One Man’s Sign Turns Into Another Man’s Protest

By Gabriella Palomo

On April 1, a young woman held up a sign taller than her frame outside Flagler College’s Proctor Library. She was soon joined by Jesse Kienel, the Christian man who preached to the gathering crowd for four hours.

Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, Kienel has been in St. Augustine for a short period of time. He discovered Flagler College from a casual drive-by, and already being a regular preacher on the corner of St. George and Hypolita streets, he considered the audience of a liberal arts college.

“A lot of Christians at the college don’t really know the Bible,” Kienel said about students like Ty Stanovich, who spoke openly to him about his beliefs toward the end of the protest.

Kienel argued that faith should be eternal rather than temporal and that the only way to truly know scripture is to dedicate time.

“Serving Jesus and being a theologian of sorts is something you can do as a full-time job rather than focusing on temporal things such as degrees and majors that won’t matter when you stand before God,” he said.

“The temporal thing overwhelms the spiritual thing,” Kienel said.

He said that students willingly expose themselves to sin by watching high-rated movies and listening to music with vulgar language. Exposure to the world’s harsh realities led Kienel to become the preacher he is today. After serving eight years as a U.S. Marine, his pondering of death, destruction and spirituality entered him into his life’s “studies season.”

“God puts different seasons for different reasons in the life of the believer,” Kienel said.

He plans to come back to Flagler College with a goal in mind: to produce an evangelist for the college.

Kienel quickly became unpopular among Flagler students who took offense to his teachings and impactful sign. Olivia Graham, a sophomore majoring in anthropology and a proud board member of the school’s Pride Alliance and Metaphysic Esoteric Theocratic Association (META) clubs, responded to him with a sign and protest of their own.

“At first I had every intention of just standing with my sign, but once people started to heckle him, it only felt right to be louder than him,” Graham said.

Graham stood beside Kienel for three hours and spoke on behalf of other students when they ordered him to leave a place where he was not welcome.

“The crowd was definitely angry but not violent,” Graham said. “Angry that they have to deal with this on a school campus where they should be safe and allowed to pursue academic freedom free of hateful prejudice.”

With various protestors having already visited Flagler to speak about “how morally awful the student body is,” Graham believes that not enough action is being taken to prevent crude preachers from bombarding students.

Flagler College security stood watch throughout the gathering, unable to escort Kienel and his friend Noemí away from campus since they were not quite on campus grounds. Students like Graham are frustrated about the public street and sidewalks that sit at the heart of campus.

After this protest, Graham is more appreciative of their peers.

“I was so proud of my colleagues who gathered to heckle the heckler back,” they said. “I feel like the last few protesters have been egged like a butt of a joke, but this felt more meaningful.”

Graham felt strongly about voicing the feelings of the students whom Kienel offended.

“I want to make it clear that I am not upset by people coming peacefully to speak about their religions, but to what point do we call religious persecution or public condemnation verbal abuse?” Graham said. “So I do believe it was a protest not against religion, but in hopes of making our campus a sanctuary free of discrimination and hate.”