Christian at a crossroads
Wheeler's epic journey 25 years in the making
Keith Wheeler carries his 12-foot wooden cross in downtown Tulsa on Friday, marking the 25th anniversary of carrying his cross around the world. He began in Tulsa in 1985 and has walked nearly 20,000 miles in places all over the world including in some civil wars and other danger zones. ADAM WISNESKI/Tulsa WorldBy BILL SHERMAN World Religion Writer
Published: 4/3/2010 2:20 AM
Last Modified: 4/3/2010 4:15 AM
On Good Friday in 1985, a young Oral Roberts University master of divinity student reluctantly picked up a 12-foot wooden cross and carried it through the streets of Tulsa.
Keith Wheeler, now 48, had no idea that day would launch a full-time ministry in which he would carry the cross some 20,000 miles in 187 nations through some of the most dangerous war zones in the world.
On Friday, Wheeler again carried his cross through Tulsa, walking from downtown along Riverside Drive to Jenks, retracing part of his original route.
After a slow start in the rain, the skies cleared and Wheeler found himself often surrounded by people who wanted to talk.
"It's been just awesome," he said. "People are so open. That's the wonderful thing about Tulsa. There's such a respect and love for the cross."
Halfway through his trek down Riverside Drive, Wheeler retired the cross he has carried for 24 of the past 25 years and picked up a new cross.
When will he quit carrying the cross?
"God told me to do this," he said. "I'll quit when he tells me to or when I go home to him."
Wheeler did not always have such enthusiasm for what has become his life's work.
When he first felt that God was calling him to carry a cross on Good Friday, he recoiled at the idea, he said.
"I'm very shy, timid, insecure, naturally," he said. "God did not call me according to my strengths."
He asked for a sign.
Not five minutes later, he said, a good friend called him and told him his pastor in Louisville, Ky., had carried a cross across that city on Good Friday a year earlier. The friend suggested they do the same in Tulsa.
Still unconvinced, Wheeler said he asked for another sign.
An ORU professor in a preaching class asked him to preach on Mark 8:34: "If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me."
Reluctantly, Wheeler built a cross and early on that Good Friday 25 years ago started walking from the ORU campus.
"I prayed, 'Don't let anybody see me,' " he said.
He carried the cross along Harvard Avenue to 36th Street North, back through downtown, and along Riverside Drive to ORU.
Later, he carried the cross to Oklahoma City and then to Arkansas. Eventually, he began to carry the cross overseas.
Over the years, he has been beaten and left for dead in the southern United States, threatened by armed assailants in Mexico, arrested and jailed several times, accused of being a spy for the CIA, run over and stabbed.
He was in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Bosnia during their civil wars. He was in Iraq during the reign of Saddam Hussein. He sat down with Hamas and al-Qaida in the Middle East.
He was in Rwanda in June 1994 during the time of the genocide that killed 800,000 people.
"Nobody can understand how horrible it was the stench it was a nightmare," he said.
He camped on the streets of Bethlehem in 2002 when Palestinians, who were holed up in the historic Church of the Nativity, battled with Jewish soldiers. Bullets were flying.
"The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) and the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) were competing for who could take better care of me," he said.
But these trouble spots were the exception, not the rule. In general, he said, he and his cross have found acceptance and hospitality all over the world in every political and religious setting.
"I've had more beatings, more guns pointed at me and more knives pointed at me in the United States than all the rest of the world put together," he said.
"And it's sad to say, my cross has been welcomed in more bars and nightclubs than in churches."
Wheeler said it has become evident to him through his travels that war is not a fight over land or politics or religion.
"It's about hurt and anger," he said.
"The answer to war is forgiveness.
"Peace begins with the cross," he said. "I believe the foot of the cross is where the best of God meets the worst of mankind."
Wheeler, an Arkansas native, has lived in the Tulsa area for more than 25 years. He is married and has two children. His ministry is supported by donations. In addition to carrying the cross, he speaks at churches, youth conferences and other events and appears on national Christian television.