Controversial ‘Street Preacher’ Group Pickets Texas Campus with ‘Women Are Property’ Sign
The Official Street Preachers is a controversial ‘evangelism’ group known for its aggressive style, impossible-to-miss signs, and inflammatory rhetoric that often involves provocations, crass insults, and tactics designed to enrage rather than engage.
Founded by the late Ruben Israel, the group’s style is distinctly confrontational and routinely seeks to be offensive for the sake of offense, creating a generation of street preachers frequently unable to differentiate between being persecuted for the Lord’s sake and persecuted because they are being jerks.
To this end, a couple of these street preachers attended Texas State University last week armed with one sign that said “Homo sex is sin,” and another that said “Women are property” on the front and “Types of Property: Women, Slaves, Animals, Cars, Land, etc” on the back.
They engaged in some thoroughly unfruitful-looking evangelism, making questionable claims such as “If you’re masturbating you’re half-queer because you’re having sex with the same gender’s hand, before addressing their sign with the interaction caught on camera:
Q: “Why do ya’ll think women are property?”
A: “Women are property and so are men. We’re property of God.”
Q: “Then why don’t you have ‘men are property’ up there, why is it just women?”
A: “Because it’s bait to bring you over here for this conversation. We’re baiting you and it worked. Yeah, we did. We’re fishing for men we got to use bait! See the pond?!”
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There is a time and a place for provocative, controversial, attention-getting speech, but only when you’re certain all who hear will hear the full explanation. The Cross is offensive. The truth is offensive. We can’t go around trying to tickle ears, saying only what people want to hear. Some are going to be offended regardless.
Jesus and the Apostles often made provocative, controversial statements and claims, and often used harsh language. But they always immediately gave the explanation to all who heard.
The signs also sow confusion. One is a very true statement. The next is a false statement. It’s about like throwing everything you’ve got against the wall, hoping something sticks, using every tactic imaginable all at the same time. All that’s going to do is cause chaos and confusion. The messaging should be consistent, and should not be like a cheap marketing trick to drive traffic to your website or to get people to confront you. Our focus is supposed to be to lead traffic to the Lord, and to direct attention to Him. Not to ourselves.