Brother Jed vs. Pope Bendict XVI

What is the difference between Brother Jed and Pope Benedict XVI?

Well, for starters, the Pope doesn't wear khaki shorts and a fishing hat, but that's merely superficial.

Who, you might be asking, is Brother Jed? If you don't know who Brother Jed is, that's probably because you've never set foot on FSU campus before. Brother Jed is an evangelist who takes time out of... whatever it is that he normally does, and comes to campus to spread the word of the Good Lord above. Unfortunately, while that might be Brother Jed's intention, it is certainly never what he ends up doing. For the most part, he just talks at the ever growing crowd of college students bent on heckling him as much as they can before their next class starts.

I have to say that I am of two minds about what goes down in the quad when Brother Jed comes to FSU and that is because I find the behavior of everyone absolutely appalling. Hardly a word falls from Brother Jed's mouth that isn't laden with sexism or bigotry and all anyone else in interested in is how many rude questions they can ask. It's an absolutely abysmal display on everyone's part. Brother Jed isn't doing anything but carving out a bad name for himself and Christians and these kids who are heckling him are just making themselves look callous and uncouth. If Brother Jed really wanted to spread Christianity, he'd talk about the love of Jesus and the forgiveness of God and that as Christians we shouldn't judge lest we ourselves be judged.

Now what does this have to do with Pope Benedict? Well, I recently started following him on Twitter. I know, I know. I have a Twitter, but it's for my Italian class, long story. Anyways, I knew that the Pope had himself a Twitter so I thought, how cool would it be... and I clicked follow.

And you know what the difference between Brother Jed and Pope Benedict is? The really, really important difference is not that the Pope has a nicer hat, or that the Pope wears white robes instead of khaki shorts, or that the Pope speaks primarily in Latin and Italian instead of with a Southern drawl. No. The really important difference is that every single tweet the Pope posts on his account (I cannot believe I just typed those words in that order) is uplifting and encouraging and exactly the sort of thing that a leader in the Christian (Catholic or not) community should be tweeting, er, talking about.

Now, the really sad thing is this: despite the uplifting content of the Pope's tweets, things like, "Join me in praying for Syria, so that constructive conversation will replace the horrendous violence" and "What are some childhood Christmas traditions that you remember and love?", despite the fact that he is attacking no one, saying nothing critical, even calling for us to promote freedom and respect for all, and just being a generally nice person, tweeting some nice things, there are still thousands of people who follow him with one intention: to troll him.

I'm not a Catholic, but I'm pretty sure that trolling the Pope is just bad for the soul. On every single tweet that the Pope makes, there is at least one comment that is just rude and often completely irrelevant.

So, although the Pope and Brother Jed are not the same in their demeanor, their wardrobe choices or their decisions about what is the best way to spread God's love, what is the same is that there are people everywhere with a hole in their heart who have nothing good to add to the global or personal conversation.