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BY MARK SCHAEFER

What do you do when hate comes knocking at your door?

That was the question that the students, faculty, and staff of American University had to face this past week after they’d learned that protesters from the infamous Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) would be coming to campus.

So, how would the University community respond?

As soon as the news broke, word spread fast, especially on Facebook. There was a fair amount of anger at the news. Some suggested angrily shouting them down. Others throwing eggs. One student wrote, “It’s a good thing I’m not there this semester, because I’d start a [expletive] RIOT!”

Seeing comments like that necessitated my own response as a campus minister. I wrote a short piece on our website blog giving voice to my own anger and even the hate that the WBC provoked in me, but lifting up the need to choose actions of love. I suggested we might even serve WBC some hot chocolate and donuts. I posted it on Facebook as soon as I could to get it out as part of the conversation.

But I was not alone. Indeed, it was clear that the Spirit was moving across campus in the responses of our students.

One of our community members, Ethan Goss, also suggested hot chocolate and donuts for WBC. Carly Jones, a United Methodist student who grew up at Brook Hill UMC in Frederick, contacted me and said that it was more important than ever for the United Methodist community to take leadership. As one of the leading religious communities on campus with a well-known reputation for being a loving and open community, we needed to help take the lead.

One senior, Tara Culp-Ressler, a Mennonite who worships with our community, created a Facebook event called “God Loves Poetry”, based off of a national movement where hateful WBC press releases are blacked out using permanent markers until only words of love remain. I contacted Tara to let her know that the campus ministry would support the God Loves Project any way we could, which we did by providing a space on our website, printed flyers, and provided signboards and sign-making materials so that the poems could be displayed on the quad.

A freshman student named Jonathan Lipton, son of clergy and involved with the Jewish community on campus had started a Facebook page for a counter-demonstration, hoping to make the event less about protesting Westboro than about celebrating the openness and diversity that Westboro had come to condemn.

We called an emergency meeting of the United Methodist Student Association for that Sunday afternoon. Tara and Jonathan attended our meeting along with 15 of our student leaders. The UMSA leadership enthusiastically agreed to support both the God Loves Poetry project and Jonathan’s counter-demonstration.

The United Methodist community has a well-known reputation for sharing love, grace, and very often, chocolate with the University community. Carly spoke to the need for us to be visible sharing that love with the campus community, especially as others shared messages of hate in the name of Christ. She offered to turn the weekly discussion group she co-leads into a poster-making event for God Loves Poetry.

As for our participation in the counter-demonstration, the UMSA agreed that we would serve hot chocolate to everyone present — including the WBC members. And we would serve them in cups that bore labels with Bible verses and other statements about God’s love.

The Student Government produced a video about the upcoming rally and I was invited to say a few words as part of that video. I began, “People respond to hate with hate all the time, but at American we’re better than that. We will respond to hate with love….” I was surprised to see the finished product, because my statement had been placed first. But what that said to me was that the students were committed to framing the event as one about love, not about hate. Our community had been a part of shaping that response.

On Friday, Jan. 14, 2011, anywhere from 700 to 1,200 American University students, joined by students from Georgetown, and members of the broader community, participated in Jonathan’s “Rally to Reaffirm Sanity”, which had since been adopted by the University as the official response.

As Jonathan noted in his opening remarks, WBC may have determined the day of this event, but not its reason. Students were gathering not to counter protest, but to make declarations for AU as a place for all people that stands by all its students. Student leaders spoke, a cappella groups performed songs, free hugs were given out by students in AU Snuggies. Students carried signs of affirmation (“The Greatest of These is Love”) and signs of ironic humor (“God Hates Figs”).

I read a joint letter signed by a number of University chaplains. Students made more blackout poetry. And the United Methodists gave out around 500 cups of hot chocolate on that cold day. And even though we had been asked by the University not to approach WBC members directly, our offer of hot chocolate was nevertheless conveyed to them by a student journalist. (They declined.)

Seeing how our United Methodist students took leadership and supported others who were doing so filled my heart with pride. They helped to create a climate that would not meet hate with hate, but would change the conversation altogether. They and their classmates could have responded with anger and more hate; they chose to respond in grace. In the face of hatred and bigotry, they chose to celebrate love and openness. In spite of the coldness of the day, there was a genuine warmth felt there, and it wasn’t just the hot chocolate. No, a powerful statement had been made about love, a love for all people. The students understood it, they embodied it, and they preached it through their very being. Others had come to sow a message of hate, only to encounter a campus built upon a foundation of love.

So, what do you do when hate comes knocking at your door? If your house is built on love, open the door and offer them some hot chocolate.