Last week, I went on a walk around campus. I do that a lot. It’s amazing what you see.

My intention was to find examples of people being awesome and write an article about it. I did see a lot of this, I promise. Someone stopped to say hello to me in the quad, friends laughed and rough-housed, I heard four different languages from four different continents in twenty minutes. But when I sat down on a bench in front of Kane, I accidentally claimed a front seat to a more pressing subject.

It started with a student talking to a Repent Guy. You know, one of those guys with the “Repent or Perish” signs preaching abrasively through a megaphone.

They were speaking in calm tones for a while. Then the student walked away. Repent Guy called after him, “It’s not okay to be gay!” to which the student replied, “F*ck you!” and kept walking.

Another young man who had been standing by commenced a conversation with Repent Guy. This seemed like another calm, respectful conversation.

Two to three students at a time stood by with their phones up, I assume taking pictures or videos of the proceedings.

Then a young lady came up to talk to him. I caught more of this conversation. Some bits and pieces I heard were:

“Lots of people have sex outside marriage.”

“You just criticize the women.”

“Do you think this sort of sign is actually helping us guide [people]?”

“Christian ministries on campus don’t preach this aggressively…”

“I don’t think this is the best way to get the gospel to people.”

*Brackets indicate words I didn’t catch.

At some point during this conversation, a middle-aged woman came up and gave a thumbs up… to Repent Guy? To the girl debating with him?

Unfortunately, I never caught much of what Repent Guy said to anyone. I heard him mention sex, homosexuality, etc. as sins and countering with his typical rhetoric. Nothing particularly aggressive, but all in keeping with the agenda he was representing.

But that didn’t matter so much, because when all his challengers had walked away (did they feel victorious or defeated), everyone heard his message, whether or not they wanted to:

“This is a mecca of intellectualism, a mecca of atheism…”

“Turn to the Lord, you atheists!”

“Oh, there’s a lot of Jews… they deny the Son of God!” (mentioned Jews more than any other ‘offenders’…)

“There’s a lot of homosexuality…”

“How can you trust all these professors with your eternal soul?”

Meanwhile, people just strolled through Red Square with their friends or earbuds or thoughts, buzzed in and out of the library with Starbucks cups. Some people averted their eyes, some stared, some puffed up like they were going to yell something back at him. It’s not like he had a crowd standing around listening.

So I’m really looking at this whole situation. And I don’t know what we’re all trying to do here.

First, there’s this queue of students waiting for their turn to express themselves to this guy. Are they hoping to change his mind? Understand his perspective? Find flaws in his argument, prove that he’s a hypocrite? Wanting change, seeing something they disagree with, and seizing the chance to feel influential?

And then Repent Guy is standing there all by himself, yelling through this megaphone. His words are confrontational and targeted towards specific, threatened groups of people. Accusing them of sin for their beliefs and identities.

I wonder who around here might stand around and listen if they didn’t fear judgment from the liberal-minded majority.

And I know we just ignore these guys because what else are we supposed to do. Because they never really have any power, they’re just crazy, right? But I don’t know… I always feel scared when they’re yelling. I understand why bullets fly and bombs detonate and heads get cut off in more extreme iterations of this scenario. These confrontations over whose kind of “God” is being observed.

And that’s insane. That’s insane behavior.

At our “mecca of intellectualism,” we have Gods. Knowledge, success, and that spirit from the Underworld, money. What are we willing to do to make the kind of world our group wants? What is Repent Guy willing to do? Tune the other out? Exile one another from our respective lands? Kill each other off?

What is most precious to us coexists with its most dangerous adversary. We might do more than we think we would to protect it.

But our most lethal opponent is our potential to cause suffering for others along the way.

Love your enemy means to prioritize the human over their idea.