Saturday, October 11th, 2008

‘Confrontational Evangelist’

Self-proclaimed minister targets deadly college sinnners

Brother Jed, a self-proclaimed preacher, travels around to college campuses in order to target the seven deadly college sinners.

By Sarah Neff

Thursday, November 29th, 2007

Brother Jed faces a crowd of rowdy students in front of Wescoe Hall, yellow electrical cords dangling from each hand, screaming his biblical sex education short course. “Now boys and girls, in the realm of e-lect-riciteeey, you’ve got to be prop-erly PLUGGED IN!”

He plugs the cords together to demonstrate proper sex between a man and a woman, then bangs the two female ends and the two male ends against each other to demonstrate the futility of connecting same sex partners. He sings in a loud scratchy voice, “It’s not OK to be gay, it’s not OK to be a HO-MO! You weren’t designed to be that way. God says that it’s a big NO-NO! It’s not OK to be gay. It’s not okay to be a PER-VERT! It’s not in your DNA, what you need is to be con-VER-ted.”

With the crowd jeering, laughing and even singing along, Brother Jed has them primed for scripture. He starts by quoting the first chapter of Romans, talking about God’s intended use for women: obedient servants who stay home and make babies.

George E. Smock, 64, Colombia, Mo., better known as Brother Jed, makes his living traveling to college campuses across the United States engaging in what he calls “confrontational evangelism.” Although sometimes joined by his obedient wife Sister Cindy, Brother Jed is the contentious voice of his profitable nonprofit entity, Campus Ministry USA, and his targets are the seven deadly college sinners: fornicators, rock ‘n’ rollers, sodomites, feminsists, false religionists, drunkards and dopers.

He likens himself to the prophets of the Bible, going out to the modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah of liberal universities to save nonbelievers from eternal damnation. With Bible in one hand and electrical cords in the other, Brother Jed packs up his white 1995 Lincoln Town Car and drives from campus to campus to preach the fear of God to students as they walk to class.

A reformed sinner

Brother Jed was raised in Indiana by Methodist parents, and his father was an English professor at Indiana State University. He briefly taught a history class at the University of Wisconsin before he decided to start preaching.

“I spent all my life around colleges and universities,” Brother Jed said. “I wanted to come back and preach to where I came from. College students are the future of the world and I wanted key people to reach.”

Brother Jed knew from his own experience that he would find plenty of sinners on campuses. He said he began drinking as a teenager and used drugs, mainly LSD and marijuana, in his college years. He said that while working on his master’s at Indiana State University, one of his professors encouraged him to write a thesis on the effects of smoking seven joints in a row based on his own personal research.

Brother Jed said that because his parents paid for his college, he spent most of his spare time partying. He went to California after he earned a bachelor’s degree and hung out with hippies on Haight-Ashbury and at Berkeley. He said he was first introduced to confrontational evangelism by a preacher named Holy Hubert, who regularly visited the University of California campus and planted a seed in his heart that wouldn’t bear fruit for several years.

Brother Jed continued to drink, smoke and have sex until Christmas Day in 1971 when he experienced an epiphany at a beach party in Morocco with his hippy friends. An Arab Christian crashed the party and ordered him to convert. Brother Jed said he woke up from his inebriated haze and started on the path to confrontational evangelism.

Seeking Sinners

He briefly attended Methodist Theological School in Ohio, but quit because he said some of his professors “didn’t seem to believe in the authority of the Bible.”

Even without a seminary education or the credential of an ordained minister, Brother Jed decided he could be effective preaching to non-believers and sinners rather than church-going Christians.

“My heart was in college campuses,” Brother Jed said. “College students don’t usually go to church, they sleep in. I realized I can reach more unbelievers in one day on a campus than I can in months in a church.”

He knows from his own experiences that campuses are not lacking in the sin department. Brother Jed said he hadn’t committed any of the deadly sins since his conversion more than 30 years ago. He said that sin was a choice, not something humans were designed to do, and he disagreed with churches that taught sin as part of the human condition.

“Sin is exceptional in my life. I don’t practice sin,” Brother Jed said.

Shock Talk

Brother Jed attracts campus crowds with shock tactics and explicit descriptions of sin.

“You act like animals! You get down and sniff one another’s genitals. You lick one another’s genitals. That’s what animals do!” Brother Jed yelled at a KU crowd in front of Wescoe Hall. “Women licking out other women’s vaginas. Men are sucking on other men’s penises. That’s animal-like behavior.”

He points to students in the crowd and condemns them based on their appearances. Women wearing shorts are sluts, whereas those dressed in long skirts and blouses to cover their breasts are exemplary Christians.

The shock method attracts passers-by and some stay to debate with him, he said. When he doesn’t have an audience, his voice softens, he tones down his explicit language and recites scripture. He said people wouldn’t listen to him if he stood out there softly preaching God’s love and forgiveness.

Emily Meyer, Missouri sophomore, recalled how Brother Jed’s wife Sister Cindy once called her a whore. Meyer informed her that she was a virgin, and Sister Cindy announced it to the crowd. Meyer said she was mortified that her sex life became a public announcement.

She said she then tried to convince Brother Jed that he would get more people to listen to him if he told them about Christ’s unconditional love and how He died for their sins so that they could go to heaven.

“He was literally no more than three inches from my face, yelling at me and telling me I was a stupid woman and that since I was a woman, I didn’t have permission to talk,” Meyer said.

She said she wanted to hit him, but instead cried and berated him for his ignorance. She said he pulled away from her and screamed to the crowd, “If anyone wants to hear about ‘God’s love’ then they need to go talk to Ms. Lovey-Dovey-Kumbayah over here.” All but three moved to listen to her. She apologized to the crowd on behalf of Brother Jed, and told them there was hope for everyone, even him.

“He made all Christians look ignorant and stupid,” said Meyer, who still goes by the name Emily Lovey-Dovey.

Isaac Vargas, University of Nebraska-Lincoln sophomore, said he saw Brother Jed on campus and Brother Jed accused him of being in school just to party. Vargas told him that wasn’t the case; he was an out-of-state student, paying $20,000 a year for school. Vargas said Brother Jed scoffed at him and said that he wasn’t paying for school, his parents were.

“He spoke out of ignorance. I pay all my tuition and rent from my jobs, my scholarships, and my loans,” Vargas said. “He’s a bum. No steady income, always driving around. He’s raising a family off of donations. He’s a bum, he just justifies it through the Bible.”

Holiness People

Thad Holcombe, pastor at KU’s Ecumenical Christian Ministries, said Brother Jed’s attack methods played on the anxiety of people. He said he hoped students were wise enough not to debate him, because the only way to win was to agree with him.

“Jesus was not into pointing out what people did wrong as much as asking questions, but often did it with parables and stories that appeared to have different answers,” Holcombe said.

Tim Miller, professor of religious studies, said Brother Jed represented what he called “holiness people,” who make a list of what sin is, and then just don’t do those things. He said Brother Jed represented a small minority in the diverse umbrella faith of Christianity.

Miller said Brother Jed’s literal translations of the Bible, such as on the status of women, were problematic because language had changed with time and translations. For example, Miller said one Bible passage said women should not speak in church, but the original Greek definition for speak was closer to idle chatter.

“I can find a verse that tells you to kill your children,” Miller said of the Bible.

All in the family

Brother Jed met his wife, Sister Cindy, in the late ‘70s when he was preaching at the University of Florida where she was a student. She laughed at him at first, but eventually became fond of him and dropped out of school to travel with him. He said they didn’t kiss until after they said, “I do.”

They have five daughters, leaving little doubt who is in charge of a household consisting of six women and a preacher who believes that women should be obedient. Evangeline, the oldest daughter, joined the U.S. Army and works as a chaplain’s assistant at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. Charlotte has a nursing degree and works in Florida. Justina is a nanny for a family friend in Ohio. Martha and Priscilla are still at home. All of the daughters were home schooled and their main text was the Bible, Brother Jed said.

Sometimes Brother Jed brings his entire family with him to preach, and they often join him at Speakers Circle on his home campus at Missouri. The Smock family lives less than 10 miles from the campus in a two story, nine-room red brick house worth more than $223,000, according to the Boone county assessor.

Sam Schleicher, Missouri sophomore, said he once argued with Priscilla Smock, 13, about whether Led Zeppelin’s music was satanic. Priscilla insisted the music was evil, though she admitted she had never listened to it, he said.

“It’s painfully obvious she simply regurgitates everything her dad tells her. She never takes the time to question it; she’s just an empty jar being filled with Brother Jed’s irrational message,” Schleicher said. “However, she does seem to enjoy what she is doing. She is most definitely there on her own accord and is not being forced to do anything.”

Brother Jed denies he has indoctrinated his children but rather has exposed them to a variety of beliefs by taking them to university campuses their whole lives and letting them talk to non-believers.

At home, Brother Jed plays board games with his family, attends a local Methodist church when he is home on Sundays, listens to Johnny Cash and Hank Williams, and follows his favorite baseball team, the Chicago White Sox.

“I have joy in my life,” he said.

Ministry Money

Brother Jed founded Campus Ministry USA as a charitable rather than religious nonprofit because he is not an ordained minister. The statement on IRS documents justifying the purpose for his charitable tax exemption says, “To evangelize college campuses and spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to America and the world.”

Donations provide the only income for him and his ministry. He gets most of his donations by speaking at churches that give him offerings, and he said he received donations from converts, though he refused to name individual donors.

According to IRS documents, Campus Ministry USA averaged $84,755 in donations per year from 1999 to 2005. Brother Jed said he received a generous donation from the Evangel Tabernacle World Prayer Center in Louisville, Ky., and that other churches scattered across the country supported him as well.

By comparison, Scott Brewer, director of research at the general council on finance and administration at the United Methodist Church, said senior Methodist ministers earned an average of $54,081 per year, including benefits such as housing and health insurance.

His destroyers

Brother Jed has made friends along the way who volunteer to preach with him, he said. He calls them the destroyers. The name comes from the book of John, one of his favorites in the Bible, “that he might destroy the works of the devil,” and from I Corinthians, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”

One destroyer, who identifies herself only as Sister Pat, joined Brother Jed on a cold October day at Missouri. She stood in the middle of Speakers Circle asking each passer-by, “Are you a virgin? Are you a virgin?”

Sister Pat, a 78-year-old widow, comes off as a vulgar grandmother while asking that question. She has a small stature and kind eyes, but she yells at students with the same crude conviction as Brother Jed. She said she volunteered her time to preach with Brother Jed and traveled with him occasionally.

Ruben Israel Chavez, 44, Los Angeles, who is listed in IRS documents as Vice President of Campus Ministry USA, joins Brother Jed sometimes, but mostly preaches on his own on the West Coast. He focuses on sinners at major events such as the Grammy’s and the Academy Awards where he avidly condemns gays and lesbians. Chavez claims credit for creating the electrical cord display when preaching at a gay pride parade, but concedes that Brother Jed’s version is more shocking.

Chavez defends the shock techniques he and Brother Jed use to draw crowds.

“We live in a Jerry Springer world,” Chavez said. “If you don’t do something a little comical you’re not going to get an audience.”

Reflecting the Bible

Somewhere between the life of a poor but loving Jewish carpenter and that of a successful and wealthy televangelist, Brother Jed created his own unique nomadic ministry. He chose campuses because it was during his college years that he considered himself to be the most sinful. By devoting his life to condemning others for what he has done, he publicly acknowledged and condemned his own transgressions.

On stage in his outdoor campus pulpits, Brother Jed is loud, combative and condemning. When the preaching ends, he is contemplative, soft-spoken and careful not to interrupt. Still, he appears unaffected by student ridicule and refuses to apologize for his condemnation of sinners.

“I consider the Bible to be a mirror, and I check myself out in the mirror daily,” he said.

Edited by Meghan Murphy

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