A Burst of Religious Activity in ‘Sin City’ of Las Vegas : Southern Baptists Gather in an Amiable Clash of Cultures

LAS VEGAS —  “The War,” as the Sugar Ray Leonard-Thomas Hearns fight Monday at Caesars Palace was advertised, ended in a draw.

Operation Rescue activists locally drew attention to their anti-abortion cause with sit-in arrests this week, but they barely hampered the targeted clinics. Another no-decision fracas.

About 20,000 Southern Baptists came here to renew their annual convention battle over whether the nation’s largest Protestant denomination will continue to swing to the religious right. While they were here, the Baptists also planned to save some sinners in this gambling resort from Satan’s clutches

Odds-On Favorites

The three-day church convention, which ended Thursday, provided the only clear winner in Las Vegas this week--the fundamentalists, who were the odds-on favorites anyway.

For the 11th straight year, a presidential candidate backed by the ultraconservative partisans won election. The Rev. Jerry Vines, 51, of Jacksonville, Fla., captured a second one-year term as president with 56.5% of the votes on Tuesday, defeating Atlanta Pastor Daniel Vestal, 44, with 43.5%.

A succession of ardently conservative presidents have made appointments leading to the fundamentalist domination of seminary and church agency boards.

Though pledging after his victory to “appoint the best Baptists I can,” Vines added that the list would exclude anyone “who believes there are errors in the Bible.”

‘Course Correction’

Fundamentalists claim that the decade-long “course correction” is needed because too many professors and denominational officers were less than zealous in proclaiming the Bible as the unerring, historically reliable word of God.

Members of the so-called moderate opposition, however, protest that they too are biblical conservatives and that the real struggle centers on political control of the 14.8-million member denomination and its 37,500 churches.

Vestal, backed by moderate organizers, all but said after his defeat that he would try again at next year’s convention in New Orleans. “Militant partisanship must be rejected and shared responsibility must be restored,” he told reporters.

Thus, the internal Southern Baptist war drags on.

A Little Proselytizing

The only other highly visible confrontation here this week--between evangelistic-minded Southern Baptists and the supposed legions of unsaved souls--amounted to a clash of cultures.

But that situation generally ended amiably with both sides saying the other guy isn’t so bad after all.

Convention-goers eager to justify their presence in Las Vegas engaged in neighborhood proselytization last Saturday and were led Wednesday by a cross-dragging evangelist to preach Jesus on the casino-thick Strip.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal noted that many residents had looked askance at Baptists toting stereotypes of “sin city” along with their Bibles.

However, in an editorial Wednesday, the newspaper claimed that “Las Vegans, no strangers to door-to-door religion, took the Baptists in stride.” The newspaper presumed that the visitors found a typical community “out there beyond the neon,” including many churches.

Pleasant Surprise

Indeed, one Baptist after another remarked how friendly everyone was.

“It’s not near as bad as I thought it’d be. I wouldn’t mind coming back sometime,” said Edith Head of Morgantown, N.C.

“Take away the gambling, it’s not different from other cities,” said Kevin Kilbreth of Oklahoma City.

“All large cities have sin, but it’s upgraded here,” said another Oklahoma pastor.

They also found some receptive listeners to their “witnessing” in the residential areas. Baptist officials said 470 people “were led to faith in Christ.”

In addition, at the close of a Southern Baptist evangelists conference Wednesday afternoon, evangelist Arthur Blessitt of Hollywood left the Convention Center with more than 200 Baptists willing to pass out New Testaments and religious tracts.

Wilting in the Heat

Thousands of participants were originally expected, but the 112-degree heat apparently wilted the soul-winning ardor of many would-be volunteers.

Shouldering a 15-foot-long cross (with a wheel at its base), Blessitt, the accompanying crowd and news photographers lurched along sidewalks on a two-mile trek to Caesars Palace.

Blessitt, 48, who has used his cross as an attention-getter around the world since 1969, said: “I’m not just picking on Las Vegas. I’m doing this to set an example for pastors to reach out to others.”

The Rev. Dale Morell, the only Southern Baptist from Maine at the convention, helped pass out New Testaments, asking tourists and workers if they knew Jesus. “Some people were cold, but others waved or gave thumbs-up signs from their cars,” he said.

Tourists Gape

Finally, the entourage reached one of the colonnaded entrances to Caesars Palace. About 50 yards away stood a Thai “spirit house” on the casino-hotel grounds--the Strip’s lone concession to the spiritual. Blessitt led his group in hymn-singing and prayer as tourists on the busy boulevard gaped at the sight.

Across the street, Las Vegas resident George Allen, who was handing out a booklet advertising call girl services and legal houses of prostitution, said some Baptists tried to thrust copies of the New Testament on him.

“I gave it right back to them,” Allen said. “Not that I don’t believe in God, but I don’t believe in their methods.”

Ironically, also on the grounds that they differ on tactics, Southern Baptists shunned the concurrent Operation Rescue civil disobedience protests. Although the denomination strongly opposes abortion, Richard Land, director of the Christian Life Commission, said early in the week that Baptists would maintain “sympathetic neutrality” toward Operation Rescue.

‘Clean’ Entertainment

Meanwhile, most Southern Baptists appeared to also avoid the casino games and confined their nightly entertainment, if any, to “clean” shows featuring stars such as Rich Little and Frankie Valli.

Nevertheless, at the Las Vegas Hilton, a lady about 70 years old and wearing a Southern Baptist convention badge stopped at a slot machine and carefully took out a nickel.

She placed it in the machine, pulled the handle and 50 coins came clanking out. She politely asked for a plastic cup to contain the payoff and walked away.