My Thoughts on Evangelical Street Preachers

THOUGHTS ON EVANGELICAL STREET PREACHERS

While driving home from the Las Vegas Strip yesterday, I stopped at the busy intersection of Flamingo and Decatur. A street preacher was hoisting a large sign with Bible verses written on it while he was screaming holy scripture into a bullhorn.

The traffic light took a while, so I pulled out my phone and recorded a minute of his “sermon” before the light turned green.

As I drove on, I wondered to myself — what would make a person do that? What makes people abandon normalcy and evangelize on street corners? I also wondered — what’s this guy like at family reunions? Does he have a real job? Is he hawking Jesus all the time everywhere he goes?

While I certainly don’t want to sit next to this guy if I ever see him on an airplane, part of me also admires his dedication. Even if he’s yelling at clouds and preaching fairy tales, I have to envy the sense of commitment. Credit the man for taking his holy book to heart and living the word to the letter. In a mecca of vice like Las Vegas and a bigger world of disorder, this street preacher wasn’t selling me anything or trying to con me out of a buck. Sure, religion remains history’s biggest con job, but I can’t disparage the act of man selflessly putting himself out there, vulnerable to ridicule, while doing a task loaded with constant rejection.

Indeed, it would be easy to ridicule the man. But rather, I feel sorry for him. All that time and energy wasted on a hot day on a Las Vegas street corner. Surely there must be better ways to sermonize and spread the teachings of their god. Turning oneself into a modern day nutcase screaming out Bible passages to cars racing by won’t convert many sinners into saints. I’m no marketing expert but it seems to me this is more likely to turn people away from religion.

This also got me to thinking about political protestors, who very often look and behave the same. We’ve all seen them, and some of us have even *been* them, hoisting signs and screaming into bullhorns. Standing on street corners. Again, let’s admire the selfless dedication. But is this really the best way to win over converts? That’s not a rhetorical question. I really have no answers. Last week, protestors in San Francisco shut down the Golden Gate Bridge. Even if their cause is noble, is that really the optimal way to gain followers?

Back in the 1960s, politics and religion melded into one with the Civil Rights marches, many orchestrated by MLK and other brave advocates of equality. Men and women of all colors hoisted signs. They yelled into bullhorns. They stood on street corners. They marched across bridges. Today, most of us *revere* that commitment and those sacrifices. Some were attacked. Many were arrested. We recognize that making a public spectacle of oneself and upsetting the calms of normalcy become the only alternatives that remained in times of oppression. That mattered. But it’s also difficult to define why we judge those protests positively, yet deride those doing the same thing today.

Preaching or politics, fortunately, we are afforded the right of free expression. And thinking once again about the Las Vegas street preacher, I’d much rather be entertained for 45 seconds at a stoplight than have the shirtless guy running up to my car with the window squeegee or get hounded by the “homeless vet” begging for money to buy booze or drugs.

So, preach on, brother!

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