Wearing a sandwich board condemning “rebellious women,” “racists,” “child-molesting homosexuals,” “sports nuts” and “Mormons” to hell, traveling preacher Jeremiah Baldwin argued with a crowd of University students and community members in the Heart of Campus Tuesday afternoon.
Frequently quoting the Bible, Baldwin, a retired police officer who evangelizes at campuses nationwide, said most of the spectating students will burn with the devil for all eternity unless they accept Jesus as their one lord and savior.
Both Baldwin and “Brother” Jed Smock, of The Campus Ministry U.S.A. and author of “Who Will Rise Up? A call to Confrontational Evangelism,” provoked a mostly negative response from the campus community during their stops in Eugene during nationwide tours of colleges and universities. Their tours are aimed at promoting dialogue about Christianity, they said, but most students jeered and booed them and cheered when students vocally took issue with their views.
Both men have preached on campus before, they said. At times, they bellowed at as many as 75 onlookers.
Baldwin said he speaks because he is a saint called by God, an expert on the Bible and likes to screw with people.
“Mormons are the scum; they’re the worst there are,” Baldwin said, “worse than politicians and used car salesmen.”
“I don’t care if I’m hated; I don’t care if I die,” Baldwin shouted at the crowd. “I don’t hate anybody; I’m saying God does.”
Most times he preaches, people hit him, Baldwin said.
Baldwin said that he confronts a wall of liberalism whenever he comes to the West Coast. He told the crowd that he was born homophobic and was afraid to bend over during his visit because the University has so many gay students.
“This is the worst place I preach at,” Baldwin said.
Baldwin also said many women today shirk their appropriate responsibilities as wives and mothers. Men lead, Baldwin said, and women follow. He said, however, that he recognizes men have not always done the best job at running things, and that men caused the feminist movement.
Many students reacted strongly. Student Lea Avolio said Baldwin and Smock give Christianity a bad name. She said the men harass anyone who disagrees with them and wrongly portray Jesus as intolerant. Student Christopher Worlton said he agreed with Baldwin. That most people do not believe in God makes him sick, he said.
“The world,” Worlton said, “is going to hell.”
Smock said he has preached on campuses for 33 years and is traveling throughout Oregon for the next two weeks. Beyond sparking debate, he said, he hoped to divert students attention from the big game, getting laid and scoring dope. Wearing a white seersucker suit, reminiscent of Colonel Sanders, and preaching in a bombastic manner, Smock focused on his perceived failings of local women.
Smock said women who do not recognize that they must submit to men go to hell. Many women on campus “spread their legs for every Tom, Dick and Harry,” he said, and he would respect Duck women more if they charged men money for sex.
“Not all women are loose, just most of them,” Smock said.
Smock did not limit his condemnation to women, saying “All you boys that have put a penis in these girls’ anus, mouth, hand or vagina: You’re all going to hell.”
Smock also said universities teach that many courses lead to God and that the religions of the world are “many rivers flowing into the same ocean.”
This is wrong, Smock said, because all Muslims, Hindus, Jews and Buddhists are going to hell. Nevertheless, he said, any good person who believes in Jesus, regardless of their denomination, will go to heaven.