When I first saw the cutesy “Do you agree with Dave” signs and balloons that are littering our campus I expected that they were attempting to start a “buzz” for some multinational corporation’s new product. I was close, but a different organization was involved than I expected.

We are the latest university to be blanketed by the “Do you agree with Dave” campaign organized by the Campus Crusade for Christ to “share Christ with our campus” and “to unify the Christian community” (although Mormons and members of other “questionable” Christian faiths should not apply).

“Do you agree with Dave?” asserts that, among other things: “There is one God, in the persons of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit”; “The Bible is infallible and completely inspired. Flawless. The Bible is Truth”; and that “He [Jesus] was perfect and had to die in our place because we are sinful and separated from God.”

According to the information packet the “Dave Week” has cost other campuses around $8,000. I don’t know how much the organizers here have spent, but I doubt that the ads, flyers, balloons, T-shirts, etc., were free. Is this the best use for such a large sum of money and concerted effort?

Jesus admonished his followers to help the poor (“whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me [Jesus]”) and to do generous and pious acts in private (“Do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full”). Wouldn’t the Christian message be better served by contributing the time and money spent on the “Dave” campaign to a charitable cause?

Think of what $8,000 and hundreds of people could accomplish toward stopping wars, fighting hunger, cleaning up the government, reducing discrimination, immunizing children. I’m sure you could think of many other worthwhile causes.

It appears that the “Do you agree with Dave?” effort is more concerned with attempting to make non-evangelical Christians feel like outsiders than helping those less fortunate or making this world a better place.

Jo Etzel

Graduate student

Bioinformatics and Computational

Biology