By Apurva Mahajan

Demonstrators from the Key of David Christian Center in Philadelphia showed up at the University of Maryland once again to heckle and shout at students walking past Hornbake Plaza for hours on Thursday afternoon.

The two middle-aged men, who identified themselves as ‘Pastor Aden’ Rusfeldt and ‘Brother James,’ came prepared with several bright yellow signs condemning groups they deemed to be sinners. Catholics, Muslims, LGBTQ people and women were among those targeted, alongside “money lovers,” “liars,” “the Pope,” and “porno freaks.”

“Women Belong in the Kitchen,” “Jesus Still Kills” and “Obey Jesus or Hellfire” were some of the messages plastered on their signs. Multiple police officers were at Hornbake Plaza off to the side watching the event unfold from a distance. Students came over as they were walking to class to see what the commotion was about, and stayed for how ludicrous the situation was. 

“I instantly became enthralled because this guy is crazy and he’s very homophobic, Islamophobic, everything you could possibly be, so I’ve been sitting here for about 40 minutes responding to him and asking him questions and it just keeps getting worse,” said sophomore journalism major Fiona Roy.

The men directly targeted individual students, saying they were all “going to hell,” and called many of them homophobic and sexist slurs. 

“A lot of you girls on this campus aren’t trained very well,” said Rusfeldt, who also referred to a female student asking him a question as “red dress prostitute.” He went on to spout racist rhetoric as well.

 “I got some Black grandbabies. They love watermelon, they love fried chicken,” he said.

The egregious nature of the demonstration combined with some students trying to seriously debate the men caused many to be unsure if the entire thing was real.

“I was trying to figure out if this was satire for a little while. I honestly don’t think it is. They believe what they’re saying, they really believe they’re trying to do good for whatever reason,” said sophomore computer science major Brendan Lapuma.

Sophomore mechanical engineering major Josh Midley said that the protestors bothered him as someone who grew up Christian his whole life, so he went up to them to give a response, and even told them that he loved them after they tried to target him. 

“These people aren’t teaching what we’re supposed to be teaching, which is the love and the care and the forgiveness that God gives to us and I just can’t stand here and let somebody talk about my faith like that,” he said. 

Other students felt similarly and tried to talk over the demonstrators, instead choosing to speak about how Christians should not judge; that the religion is about loving people as they are.

Hundreds of students banded together to shout back at the demonstrators, making fun of them, taunting them, and erupting in laughter at their outrageous statements.

“Are you bald under your hat?” yelled out one student.“You won’t give me a kiss?” asked another. 

Students even barked and howled at one point to drown out the sound of the demonstrators. 

This isn’t the first time the Key of David Christian Center has come to this university — in September 2019 and April 2021, members from the organization similarly demonstrated on McKeldin Mall, also bringing out hundreds of students in counterprotests.  

According to Rusfeldt, Key of David has preached to 48 different universities, and they’ve come to UMD for four years.He holds pride in the organization being Pentecostal and Puritan, but the website states that the church claims to be non-denominational.

Key of David has also shown up to Towson University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Delaware among other schools in this area and has been met with similar counterprotests like the one at this university. 

The general consensus at the demonstration was that Rusfeldt and Key of David were only trying to get a reaction out of the students by being controversial. 

“Nothing of this is true, nothing of this [has] substance, nothing is uplifting,” said Midley. “I just wish that everything that [was] said over here by those two men would fall on deaf ears.”

Featured Image: The demonstrators hold their signs while yelling at students on Feb. 9 at Hornbake Plaza in College Park, Maryland. Photo by Apurva Mahajan.