We all know about the Willard Preacher, and you may have even encountered other religious demonstrators beyond the stoop of that beloved building. Whether you are enraged, annoyed, indifferent, or …I suppose there could be a few people around who support these sermonizers… The Collegian’s Monday columnist, Margaret Miceli, thinks that the fact that you do have an opinion about them is the problem. She drew attention recently with her call for students, faculty, and others on campus to ignore the proselytizing preachers and thus drive them away from our campus forever.

Clarence “Bro” Cope, the self-proclaimed “Original Willard Preacher,” wrote in to the paper to let Miceli know just how very wrong she was. The great Willard Preacher, espousing the word of God, practically secreting fire and brimstone, just for attention? The nerve! To Miceli’s suggestion that preachers, like bullies and cats, will go away if you don’t pay them any mind, Cope says, “It does not work… we preach because God told us to, so even if we preach to the bricks and squirrels, we still will preach.” He claims, furthermore, that people don’t even want him and others like him gone: “We are the most interesting thing on a dull, boring campus. I know it; everybody knows it” writes Cope.

So what do you think? Obnoxious distraction easily starved by indifference? God’s will incarnate valiantly trying to save us all from our nights of debauchery and sin? Or more importantly, has the Willard preacher ever been to a good rager? Maybe he just needs to loosen up.

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