Fellow dormmates warned about the Christian in 462

[Grimmlok]

September 2, 1998 | Issue 34•05

GAINESVILLE, FL–In an address before three fellow residents of Tenney Hall's fourth-floor west wing Tuesday, University of Florida sophomore Jeff Arnell, 18, issued a warning about the Christian in 462.
"If you see the guy who lives in the single down at the end of the hall, get away," Arnell told Troy Rasbach, Pete Marquez and Jonathan Wilkins, who had assembled in Arnell's room to watch SportsCenter. "He'll totally corner you and start telling you about Jesus."

According to Arnell, the Christian, Ocala, FL, elementary-education major Matthew Leske, not only attends church on a regular basis despite a lack of parental supervision at school, but also voluntarily goes to campus prayer meetings and other Christian youth-group functions.

Arnell said he first suspected his dormmate's faith in the Lord last Friday.

"I was punching in my door combo when he came up to me and asked me for help with his e-mail," Arnell said. "So I go to his room, and I'm setting up his UF campus account, and I start to notice all this weird stuff on his walls, like this cross on his bulletin board and this poster that said, 'I am the light and the world' or something. He even had one of those metal fish symbols like you see on cars. Then, when it came time to choose his password, he types in 'Corinthians,' and I was like, 'Oh, shit, get me out of here.'"

Several hours after the encounter, Arnell was once again approached by Leske, this time in the dorm's study lounge. "He came up to me and thanked me for helping him with the e-mail and everything. I was like, 'Hey no prob, man,' but he kept acting all super-nice to me," Arnell said. "I was definitely getting nervous."

After talking about his class schedule for approximately 90 seconds, Leske invited Arnell to attend a Bible reading at his church, the New Life Assembly, on Friday. When Arnell declined, saying he had other plans, Leske invited him to drop by the church's New Student Welcome Picnic on Sunday.

"I said I'd try to make it, but I told him I didn't know for sure if I could because I had a paper due the next day," said Arnell, who was raised Christian himself but is not "all weird about it." "If that guy knocks on my door Sunday morning, I'll be seriously freaked."

After becoming trapped in an excruciatingly long conversation about the importance of letting Christ into their hearts and minds, Rasbach and Marquez concluded that "something must be done." Not only will Leske's presence expose Tenney Hall residents to proselytizing, they said, but it will also make them more vulnerable to punishment for breaking dorm rules, including those pertaining to observation of quiet hours, drug and alcohol use, and visitations from females after midnight.

"That guy in 462 better not rat us out to the R.A.," Rasbach said. "We're gonna have to really watch it now."

The four dormmates who assembled in Arnell's room have developed a Christian-avoidance strategy, one which includes "scoping out" the fourth-floor west wing for the possible presence of Leske before discussing the purchase of alcoholic beverages; avoiding Leske in the dorm's dining hall and study area; and agreeing to "rescue" each other from conversations with the Christian in the event of accidental contact.

"We have got to be majorly careful," Arnell said. "He'll suck you in, dude."

[MrsDark]

Nothing takes the fun out of college life better than an evangelical, goody two shoes dormmate!

[deckchick]

Christians should be banned at secular colleges! Talk about cramping their style...

I can see it now, one of them go talk to the bible-thumper while the other 3 sneak in the booze and broads!

[twitchy]

Gotta love The Onion!

[buttmunch]

I know someone who was asked to switch dorms during her first semester at univerisity because she went around snitching on the other students for drinking, fucking, smoking...basically acting like college freshman away from home for the very first time.

[Glasgow53]

Why do some Christians have to act so creepy and weird? Why can't they just be their own religion without trying to convert everyone around them?

[Grimmlok]

Because they feel it's their duty to convert everyone around them, to 'save' them from eternal hellfire etc etc

[tvhasben]

Don't you Bozo's recognize allegory when you read it?

Allegory is a form of extended metaphor, in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative, are equated with the meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. The underlying meaning has moral, social, religious, or political significance, and characters are often personifications of abstract ideas as charity, greed, or envy.
Thus an allegory is a story with two meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning.

You would all fail if I were your teacher and asked you to write a paper about this article explaining why it is allegorical. It isn't about religious zealots, you dumb fucks! It's about stereotypes and stereotypical behavior. And besides being stupid and not recognizing this for what it is, you are all guilty of succumbing to the stereotypical behavior that this article is criticizing.

[Grimmlok]

Hey retard, I guess you missed the part where we were giggling about the article being SATIRE from theonion.com

Who's a the dumbfuck now?

*laughs at you*

[McJag]

Hey retard, I guess you missed the part where we were giggling about the article being SATIRE from theonion.com

Who's a the dumbfuck now?

*laughs at you*

I give her 10-maybe 20-more minutes. I hear the bus now!

[Chilly Willy]

A troll, a troll!

[VenusInFauxFurs]

I hear a bus approaching.

[twitchy]

Don't you Bozo's recognize allegory when you read it?

Allegory is a form of extended metaphor, in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative, are equated with the meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. The underlying meaning has moral, social, religious, or political significance, and characters are often personifications of abstract ideas as charity, greed, or envy.
Thus an allegory is a story with two meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning.

You would all fail if I were your teacher and asked you to write a paper about this article explaining why it is allegorical. It isn't about religious zealots, you dumb fucks! It's about stereotypes and stereotypical behavior. And besides being stupid and not recognizing this for what it is, you are all guilty of succumbing to the stereotypical behavior that this article is criticizing.

Ooooh! Somebody's quoting Harmon and Holman’s A Handbook to Literature! If I was your teacher, you would fail for the apostrophe in the interestingly capitalized "Bozo's" and the sentence beginning with "And".

[sweet and sexy]

Nothing takes the fun out of college life better than an evangelical, goody two shoes dormmate!

I agree. Just saw, this thread is from 2006? Lol.

[DitaPage*]

Because they feel it's their duty to convert everyone around them, to 'save' them from eternal hellfire etc etc

Well thats what the Bible says to do;and Christians all follow the same bible. Jesus walked around and preached about his father, and thats what people are supposed to do today too.

Its ok to say 'I'm not interested' theres never a need to be nasty about it and criticise the preaching work. These people dont get paid to do it.