Sporting
a ball cap reading "Repent" and brandishing a bullhorn, the Rev. Frank
Teesdale warns strangers at the corner of 18th Street and Loomis
Boulevard in Chicago every Friday that they'll lose if they gamble with
their souls.
The
Baptist pastor cautions that the Roman Catholic Church is a false path to salvation, homosexuality is an abomination and adultery is a sin.
Tattooed cyclists bark profanities and flip him the bird as they cruise
through the intersection. One man ducks into an alcove to light a crack
pipe. Neighbors making their way home from work roll their eyes.
By now, denizens of the Pilsen neighborhood are accustomed to seeing
Teesdale's crew of evangelists from Garfield Ridge Baptist Church at the
intersection every week, oblivious to the weather and undaunted by the
hostility.
If only one person stops to talk to someone on his team, he
said, it's the only affirmation he needs.
Teesdale won additional
affirmation last month from a federal judge who ruled that police
violated his First Amendment rights by arresting him for preaching at
the St. Symphorosa Family Festival, an annual festival sponsored by a
Catholic church.
The church had a permit to use the streets
surrounding the parish, but U.S. District Judge William Hart ruled that
those streets were public and that Teesdale had a right to be there,
under certain ground rules.
He also ordered the city to pay Teesdale's
legal expenses.
Troubled by the language in the ruling, the city
plans to file a motion for Hart to reconsider his ruling and rejects any
notion that it has implications beyond Teesdale, since the city has no
policy against street preaching.
For Teesdale, the ruling renews
his faith and his mission to fulfill what he believes to be a biblical
mandate: sharing the gospel beyond the four walls of the church and
introducing it in the public square.
"We're trying to be true to
the Bible," said Teesdale, 59. "Christianity was a very public ministry.
Paul first preached publicly. Jesus preached publicly. John the Baptist
preached publicly."
Yet some observers, while acknowledging
Teesdale's constitutional rights, believe his street sermons are
judgmental and mean-spirited.
In addition to condemning Catholicism, he
preaches about the sin of homosexuality outside WRTE, a Latino public
radio station, during the hours it broadcasts "Q Phonic," a
Friday-evening show about gay youth issues.
"I guess it's his
right, but it's an attack on the safe space we're trying to create for
our youth," said Salvador Munoz, 22, a WRTE volunteer who passes
Teesdale when he leaves the station on Fridays.
Teesdale said he
has been unfairly maligned and compared with members of Westboro Baptist
Church, the tiny Kansas congregation known for mounting anti-gay
demonstrations outside the funerals of fallen soldiers.
The U.S. Supreme
Court ruled Westboro had a right to protest, even if the group's
message was regarded as offensive. Westboro perhaps is best known for
the gay epithets on the church's "God hates" placards.
Teesdale
said he agrees with some of what Westboro says but said he doesn't agree
with their word choices and some of the venues they choose. For
example, he said, he prefers biblical terms such as "sodomites" and
"reprobates" to describe homosexuals.
"That's what God calls them," he said. "You can have the right message
and so smear the testimony you can really do more harm than good."
Raised as a Lutheran,
Teesdale became a Baptist when a colleague at Kraft Foods challenged
him to explain his beliefs and encouraged him to read the Bible.
"I always felt like there was more to Christianity than what I was
practicing," he said. "I went to church, but I never really understood
the gospel.
He left Kraft in 1990 and attended the seminary at
Fairhaven Baptist College in Chesterton, Ind., returning to Chicago in
1997. He took over Garfield Ridge Baptist Church in 2008.
When
he's not preaching in church or on the streets, he works full time
checking baggage at O'Hare International Airport for the U.S. Department
of Homeland Security.
He became a street preacher when someone
challenged his commitment to the New Testament, which instructs
Christians to proclaim their beliefs to the world and gives many
examples of Jesus and his apostles doing just that.
"It's one
thing to prepare a message in the confines of your study," Teesdale
said, "but to be on the street and speak extemporaneously … If you take
it to the street, you put it right on your sleeve. It makes me know my
Bible better."
It takes courage to communicate the gospel beyond the comfort zone of a church, said the Rev. Chris Schroeder, a graduate of Moody Institute and president of the Ezekiel Project, a Michigan-based ministry that teaches open-air evangelism.
Few preachers want to share their message with an indifferent or hostile audience.
