A Cool Crusader : You may not know the name (Greg Laurie), but he’s the guy behind the Harvest Crusade. His humor and MTV-style spin on Christianity draw in thousands.

He has a Harley in his garage, LSD in his past and a “liveskunk” he occasionally holds in his lap aboard airplanes.

He talks up Jesus at stadiums and on surfboards.

And he gets letters threatening his life.

Greg Laurie, the man behind all those Harvest Crusade bumper stickers, has carved out an unusual niche among evangelists. With his goofy humor and penchant for quoting Madonna (the singer, not the one at the manger), he has put a hip spin on conservative Christianity and led thousands to declare their faith in Jesus.

He has been called the MTV-savvy minister, the baby boomers’ Bible answer man. Or even--in some circles--the next Billy Graham.

For all of that, however, he remains surprisingly unknown.

*

Greg Laurie’s spiritual journey began on the lawn of Newport-Harbor High School in 1970. At that time, Laurie says, he was a rebellious, cynical 17-year-old searching for “meaning and purpose in life.”

The product of a troubled home--his mother divorced and remarried five times--he had been in and out of a military academy, lived in half a dozen cities across the country and grown up surrounded by adults who seemed to drink a lot.

“My real question . . . was not so much, ‘Is there life after death’ but ‘Is there life during life?’ ” he remembers.

When friends promised that drugs would expand his awareness, Laurie dropped some acid and smoked a lot of pot. Sure enough, he says, “I did become more aware--of how empty I was.” But Laurie steered clear of religion because “in high school, it was social suicide to walk around talking about God.” Whenever he went to the beach and saw Christians prowling the sands, “hunting for sinners,” he ran into the surf: “I knew they wouldn’t come into the water because they didn’t want to get their Bibles wet.”

Then one day, eating lunch on the grass at high school, Laurie listened in on a meeting of the campus Christian club. Someone quoted the Bible passage where Jesus says, “You are either for me or against me,” and Laurie froze: “I wondered: ‘Could I really be against him?’

“The next thing I knew, I was up there praying with these people (asking Jesus into my life), and it was almost like I could feel a weight being lifted off me. . . . It wasn’t a physical sensation or an emotional one. It was spiritual.”

Laurie adopted the long hair and beard that was de rigueur at his new home--Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa, a stronghold of a fundamentalist, Armageddon-is-near brand of Christianity that attracted legions of hippies and young people during the early 1970s.

He also put his drawing skills to use--at that point, he wanted to become a newspaper cartoonist--creating a comic-strip pamphlet designed to reach “other people like me, people who were not religious and were maybe a little cynical.”

Calvary Pastor Chuck Smith remembers meeting Laurie later and seeing the tract. “I saw he had a talent for (presenting the Christian message) in a very attractive way. I had him redraw it . . . and we took it down to PIP printers and had 10,000 copies made up.

“The first night that we put them out for the kids, all 10,000 were gone. Ultimately, we printed over 1 million.”

Laurie soon became such a fixture at Calvary that in 1972, Smith asked him to take over a small youth Bible study at an Episcopal church in Riverside.

The 30-person class mushroomed to 300 members in less than a year. Laurie, only 19 and with no college or formal training, had to educate himself with books, tapes and lessons from other Bible studies to keep up.

By 1974, the Bible group was bigger than the church’s congregation--and Smith, to the dismay of the Episcopalians, bought Laurie an abandoned Baptist church in Riverside, gave him a certificate of ordination and had him start his own Calvary-affiliated flock.

Smith also played another critical role in Laurie’s early Christian experience. The two were at a retreat when Laurie, still in his teens, asked Smith for a cup of punch: “I’m standing there, sort of awe-struck, and he’s pouring, and I’m thinking, ‘Oh, what a man of God,’ and he’s still pouring, and I’m still standing there, and then suddenly my cup starts overflowing and punch is running down my arm. And he just starts laughing.”

Laurie, a veteran prankster who thought he would have to drop his high jinks now that he was a believer, learned a lesson that guides him to this day: “Being a Christian doesn’t mean you have to give up your sense of humor.”

By the time Laurie starts ironing his shirt in the private, cowhide-furnished lounge where he camps out every Sunday, a line has already formed for the first of four regularly scheduled services at his Riverside church.

The Baptist chapel that he started in 20 years ago has long since been retired in favor of a department store-sized sanctuary built atop a nearby granite pit. And the congregation, Harvest Christian Fellowship, has grown into one of the 10 largest Protestant churches in the country, with an estimated 12,000 members.

Bible in hand, skin slightly orange from TV makeup, Laurie strolls across the parking lot to a back door at the church. As the musicians crank up onstage, he and several others munch doughnuts, pray and watch the proceedings on closed-circuit TV in a waiting room.

Laurie gets up, wanders outside and returns a few moments later, crashing loudly into the door and holding his head in mock pain. It is a running gag.

When it’s time for the sermon, the humor continues. In the past, Laurie has referred to inactive Christians as “pew potatoes,” compared Solomon to Donald Trump and joked that “going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going to McDonald’s makes you a Big Mac.”

On this occasion, he ribs St. Peter. Recounting the apostle’s seemingly inane remark after witnessing the transfiguration of Jesus and the appearance of Moses and Elijah on a mountaintop (Peter said, “Lord, it is good that we are here”), Laurie wonders if Moses and Elijah leaned over to Jesus and asked: “Who is this guy?”

Laurie uses the line to make a point: Just as Peter wanted to stay on the mountaintop with Jesus and Moses, modern Christians “tend to want to withdraw into our own subculture. . . . ‘If only there were a Christian city,’ they say. ‘It’d be great.’ There’s just one problem. Somehow, we’d foul it up. . . . We have to come down from our mountaintop experiences and live this Christian life in the real world.”

The message is very similar to a chapter in one of Laurie’s books. He later says that the borrowing was unintentional, but acknowledges that he recycles themes and ideas.

In his laptop computer, Laurie stores hundreds of quotes and news articles for use in his sermons. There’s an “Emptiness of Elvis” file, a Kurt Cobain file, a crime statistics file and a compendium of quotes that includes everyone from Ben Franklin and Madonna (“I’m a very tormented person; I have a lot of demons I’m wrestling with”) to Mel Brooks and Oprah.

“I’m always on the hunt for information that will reinforce what I’m saying,” Laurie explains. “One of the worst things you can do, especially if you’re trying to relate to young people, is be irrelevant.”

The formula is especially obvious at the Monday night Bible study he leads at mentor Smith’s Calvary Chapel. A few months after Laurie took over in 1989, attendance reportedly jumped from several hundred to 2,500, with overflow crowds spilling into the gym to watch on closed-circuit TV.

The sessions, broadcast live on Christian radio and taped for television, are perhaps as close as Laurie comes these days to his original ministry. The crowd is young, the music powered by electric guitars and the clothing decidedly casual.

In contrast, at the Riverside church--where volunteers sell biscotti and designer coffees between services--aging baby boomers dominate the congregation, the music is tame and Laurie long ago dropped the Levi’s-and-tennies look for pressed shirts and jackets.

Back at Calvary on a recent Monday, Laurie wears cowboy boots, black jeans and a dark shirt buttoned to the collar to deliver a primer on the do’s and don’ts of evangelizing non-Christians, including some advice about small black mammals with white stripes.

“Have you ever pulled out a Bible aboard an airplane?” he asks. “Some people look at you like you’ve pulled out a live skunk.” But Laurie says the method, which he uses on occasion, can invite discussion about God.

“In most people, there’s a loneliness and an emptiness that marriage can’t fill, friendships can’t fill, not even your dog can fill,” he says. “A lot of people think, ‘If I just had the right relationship . . . or if Ed McMahon would just call me and tell me I’d won, everything would be great.’ ”

But the emptiness lingers. Quoting actor Woody Harrelson (“No matter how many beautiful women I was with, it was never enough”) and reciting the lyrics to Simon and Garfunkel’s “I Am a Rock,” Laurie urges Christians to appeal to that internal void.

Consider how Jesus dealt with the Samaritan woman at the well, he says: “He didn’t begin with ‘Are you saved?’ or ‘Did you know you’re going to hell?’ ” (a point apparently lost on some audience members at Calvary, who are later heard uttering those very words to visitors).

Instead, he asked for water and talked with her about her life. And Laurie says Christians should do the same.

In an earlier interview, he says he hopes a similar philosophy carries over to his own ministry: “I’ve read numerous surveys in which non-believers say they would go to church if they could find someone to discuss their doubts and questions with.”

*

Away from the pulpit, Laurie is shy and guarded.

Eight years ago, he moved his wife and two sons from Riverside to San Clemente, in part to gain a little anonymity. But the job seems to follow him. “I’ve even been recognized when I’m out surfing,” he says. “Or I go to buy a loaf of bread and someone will have a spiritual question.”

When things get too intense, Laurie escapes to the desert with his white Harley-Davidson. Then he gets antsy a day or two later and checks in with the office for something to do. “I was never really successful at being a hippie,” he says. “I’m a little too hyperactive.”

Back at home, he works out of an airy office with skylights, walls of books, Disney memorabilia and a sword once worn by a member of Haile Selasse’s honor guard (a gift from Billy Graham’s son, Franklin).

He also has an affinity for cowhide upholstery (even on the Harley), Mexican paver tiles and battered leather briefcases (“I think a briefcase takes on more character if it’s thrashed,” he says of the valise he carries around Riverside--and of the matching collection of thrashed briefcase cousins it has at home).

His wife, Cathe, spends much of her day home-schooling their 8-year-old son, Jonathan (older son Christopher, 19, attends Biola University). Laurie says the arrangement ensures a better education, allows the family to be together when he travels and is more convenient than the church school, which is an hour from San Clemente.

The family togetherness stands in contrast to Laurie’s chaotic upbringing--and even to his early relationship with Cathe. She was 15 and Laurie 18 when they met at a Bible study he taught at Calvary. He drove her to coffee afterward in an old Corvair and they started dating a few weeks later. But it was stormy. “We fought a lot,” Cathe Laurie says. “He was strong-willed and so am I.”

They finally smoothed things out after a series of breakups and married right after her 18th birthday--over the objections of her devout Catholic mother and worried father.

“Greg can come across as cold at first,” she says. “It takes time to see his compassionate side.”

Her parents didn’t really come around until after the birth of Christopher, she adds.

Other old wounds have also lessened with time.

Once, while preaching in New York City, Laurie looked up the long-lost stepfather who had adopted him decades earlier and given him his surname. “I went to his house in New Jersey--he had just had a heart attack while driving--and met with him and his wife,” Laurie says. “She was Catholic and was very interested in my testimony (about) how I’d become a Christian and a pastor and so forth. . . . But (during the conversation) my dad said not a word.”

The old man remained silent until the next morning, when he took Laurie for a walk and asked: “What do I need to do to accept Jesus Christ?”

Laurie could scarcely believe it: “It brought closure on my life a little bit, to go back to something that hurt and see it healed.”

*

In 1990, Chuck Smith decided to try a little experiment with his protege. He rented the Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa for five nights, signed up some Christian rock artists and put in Laurie as the featured speaker.

It was billed as a sort of sanitized Woodstock and christened “Summer Harvest Crusade.” About 90,000 people showed up over the week.

Laurie’s pitch for the Lord was so persuasive that a mass baptism for 1,000 people was held later along the shore off Corona del Mar.

The next year, with additional churches joining as sponsors, the crusade expanded to San Diego and Honolulu. And Smith confided to reporters that he hopes Laurie might someday succeed Billy Graham.

Now in its fifth year, the Harvest Crusade (which concludes at Anaheim Stadium tonight) has toured five Western states, logging total attendance of 750,000 (many of them repeat visitors from night to night or year to year) and 60,000 “registered commitments” to Christ. Locally, some 500 churches are co-sponsoring the event, blanketing Orange County with a million flyers, 120,000 bumper stickers and 30,000 T-shirts.

Columbia University religious history professor Randall Balmer says crusade organizers are effective at reaching the MTV generation: “You have this very old form--the evangelistic sermon--that has been appropriated for modern culture,” he said in an interview last year.

The program is a mix of celebrity testimonials (such as former baseball player Dave Dravecky), Christian musicians (including Ricky Skaggs, Deniece Williams, Crystal Lewis and former ‘60s pop stars Gary Puckett and Richie Furay), canned-food drives for the poor and hard-sell preaching. Bible verses flash across scoreboards, volunteers conduct prayer vigils in press boxes. And separate children’s events--featuring huge, Macy’s Parade-style balloons--encourage youngsters to commit to Jesus.

Laurie receives no pay for his crusade work, and he waives any royalties from book sales at the events. During Harvest’s first two years, he also banned collections to dispel the image of evangelists just being in it for the money. (Smith paid for everything.)

Still, the crusade’s success remains difficult to gauge. Skeptics say such events are largely ineffective--serving more as a faith booster to believers than as a means to win converts. Also, attendance has been uneven outside Orange County.

The biggest hurdle is Laurie’s lack of name recognition--even among those who follow the evangelical scene. In interviews with religion observers, professors and evangelism experts across Southern California and the nation, nearly everyone said they had either never heard of him or didn’t know enough to comment.

Christianity Today Editor David Neff says, “All I know about Greg Laurie is what I read in his own publicity . . . (and that) certainly does puff him up.”

Even Laurie’s publicist concedes that he didn’t know the evangelist’s name until being hired by him about 18 months ago.

But that could be a good sign, says Carl George, director of the Charles E. Fuller Institute, a pastoral training organization in Pasadena: “I’m impressed that he’s carried off this (crusade) several years without becoming a household name. It shows that it’s not completely personality-driven.”

Sherwood Wirt, former editor of Billy Graham’s Decision magazine, predicts that Laurie, 41, will be “one of the great evangelists of the early 21st Century.” And Tom Phillips, another longtime Graham associate who now runs a ministry to foreign students, credits Laurie with helping to “invent the future” of American preaching. By balancing stadium evangelism with pastoring a church, Phillips says, Laurie “could well be a model for (new) evangelists.”

(Graham himself doesn’t comment on other ministers, but his organization has employed Laurie at its pastor training center in North Carolina.)

Laurie--whose office walls are decked with photos of him with Graham--shrugs off the hype. At the Calvary Bible study, when some youths come up and ask him what Graham is like, Laurie deadpans: “He slaps you around. He slapped me and said, ‘Who do you think you are?’ ” The youths are speechless. Then Laurie grins, “Just kidding.”

Later, on a more serious note, he says nobody can replace America’s preeminent evangelist: “Billy Graham has been set apart by God in a singular way. . . . Do I think I’m his heir apparent? Absolutely not. I hope to be one-tenth as effective with my generation as he is with his.”

Besides, Laurie adds, “I’m not a statesman. . . . I don’t see myself strolling into the White House and being a counselor to Presidents.”

Moreover, “I don’t want that kind of fame. When I’ve been with Billy Graham, if he just walks through a hotel lobby, you can hear people audibly whispering, ‘That’s Billy Graham.’ Who wants to be gawked at and stared at all the time?”

But even Laurie’s limited exposure carries a price. He is approached by all manner of kooks and has even received death threats, he says. “I turn those over to police . . . but what can you do? You just go on and trust God to protect you.”

The growth of his ministry has wrought other changes, as well.

Laurie’s ragged Corvair has been replaced by a Jeep Grand Cherokee (purchased for him by his church), the hippie commune house where he and his wife first lived has been traded for a two-story, ocean-view tract home in a gated community in San Clemente, and his original $30-a-week salary--which he supplemented by moonlighting as a graphics artist--has soared to $115,000 a year. (By comparison, Billy Graham’s pay package is $135,000, including a $34,000 housing allowance, and Jerry Falwell’s is $125,000, plus a car.)

But other things aren’t any different at all.

When Laurie and another pastor went out for pizza recently in Newport Beach, he bumped into a high school friend at the next table. “You still getting into trouble all the time?” the old pal asked.

“No,” Laurie answered. “I’m a Christian. In fact, I’m a pastor.”

The friend shook his head: “I can’t believe it.”

They chatted a bit longer and then both returned to their meals. A few moments later, however, when the pastor Laurie was with got up to use the restroom and Laurie dumped hot peppers all over his pizza, the high school chum whirled back: “I guess you haven’t changed that much after all, have you, Greg?”

Greg Laurie

Age: 41

Native: Yes. Born in Long Beach. Raised in Corona del Mar, Costa Mesa, South Gate, New Jersey and Hawaii. Lives in San Clemente.

Family: Married Cathe Martin in 1974; two sons.

Passions: Sharing Jesus Christ with baby boomers and young people, collecting Disney memorabilia, riding motorcycles.

On the different ways people perceive sermons: “I’ll go into this detail about what some Greek or Hebrew words mean, and then afterward I’ll stand at the back and someone will say, ‘You know, I liked it when you told that story about the dog.’ ”

On attitudes toward God: “Many people today want a user-friendly God who will not challenge their lifestyle.”

On irrelevance in the church: “Preachers are answering questions that no one is asking, and missing the questions that are being asked.”

On other denominations: “I find I have more in common with a committed Catholic than a liberal Protestant.”