Students stepped up to a live podium to debate or ask questions to evangelist Christian minister Ray Comfort and other members of Living Waters Ministry. Hosted by the Cal Poly College Republican Club on Wednesday, their event and Q&A “Speak Your Mind with Ray Comfort” took place at Dexter Lawn from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. with the assistance of Cal Poly’s Turning Point USA club.
With a similar setup to last month’s Reawaken USA tour, the Q&A drew in a consistent crowd of students through the entire four-hour event and held many heated discussions between students and speakers from the Living Waters Ministry. At the event, administration representatives made it clear that it was hosted under the Time, Place and Manner policy that the CSUs follow, which was re-iterated to students in a freedom of expression training sent out to students last month.
On top of the Q&A, Living Waters Ministry had put up noticeable signs around the audience indicating the presence of cameras and recordings for their own reality tv show. The signs, cameras and drone circling overhead through the event drew in many students out of curiosity.
However, compared to Reawaken USA’s event, the Republican Club’s event did not contain as much or noticeable vocal backlash from crowd members who were listening in on what the speakers were preaching to the crowd. Many students actually noted that regardless of their political and religious background and beliefs, they found that the open flow of conversation was something they appreciated.
Microbiology senior Ruby Davis explained that when she happened to walk by the event, her attention was caught by the complexity of the conversations taking place between students and speakers. Noting that she did not necessarily have a pull towards either side of the debate but was intrigued by the different arguments brought up.
Similarly to Davis, public health freshman Ellia Suleiman also found the dialogue to be interesting to listen in on.
“I think it’s honestly good that this is happening on campus, because I feel like sometimes we’re not exposed to everything going around in the world, and I think this is a great way to see it. And I think it’s always good to be exposed to other people’s opinions,” Suleiman said.
She also added that even though many people may not agree with points being brought up, the exposure to new and different dialogue is beneficial.
Both Suleiman and Davis’s experiences aligned with the goal of the event, according to Oscar Navarro, a speaker for the Living Waters Ministry.
“There’s two parts to our goal. First is to have meaningful, respectful, intellectual dialog about what we believe, which is to challenge students and to allow the students to challenge us. Our primary goal before that, though, is to share the Gospel,” Navarro said.
Multiple students and speakers debated over the interpretation of the Bible and what the significance of the Bible plays in their daily lives. Speakers like Navarro and Comfort would consistently ask student speakers whether or not they believed in the existence of God and would repeatedly try and use the students’ response to find loopholes within their logic. On top of this, most of the topics discussed like sexuality, gender roles and education were all tied in with arguments from the Bible and religious explanation.
Mechanical engineering junior Jacob Stout also approached discussion with an open mind to the dialogue and in the time he was there found the conversation to be interesting and overall respectful.
“I believe in Jesus. So whenever people come on campus to talk about Jesus, I always approach it with a very critical eye of like ‘Are they actually presenting the Gospel in a way that actually is the Gospel,,’” Stout explained.
Josh Hooey, a nutrition sophomore, however, believes that this is not the way to spread faith, and an argumentative discourse can cause harm.
“I don’t see the spreading of faith as something that happens in an argumentative format,” Hooey said. “[In] an argumentative format where people come to watch the other side, like regardless what side came to watch, the other side looks stupid. I just don’t think it fosters the right environment for change.”