Christian speaker goes unstumped

By Kristen Hoverman
The Collegian

Over 200 people turned out for Campus Crusade for Christ’s, “Stump the Christian” event, said a staff member.

At 7:30 p.m. students and non-students gathered in the south patio of the University Student Union to try to stump guest speaker John Rittenhouse for a $100 prize.

After almost three hours of uninterupted questioning, Campus Crusade ended the event. No prizes were awarded.

“Nobody won. There really wasn’t any question that he wouldn’t answer pertaining to Christianity,” said liberal studies senior Josh Bussel, one of the leaders of Campus Crusade.

“I’m hoping some people pulled something out of it,” he said. “That was the ultimate goal.”

During the questioning, Rittenhouse addressed and was questioned on key questions about Christianity and the response of Christians to “the greatest atrocities of humankind.”

“We asked him to come here to answer students’ questionson Christianity,” said MicheleHoux, an alumni and intern with Campus Crusade. “I think this event is effective because a non-Christian that has questions will get them answered.

“People really have questions about what it is to be a Christian. John is well- researched and very effective when he talks. He can get the students interested.”

Approximately 50 people attend the Thursday night meetings, Houx said.

“I heard a lot of people talking about the money reward in the fliers,” Houx said.

Rittenhouse is a professor at Biola Univeristy and has been heavily involved with Campus Crusade at Redlands University, said 26-year staff member for Campus Crusade Eric Hiett. He has been speaking across the country at several universities addressing issues on philosophy and theology.

“I love to be able to answer people’s questions,” Rittenhouse said.

He said he likes talking to college students because they are at a young age in which they have lots of answers and he wants to help in any way that he can.

“This is the first time we’ve had this event,” Hiett said. “There was a good turnout, about 200 people attended from what I counted.”

After the successful turnout of “Stump the Christian,” Campus Crusade is planning to have other events to get more students involved.

“Hopefully we’ll do something like this again soon,” Hiett said. “We don’t know what we will be doing in the future, but we will have other events like this.”

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