Ad hoc exorcism

My good old alma mater is at it again. This radio interview outlining the events of an alleged exorcism on my former college campus is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard in my life... which is saying a lot. The Campus Carrier newspaper adds some perspective in this article. To be fair, this is in no way the College's doing. HOWEVER, this kid was not immediately removed as a Resident Assistant or WinShape leader. He was one of only three RAs in his building up on Mountain Campus which is an isolated 3 miles away from main campus. Part of his job is to assure the safety and well-being of his residents. Performing an ad hoc exorcism [because we've all dreamed of uttering that phrase...] does not seem to be in the best interest of the poor exorcisee. Now, I am not contesting that the exorcisee had some major issues. I do not know either of these people and am willing to bet that this individual was very troubled. Many people are. Yet, you don't see other RA's - even at private Christian colleges - running around performing exorcisms randomly at a Monday evening prayer meeting. Or whatever they were holding in that room. For all I know it was just an orgy gone awry. You never know with those Pilgrim boys and their harem of "innocent" Christian girls.

Suppositions aside, this kid is out of his mind. So, to you, Nathan Mallory I invite you to enter Prudence's Introduction to Real Life. It's a short 8 week course - much like the internship you probably didn't take... er, weren't qualified for... so you could go to India and view all these exorcisms that made you an "expert." The course prepares you for the reality of life outside of Berry, and for Heaven's sake - WinShape's - protective bounds. See you might be surprised to learn that graduating from an institution of higher learning and entering the American workforce is not all that akin to living on the streets of Mumbai. Not that there is no overlap, but I'm betting the likes of one such as yourself will not experience those. And, while you are the self-proclaimed Berry student that has a "100% better view of reality outside the Bubble than anyone else at Berry"* your recent actions and, dare I say, rhetoric with the abysmal state of your writing (obviously you did not receive the benefits of my tutelage in the Writing Center) only illustrate you to be bat shit insane. Not filled with the spirit or spiritually wise. Just crazy. And potentially harmful. Ideologues can be harmful in multiple ways and you sir appear to be nearing the brink. Extremism comes to mind when listening to your zealous interview. Lucky for you, I'm willing to show you how the world really works. It will include such scintillating lessons as:

1. How to interact with other people without making them run at you with a pitchfork... that they had to run out to their grandparents' barn in the country to retrieve and then hunt you down again to chase you out of town with it.
2. How to lead a normal Bible study or prayer meeting that is full of depth and spirit, but lacking crazy exorcisms and unsound theological indoctrinations
3. How to give a radio interview that doesn't make you sound like an aspiring cult leader
4. How to behave as if you received an elite liberal arts education, not a second rate religious diatribe that is merely sanctioned by your presence at the college.
   
5. Basic writing, spelling, and grammar. How you passed Rhetoric and Writing 101 and 102 with the style presented in that Viking Fusion forum is beyond me.
   
6. A live "throw you out into the street and make you find a normal job and befriend a non-Christian - not with the sole intent of converting him or her." Woo boy. That will be fun to watch!
7. Supplemental instruction as needed upon evaluation.
   

And to you, Berry College Administration including the illustrious Dean Heida, take a moral stand. This kind of behavior is not acceptable. It's going without punishment is even worse. I'm glad to see that after this situation finally began gaining media attraction that he was suspended from his RA duties. But he should have been IMMEDIATELY. This is not an issue of religious tolerance. This only reflects the image of your institution and one I would think that should be unpopular for those charged with presenting an image of a venerable institution of higher learning. Thankfully his official duties have been suspended, but the WinShape director refuses to even comment on the events. Again, NOT OKAY.

Maybe Berry College, you should focus on aspects such as providing your students with the best education you can and recruiting the best and brightest students available instead of pandering to the whims of Chick-fil-a to get money. Although, to be fair, our wonderful Founder whose birthday is this weekend saw no shame in such tactics. At least she markedly improved the school while she was at it.

*Before much attention was placed on this situation, Mr. Mallory had responded to an article about the new mandatory on-campus housing where he provided an atrociously written response to the situation and claimed that since he lived up at WinShape he was impartial and that because he had seen life outside of the Berry Bubble that he was an expert in reality (I assume he meant his trip to India, but cannot verify this.) The comments have since been disabled by those not registered on the site. Here is an excerpt I copied (and obviously did not edit) before it was removed from search archives:

Posted by Nathan Mallory on Jan 28th, 2009

There's not much left to be said, but I feel that as a Winshape student, I am paricularly unbiased, as I must live in Pilgrim. I feel that the "Berry Bubble" as a common phrase says wonders about this campus, both positive and negative. I find Berry to ba a beautiful campus filled with mostly upperclass whites spoonfed by their rich parents. They seem to be predominately Christian and totally ignorant of how the real world works. (I admit I'm on a soap box, but I can say with 100% certainty that I do know more about this "real world" than anyone I have met here.) For those of us who have had real world experiences, this perspective makes Berry seem surreal. Students may be laerning academically, but they are being fooled when it comes to street sense, or just plain real world experience.

I'm a Christian, and I hurt for whoever commented above me, and I feel that it is not at all right to force students to live on campus if they choose not to. Let's try to model the campus as a microcosm of America, that making the most sense because we will live and work here (probably). America grants liberty and equal rights to everyone, so let's not discriminate and call it the "Christian" thing to do. But at the same time, let this campus also not become a tyranny of the majority, as slavery was for Abraham Lincoln. Just because a majority of students want something, it should not be handed to them on a silver platter. Smoking hookas, drinking responsibly, and living on campus should be up to the students, or adults, to use or abuse, as none of these things are inherintly wrong.

This is obviously more about money than what is right or wrong, and God will not bless a desision based on monetary gain rather than the good of the students. Also, it's not the most efficient strategy. Why not lower tuition and grant more freedom if your goal is to bring in more students? Berry needs to try and compete WITH the reccesion, rather than against it. Strongly market that! Stress the fact that your "Bursting the Berry Bubble" in order to create a more diverse, cultured,real world experienced campus, rather than some surreal forest community! I'm a transfer student, and I LOVE Berry more than anywhere I've been, but it's not perfect! This is actually the only problem I have with Berry at all... Other than the turon-attracting, over-populated deer.