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By Dan Bodden

[email protected]

Campus Ministry USA, a traveling Christian group, stood at Wildcat Alumni Plaza in a change of venue Monday, yelling at passersby and engaging in heated conversation with students.

Open-air preachers used to set up outside the Student Center before it was torn down for reconstruction. The demonstration, across Avenue of Champions from Memorial Coliseum, began around 11 a.m.

The first speaker, Mikhail Savenko, called female students passing by “hoes” and told many students who gathered around that they were going to hell. “Not everyone here is going to hell, just most of you people,” he said.

He spoke out against sex, homosexuality, drunkenness and pornography. Several other members sat nearby with Bibles and engaged more quietly with students who stopped. The speakers switched throughout the day.

Two police officers were on the scene around noon. One officer stood by students and, at one point, the other pulled to the side a male student who threw a paper ball at Savenko.

An unrelated nearby booth was set up by the Student Activities Board to promote Monday night’s Miguel concert. Savenko took issue with Miguel, a pop and R&B singer, and spoke against the concert.

“What happened was he was like, ‘You can’t go to the concert with the gangster rap and all the people gyrating. You’re sending yourself to hell — you need to save your soul,’” said SAB Assistant Director of Graphic Design Erin Harville, an integrated strategic communication sophomore. She said that is where the argument began.

More students had gathered and more Campus Ministry members had arrived by 2 p.m., including Jed Smock, commonly known as “Brother Jed,” who began the ministry more than 40 years ago.

Smock spoke for about 30 minutes. The ministry’s website calls him an “infamous confrontational-evangelist.”

“(Jesus was) very confrontational, as were the apostles,” said Smock, referring to the Sermon on the Mount. “He preached against sin; he stirred people up.”

Many students took issue with the method of preaching, even if they agreed with some of the content.

“(Smock is) pushing people away from the religion,” Harville said. “Personally I’m a Christian and I would not join Christianity because of the way that he’s yelling at people. He’s making people feel uncomfortable right here on my campus.”

Harville was particularly disturbed by certain racial comments and statements about abortion.

“He said the most unsafe place for a black child was in a black woman’s body because we abort them,” Harville said. “He was basically yelling at people like, ‘Do you support homosexuality?’ and ‘Are you a virgin?’ He was like, ‘Busted. You’re a ho.’”

Freshman public health major Danielle Duncan, who watched the demonstration for more than an hour, said she believed the method was effective.

“If they sat out here and started singing ‘Kumbaya,’ (the students) couldn’t walk away fast enough,” Duncan said.  “It’s getting their attention, so after this they might look up what it means to be a Christian, open their Bible.”

Jonathan McClintock, a computer engineering freshman, thought the group focused too much on hot-button issues without sharing the full message from the Bible.

“The first guy said that if you smoke marijuana, you’re going to Hell,” McClintock said. “But, I’m like, marijuana was put on this Earth by God, so why is there a correlation for you going to Hell? So, it’s just stuff like that they’re trying to nitpick on.”

According to Smock, some of the members of Campus Ministry, headquartered in Terre Haute, Ind., may be back Tuesday. His itinerary includes Morehead State University on Tuesday, Asbury University on Wednesday and Northern Kentucky University on Thursday. The group strives to preach five hours a day, five days a week.

“College campuses — that’s where the future of America is,” Savenko said. “They’re going to be the future presidents, future lawyers, congressmen, so we try to influence them before … they settle their mind about what they’re going to believe.”

Some students heckled the speakers, waving their hands around and chanting obscenities; however, the speakers remained largely unfazed.

Brandon Colbert, a writing, rhetoric and digital studies freshman, did not think the demonstration was effective.

“They are reaching people’s ears,” he said, “not people’s hearts.”