(updated)

This post contains sexually explicit descriptions and should not be read by children.

I didn’t get the chance to see Brother Jed Smock in action yesterday, but I did today. Coming out of a class that ended at 12:15 in the Psychology building, I headed west to find him at the Alumni Plaza in his trademark look going through a typical overdramatized routine about how he used to be into “rrrrrrock and roll!”

I observe for about fifteen minutes with some friends. Some campaign staff for presidential candidate Brad Wulff and executive vice presidential candidate Jessica Anderson arrive. I talked to one of them and explained my blog and questionnaire, asking if they could relay to their candidates a request to fill it out. Somewhere in the middle of this, they ask the crowd to vote for Brad Wulff.

I then observed him take out a pair of electrical extension cords and start explaining how homosexuality doesn’t work. The female ends don’t connect together. Neither do the male ones. But connect a male and female and it works, “up and down, up and down.”

Out of the west in the distance comes senatorial candidate Dustin Cox (an acquaintance and classmate of mine in a national security class last semester) campaign, probably unaware of the specific demonstration he was giving. They all start chanting.

We love Cox…for ASUA Senate!
We love Cox…for ASUA Senate!

Even I was laughing here. Smock responded by waving the end of his electrical cord to illustrate a limp penis. As the Cox campaign completed their demonstration, Brother Jed then starting singing his own little song, still illustrating male homosexual activity with the electrical cord.

It’s not okay to be gay…
It’s not okay to be [pause] HO-MO.

I feel like Jed and I are the only people not laughing, and I’m not laughing for a different reason than him. Though I was talking with a friend while this started, it was the last straw. For the first time in my college career despite Brother Jed having visited annually for decades, I verbally confront Brother Jed.

Sir, do you think this glorifies Christ? What is your objective, sir?

Brother Jed continues with his song and explanations ignoring me for a bit. I keep imploring him to speak with me. But once he’s done, I have his attention. My right leg is shaking uncontrollably. I explain that I am a Christian and I don’t think what he’s doing is helping out at all, but is rather engineered to induce mockery. We start debating. He then brings up a new subject and shifts the conversation, talking about how the scientific possibility of being “born gay” is a falsehood.

I haven’t examined this evidence, but what I do know is that we’re born sinful. My inclination to sin does not make sin right; it does not justify my sin. Brother Jed disagrees, noting that Romans 5 says that death is passed on, not sin.

Still yet, we have some common ground. The asking for mockery ends, and suddenly Brother Jed started making sense. The group became quiet. Some left out of boredom. One gave the middle finger, and for a guy like Brother Jed, that’s a small number.

Another man who’s been hanging around the mall for the past two weeks with his dog and his sign notes that Brother Jed spoke to him while he was a student in 1977; that’s what brought him to Christ. After much talking, he asks if I can say Amen to what he had been speaking since our dealing.

I can say Amen to that. Absolutely.

Later on, I explain how I came to Jesus. I also encourage the crowd not to examine Brother Jed, but to examine Christ himself. Is He real? Are the Gospels reliable? Does He want you to come to him? Brother Jed agrees.

Fellow students, it’s not about what we think of this one mall evangelist or anybody for that matter; it’s about the Guy Upstairs.

Despite the mockery of Dustin Cox, and the random imploring of the campaigns of Brad Wulff, Jen Dang, and Michael Slugocki, and the scoffing of yours truly during the past three years, something out of this made sense. Maybe Brother Jed isn’t as bad as we all apparently think. And no matter how the guy really is, something truly good came out of it all. It’s just what I prayed for last night. It’s what so man of us have been praying for during 24/7 Prayer. And God answered. And we’re going to keep praying. And He’s going to keep answering.