Singing Praises : 4,600 Hear Evangelist Greg Laurie Preach at Universal Amphitheatre

Tourists at Universal Studios can see a Hollywood-style miracle with the parting of the Red Sea or visit that shrine to rock music, the Hard Rock Hollywood Cafe, with historic relics on its walls.

But on Sunday, real-life gospel preaching and Christian music came to the Universal Amphitheatre complete with the traditional assertion that hell is real, a denial of scientific evolution and the culminating call for the uncommitted to accept Christ.

Evangelist Greg Laurie of Riverside, who on July 4 packed Anaheim Stadium with 63,000 people, brought his Billy Graham-style message to a crowd of 4,600 on Sunday afternoon. Laurie, who preached to 3,800 at another two-hour rally Sunday night, will continue the revivals tonight through Wednesday night.

Over a period of 20 years, Laurie built a fledgling congregation in Riverside into a church that draws 14,000 people each Sunday. Adding a career as an evangelist in 1990, he has become popular in Orange County and San Diego, but this was his first foray into Los Angeles.

He has begun cautiously, booking the 6,100-seat Universal Amphitheatre--and hoping to preach eventually at a place like Dodger Stadium.

At Sunday’s first rally, nearly 400 people responded to Laurie’s summons to dedicate or rededicate themselves to a Christian life.

“I don’t know if there has ever been a holy moment in the Universal Amphitheatre, but there is today,” Laurie said as many came forward.

Actually, it wouldn’t be the first time the 6,100-seat theater has been used for religious gatherings. Pope John Paul II met with youths there on his 1987 visit to Los Angeles, and Methodists packed the amphitheater for a 1995 rally.

Though Laurie turns 44 next month and referred to himself Sunday as a “bald guy,” he typically draws many young people to his crusades with a plain-spoken delivery laced with quips and a stage loaded with contemporary Christian music makers.

Laurie, often mentioned in the same breath with Billy Graham’s son Franklin Graham as the most promising newcomers in mass evangelism in this country, nevertheless does not rouse the audience often with stirring statements. Compared with Billy Graham, both Laurie and the younger Graham are considered to have a more relaxed style, sprinkling their sermons with references to music, celebrities and modern slang that resonate with a younger audience.

Other than Laurie’s sermon, brief prayers and announcements, the opening rally Sunday was dominated by the music of vocalist Crystal Lewis, the high-decibel sounds of the Maranatha Praise Band, guitarist Dennis Agajanian and a Christianized version of “I Wanna Know What Love Is” sung by Lou Gramm, the lead vocalist with Foreigner, a band that had a hit with the song in the 1980s.

Laurie’s message stayed within the evangelical tradition, even to the point of swiping at evolutionary theory: “You did not evolve from a form of lower life; you were created by God.”

Public opinion surveys tend to show more widespread belief in heaven than in hell, but Laurie said that one is just as real as the other. He disparaged common spiritual declarations such as “We’re all children of God” and religious prescriptions to “look inside yourself, then you will find the answers.”

To cheers from audience members--many from the 100 churches in the Los Angeles area that are supporting the crusade--he asserted, “You can’t be a Christian without being born again.”