Arthur Blesslett, who carried the cross around the world, dies at 84


Arthur Blessott, whose fervent efforts to convert hippies, freaks and junkies along the Hollywood sunset were only the prelude to his decision to carry a 110-pound wooden cross from Los Angeles to New York City and then continue, eventually traveling 43,340 miles through every country on the planet – he died on January 14th. He was 84 years old.

The death of Mr. Blexitt was announced in the first person statement on his website. The statement did not say where he died or give a cause of death. He lived in the Denver area and his ministry was based in suburban Littleton, Colo.

A Southern Baptist preacher who ran a Christian cafe next to a strip club, Mr. Blexitt began his journey on Christmas Day 1969, carrying his homemade 6-by-12-foot cross on his shoulder. He made adjustments along the way, swapping sandals for boots and adding a 12-inch wheel to the base of his cargo; He later traded the heavy cross for a 42-kilogram version that he could split in two, making it easier to ship.

It took him six months to cross the country. When he was done, he returned to Los Angeles, only to receive – command – command from Jesus to take his way globally.

“Go!” Jesus told him, he recounted on his website. “I want you to go all the way.”

His first trip abroad, in 1971, was to Northern Ireland; Other parts of Europe, Africa, the Middle East and East Asia soon followed.

He carried a roll of stickers reading “Smile! Jesus Loves You,” which he handed out to curious passers-by. Not everyone was kind: He was harassed by police, bullies fought their way in, and his cross was stolen in—of all places—Assisi, Italy, where St. Francis once lived.

“Some see me and shout:” You are a nut! “” He said in a 2009 documentary.The Cross: The Story of Arthur Blessocit“Directed by Matthew Crouch. “I say, “That’s okay, at least I screwed up on the right screw.”

Mr Blexitt kept careful notes abroad, detailing how long his soles lasted (about 500 miles) and how often he was arrested (24 times). He visited every continent, including Antarctica, as well as war zones, disaster zones and many other places where he could have been shot, beaten or arrested.

He climbed Mount Fuji in Japan, faced rabid baboons in Kenya and was nearly blown up by a terrorist bomb in Northern Ireland – all while wearing his cross. He is listed in the Guinness World Records for “The longest pilgrimage in progress. “

It took him almost 40 years, but in 2008 he completed his quest to visit every country when he was allowed to enter the last one, North Korea. His “journey” was largely symbolic: the authorities let him carry his cross from the front door of his hotel to the street and back.

What followed was the gumption quality of Mr. Blexitt’s journey. Not only did he travel across the country on foot; During his adventures, he encountered a long list of historical figures – Yasir Arafat, Billy Graham, Bob Dylan – as well as people who tried to impress their own complicated agenda on what he insisted was a simple and innocent message.

“In the third world, people’s first thought when they see me is that I’m a holy man,” he told the Independent News in 1999. I’m an anti-abortion protester, other people are right-wing. “

His decades-long campaign made him a minor celebrity. Profiles inevitably zero in on his combination of dogged tenacity and AW-Shucks approach to his task.

“You’d be amazed,” he told People magazine in 1978, “how much attention a man carrying a big wooden cross gets.”

Arthur Owen Blexitt was born Oct. 27, 1940, in Greenville, Miss., to Arthur on Blexitt and Maria (Campbell) Blesslett and grew up in rural northwest Louisiana, where his father managed a cotton farm.

He studied history at Mississippi College, a Christian institution in Clinton, Miss., but left in 1962 without a degree. He later studied at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary (now Gateway Seminary), in Oakland, California, but left before completing his degree.

He began as a traveling preacher around the Mountain West, spending time in Montana and Nevada before settling in Los Angeles in 1967.

He found himself in the middle of the counterculture of the 1960s, but also encountered the early seeds of what became the Jesus Freak movement, mixing hippie styles and free Christian evangelicalism.

Mr. Blexitt began preaching in bars, clubs and concert halls, welcoming—or merely tolerating—the ethos of any goal. He dressed the part, with long hair and sandals, and mixed his sermons with references to drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.

“Like, if you want to get high, you don’t have to drop acid. Just pray and you’ll go all the way to heaven,” he wrote in “Life’s Greatest Journey” (1970), one of his many religious treatises. “You don’t need to pop pills to get high. Just throw in some Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. “

Mr. Blexitt married Sherry Simmons in 1963. They divorced in 1990. In the same year he married Denise Brown.

She survives him, as well as his children from his first marriage, Gina, Joy, Arthur Joel, Arthur Joshua, Arthur Joseph and Arthur Jerusalem; a daughter from his second marriage, Sophia; his sister Victoria; 12 grandchildren; and a great-granddaughter.

With his flowing locks and giant cross, Mr Blexitt has sometimes been mistaken for a Jesus impersonator and even the Son of God himself, including once in Liberia, when a village leader knelt before him.

“That’s the only time I ever thought about stopping,” he told the New York Times in 1997. “I laid the cross against the tree and said, ‘Lord, I will never try to take your glory and portray myself as a religious leader.’ ‘ And I heard Jesus whispering to me: ‘Don’t worry about it. Just stay out of the way. “”



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