Campus crusader
Traveling preacher stirs things up at NT
Brantley Hargrove
Staff Writer
August 27, 2003
With one arm flailing wildly in classic air-guitar fashion, Tom Short loudly crooned Mick Jagger's immortal lyrics, "I can't get no satisfaction."
After his performance, Short, a traveling evangelist with no formal theological training, denounced Jagger's way of life, saying the rocker would never find happiness in the place he's looking. Instead, Short would have Jagger look to God for that satisfaction. Students may have noticed the determined evangelist preaching to more than 50 students Tuesday on the east lawn adjacent to the University Union.
If that didn't attract attention, the heated arguments and raised voices did..
"He knows what he's talking about when it comes to the Bible," Nick DiPaulo, Houston junior, said.
But some students complained that his preaching had no direction, and that he dodged and evaded answering some questions directly. When a student broached the topic of homosexuality, a verbal bedlam broke out. Short made his views very clear on the topic when asked; his advice to gays everywhere: "abstain." NT campus police mounted on bicycles showed up as the tensions escalated, but left shortly after they arrived, when they discovered that the tensions would not amount to anything physical. Such hostility is nothing Short hasn't dealt with before. "I challenge their beliefs and lifestyles. The hostility can sometimes reveal insecurities," Short said. During his 23-year circuit at numerous college campuses from Purdue to the UT-Austin, Short said he has been spat on, pushed and knocked down.
Taking a nondenominational approach to evangelism, Short said he tries to avoid being pigeon-holed with extremist groups. He denounced members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., who came to Denton in April to protest "The Laramie Project," a play depicting citizens of Laramie, Wyo., and their reactions to the slaying of a gay college student.
"{Pastor Fred}Phelps doesn't represent the beliefs of an overwhelming majority of Christians in America," Short said. "He hates the sinner as well as the sins."
Short said he was trained by the church he pastored at in Columbus, Ohio, although he's pastored in San Diego, College Park, Md., and several others locations.
Summoned by Hope Campus Fellowship, a Christian organization at NT, the traveling preacher returns to the campus every semester to evangelize. Funding for these ventures comes from churches he has pastored at in the past. Short said he does ask that the campus organization cover his travel expenses.
Though he admits that he isn't hoping to convert everyone on campus, Short said, "If I can get someone to read the New Testament or go to church, then it's a step."
Why is it that people insist upon referring to Fred Phelps as "pastor" or "reverend"? He's neither. He's not a Christian. He's a bigot. If he were a Christian, he'd adhere to Christ's teachings.