All apologies

The walls of the stairwell at University of Texas of the Permian Basin’s Mesa Building are lined with posters and the simple white poster board with a message hand written in marker could easily be overlooked.

That isn’t always the case though. The poster quoted a passage from Adolf Hitler’s "Mein Kampf," the book that propelled Hitler to fame, wealth and power, while simultaneously laying the groundwork for the Holocaust and World War II.

"Therefore, I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews I am doing the Lord’s work." The quote, attributed to Hitler, is written in careful black lettering followed by the words "we are sorry for this" in red, with an arrow pointing up to the quote.

While Falcons for Christ president Mia Gonzales, a UTPB freshman, said their intentions were good, the UTPB organization’s "We are Sorry" campaign may not have had the effect they were going for.

The club came up with the "We are Sorry" campaign in January, after reading the book "Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality" a best selling book by Donald Miller that encourages people to apologize for "misrepresenting Jesus" by historical acts like the Crusades or failing to help those who are poor or in need.

Falcons for Christ was created at UTPB last fall as a Christian organization that emphasizes serving God by helping people. In the case of the "We Are Sorry" campaign, the students were trying to apologize for the bad things people have done in the name of Christianity, and the bad things that happen.

"The purpose was to really present ourselves before the community. The Bible says we’re the body of Christ, and we felt it was important to say that our God is good even if terrible things happen. It’s a way of clearing God’s name," Gonzales said.

The group got together to make the posters, and Gonzales said there was a lot of leeway in determining what people chose to write on them. Most of the posters had broader messages, apologizing for some of the negative things commonly associated with Christians like being judgmental or hypocritical.

Group members made about 12 to 15 posters and put them up around the campus on March 12. The club certainly got a reaction. Gonzales said she received numerous e-mails and heard a lot from angry students.

"The one’s that were really upset were the Christians. It was weird because the people who the messages were about actually thanked me, but the Christians were really upset," Gonzales said.

Falcons for Christ faculty adviser Robert Loyd said the Hitler poster was the poster the group heard about. Loyd, also a professor of communications at the university, said he thought the problem with using "Mein Kampf" came from the historical connotations of the book. He said he thought the emotions linking it to World War II and the Holocaust overwhelmed the campaign’s message of acknowledgement and forgiveness.

"Sometimes the words you use to address an issue just makes it worse…the quotes from ‘Mein Kampf’ were a powerful choice but also a dangerous one," Loyd said.

Some of the posters have disappeared from campus walls, but the poster quoting Hitler still hangs haphazardly on a wall in the Mesa Building.

"If we were going to do it again, we’d probably just advertise and have something at night with an open microphone," Gonzales said.

While their intentions were good, Gonzales admits the group would take a different approach to the campaign if they do it again.

"Obviously, we know that Hitler wasn’t a Christian, but we’re trying to clear God’s name and Hitler did terrible, awful things," Gonzales said.

‘MEIN KAMPF’

>> It is illegal to own or buy a copy of the book in Austria. In Germany, people can own the book, but it is illegal to print or copy it.

>> Adolf Hitler wrote the book in 1923 while in prison for the Beer Hall Putsch.

>> By the end of World War II, more than 10 million copies of the book had been sold or distributed in Germany.

THE BASIS

>> "We are going to confess to them. We are going to confess that, as followers of Jesus, we have not been very loving; we have been bitter, and for that we are sorry. We will apologize for the Crusades, we will apologize for televangelists, we will apologize for neglecting the poor and lonely, we will ask them to forgive us, and we will tell them that in our selfishness we have misrepresented Jesus on this campus." — from Donald Miller’s "Blue Like Jazz."