This document summarizes the author's experience observing a street preaching event on their college campus. A group called "Warn the Wicked" was preaching to students about sin and damnation. The two main preachers, referred to as the "carnival barker" and "Saint Ross", engaged in homophobic and misogynistic rhetoric. They insulted and condemned individual students. The author reflects on their own religious upbringing and loss of faith. They feel pity for students like their classmate Ben, who appeared deeply troubled by the preachers' attacks on his faith.

1. Russ Barbee 1
December 6, 2014
False Shame and Wasted Faith
“You are all damned to hell!”
That’s the first thing I hear when I step outside and I immediately start to smile. In a
world where so many things are uncertain, there are some things you can always count on. Three
days ago, one of my professors warned the class that Warn the Wicked was coming. Apparently
the group has attacked some of her students in the past. Not physically, of course, but verbally. I
usually avoid stuff like this. I grew up in a Baptist church and being told you’re damned all the
time gets tiring, but the event is free, and for once, my afternoon is open. At the very least,
maybe I can get some laughs out of it.
As I approach the crowd at the commons, a girl in mirrored sunglasses with blonde
dreadlocks turns around laughing, “He just said if you smoke cigarettes you’re going to hell.” I
pass the assembled mass of students when a conservatively dressed brunette, who would look
right at home in my grandmother’s church, shakes her head at the screaming preacher and yells,
“Praise Satan! All hail the dark lord!” Several people laugh.
The carnival barker continues his pitch.
“If you wear short shorts, you’re going to hell!”
“If you wear yoga pants you’re going to hell!”
Warn the Wicked is the ministry of Brother Patrick O’Connell. Their name comes from
the book of Ezekiel, Chapter 33, verse 9, “But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and

2. 2
he does not turn from his way, that person shall die in his iniquity, but you will have delivered
your soul.” They have a Facebook page, but unless you want to wade through the murky
malware incubation tank that is Facebook, just stick to their webpage.
Their homepage has a field of clouds fading into the flames of perdition at the bottom
with the words, “Heaven or Hell. It’s that Serious.” In the media section there are pictures from
other Warn the Wicked events. Various members are holding picket signs with such messages as:
“Read the Bible” “Repent and Believe the Gospel” and the always delightful, “You Deserve
Hell” and “Hell Awaits You!”
The crowd is too thick for me to see the preacher so I make my way around the side of
the amphitheater. I pick out a bench in the shade. It’s a perfect spot where I can see the students
and preacher interact. The preacher is not at all what I expected. This guy is young, maybe in his
late twenties or early thirties. Barely six feet tall, if even that, but he’s dressed like a business
man. Dark gray suit pants, matching vest and a white shirt buttoned up all the way to a tie neatly
tucked into his vest. His sleeves are rolled up though, it’s hot out here. His full beard and
moustache are neatly groomed and make him seem rather friendly at first glance, like a harmless
hipster on his way to a jazz club. He’s screeching a generic anti-sin message without getting into
any details. Maybe this is just a run of the mill preacher with no malice to spew. I begin to
wonder if maybe I’m wasting my time when he starts to get interesting.
“Unlike all of you, I am not a sinner! I have never been a sinner!”
With that statement the student body comes to life. A guy in a Carolina Panthers jersey
points at the bible and yells, “If you took the time to read that book you would realize we were

3. 3
all born sinners!” The crowd erupts in applause and the carnival barker drops his head in
momentary defeat.
Walking away from the guy who bested him, he starts picking on a girl in the audience.
She didn’t do anything to attract his attention, but he singles her out because of her clothes. She’s
wearing a tank top and shorts—not the most provocative thing, but it’s enough. The girl in the
shorts starts laughing and posing flirtatiously while the carnival barker insults her. He goes on a
diatribe about premarital sex and showers her in the cleansing fire of his anger.
“You, young lady, are nothing but a semen receptacle for all these boys!”
Her mouth drops open and she stops posing. The preacher unleashes a string of insults and turns
on everyone in the audience, calling the girls gutter-whores and worse.
His wife and kids are sitting behind him only a few feet away from me. His wife looks
like a character from Little House on the Prairie with worn clothes resembling hand-me-downs.
Her ankle-length earth-colored dress and white bonnet stand in stark contrast to the expensive
looking suit her husband is wearing. The wife sits quietly watching the children, never making
eye contact with anyone. I can’t tell if she’s hiding her eyes from shame at her husband or disgust
with the hell-bound heathens. She only looks at her children. The younger boy is laying on his
mom’s shoulder, maybe a year or two old. The kid is looking around at the world behind his
mom when he notices me. I start making faces at the kid and he smiles – a victory for niceness in
the valley of hate. The carnival barker’s oldest kid couldn’t be more than four years old. He’s
standing there fidgeting uncomfortably while his dad yells and condemns an entire group of
students.
“You’re all masturbators and you’re damned!”

4. 4
I wasn’t much older than that kid when I had my first run-in with religion. My
grandmother used to say we were living in the end times. She was excited that Jesus would
return in her lifetime. I was terrified by the idea. To my eight-year-old mind, my Grandma was
happy that my life would be cut short. Grandma also didn’t think dinosaurs were real because
they were not in the Bible, but I didn’t know that back then. So I continued to go to church every
Sunday with my parents. By the time I was twelve, I was starting to question everything about
church, religion, and God. But most importantly, I questioned the people teaching me.
One Sunday, I was sitting in a church pew reading the Song of Solomon during a sermon.
I don’t remember what the preacher was talking about because I had found a story that was all
about sex and drinking. I didn’t understand half of what I had read, but the Bible was talking
about boobies. I couldn’t believe it. All the things these people had told me were horrible were
right there in the book they had praised so highly.
Later on, when the service had ended and everyone was standing outside, trading gossip
and comparing clothing, I told a couple of my friends what I had found. They flipped through
their Bibles and were as shocked as I was. We didn’t realize that our parents were watching us,
excited that we were all talking about the Bible. The next week in church someone saw what we
were reading.
“You should be ashamed of yourselves.”
“For what? We’re reading—”

5. 5
“You know what for!” We really didn’t, but our Sunday school teacher was the sultan of
shame. We were in trouble and couldn’t read the Bible during sermons anymore.
“Keep it in your pants!”
The carnival barker yells to the male students. One student with a deadpan delivery
worthy of Steven Wright’s standup comedy asks, “What if we have to pee?” Laughter all around.
Wiping his handkerchief across his forehead, the carnival barker takes a break and gives his
partner a chance to speak.
The new guy looks almost identical to the carnival barker. Same type of suit and vest,
same height. Except he’s a clean shaven African American guy with way more charisma, and his
sleeves aren’t rolled up. He’s got his spiel down. He’s bouncing around the place keeping the
crowds engaged but not stepping on any toes. He slaps his Bible into the palm of his hand and
raises it up in the air when he’s making a point. His energy makes me think his church would be
fun to visit. Then he starts the gay bashing. The students don’t take this so well and one student
speaks up.
“You’re no better than the Westboro Baptist Church people!”
“The Westboro Baptist Church is right. God does hate fags!”
“They are not right. That guy’s a monster.”

6. 6
“What guy? The founder? Tell me son, do you even know who he is? Tell me his name!”
Come on kid, say Fred Phelps, the guy that got excommunicated from his own church
because he suggested a little more civility. The kid falters and steps back reaching for his phone
and the preacher pounces.
“He doesn’t know! Unless you know what you’re talking about keep your mouth shut!”
The preacher continues his tirade ignoring the student he just belittled. The defeated student
slinks into the back of the amphitheater desperately searching for some ammunition on his
phone. A few moments later he steps up with the dictionary definition of faggot.
“A faggot is a bundle of sticks!”
“Faggots are good kindling!” the preacher says. A chorus of boos from the audience.
I’ve never understood religious rationale. If this group spouting hate speech is right about
homosexuals leading us in a pride parade to apocalypse, so what? Shouldn’t they actually be
thanking the LGBT community? Isn’t the end of it all, when Jesus returns, supposed to be what
they are waiting for? It seems to me that anything that hastens that day’s arrival would be a good
thing. Then again, I’m trying to apply rationale to an irrational situation. But it’s not the first time
I’ve tried that.
After being forbidden to read the Bible in church, my twelve year old hellions and I had
to read aloud certain passages in Sunday school class. After the first couple of verses, I

7. 7
understood that the “thous” were actually “yous” in modern English. So I read them that way.
Thou shalt not bear false witness became: you should not bear false witness.
“Oh, ok.” one of the other boys said, understanding the good book for the first time.
The teacher’s face became a crimson mask of rage.
“Don’t read it like that!”
“Like what?”
“You know what I mean!”
”It makes more sense this—”
“I don’t care what you think, Russell Walter Barbee! You read it exactly as it’s written!”
First I got in trouble for reading the wrong part of the Bible, now I was in trouble for not reading
it correctly. I may have been twelve, but I understood when someone was being unreasonable.
After that, I read it exactly as it was written. I verbally announced every punctuation
mark.
“and the noise of the trumpet -comma- and the mountain smoking
-colon- and when the people saw it -comma- they removed
-comma- and stood afar off -period”
I made it through two verses before she kicked me out of class. I read Spider-Man comic books
the rest of the day.

8. 8
In the middle of a speech where the new preacher is condemning President Obama as an
undercover Muslim, a classmate spies me sitting on the bench and walks over. He’s concerned by
all the people baiting the preacher, but within five minutes he’s laughing at the spectacle. He tells
me the guy’s name is Saint Ross and we come to the conclusion that one of the miracles for his
canonization as a saint is the ability to wear that long sleeve shirt without sweating.
“All you women need is a good Christian man to whip you into submission!”
“Whoooaaaaa!” a wave of uncomfortable uncertainty passes through the crowd when the
girl with the sunglasses and blonde dreadlocks yells out, “How about Christian Grey?”
The round of applause from the ladies drowns out Saint Ross.
I have experienced a street preacher protest group once before. It was 1991, five of my
best friends and I drove to Greensboro to see Metallica and Nirvana in concert. Nirvana’s new
album went platinum a week after we bought the tickets, so they dropped out of the Metallica
tour to go their own way. Nirvana would have been a bonus, but we were all long-haired head-
bangers anyway so we didn’t mind. We wanted to see Metallica. We got to the stadium about an
hour before show time and mingled with all the other metal heads. There wasn’t a formal line of
any kind, just a collection of misfits waiting to thrash. In the middle of this throng of black t-
shirts and cigarette smoke, a preacher started telling us we were all going to hell. He was
standing on a box literally looking down on everyone.
After being met with a few jeers from his co-opted audience, he started getting irate.
Kenny, one of my closest friends then and now, starting reciting the lyrics to a Metallica song.

9. 9
Deceit. Deceive. Decide just what you believe.
A couple of the metal heads saw what he was doing and joined in, pumping their fists in the air
to the beat of the song we all knew. Within a few minutes there were fifty people singing The
God That Failed to this preacher.
Broken is the promise, betrayal
The healing hand held back by the deepened nail
Follow the god that failed
Everyone was laughing but a look of terror spread over the preacher’s face. The guy looked like
he was surrounded by demons from the devil’s den.
Johnny, another of my friends, pulled the preacher aside and talked with him privately for
a few minutes. Johnny’s brothers and sisters were in a gospel band. His parents were evangelists
who made his life a living hell on more than one occasion. But despite all that, he was still a
believer and knew how to talk religion. I don’t know what Johnny said, but after their
conversation, the preacher calmed down. He started politely passing out literature instead of
yelling at everyone. Some people pocketed the little pamphlets he was handing out. Some people
tossed them aside, but everyone was civil. I’ll never forget it.
Back in the commons, several people try to reason with Saint Ross, but he continues
accusing people of being masturbators and secret faggots.
“Robin Williams killed himself because he was secretly gay!”

10. 10
“Whooaaa Too Soon!”
“Don’t be talking about Robin!”
As the crowd reacts, Saint Ross drinks in their volatility and Ben, a kid from one of my
history classes, recites a beautiful passage about God loving everyone despite their flaws. Ross
responds.
“Are you gay?”
“No, but the bible says—” Saint Ross cuts him off, turning his back on the kid and faces
the crowd Bible in one hand, other hand accusingly pointed at Ben.
“This man is secretly a faggot!”
“No I’m not, but that has nothing to do—”
“He’s a faggot!”
Ben tries to break through the impenetrable veneer of Saint Ross’ nonsense with no
success. His eyebrows form a peak of worry on his forehead. I know this kid. He’s not concerned
that people may believe what Ross says about him. Even though we’ve never talked religion, I
can tell Ben’s concerned that people may believe what Ross is saying about his God. The
carnival barker comes up to do damage control with the kid so Ross can go back to berating
everyone.
I’m too far away to hear it, but Ben is not making any progress. The carnival barker keeps
poking his finger in Ben’s chest and eventually walks away. Ben stands there with his mouth

11. 11
hanging open like a kid who got to the bus stop too late. He looks so defeated you can almost
hear him questioning his faith. He hangs his head and slowly walks away.
I both envy and pity that kind of faith. I envy it because, through his faith he is assured
that no matter how fucked up things get in this world, it all works out in the end. I’ve never had
that kind of faith. The people who tried to teach me were only concerned with repetition and
ritual. Faith was expected. Any deviation from the expected was trouble. That included
questions. It also included Bon Jovi, which they considered heavy metal, but that’s another story.
Naturally, with these people teaching me I had to find my own answers. I eventually came to the
conclusion that no one really has the answers. We’re all just trying to get by and I’m fine with
that.
I pity Ben’s faith because, the tender heart that goes with that kind of faith leaves Ben,
and people like him, open to some truly heartbreaking moments in life. He’s a good kid. I hope
he gets spared the heartache of seeing mankind at their worst. But Brothers Ross and O’Connell
aren’t mankind at their worst. For all their fiery rhetoric, they aren’t actually hurting anyone.
They’re dickheads, but they’re amateurs at best.
With the sun bearing down on Ross and his carnival barker brethren, one of the students,
a shy looking girl in a plaid shirt, brings up a question about translation. Finally Ross has a real
question to answer. How do we know we are reading a correct translation and not a horribly
garbled message? For example, did Moses part the Red Sea, or did he part a sea of reeds? It’s a
small distinction, but walking across marshland at low tide is not too impressive and makes a fair
bit of difference to the overall story.

12. 12
The Bible was written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. Anyone who has a small
understanding of other languages knows that some words and phrases cannot be translated. Also,
before it was transcribed into the books we know as the Bible, the stories were passed on orally.
Who doesn’t know a story that gets distorted a little more every time its told?
Despite the legitimacy of the question, this is the moment where Ross can bring them all
home. He can say the correctness of the translation doesn’t matter. It’s all about faith and he has
faith that the word of God will never steer him wrong. He takes the previous hour of rhetoric, all
that charisma and fiery language, he gathers it all up and channels it into his answer. He looks at
the ground and holds out one hand towards her like he’s sharing his power with her and says,
“Sit down. Just sit down.”
It’s the calmest thing he’s said since I got here. He doesn’t insult her. He never discusses
translation. He never responds to her question at all. It was like the question didn’t even matter.
That’s when I finally understand what is going on. “But if you warn the wicked to turn
from his way, and he does not turn from his way, that person shall die in his iniquity, but you will
have delivered your soul.” Or to cut through the spooky language, like I did when I was twelve,
warn the wicked and you deliver your soul. The whole event is not about saving any student’s
soul. It’s not about mindless repetition and ritual like my Sunday school teacher tried to force on
me. It’s not about a genuine desire to spread the message like the preacher at the Metallica
concert. It’s about Warn the Wicked securing their place in heaven.
“What if you’re son’s gay?” a student shouts from the crowded amphitheater.

13. 13
“If my son turns gay, I’ll disown him.”
His son, another toddler, is sitting a few feet away. I shake my head and decide to take a
break from the hate-speech. I’m walking around the edge of the Commons, heading back to the
Hawk’s Nest, when Saint Ross rattles off an invented statistic.
“Gay men freely admit that they are responsible for 37% of all child molestation!”
I’m not gay. I’ve never been molested, but for some reason that bullshit really pisses me
off. Before I even realize it, I cup my hands around my mouth in a makeshift megaphone and
direct it at Ross.
“The other 63% are Catholic priests!”
“Who said that?” Ross asks.
It didn’t come out the way I had intended, but a girl standing next to me laughs. I take it
as a win and head back to the Hawk’s Nest for a drink.