Love is Christ’s message
I could not fail to respond to the preacher who came to town
last week. Evangelist Ray Comfort is quoted as saying that
“when a Christian preaches the gospel, (the response) is
always negative. I’ve been beaten up and things like that,
but it’s normal,” (“Speaker advocates Evangelical
values, questions students on their behavior,” News, Nov. 8).
I can only say he has been expounding a distorted view of
Christianity if that has been his experience.
I have found that almost everyone is open to discussing and
debating the meaning of love, its obligations and consequences. The
overwhelming message of Christ is love. Eric Fromm in his
“Art of Loving” wrote that “love is a
constant challenge; it is not a resting place, but a moving,
growing, working together; even whether this harmony or conflict,
joy or sadness, is secondary to the fundamental fact that two
people experience themselves from the essence of their existence,
that they are one with each other by being one with
themselves.” It could equally be applied to our experience of
the primordial source of love from which all else is derived
““ and that is a subject which is almost never responded to
negatively if expressed with the awe it deserves.
Reverend Mark Speeks Associate for Campus
Ministry
Pastor should be praised
I am delighted to see my friend and fellow Christian evangelical
Pastor Ray Comfort is again stirring up the broth at UCLA, the
bastion of liberal humanism, (“Speaker advocates Evangelical
values, questions students on their behavior,” News, Nov.
8).
The article blasted Pastor Comfort for, as one student stated,
“shoving (his views) down people’s throats.” He was
also accused of making the debate “one-sided.”
I read your article amazed. How many classes are taught at UCLA
where the professors openly “shove” their personal
political and philosophic views down the throats of students
without debate? As we say in the real world, the
“liberal-minded” UCLA establishment elite can dish it
up, but they are not too good at taking it. Pity the poor preacher
who dares to stand before the great Goliath.
But the fact is, Pastor Comfort is brilliant in his delivery. He
is courageous as a lion and his confrontation with the naysayers at
Meyerhoff was both funny and witty. He challenged students to think
and to ponder the bigger questions in life like “is there a
God, are there absolute rights and wrongs in the world, and where
does Jesus fit into the scheme of redemption?” What hacks off
Comfort’s detractors is his success in carrying on and,
often, winning the debate.
Robert Hamilton, M.D. School of Medicine Class of
1980