Traveling preacher Luke Beets stopped by ABAC for the first time to spread his message after making stops at numerous college campuses around the country.
Before becoming a traveling preacher, Beets worked as a mailman and a youth pastor.
“I want to warn people that if you live in sin, God said you’re not going to heaven,” Beets said. “I don’t want anyone to go to Hell. God said… all should come to repentance. If we repent, we can be saved… and I can’t save anybody, but I can warn everybody. That’s my goal.”
Beets believes that he is the proper person to deliver this warning; as he said, God chose him to do so.
When I spoke to Beets, he was polite and open to answering my questions, and he equally said that ABAC students who spoke with him were “nice,” “polite,” and “respectful.”
However, I cannot in good conscience say that Beets is, in my view, a nice person. During his three-day campaign on campus, Beets carried a sign listing various types of “sinners” that need to “repent,” including LGBTQ+ people, Mormons, Muslims, agnostics, and Catholics. These groups were placed alongside thieves, pedophiles, and rapists.
Anyone who equates gay people with rapists cannot, in my opinion, be a good or nice person.
Some students raised concerns about Beets’s presence on campus, stating that while he was polite, his message, particularly against LGBTQ+ people, was uncomfortable.
On behalf of ABAC, Director of Public Relations Chris Beckham said, “A small number of students have voiced complaints regarding Mr. Beets’ presence and behavior on campus. Administrators have responded directly with each student. A few staff members that work near the area complained about Mr. Beets being too loud, and when he was asked to lower his voice, he complied with the request.”Â
Despite this discomfort, there is no validity to the idea that Beets should not be allowed to preach on campus, since he was in a free speech designated zone.
Dr. Joseph Devaney, who teaches the bulk of ABAC’s law courses, said, “ABAC is a state institution. That means it’s bound by the First Amendment’s freedom of speech clause. Freedom of speech law is set up in that if you were in a public forum—that is an area that’s generally open to the public, such as a street, a sidewalk or a park—free speech rights are at their broadest.”
“It’s almost impossible for the government to regulate or prohibit speech because it disagrees with the viewpoint,” he continued.
Students on Yik Yak posted anonymously to voice their concerns over being recorded on Beets’s body camera, unsure of what he would do with that footage or if he was allowed to record at all. Â
“I wear a body camera not so I can post it,” Beets said. “I wear it so I can’t be accused of saying things I didn’t say.”Â
Beckham said, “Public spaces do not require permission for recording. If our students are concerned about being recorded, it is recommended to avoid areas where recording takes place.”
Because of the First Amendment, Beets, as well as any other religious or non-religious speaker, is allowed to preach on campus. While he said that his only goal is to warn people against the dangers of sinning and going to Hell, I argue that he has ulterior motives.
Beets told me that, at another college campus, two female students who had previously identified as lesbians told him that after hearing his preaching, they were “saved” and no longer lesbian. Whether or not these girls were telling the truth is unknown.
In response to that interaction, Beets said, “I like to hear that when I hear it, no matter what their sin was. I like to hear results.”
“Results,” in this case, is arguably doing some very heavy lifting. Results of his preaching, according to Beets, include indoctrinating young, impressionable college students into a religious ideology, hoping to alter their identities in such a way that caters to modern conservative-Christian ideals.
If Christianity teaches its followers to love others, and that God will forgive them for their “sins,” why would Beets feel the need to change others with whom he disagrees or that he dislikes? Should he not also forgive them and love them as they are? Love does not necessitate changing one’s identity; otherwise, it is conditional, and God’s love is supposed to be unconditional.
I personally enjoy talking with others with whom I disagree to better understand their perspective; approaching people and ideas with curiosity and not judgment is profoundly important. I argue that Beets does not take this approach with his preaching.
My perspective is that preachers who travel solely for the purpose of spreading a message—one of bigotry and, arguably, hatred—are not doing so out of love or protection of others’ souls. Rather, I believe they do so out of mere intolerance for different people; an ego that has been protected and inflated by heteronormativity, white supremacy, and sexism; and, possibly, a deeply held colonial belief that these preachers not only have the desire but also the right to spread bigotry for the goal of creating a society that is dominated by white, cisgender, straight, and oppressively religious men.
Mr. Beets was well within his rights to speak on campus, and denying him permission would have been a direct violation of the First Amendment. The issue at hand is not whether or not his presence should be allowed—rather, it is that he presents himself as a polite, selfless man with a desire to help others, when in reality he is truly a deceptive, self-righteous man who caters to his own over-inflated ego by patronizing young college students.