COMMENTARY : Evangelist Lived His Ideals Even Amid Great Danger

Wally Tope has been a friend of mine for about 12 years. He’s what some people would call different, unique, maybe even a little strange.

He gave up a lucrative career in electronic engineering to lead a rather Spartan existence as a writer and a Christian evangelist. He’s a man with enviable ideals who has truly lived what he believes in a world that is big on talk and small on action. A man who is, unfortunately, near death.

Wally used to come and stay with me and my son several times a year when we lived in Salt Lake City. He’d usually show up unannounced (long-distance phone calls were considered a waste of precious resources) and was willing to sleep on a couch, a bed or the floor--whatever was available.

More than once, I went out of my house in the morning to find him asleep in his car in the driveway after driving straight through the night from California or from some speaking engagement in another state.

He wasn’t the type to wake us up just to have a bed to sleep in if he arrived after our lights were out. He was always very considerate of others. Best of all, he ate whatever I served him with effusive praise and gratitude (which means a lot to me since I am affectionately known as the “Ptomaine Poisoning Queen”--the worst cook who ever lived.)

While everyone else around us (including me) was concerned with minor things like paying bills and getting enough sleep, Wally looked at every 24 hours as being potentially the last, so that meant that there was always a lot of work to be done. He saw everything from an eternal rather than temporal point of view, and he frankly didn’t suffer fools easily or quietly.

He was a gentle soul yet a fortress of bravery who, for example, wasn’t afraid to confront a transport of East German soldiers (alone, by the way, in East Germany) and tell them about their need to know Jesus as their Savior. He could be exasperatingly short with people at times, and yet he cared deeply about everyone he met.

During the L.A. riots, Wally went to a store where there was looting going on to try to talk to the people about God and about why what they were doing was morally wrong. A number of people tried to talk him out of going, but he believed--no, knew--what he was doing was right.

It may not have been logical or sage or smart, but it was right. He knew in his heart that those people needed to hear about the only hope available in L.A. or this universe for that matter.

Knowing Wally as I do, I know he knew the risks of his actions when he walked into that mob. He wasn’t stupid and he certainly didn’t have a death wish. He knew, though, that people were dying in these riots and that someone had to try to reach even one of the rioters with the good news of the Gospel.

Wally believed that everyone--rich, poor, black, white, brown, yellow or green--was worth giving his life for because that’s what Jesus did. Wally told me more than once that “If Jesus is worth anything, He is worth everything.”

Jesus gave his life out of a pure, unselfish love for individuals, and it looks like Wally may have done that too. He truly emulated his Lord in a way that is hard for me to fathom.

I went to see Wally in the hospital for the first time since I heard about the attack. He’s in a coma and he’s not expected to live. I loathe hospitals and I frankly didn’t want to see him with his head bashed in, but I felt that I should go, so I went with a friend.

For some bizarre reason, I thought that he would look like himself, just asleep. Nothing could have prepared me for the truth. He’s always been very thin, but he honestly looks like those pictures of Holocaust victims--a skeleton with skin stretched thinly over it. His head and face are shaved and both had what looked like about a three-day growth of hair.

There are machines and tubes everywhere. We talked to him for over an hour, and we’ll never know for sure (at least not in this lifetime), but I’m convinced that he heard us.

Wally could be characterized as a Don Quixote except that Wally is real and he knew the consequences of standing up for what he believed. It’s what he’s knowingly and willingly done his entire life.

He could have made a comfortable life as an engineer but he chose to give his life so others might live--eternally, where it really matters. He’ll never be a national hero but he should be. He stepped into that mob with nothing more than a sincere desire to help change even one life, a truly unselfish desire and action if ever there was one.

And yet, if he dies, he probably won’t get more than a brief mention in the paper as just another victim of the riots. Or worse yet, an inaccurate characterization as a “weirdo” or a “kook.” Wally is neither.

This will probably sound really strange, but Wally Tope wasn’t a victim of the riots. Wally Tope lived what he believed and was willing to give his life for those beliefs. That is something that is very rare in this world of instant gratification and “what’s in it for me.”

Looking at him in that hospital bed, I realized I admired him more than he’ll probably ever know. I just wish he knew that. I wish he could hear me say that.