Jooho Lee: The whole truth about Brother Stephen

I don't like Brother Stephen. Not a lot of people do. He is the antithesis of tolerance, rationality and civility. He is offensive and annoying. Even people who agree with him think he goes too far with his words.

But I don't like him because he doesn't go far enough.

You see, I like giving people the benefit of the doubt. Brother Stephen is like Bill Walton, the basketball analyst for NBC, soon to move over to ABC. It would be hard to find two men as dense, inarticulate and inconsiderate with their words and actions. They purposely act outrageously in an effort to win your attention.

Brother Stephen, judging by that standard, is doing pretty well. Can you identify the campus contact for Penn Students Against Sweatshops? Did people write them hate mail after their demonstrations in front of Van Pelt, the way good, honest basketball fans write to Bill Walton?

The average Penn student has heard of Brother Stephen -- and many have encircled him during his one-man crusade on College Green. Some of them get redder in the face than he is and try to shout louder than he does. Many other people snicker at the spectacle. Some silently watch the whole sad scene and bemoan the woes of modern-day society.

Why does he try so hard to gain an audience, no matter the consequences? He's a college graduate. He's got a wife and two kids. He has no need to stand outside in the cold, wave his arms around like a maniac, move about as if he were possessed and shout at the top of his lungs about the eternal judgment we face if we hark not his words.

And whatever he's trying to do, you can't deny his conviction and passion. He's not winning any popularity contests, nor is he making any money. To continue to do what he does, he must be either crazy or a genuine believer in something that is worth his life-long efforts. There must be a reason he tells you that you're a sinner beyond just pissing you off and providing entertainment for others.

If you check out his new Web site, you'll again see that Brother Stephen is all hype and no substance when it comes to condemning you. I expected some sort of loud greeting calling me a whoremonger when I entered his site. Instead, what I found was disturbingly similar to what is on my church's Web site.

Brother Stephen wants your attention because he wants to convert you.

Unfortunately, or better yet, fortunately, no one walks away from one of his performances saying, "Gee, I was an atheist yesterday, but after talking to him, I see clearly now that I'm damned for eternal torment in the fiery depths of hell."

Instead, people laugh at him and hate him. They leave feeling angry about his arrogance, frustrated with his ignorance and glad they're not like him.

Well, here is a sobering fact. Hundreds of millions of people all over the world are like him -- they profess to believe in God and that Jesus Christ, his son, died for the sins of mankind. In the United States alone, well over 200 million people belong to a Christian church. In fact, there's a very good chance that you might be like him too.

But I highly doubt that his preaching has yielded even one new convert to Christianity. This is because he only tells half of the story. If he told the whole truth, I would probably have only nice things to say about him.

Which half does he tell? He tells you you're a sinner. On his Web site, he has an incomplete list of the top 100 people going to hell with reasons like "druggie" or "sodomist" next to their names. He had 20 until it was taken offline, to be fleshed out I presume.

He seems so proud to tell you of your "immoral and innumerable sexual relationships, your filthy drugs and your lifetime of wretched sin." What he doesn't tell you is how he is just as much a sinner as are you and I.

The "Good News" that is the ultimate and defining trait of Christianity is that, according to Romans, "while we were sinners, Christ died for us." And therefore, according to John, "whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life."

So in his own way, yes, Brother Stephen is horrible, his message distorted. But don't dismiss the message because of him -- it's faith, not actions, that matters.

Jooho Lee is a junior History and Political Science major from Los Angeles, Calif.

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