Once more, our campus has been visited by The Campus Ministry USA. For those of you who don't know what this group stands for, this group, led by Brother Jed, travels around the U.S. to "preach" to students on college campuses. The first time that Brother Jed's group came to DePauw's campus last Wednesday on Sept. 23, they achieved their goal. No, they did not evangelize a single student, but they did manage to cause a rift in our campus. Our student body was divided by race, religion, sexual orientation, and every other way possible. Students were going after each other instead of directing their outrage towards the people who caused this rift in our community.
Today, everything changed.
Brother Jed and the rest of his "ministry" returned to our campus today expecting the same kind of riot behavior that they experienced last week. They expected some of the students to get riled up enough to assault them so they could have grounds for a lawsuit in order to receive the only income that they have. That did not happen today. A barrier was set up to separate the hate group from anyone else, and, boy, was there a lot of anyone else. A counter-protest was set up by students, for students. Music was played, signs were held up, and chants were chanted. The spirit of love was so strong on this campus today that every face was smiling. We banded together as a true DePauw family as we promoted and supported our student body and all the various beliefs held on campus.
Being a first-year, I haven't been on this campus long, but I from everything I've seen I can say that I've never been more proud to call myself a DePauw Tiger. In the face of adversity and pure hatred, our student body was able to combat it with the love that we have for our school, our community, and our family.
More than anything else, I want to say thank you to Brother Jed from the bottom of my heart. Although what you hoped to accomplish today was a complete and utter failure, I really appreciate you not giving up on us. Thanks for not believing we could do what we did today, because that was all the motivation we could ever need. Ideally, you'd shut down your "ministry," and we could all move forward with our lives, but I don't see that happening. Don't come back, but if you do it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world because I know we'll be able to come together again, and, to be completely honest, I had a lot of fun uniting with classmates and loving against all of you. God bless.
