Snappy lines make preacher's point

The Rev. Bob Harrington

"It is fun being saved.

Associated Press

By George W. Cornell

AP Religion Writer

NEW YORK The Rev. Bob Harrington, "chaplain of Bourbon Street" in the jazz and strip section of old New Orleans, is loaded with one-liners for his trade: "You don't need 80-proof booze in your body when you've got the 100-proof Lord in your heart."

He packs such quick, crisp sayings into a roving, offbeat ministry, which he carries on not only in the street's clubs and bars, but on records, radio, television and in guest appearances at conventions, organizational meetings, church rallies, state fairs and country-music concerts.

He wraps his messages in showmanship. "It's the sizzle to help me sell my steaks," he says. And he lays on his zippy maxims of faith in rapid-fire order:

"It's fun being saved ... Fun is not a beanie cap and propeller. Fun is having a hand on the handle of life... It's having your act together, a faith to live by and a purpose to live for It's not what you stop doing, but what you start doing."

In an interview, the Rev. Mr. Harrington, 49, a 6-foot-2, 240-pound man in bright-blue leisure suit, a gold-colored pendant at his neck, said with characteristic gusto

"I want every eye in America to see, every ear in America to hear and every heart in America to know it's fun being saved

"

He and 10 assistants, three of them also ordained ministers, have their office and chapel on the second floor above Pete Fountain's club, amid the peep shows, topless bars, jazz halls and pickup joints.

“I can walk down Bourbon Street with a Bible in my hand, the Lord in my heart and a smile on my face, and people point. The crowds come from all over the world, not to see me, but I let them. The Lord Jesus identified with people where the people are," he said.

Often, with management's per-

mission, he'll do a 10-minute stint at one of the drink-and-dance places, in between strip acts:

"They're looking for happiness, and that's what I offer them," he said. "God didn't come into the world to damn men but to bless them, to give them happiness, tranquility, life.”

He went on, his words crackling with snappy aphorisms from his repertoire: "People look for satisfaction in thrills instead of in happiness. Thrills are an external kick that usually kick back. Happiness is an internal-eternal condition and you have to qualify to have it.

"It doesn't come from wishing. It comes from faith. To have fun is to live right. It takes discipline and dedication, but the results are peace, love, confidence, joy. When you give it, you get it. When you give love, you get love. If you plan just on getting it for self, you're soon got by the getting."

Shaking his head at the decline in traditional values, the homosexual advocacy of the normalcy of their condition and promotion of sex outside of marriage, he said, "We've reached the point where right's wrong and wrong's right. Nowadays, what's normal. society thinks is abnormal."

He blamed the women's lib movement on American men becoming weak and effeminate. "The reason women are crying for liberation is that they're disappointed in modern men. Men are not the leaders God made them to be.

"Men have been majoring in everything except what they ought to be majoring in. Women would be the first to rally to men being leaders if they qualified. But most men today flunk the test. The greatest need in America today is real men deciated to God, men who are men."

A Southern Baptist, the Rev. Mr. Harrington, who abandoned a highpaying business career and entered the ministry when he was 30, started his Bourbon Street ministry in 1962.