Dear Chi Alpha,
I can remember the first time I was exposed to your organization. It was Roadrunner Days, and one of your members came up to a group of friends and I. She was bubbly, sweet, and was wearing tie-dye and Chacos. To an incoming freshman, it was awesome to have someone be so nice to me for no reason and take an interest in me. She then invited our small group over to a “small movie night” at her best friends house with just a few friends and some pizza, and gave us her number. We all left feeling special, until one of the girls in our group went to the said “small movie night”, and there were over 100 people there, and the bubbly girl in tie-dye was nowhere to be seen. You preyed (and continue to do so) on a freshman’s longing to belong and have a place among 35,000 students at UTSA. This was the first experience I had with your organization not being what you said it was, or claimed to be.
Flash forward to 4 years later, and I have watched as your organization has accosted, harassed, belittled, and at times made fellow Roadrunners fear for their physical safety. You tout your organization as, “a Christian student organization at UTSA focused on walking with God together and advancing His purposes on our campus,” (straight from their website) yet you do nothing to advance the knowledge of Christ or his unconditional love with your hateful behavior. I guess to you, the best way to bring people to Christ is to tell them that they’re going to hell for not sharing your beliefs, to stereo-type student’s beliefs based on their appearance, and to attempt to scare and harass people into Christianity. Even as a believer in Christ, your members have tried to make me and others feel bad for not wanting to be apart of your organization. I’ve politely told your members before as they approached me on my way to class that I am already part of a church family, only for them to try and grill me about the church I attend, and how involved I am to see if it fits their standards of Christianity and tell me “that’s not good enough.” I can distinctly remember a situation on campus last year that I had to witness in disgust where some of your members purposefully set up next to the LGBTQ club, just so that you could scream at them and harass them for their life choices. The LGBTQ members stood there silently and with dignity as you made complete fools out of yourselves with your hypocrisy towards religion. How can you sit there and pass such hard judgments on others, and still call yourselves Christians when Romans 2:1 clearly says, “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.”
While you are obviously very passionate about being intolerant and hateful human beings, you seem to have forgotten that Christ showed his concern for others’ morality by specifically in the way He met them where they lived, fed them, taught them, and healed them (Matthew 9:9-11; Mark 1:33-34; 6:30-42; Luke 5:1-11). THIS is the way to bring people to Christ. I am by no means perfect or sin-free, but I know every time I show kindness, tolerance, and understanding towards others, I am giving them a glimpse of what Christ’s love really looks like. When the love of Christ is seen in us, others will be drawn to him. Your mouth is a megaphone for God’s Word, and by spewing hateful rhetoric, you are telling people that God is a hateful and unforgiving deity, which is totally wrong. If I was not a believer, and I saw your behavior, the last thought on my mind would be to want to know more about Jesus.
I know every member of your organization is not a bigot. In fact, as I sit here and type this letter, one of your small groups is meeting in the very same Paseo Starbucks I am. These students are not spreading hateful rhetoric, but meeting in peaceful fellowship. One question I would pose to these members is, “why do you continue to participate in a group that spreads hate?” “If you don’t feel that the views of your radical members reflect Jesus’ or yours, then why do they continue to associate with these people or Chi Alpha?” As the largest student organization on campus (not saying much, because student involvement is lacking at UTSA), you have a responsibility to make sure that you represent our university in a positive way. By having a man stand outside with a bunch of your members (wearing Chi Alpha merchandise no less) holding a sign that says, “Let me tell you why you’re going to hell!” you are telling everyone that’s visiting our university that UTSA students are intolerant, hateful, or just plain crazy. That’s not how I, or any other UTSA student, wants our school to be known as, and quite frankly it’s embarrassing to know there are even people like this on our campus. If you continue to let these types of people associate with your organization, you are just as guilty as they are.
UTSA students are tired of your behavior, Chi Alpha. When it gets to the point that people are starting petitions to have you removed from campus, you’re threatening our learning environment, and you’re making people feel physically unsafe, it’s time to either take a long hard look at your membership and how you can fix these issues, or leave. As a university, UTSA needs to crack down on your behavior. To all the UTSA students who have formed a negative opinion of Christianity based on this organization’s actions and behavior, I’m so sorry. Christianity is meant to be beautiful and give your life more meaning, not make you feel uncomfortable or terrify you. Please don’t let this stop you from learning more about Christ. So Chi Alpha, the next time you are angrily screaming the gospel or “praying” near the Sombrila, think about Matthew 6:5, “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.”