Their confrontational brand of evangelism proved to be a bellwether for free speech and cultural change at Eastern Illinois University.
I attended Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Illinois from the fall of 2000 to 2008, graduating with a master’s in history. Over the years, I’ve written several posts reminiscing about the interesting places and events that I experienced during my time there, but I’ve seldom written about the people. A variety of eccentric characters graced campus with their presence, some attending the university and some who were just visiting.
I’ll never forget when actress Jodie Sweetin spoke about her struggles with addiction in an overcrowded MLK Union ballroom, only to have the guy who delivered pizza to her hotel room ask if she thought he was hot.
But lesser-known faces became celebrities in their own right, when they took advantage of Eastern’s open campus to opine from a proverbial soapbox. On nice days in spring and fall, itinerant preachers sometimes appeared in the quad, waving a Bible and casting self-righteous judgment on passing students.
Eastern has a history of tension between evangelical Christianity and its more liberal ethos. Even during its formative years, when the college’s Progressive philosophy seemed conservative by today’s standards, some members of the community chafed at its presence. Charleston, and Coles County generally, has a long tradition of Protestantism of the revival and camp-meeting variety.
In 1909, when a student at Eastern joined a local preacher in condemning the dances held on campus, Livingston C. Lord, Eastern’s first full-time president, thought of him as a “hypocrite” and a “sneak and a liar” who “was talking filth about the girls.” Some of the young man’s fellow students even tossed him into the campus pond. During the course of another series of evangelical revivals in the community, President Lord took a female student aside and told her, “Don’t let anyone tell you you are bad or wicked―because you are not.”
During the 1970s, what some historians refer to as the Fourth Great Awakening swept across America in response to social upheaval and loosening of social mores. Dozens of self-taught and self-appointed “preachers” began to appear on college campuses, peddling conversion stories and warning students of eternal damnation if they did not repent of their sinful ways.
George Edward “Brother Jed” Smock, Jr. was among those who made Eastern Illinois University a frequent stop on their route. Another, Daniel Phillips, “Brother Dan,” or “Preacher Dan the Cross Carryin’ Man,” became a minor celebrity on campus. Dan cut a lean figure, dressed in dark blue jeans, thick glasses, and a baseball cap with a leather satchel slung from his shoulder. He wielded a Bible in one hand and a stern finger in the other.
According to a surprisingly sympathetic profile in The Daily Illini, in the late 1970s Dan dropped out of college to embrace a life as an itinerant street preacher. He lived in Terre Haute, Indiana and was an associate minister at Full Gospel Assembly Church. He described himself as an Independent Pentecostal and worked part time as a dishwasher to finance his ministry. Indiana State, Indiana University, The University of Illinois, Ohio University, and of course, Eastern Illinois University, were on his circuit.
The earliest reference to Brother Dan or Preacher Dan I could find in the Daily Eastern News was in April 1990 when a student named Pam wrote a letter to the editor complaining about his theatrics. “It’s springtime and Brother Dan is back!” she wrote. According to her account, Brother Dan stood in the quad shouting condemnations at passing students. A group of guys egged him on, singling out girls they knew as “fornicators.”
“Repent, you whore. Repent!” he shouted.
Pam correctly pointed out that this brand of confrontational evangelism is not Biblical. Jesus famously admonished “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone” (John 8:7) and “Judge not, that you be not judged” (Matthew 7:1). Not to mention Exodus 23:1-2 “You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness.”
Although Preacher Dan’s admonishments probably hit too close to home for many students (after all, party and hookup culture is considered a right of passage on college campuses across the country), it’s not possible for him to look into a person’s heart and discern their sins.
George Edward “Brother Jed” Smock, Jr. (1943-2022) belonged to an older generation. I recall seeing his wife, Cynthia, and he on campus once a semester but they didn’t attract as much attention as Preacher Dan, at least while I attended. They shared a similar style of evangelism but had very different backgrounds. Brother Jed attained a master’s degree in history from Indiana State University, despite being a functional alcoholic. He later had a conversion experience and founded a campus ministry in the early 1980s.
Brother Jed first appeared on Eastern’s campus around 1978, when dozens of students signed a letter of complaint against his loud preaching outside Ford Hall. Jed and “Sister Cindy,” who described herself as a reformed disco queen, employed the same colorful rhetoric as Preacher Dan. A 1982 Daily Eastern News article quoted him as saying, “This campus is full of whores and whoremongers… if your mommies and daddies knew what you were doing, they would be ashamed of you!”
In 1995, local business owner Mike Bickers, owner of Panther’s Lounge (today, part of Penalty Box Bar & Grill) got into a fight with the city after his liquor license was suspended for serving alcohol to minors. In retaliation, he invited topless dancers from Champaign to perform on Friday nights. The response from the local community was swift.
Rev. Scott Sims of Salisbury Church and Charleston’s city commissioner, Greg Stewart, organized protests outside Panther’s Lounge on Friday nights. Around 50 people showed up for the first protest, including six EIU students. They held signs that said things like “We want a moral city” and “topless dancers degrade all women.”
At the same time debate raged over Panther’s topless dancers, Preacher Dan continued his campus visits. On September 26, 1995, a picture of Dan appeared in the Daily Eastern News accompanied by the caption: “Brother Dan memorized [mesmerized?] crowds Monday afternoon in the Library Quad. Crowds of about 30 people cheered him on for several hours as he used his antics to preach the Good Word.”
That same issue featured dueling opinion pieces by DEN Sports Editor Paul Dempsey and Charleston City Commissioner Greg Stewart. “If we want the right to burn the American flag, speak our minds and print what we want, we shouldn’t forget the freedom of expression,” Dempsey argued in support of Panther’s Lounge. “We can’t pick and choose which freedoms we find morally correct.”
Panther’s was long gone by the time I set foot on campus, but Preacher Dan and the Smocks still made their periodical appearances. Their visits were an occasion for debate, respectful disagreement, and more than a little laughter. The opinion expressed by Paul Dempsey over five years earlier, that freedom of speech and expression was something to be respected, ruled the day, but things were beginning to change, particularly when it came to homosexuality.
Alcohol and sex had always been reoccurring themes for the itinerant preachers. While most disagreed with their methods, more than a few agreed with their message. As attitudes toward homosexuality and same-sex marriage loosened in the early 2000s, however, a shift occurred in how the preachers were perceived. Suddenly, the commitment to free expression didn’t seem so solid.
In the summer of 2001, the Daily Eastern News reprinted a letter to the editor by Adam Black, a junior at the University of Illinois. Because colleges like the U of I allowed Preacher Dan and others like him to speak on campus, he argued, they were tacitly endorsing his views. “Dan can have his own homophobic opinion about gays, but he shouldn’t be allowed to spread his message of hate around campus,” he concluded. The preachers’ message wasn’t simply vulgar and annoying—it was dangerous.
The reason Eastern Illinois University and the University of Illinois could not bar the preachers from campus is that, as publicly funded institutions, they have to abide by First Amendment protections, so long as the speakers don’t break any laws. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, “The First Amendment to the Constitution protects speech no matter how offensive its content. Restrictions on speech by public colleges and universities amount to government censorship, in violation of the Constitution… An open society depends on liberal education, and the whole enterprise of liberal education is founded on the principle of free speech.”
The growing illiberalism on campus came to a head several years after I graduated. In April 2013, during a particularly heated visit outside the Doudna Fine Arts Center, several students aggressively confronted Jed and Cindy Smock. They openly mocked the elderly couple, shouted at them, and at some point a student stole a Bible, tore pages out of it, and traded it for a bag of chips to show contempt for the religious text. Though the theft and vandalism wasn’t reported in the Daily Eastern News, Cindy Smock posted photos of the incident on Facebook. This was a clear contrast with how these visits were handled in the past. What was once a source of curiosity and annoyance now threatened to erupt into outright violence.
Despite this reception, the Smocks returned that fall. Taylor Bainter, a senior art major, circulated a petition to have them banned from campus. “It’s on our campus, and they’re guests. We want to take back our campus,” she told the DEN. Of course, it’s not possible for a public university to ban a speaker from campus because they disagree with their message.
However, an incident at Indiana University in 2019 similar to the one at Eastern six years earlier resulted in the Smocks being escorted off campus by security. According to the Daily Illini, things became physical when Cynthia Smock pushed one of the students. Jed denied they pushed anyone, and claimed a student was shouting “hail Satan” and threatening his wife. Campus security said they observed two men kissing close to Cindy and Jed pushed one of them away. The university imposed a one-year ban, but it was lifted after a few weeks.
George “Brother Jed” Smock died in 2022.
For nearly four decades, itinerant preachers like Dan Phillips and Brother Jed visited Eastern Illinois University’s campus, hoping to shock and shame young minds into following their strict brand of evangelical Christianity. Yet year after year, American culture slipped slowly away. Whereas in 1995, protestors closely aligned with their views demonstrated against topless dancers, in the spring of 2024, Eastern students held a “slut walk” on campus, carrying signs proclaiming “I love sluts” and “sluts are the future.”
Reaction to the preachers’ presence reveals much about campus culture, changing social norms, and commitment to liberal notions of tolerance and free expression. The story of Eastern Illinois University and its itinerant preachers is not just about a clash of ideologies but a testament to the resilience of free speech and the enduring debate over what ideas are considered socially acceptable. These interactions, often uncomfortable and contentious, have nevertheless been instrumental in shaping a more nuanced understanding of free expression and its implications in a changing society.
Sources
- McKinney, Isabel. Mr. Lord: The Life and Words of Livingston C. Lord. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1937.
- “Preaching duo condemns current campus lifestyles,” The Daily Eastern News (Charleston) 2 September 1982.
- “Panther’s Lounge to reopen featuring topless dancers,” The Daily Eastern News (Charleston) 24 August 1995.
- “Picketing to continue at Panther’s Lounge,” The Daily Eastern News (Charleston) 5 September 1995.
- “Free expression or smut for sale?” The Daily Eastern News (Charleston) 26 September 1995.
- “Preacher Dan helps students find salvation,” The Daily Illini (Champaign) 25 February 2000.
- “Is tolerance so much to ask?” The Daily Eastern News (Charleston) 20 June 2001.
- “Preachers rile students, raise controversial issues,” The Daily Eastern News (Charleston) 23 April 2013.
- “Students behavior embarrassing to Eastern,” The Daily Eastern News (Charleston) 25 April 2013.
- “Return of the Jed: Preacher, family visit Eastern once more,” The Daily Eastern News (Charleston) 19 August 2013.
- “Campus preacher issued trespass warning at Woodburn Hall,” Indiana Daily Student (Bloomington) 12 September 2019.
- “Brother Jed makes his comeback: Students engage with provocative campus preacher,” The Daily Eastern News (Charleston) 18 September 2019.
- “Campus preacher Brother Jed sparks conversation on free speech,” The Daily Illini (Bloomington) 3 October 2019.
- “Sister Cindy is TikTok famous, but Eastern knew her before,” The Daily Eastern News (Charleston) 8 July 2021.
- “Brother Jed’s history with Eastern,” The Daily Eastern News (Charleston) 27 June 2022.
M.A. Kleen 