Hardly the Charge of the Light Brigade
Douglas Wilson
Blog&Mablog
Introduction
So just over a week ago, our college ministry hosted an event on the University of Idaho campus entitled The Lost Virtue of Sexism. About 250 people came, along with a medium-sized cadre of disruption agents and hecklers. The Internet audience has been much larger, coming in around 15K so far.
What’s Not to Like?
From my perspective, the whole thing went swimmingly. The planning was great, the UI security team was smooth and professional, the hecklers were not numerous enough to risk shutting it down entirely, but were disruptive enough to attract the attention of many to the event, free speech actually happened at a state university, and the gospel was presented. What’s not to like?
But a question nevertheless arises. Why do we do things like that in the first place?
Counter-intuitive Effectiveness
In a moment, I will get to the reasons for doing such things, but something else must really come first. Questions assuming the ineffectiveness of such tactics generally arise when they have proven themselves astonishingly effective. When something is working, there is usually going to be a push — originating somewhere in the strategy offices of the other team — to get it to stop. When something is not working, usually nobody cares enough about it to explain why it isn’t. That game is not worth the candle. But when something is just blowing down the road with a full tank of gas, there will be no shortage of explanations about how it is somehow the wrong road, or the curves are being taken too fast, or the bridge might be out, or something.
Why Then?
So the first reason for doing something like this is that it presents a genuine evangelistic opportunity. Jesus said to preach the gospel to every creature (Mark 16:15), and this is a really good way of getting to that place. But on this point, don’t be distracted by the protesters. It would be wonderful if any of the hecklers were touched by the message and converted, and so we don’t forget them, but they are not the principal audience. Whenever there is a debate, or collision, or a bit of interpersonal drama like this, the apologist should always remember that his principal audience is made up of the onlookers.
