Politics and Pucks

Last week, Purdue had the "pleasure" of having Brother Jed come to campus. Unlike our friends at UIUC, or at IU we took a little bit of a different approach that I think other campuses might benefit from, and I'll share our strategy.  Now I'm sure many of you who will read this will think that I'm insane or I'm unwilling to fight the religious, but hear me out before you jump to that conclusion.

As an organization, the Purdue Society of Non-Theists decided it was best not to engage nor endorse a protest of Brother Jed. The leadership came to this decision, because they felt that it was not worth our time to just protest him. In a campus environment that is fairly conservative, among other issues, we thought that we should just let cooler heads prevail.

We also knew that we had some connections to Jed. One of our theist members, Raleigh had been communicating with Jed for about a year now, and has had some theological discussions with him. From what Raleigh has told us, he has some very complex theological positions that might be a little surprising (According to Raleigh he is what theologians call an "open-theist"). With this in mind, Raleigh had a book that he felt that he had a book that Jed might appreciate that respectfully opposes some of his complex views. If you're curious, the book is "Unspoken Sermons" by George MacDonald.

So we knew that someone was going to engage Brother Jed and he was likely going to listen. There was something else that happened.

One of our other theist members, Mario, had another great idea. Instead of letting hate flow freely, he grabbed his guitar and had a circle of friends chatting about things that had nothing to do with religion. In doing so, we took the attention away from Jed, and let people who wanted to be upset engage him, but let others who were upset join us, and just have a good time not thinking about the hateful stuff Jed was spewing.

So what am I suggesting? Don't directly engage Jed, and you might reap benefits of new members, social capital, and new allies.

So how could you do this on your campus? Really simple, and I call it "Occupy Jed". It's essentially a sit in, where you just ignore Jed, and talk about nothing he's talking about. If people want to engage him don't stop them, but don't endorse them. You might also want to make it clear to the people that are engaging them not to name drop your group. Try to keep it to topics that are non-controversial, and maybe things that won't get people angry. It's okay if people engage him, but if you can take the attention off of Jed and divert it into something a little more positive and off-topic, you win.  If he tries to engage you, ignore him, and if things get hairy get the police involved.

So the thought is: the less attention we give Jed, the more frustrated he might get. For example, Jed was a little frustrated that it took 2 hours for someone to really engage him:

We got off to a slow start at 11:40, which is early in the day to draw a good crowd. A few stopped momentarily but I closed about 11:35 to wait for the next break. Even at the 12:20 break, I did not gather a crowd. I sat on my stool holding my YOU DESERVE HELL sign when four students approached me...

So the reality seems that even if we approach him with protest, it's not going to deter or alter anything. HOWEVER, this is a good time to win over your community by not looking as crazy as him. If you can show people who are disagreeing with his crap (but have never met atheists before) that we think he's crazy and that we're also reasonable, this is another win. Then next year, you can plan something more creative, because you will now have people who can speak Jed's language. And, you've probably a lot of new contacts to do new things with.

Now for those of you who think that you should protest him: go for it, have fun and take pictures! There's nothing wrong in doing so. Everyone on r/atheism will enjoy the results. I just think the time has come to be a little more creative when it comes to protesting campus preachers. So let's do it! Also, you can use the time to create stronger ties with ally groups, or build new ones with other religious groups. For people who've never met atheists, and then see that we're not *that* crazy we might change some opinions of people who generally hate us. Try it, and let me know how it goes!