But he is motivated, focused, and dedicated to his cause. To be able to speak up alone against a crowd of such opposition and animosity takes bravery, or perhaps the blessing of God. Despite the guaranteed heckling and negative attention he receives from the UO and other campuses, he drives on. He makes our retorts and incoherent arguments against him seem weak and cowardly. Even in the Amphitheater, when Survival Center wackos are emulating his antics and echoing his words in a mocking manner, Brother Jed maintains his composure and sticks to the program.

He’s kind of like Mel Gibson: He puts on a great presentation. Too bad he is an prick.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 7th, 2007 at 11:33 by Sean Jin and is filed under Campus. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.