Thursday, July 06, 2006

Monumental Anxiety


If you’ve been reading your daily news recently you may have come across an article in the New York Times* about Memphis, Tennessee’s newest resident. She’s of French descent, she’s seventy-two feet tall, and she sure does love Jesus. Of course I’m talking about The Statue of Liberation through Christ, a replica of the Statue of Liberty Commissioned by Apostle Alton R. Williams, the pastor of the World Overcomers Outreach Ministries Church (or WOOM-C as I like to call it) , a “Mega-church” whose features include “a school, a bowling alley, a roller rink, a bookstore and, he said, 12,000 members.” What’s refreshing isn’t just that he’s spreading the word of God, but that he’s doing it with a disco-ball, rollerblades and glow-bowling.


Of course, the statue is generating no small amount of controversy, as reported by the World-renowned paper the Jamaica Observer**


Evelyn Douglass, 11, said she takes the long way home to avoid seeing the "big green thing".
"The Statue of Liberty is a symbol of the United States of America. The cross represents a specific religion," Douglass said. "It's not right that they are mixing the two. That church is trashing the meaning of America."


Sure everyone throws a hissy fit just because they took a monument which is dedicated to the basic freedoms our country provides and made it a spokesperson for their personal savior, and sure, instead of the classic lines “give me your poor…” from Emma Lazarus’ “The New Colossus,” they installed roman numerals enumerating the Ten Commandments, and sure they added a giant golden cross and a tear in response to “legalized abortion , a lack of prayer in schools and the country's ‘promotion of expressions of New Age, Wicca, secularism and humanism’” among other things, and sure Alton Williams thinks that Hurricane Katrina was retribution from God for New Orleans’ embrace of sin -- everyone knows, the worst sinners of all are the poor. Jesus said that I think.

But what little Evelyn and most people don't know is that this just one more step in a long history of religiously-themed monument modification.


Take the following classic monument revisions which puit this recent tribute into context.

The Dome of The Claus

The Leaning Tower of Buddha


The Great Sphinxter of Giza


The Lego Memorial (of Moses)


And of course, who could forget the inimitable:

Jesusmobile!


So as you can see, he's operating within a rich historical tradition. I mean, anyone can get up in front of a bunch of hung over parishioners and drone on about "loving your fellow man" for hours on end. But when this man talks about the power of God, you can actually see what he means, or you will be able to soon, thanks to the holographic Jesus machine he’s rumored to be working on now that this project is done. The best part is that soon you too can be a part of the movement, by visiting the online WOOM-C store where you will soon be able to purchase Statue of Liberation Through Christ Merchandise!!*** It was jesus who said that "to give is human, but to merchandise is divine," right? Of course, a store is probably a good idea considering the statue came in at a whopping grand total of $260,000 (euro 208,000), but the Apostle Williams believes that the tourism generated by the statue will more than make up for the cost, and I'm sure he'll put the revenue to good use. I think we can all see that this is a man who truly understands the meaning of the word charity.



*http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/05/us/05liberty.html?th&emc=th
**http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/html/20060701T180000-0500_108179
_OBS_MEMPHIS_CHURCH_REPLACES_LADY_LIBERTY_S_TORCH_WITH
_CROSS_.asp

***It's true, but I'm not providing the link.
Also reporting on it from the blogosphere: http://queernotes.blogspot.com/2006/07/world-overcomers-denigrate-statue-
of.html