Christian street preacher Anders Clark from the Memorial Bible Church in Yakima debated students outside the SURC on Jan. 18, spreading the words of Jesus to anybody who would listen. At any given time, Clark discussed his religion with two or three students. Junior in history Tanner Nacke stopped to hear his message and ask questions. 

“You actually go into Christianity, you read the bible and you look at the thousands of contradictions that are within your own bible,” Nacke said. “You have the fact that nobody has seen the face of God and nobody can see the face of God, yet there are about ten different people in the bible who have seen the face of God … However, in a later passage, it says if you see the face of God, you will die and burn in hell.”

“I’m unfamiliar with the passages you’re quoting,” Clark said. “We’ve got a little over five thousand manuscripts of the new testament documents … Of course they’ve got differences, but 99% of those differences are insignificant … spelling errors, where we can obviously compare to other manuscripts and find the error, or they left a letter out. I have copied all the time like that and I’ll miss a word.”

Clark said the errors were an argument for the validity of scripture, because people within his faith are aware of the errors and able to call attention to them.

“It’s not like we believe the Bible is some random document that came down and nobody has ever questioned it,” Clark said. 

“I was talking about all the contradictions inside the bible,” Nacke said. 

“I apologize, I mistook you,” Clark said. “Again, every vision that we have of God in the old and new testament, we’ve got Moses on Mt. Sinai, we’ve got Isaiah in Isaiah 6, we’ve got John in the book of Revelations … none of those are the full face of God. No author in the old or new testament claims to see Yahweh as he is.”

Debate and discourse continued as more students felt compelled to stop and chat with Clark.

“You love them by changing their minds,” Clark said to CWU student Adan Mendoza, who offered a different perspective. 

“You can’t change their minds. Jesus is in the business of changing hearts, not the business of changing minds,” Mendoza said. Clark was visibly upset by this distinction.

“Dude, I agree, but what’s the point of changing hearts if you can do whatever you want, and everybody needs to be loved, and all is good?” Clark said. “There’s a way that seems right to man. That way is death. Humans naturally love sin, we love to do what ought not to be done.”

No protest broke out during Clark’s visit this time, and students felt he should be able to speak at CWU within boundaries. 

“I think there’s a limit to it,” Nacke said. “You can’t just be stopping people and yelling at them, but you can come here. Anybody can come and talk about anything. It’s when you start to harass people, that’s where the problem is.”

According to Clark, students will go to hell if they do not believe in Jesus and repent. While Nacke engaged in discussion with Clark, he did not think his words would have the desired impact of saving people. 

“If you want to talk to people about things, this is the wrong way to go about it,” Nacke said.