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Preachers evoke wrath
By Mike Lauterbach
 Media Credit: Adam Masloski The crowd laughs at Mike Leisner after he bellows, “Ghandi is in hell right now!” Leisner and Jed Smock preached and harassed crowds that gathered to listen on the Atwood Mall Tuesday. They evoked emotions ranging from severe anger, to disgust, to laughter as they tried to get their message across to those who passed by.
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Mike Leisner is a bear of a man, standing 6 feet 5 inches on one of Atwood Mall's concrete benches. Bees swarm around his feet as he shakes his fist in the air.
"God's going to take all the homosexuals by their testicles and thrust them into the rectum of hell," he proclaims.
The crowd around him tightens its circle. Having scored one point, he goes for another.
"And Jesse Ventura — he brought guys to the polls," he shouts. "Guys who sit in their trailer houses with kegs of beer, people who live in stolen cars."
Some students laugh. Some look angry. Others yell insults. Maybe it was the pictures of aborted fetuses that made them mad.
On Monday, a group calling themselves Missionaries to the Pre-Born showed up carrying banners with gruesome photos of aborted fetuses and slogans calling for repentance.
On Tuesday, by pure coincidence, "Brother Jed" Smock and Mike Leisner arrived to a campus already tense from the day before.
But the intensity of the crowd was all in a day's work for Smock and Leisner. Smock, who has been preaching on campuses full-time for over 25 years, took the reactions of the crowd in stride. He ignored some, dismissed others out of hand, and argued back when he heard something he liked.
And of course, both preachers used outrageous statements (Leisner: "How many of you, if there was a dog running around on this campus, would have sex with it?").
Leisner explained the technique this way: "Before I was a preacher, I was a used-car dealer. We'd put a purple dinosaur out by the road — anything to get people in."
But most people in the audience didn't feel like they were seeing something as harmless as a purple dinosaur.
"He's using Christianity to preach hate," said Tracy Ore, a faculty member in the Sociology Department. Ore led a partially successful attempt to get the crowd around the preachers to disperse.
"If this man offends you, then leave," she said numerous times. Staying and arguing, she told the crowd, would only be giving the preachers what they want.
Other students were offended on a more personal level. When Smock said that "most of the people who died in 9-11 went to hell," it struck a nerve in first-year student Tyler Netter.
Netter stood up directly in Smock's face. "My aunt was in 9-11. Don't you dare talk about it!" he shouted.
"I just wanted to deck (Smock)," Netter said later, his hands still shaking. "He's just making people angry."
Fortunately, Netter's aunt had been in a different part of the Pentagon when the plane hit and was unhurt. And to his credit, Smock didn't mention "God's judgment" on the 9-11 victims again. But it illustrated how close to violence the crowd was.
At one point a different student charged Leisner, shouting, “Do you know how many people were slaughtered because of what you preach?” He had to be restrained by Ore and another student (he and Leisner did talk civilly later on when Leisner took a break). Numerous other times, Public Safety Department officers had to step in to keep the crowd at least 5 feet away from the preachers.
Most of the preachers’ most vociferous critics were students with strong religious convictions themselves. Saima Hassan, a senior from the United Arab Emirates, stood at the front for most of the late afternoon and argued with nearly every point that Smock made about Islam.
She said that Smock could say whatever he wanted about Christianity, but, “he doesn’t have a right to say bad things about our religion.” She circulated a petition claiming that Smock was creating a hostile environment (Minnesota privacy laws prevent SCSU from discussing specific complaints).
Bethany Fowble, a junior, got a round of applause for questioning Smock about his authority to judge the students. As a Christian, she was upset about his antics.
“He’s putting a horrible name on Christianity,” she said. While she acknowledged that the performance was “putting God in the air,” she said that the bad outweighed the good.
“It’s outrageous what’s coming out of his mouth,” she said.
Both days, students passed around petitions alleging various code of conduct violations and asking the university to remove the preachers. Those petitions eventually ended up on the desk of BernaDette Wilson, associate vice president of Student Life and Development.
“We will investigate all complaints to find out the facts of what happened,” she said. “But it’s a difficult position.” And even if one of the preachers were found to have committed a violation, she said, what sanction he might receive is an open question. Since the preachers aren’t students, they aren’t subject to the suspensions and expulsions that a student might receive.
But not all students tried to get rid of the preachers. Many debated them vigorously. Other students had some success urging the crowd to disperse.
“I love seeing people together against hate,” said Katie Bauer, a junior. “I’m proud of our generation for standing up to (Smock).”
But Bauer spoke before several events that might have changed her mind. One student dumped a can of soda on the bench that Leisner was preaching from, then moved a garbage can in front of it to attract bees. Another student dumped Leisner’s entire box of tracts into the trash. Others yelled threats and profanities.
Afterward, Smock would say that the crowd was “immature” and “pretty uncivil compared to most.”
But neither he nor Leisner was worried about the seemingly negative results. He said that most of their results don’t come immediately — usually it’s one or two years later. He added that he operates mostly on faith that he can “be one of the links in a chain” that leads to repentance down the road. And he’s not discouraged by results like Tuesday’s.
“We’ll be back,” said Leisner as they were walking away at the end of the day. “And next time we won’t be so nice.”
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