The article ‘‘The Psychology of Street Preachers’ by Hannah Bleau is typical reality opinionated text one can come across in the 21st century. One in the right state of mind would tend to agree more with the article than disagree with it. For many reasons I too do strongly believe and encourage people who have not read it to go through it to a have a snap of information in it. Of the many reasons at hand the article is well eruditely presented and give more inner judgment than personal judgment, this makes it more interesting and open to scholarly minds of my generation. the article talks on different themes which do affect the humanity of young generation presented by few preachers’ in the campuses in the US and most parts of learning institutions across the world.
In Bleau article, there is enough barrel of sense as it tries to elucidate the way preachers come to arrive at their final words which they end up delivering to the audience in the campus streets. the themes of, drug abuse, sexual immorality and moral decay are the most dominated and articulated in the first words of the street preachers’ in campus and this leads to the question of wondering which kind of psychological cognitive development the street preachers do have.”I quickly read their signs. “Fornicators, rebellious women, money lovers, sinful Christians, pot smokers, religious people, sports nuts: judgment. Trust Jesus and stop sinning you sinners!”(Rendleman 271).The article is more educative as it tries to give both sides of how current generation who are sinners need to turn their hearts towards God and embrace love. Nevertheless, it suggests how the information of love of Christ should be delivered to the campus audiences. And through these the students may take keen interest of absorbing the information and rationally digesting it properly into their minds. The article not only give the view on how the information is supposed to be delivered but also how the audiences matters in the preaching of the good word of the Lord “I watched students walk by, rolling their eyes and telling them off under their breath- and I couldn’t blame them one bit. I’m a Christian and I practically was.” This directly shows that the audience attention was not well handled by the street preachers leading to less interest and feeling of attack to the students.
On the other hand, the article gives supportive verses to help substantiate the information how the word of Almighty should be handled with care “(Romans 2:4)”. Additionally, the information passed by the phrase “God is love”. It’s the goodness of God that brings men to repentance, not the fear of judgment or threat of going to hell.” is in friendly manner and any other person would carry the message home. In the delivery of the word of God one should not take the center stage of being the marking scheme. Since it is only God who know the people who are serving him in the right way. In other words, the word of God should not be used to create fear but rather to assist the humanity to emulate what is good and separate it from the wrong doings.
Furthermore, none is to good not to commit sin. From the article, it can be termed as great since it gives the expansion of one’s thought and embraces rational thinking and giving the chance of internal thinking that is the personal instincts of a person “We instinctively know what’s right from wrong”(Rendleman 271). This gives clear mindset to anyone to try to rethink silently how good is good to be accepted in the society we leave in. Another reason that would make one to agree more with Belau’s article is that it present more actual reality in that not all street preachers do not have the same vagueness in the word of God but just are few preachers whose psychology is not in correspondence with the public domain “People tend to represent God the way they see Him. I want Flagler College to know that those fanatics don’t represent the other Christians on our campus, and they certainly don’t represent God”(Rendleman 273).
When giving information we should never be too personal with the message we are getting home(Lillis 73). This is simply because not all people are in the mood nor in the verge of carrying the information with them at that particular time. So it would be wiser and resounding to avoid being personal and subjective with information since almost information’s from people are more of opinions than pure verdict of what is in the reality ground. In the article this is presented partly and the sense is home that let no one be to judgmental and generalize opinions for fact(Lillis 73). The article is good however, safe for the lack strong stand on which is whether there should move from sins and condemn what is wrong is to remain to be a sin. Finally, there is no pure stand of the article as it tries to be more of fence sitting article.
Works Cited
Lillis, Theresa. “Student writing as’ academic literacies’: Drawing on Bakhtin to move from critique to design.” Language and education 17.3 (2003): 192-207.
Rendleman, Todd. ““I know y’all think I’m pretty square, but tuh, I believe what I believe”: Images of Evangelicals in American Film.” Journal of media and religion 7.4 (2008): 271-291.