'Brother' Stephen coming back to U.

Just because "Brother" Stephen White hasn't been seen denouncing sinners and whoremongers lately on College Green doesn't mean he hasn't been busy. Over the past three months, White has continued his crusade at Princeton University despite his arrest there last fall for trespassing. He also argued with crowds of students at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., and was arrested at Howard University in Washington, D.C. And now he's hawking a video of his preaching for $15. White, a self-proclaimed "open-air preacher" who runs Soldiers For Christ, a Pentecostal Christian Fellowship at Temple University, has often been a source of controversy at Penn. Last semester White got into a heated debate with a group of gay students over family values and his anti-gay views. His arguments so infuriated one particular student that she pushed him in anger, White recalled. On his subsequent visits to other campuses, White's preaching has been no less controversial. At Rutgers in January, he got into another charged argument when White asked a Hindu student whether he "will come back [to life] as a fly," in reference to the Hindu belief in reincarnation. That same day a different student slapped White for a remark she thought was sexist. At Howard University, a predominantly African-American school, White ran into even more trouble. He started preaching at 1 p.m. and within minutes was surrounded by a large group of students. Campus security told White that they were worried students would react violently to his preaching and urged him to leave campus. When he refused to leave at the request of city police officers, White was arrested for "disorderly conduct and inciting a riot." He was placed in jail for a few hours before his wife bailed him out for $50. But not all students have responded negatively to White's preaching -- several have even given him positive feedback, he said. When preaching at Princeton in February, he twice went to dinner with students who wanted to talk with him at length. And at Rutgers a football player, who White calls Brother Dennis, stood by as a "bodyguard" while White argued religion. Here at Penn, White has received several favorable e-mails from both Christians and non-Christians as well as a request to be the guest speaker for a Bible study group. To help support his ministry, White is selling videotapes of his experiences preaching the gospel at college campuses entitled How Shall They Hear Without a Preacher? He said he has sold about 15 videos so far. In the coming months White plans to bring his preaching to the University of Connecticut as well as Columbia, Yale and Harvard universities. And, sure enough, he said he'll be back on his College Green perch next week. "Ivy League students are intellectually stimulating," he said.

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