By Hailey Heinz

Do you agree with Corey?

Most Northeastern students were asked this question last week, whether in their mailboxes, on someone’s T-shirt or at a table around campus. Although most students have never met Corey, his name has been hard to miss.

“Corey” is Corey Tolbert, a sophomore criminal justice major, and last week he was the figurehead of a campus-wide campaign to raise awareness about Christianity. Bright blue flyers around campus posed the question “Do you agree with Corey?” and gave the Web site www.iagreewithcorey.com. On the Web site, students found an explanation of Corey’s faith, articles about Christianity and a message board to discuss Christian issues.

The campaign was sponsored by Agape, with support from the Evangelical Northeastern University Fellowship Forum (E-NUFF). Although new to Northeastern, the “do you agree with” concept has been used by Christian groups at universities across the country. The idea is to spotlight students with strong Christian faith, and use their name to create awareness.

Meredith Lennox, president of Agape Christian Fellowship, said the group chose Corey for his religious zeal, speaking ability and catchy name.

“When you pick someone to represent a whole group of people, you want someone dynamic, well-liked, excited about what we’re doing and excited about Jesus,” Lennox said. “Also, you want a name people can remember.”

At first Corey appears soft-spoken, but when he talks about his faith, the shyness melts away. He said when Agape members asked him to be the symbol of the campaign, he saw it as an opportunity to spread his faith.

“I definitely love Jesus, and I can’t think of a better way to share that,” Tolbert said.

Lennox said she feels there isn’t enough discussion of Christian issues at Northeastern, and hopes Agape will keep bringing those issues to light.

“[Northeastern is] open to Muslims, they’re open to Jews, they want to know about Hindu traditions, but when it comes to Christians, they think, ‘Oh, they’ve got that figured out,'” Lennox said. “They don’t want to hear from Christians.”

Even during the campaign, Lennox said resistance to Christian ideas has been evident. Lennox said a group of students shouted at her and called her a bigot while she was setting up a question table, and many postings on the Web site have been negative, with threads called, “How can we destroy Corey?” “Do you think Corey ever gets chicks?” and “Why Corey will be a homeless nutbag in 10 years.”

The campaign even spawned a parody. Freshman communications major Jay Latimer created www.jayknowswhatsup.com, a Web site that features a picture of himself, with a link to a forum.

Latimer posted flyers around campus, modeled closely after the “Corey” posters. He said he doesn’t feel strongly about the campaign, and mostly made his site for fun.

“I don’t particularly agree or disagree with the whole Corey thing,” Latimer said. “Most people didn’t know what was happening with it and there were just so many posters … I decided something so random needed some kind of response.”

In the same room where Latimer was creating this parody, his roommate, Dane Stebbings, was sporting an “I agree with Corey” T-shirt. Stebbings wore his shirt throughout the campaign hoping to get people interested in Corey’s message. He said he felt it was successful, as many people came up and asked him about the shirt.

Despite the efforts of students like Stebbings, many students, like Derek Noad, said they had heard of the campaign but didn’t know its message.

“I saw a sign but I had no idea what it was,” said the sophomore information science major.

Although the campaign went unnoticed by some, Lennox said she felt it was still successful.

“We’ve had a lot of people come and ask, ‘What does that mean?'” Lennox said.

The week culminated Thursday, when Tolbert spoke in Krentzman Quad. He told the crowd about his troubled youth and the transformation he underwent when he was “saved.” He ended by asking his listeners to consider his message.

“I’m not foolish enough to think everyone here agrees with me,” Tolbert said. “We can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do. We as believers in Jesus Christ can definitely ask that you think about Jesus Christ and what’s going to happen to you after this life.”