Free Speech Fallout
From the Soapbox.
A Preacher's Radical Rant
Challenges the Limits of Free Speech
And Inspires an Unexpected Benefit.
By Jennifer McGee
Saturday, January 20, 2001.
DATELINE: Conway, Arkansas
Special to corndancer.com
Moses, the soapbox preacher, did not seem to realize that the raucous, obnoxious, over-zealous Peter was mocking him.
A rowdy crowd on the sunny campus square goggled at Moses and his tormentor. Moses just smiled, shook his head, gestured with his wine glass (which he called God's Cup of Wrath), pointed to Peter, and said, "Here might be the only sane man on campus who shares my burden for these unsaved masses."
What a contrast the two presented to the casual audience of students and professors: the lean, smartly dressed satirist and the haggard, self-proclaimed nondenominational, fundamentalist preacher with shaggy black hair slicked down on the sides, authentic-looking 70's bomber sunglasses, a hounds-tooth-checked-supple-crushproof-one-hundred-percent-polyester blazer, blue leisure suit pants, generous rolls of paunch, and Adidas tennis shoes.
Twisting Doctrine into the Absurd.
Sure, this ill-clad young mocker who called himself Peter the Preaching Prophet preached the same kind of misinterpreted, ridiculous dogma as the resident evangelist, but Moses didn't recognize the other's spirit of mockery. The gross exaggeration and derisiveness Peter employed to twist doctrine into even more absurdity was apparently lost on the older man.
"All you heathens in sororities and fraternities, living in the brothels known as 'houses', you are despised of God!" Moses ranted.
"Yes, oh yesssss!" Peter drawled in a thick southern accent. "All y'all livin' in sorority and fraternity houses are goin' ta hell! That's 'cause you're livin' in a house. Houses are of the devil! Anyone who lives in a house, or even a dorm, is goin' ta hell!
"Notice the patriarchs of the Old Testament; they didn't live in no houses. They lived in tents. And it is a well-known fact that the Hebrew word for 'tent' used in this passage means 'garbage can'. God tells us that our righteousness is dirty rags, and we all know that dirty rags belong in the trash. Therefore, by the transitive property of dirty rags, the righteous must live in a trash can!"
Peter danced around, gesticulating wildly. Moses smiled. "I, Peter the Preachin' Prophet, live in a dumpster. Someday I'll bring you my house and show y'all around in it. It is truly a righteous place. Praise the Lawrd!"
"This university is an institution of lies! It teaches nothing but the untruths of the devil against the Word of God!" Moses cried.
"Oh, yessss! This here school teaches these here students things like biology and evolution, which I like to call 'evil-ution'! And chemistry is 'sin-mestry', teaching innocent minds that the universe is made up of tiny particles called atoms. Where is it goin' ta end?
'God Created the World out of Legos.'
"We should be teaching the masses the truth that God created the world out of tiny, separate, interlocking legos, which are to be left alone and not played with, especially by children under the age of six for fear of swallowing.
"In fact, all science is of the devil! It is Satan's lies! We must protect our children and regress to our former, arcane age of superstition!" The excitable prophet was so moved by the spirit of God that he turned a backwards somersault and danced wildly some more round the police barricades surrounding the two.
"All Catholic theology is erroneous! You try to bargain your way into God's heaven while you doom yourself for a devil's hell! You call those in your clergy 'father' while God tells us we must call no one 'father' but him!" Moses explicated.
"Hear this word, you sinners! Yessss! You put up others before God! You eat hamburgers? Well, you make Burger King a King before holy God! And all you Catholics have the stench of hell-fire and damnation around you already while you walk the earth!" With one last stunt, a wild somersault, Peter gathered up his own "squirt bottle of wrath" and class notebook, then walked off in the direction of his dorm — much to the chagrin of the amused crowd.
Moses just smiled behind that glazed-eyed, soulless stare. "Maybe our friend and fellow advocate for the message of God will come join us again."
It did not appear that Moses had any clue that his "friend and fellow advocate" was a Catholic himself. Nor did he seem to realize that young Peter was not a true preacher at all, but a daring college student grounded enough in his own faith to know that despite what Moses said, he need not worry about eliminating a certain smoky "stench of hell-fire" surrounding him just yet.
Peter Mounts a Soapbox of His Own.
Peter struck again a few days later. This time, while Moses was busy discussing general Biblical knowledge with two learnéd scholars (proving once again that rote knowledge does not determine anything about the state of a soul), Peter took it upon himself to mount his own soapbox. Crossing the sidewalk to another grassy knoll, he began preaching a message of his own, drawing the whole crowd's attention to him for nearly an hour before returning to his trash can, er, dorm room.
That was Peter's last appearance. He would lose his foil before another opportunity arose. Moses, pressured on multiple fronts by popular opinion of dissatisfaction to his teaching, was forced by the University heads to move his congregation to a less-traveled path, a forlorn outpost on campus, one much less distracting to students and faculty seeking a quiet place to study or visit.
One day, as swiftly as the enigma came, he just left. Without Moses as the counterpoint, Peter saw no need to preach and prophesy.
A Briefcase, the Bible,
God's Wrath in a Glass.
Gary Bowman, the man who called himself Moses, appeared one day on a grassy area near the fountain in front of the Arkansas Student Union. With him he carried a briefcase, his Bible, his wine glass named God's Wrath, and his unique interpretation of the Scripture. His sermons would continue for about four hours into the late afternoon. He attracted large crowds of passing students and faculty, some interested and bemused, others angrily opposed to a message the preacher delivered so loudly that it was impossible to avoid.
Mr. Bowman was thunderous, conspicuously placed, and controversial. His wild messages may have inspired some amusement, but they most certainly roused an uproar of protest. Some students who lingered in the mall beside the Union complained that they were forced to listen to his loud ranting, which interrupted the calm they usually enjoyed there.
Moses, however, had navigated all the necessary bureaucratic channels to obtain a legal permit to preach for four hours on select days each week. When his four-hour window expired, he was escorted away by campus police. Mr. Bowman was exasperating and annoying, but he was also exercising his constitutional right to free speech, his legal privilege.
Most university folk who spoke out against the preacher objected heavily to certain aspects of his message. He stretched and challenged the concepts of free speech. (Oh, no, not that phrase!) These days, free speech is a touchy subject. In the best of all possible worlds, everyone's opinion would be heard and appreciated for its own value, whether it was acceptable or disgusting, true to one's heart or alien to one's outlook.
When someone exercises his right to speak freely, the hearer also exercises her right to learn about the thoughts of her fellow man. Why did so many folks at the University of Arkansas become so angry at Gary Bowman's exercise in free speech?
His theology advocated controversial and offensive subjects — hate messages against gays, warnings to "evil" students about God's wrath, and boastings that he had not committed a sin since 1993.
A Laundry List of the Offensive.
Let's look at a sampling of Mr. Bowman's radical antics and beliefs that so aroused the University.
He enjoyed singing a rude, vulgar song about gays and lesbians.
He claimed that any girl wearing short hair or clothes such as tank tops and shorts — any garment that exposed flesh — is sinful. Males with long hair are damnable.
All sorority girls are "whores." Dorm girls are "good."
God, the preacher claimed, pours out his wrath on all sinners. Are you ill? You're a sinner. What about the professor who was murdered by gunfire on the first day of class in the fall semester? His murderer was "sent from God" to exact His judgment.
Too Often the Response Is Retaliation.
So why are we angry? Why do we, the body of an institution of higher learning, take away his voice? Do we believe that he does not deserve his right to free speech?
I know the source of my anger, and I believe it was identical to that of the others who listened to him. As humans, in general, we feel that our opinion is right and anyone else's that differs is grossly wrong. We do not want to hear someone's beliefs that collide head-on with what we are brought up to think as right. Above all, we do not want to be told that we are wrong, much less that we are going to hell in a hand basket. Too often our response is to retaliate, as Moses' onlookers did, by shouting, cursing, throwing objects, or even mocking the man like Peter did.
Guess what folks — in our retaliation, we have just exercised our own right to free speech. Not only do we have the privilege of saying what we believe, we also have the right to oppose other views; that is, in a responsible, respectful manner. While we may have lacked respect and responsibility, our response was free speech nonetheless. By exercising our rights, we have become hypocrites, denying others the right to state their thoughts while we strive to proclaim our own.
I admit my guilt. I am not counted out of the throng who wished to silence him. I am as guilty as the next guy. I feel ashamed.
It took me many weeks to sort through my thoughts about Moses. I found his flavor of Christianity, a blend of hate and wrath and sin, too bitter for my tastes. While his concepts were ripped out of proportion, his basic truths were taken straight from God's word. As I reflected it, I began to see the positive effects of Mr. Bowman's free speech.
Can you recall the last time you walked past any given point on a college campus to hear students of different religious beliefs discussing Biblical theology? They did when Moses preached.
From the Rubble of His Offense
Arose a Phoenix of Unexpected Benefits.
On the sidewalk, in the cafeteria, by the Union, the debate raged; his radical thoughts provided an opportunity for the real truths of our loving, caring God to be exposed. Moses may not have intended it this way, but he did help a curious, lost soul realize the true saving grace of Christ. His willingness to be bold in his faith brought forth issues that may have lain dormant. In the end, many on campus benefited from this strange man's exercise of free speech.
While I don't agree with his whole message, I do believe that Gary Bowman expressed his faith with good intent. In a way unbeknownst to him, he was used by God to spread the real message of love and redemption.
Once again I stand in admiration of the awesomeness and power of our omniscient God, who can use a misdirected preacher to bring the truth of His love to a college campus. I stand in wonder at the amazing love and wisdom of my eternal Savior. I stand in holy fear of his perfect plan, which he will reveal through me. I marvel at how he uses me every day in ways I cannot imagine to be His spokesman on earth. What a glorious calling! To be used of God, to have the greatest speech to proclaim freely throughout the universe!
As Peter the Preaching Prophet would say, "Praise the Lawrd!"
Jennifer
McGee
A
Personal
Note
Written
at
CornDancer's
Request.
It feels kind of strange to be nineteen, knowing that in less than a year I will have officially left my teens behind. But it's a part of growing up, and I take the changes greedily and readily as they come to me.
I am a freshman at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville where I am majoring in nothing particular at the moment. Hey, I still have lots of time to decide! This is the first time I have lived away from my home of Conway, Arkansas, where I was born in October of 1981, and though it has lots of challenges, it is a beneficial and exciting experience.
I miss my family, though: my parents Bill and Darlene; my darling and spoiled weenie dog Ellie; my sister Regina and my brother Larry (who are respectively 15 and 11 years older than me; yes, I am very much the baby of the family!); and my precious nephews Alex, Stewart, and Seth (and a brand-spanking new one due to arrive in April).
I consider my life a blessing from God that He gives me daily to live as productively, honorably, and worthily as I can. In all I do, I try give back to Him all he gives me, though I can never fully repay the debt. He is the ultimate reason for all I do.
