My name is Bill Daniels, My sobriquet and pen name is Dr. Raven. I write for Christian and Non-Christian music magazines across the country profiling underground electronic and industrial music acts. My main reason in writing this letter is an attempt to formulate something of an apology to the campus community on behalf of the Christian community of Eugene, Springfield and Lane County.
I was alerted to the article in the Daily Emerald (“Traveling preachers stir campus,” ODE May 31), and the current controversy that Jed Smock and his colleague presented, by my sister who is a current student at the University. By and large, these men to do not represent the whole of the Christian community of Eugene, or for that matter even Christianity on the University campus itself. My concern is the patent and blatant notion that these men perpetrated in such a bombastic and abusive manner; the statement “I don’t hate anybody; I’m saying God does.”
Apologetics discussions aside, I could list reams of scriptures describing and listing exactly the notion of God’s love for his creation, for the people he so lovingly and fearfully made. But it boils down to a simple matter of understanding the character and nature of the person we call Christ. We are given the example of a man who touched and healed lepers, considered the most unclean people of his day. A man who hugged and served the pagan Grecian children, a man who healed the blind and the sick. A man who ate with the people that sold out their heritage and life to be prostitutes to an occupying military force. In short, the rejected dregs of his day.
I find it hard to believe, therefore, that this person we call Christ would suddenly stop, after all of that, to turn to the people who gathered at his bleeding feet and say to them “I do this because I hate you; repent, or I will burn you for eternity.”
And this is the basic statement that Mr. Smock, Fred Phelps, Lon Mabon, Bible Jim, and all of the people who would follow in their footsteps would have us believe is the “good news” that we are to swallow like the foul smelling tripe that it is.
The Wesley Center on campus has never held a protest to tell the campus that God hates you. The Newman Center, a Catholic run service on campus has never held a candle light vigil to demonstrate God’s hatred for the inhabitants of the University. The McKenzie Center and the campus Lutheran Church have never held bake sales to raise money to prove God’s hatred of the University. Northwest Christian College has never set up barracks and taken up arms against the University. Eugene Bible College has never made it a point to send propaganda bombs to the University campus. All of these organizations have acted as servants and conversationalists; never assailants.
I am therefore left to believe that Smock, and others like him, do not by and large represent the Christian community’s response to the University of Oregon or its students. On behalf of all of them, I am truly sorry that if this is your first impression of the man Jesus. God does not hate you. If this were so, then the cross would not have been sufficient enough to negate for our own sins, let alone the sins of the world. What I hope arises out of this is a new dialogue between University students of what their faith truly means in the face of such grueling hatred and the need to abuse people. That was never our calling. God bless you and keep you.
Bill Daniels lives in Springfield