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Sep. 19th, 2012 11:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mari4212I live in Ohio, specifically in Dayton, about an hour's drive north of Cinci. This is actually relevant to the rest of the entry.
So, on I-75, about halfway through the drive between Dayton and Cincinatti, there is one of those sadly ubiquitous fundamentalist megachurches that you really cannot get away from in the Midwest. They tend to start small, recruit agressively, get pretty big, and then normally once they get big enough that no one can know most of the other members, they start schisming off, and fragment into the next crop of seedling megachurches.
...I think I just used a fungal growth pattern as an analogy for church politics. My two focus areas in college are showing.
Anyway, this particular megachurch has a very special claim to fame: Touchdown Jesus. For the link-wary, Touchdown Jesus was this gigantic outdoor statue of Jesus that sat in between the church and its reflecting pool. Said statue, since it was from about waist-up, tended to look like the poor guy was drowning in the pool and was begging for rescue.
Two years ago, it was struck by lightning and burned down. Yes, really. The jokes kind of made themselves.
The church, undaunted by this expression of what they would call God's judgement had it happened to anyone else, or what anyone with a science background would call the natural consequence of building a really tall foam statue with a metal skeleton out in the middle of nowhere, pledged to rebuild. Two years later...Its new nickname is hug-me Jesus.
Only in Ohio.
So, on I-75, about halfway through the drive between Dayton and Cincinatti, there is one of those sadly ubiquitous fundamentalist megachurches that you really cannot get away from in the Midwest. They tend to start small, recruit agressively, get pretty big, and then normally once they get big enough that no one can know most of the other members, they start schisming off, and fragment into the next crop of seedling megachurches.
...I think I just used a fungal growth pattern as an analogy for church politics. My two focus areas in college are showing.
Anyway, this particular megachurch has a very special claim to fame: Touchdown Jesus. For the link-wary, Touchdown Jesus was this gigantic outdoor statue of Jesus that sat in between the church and its reflecting pool. Said statue, since it was from about waist-up, tended to look like the poor guy was drowning in the pool and was begging for rescue.
Two years ago, it was struck by lightning and burned down. Yes, really. The jokes kind of made themselves.
The church, undaunted by this expression of what they would call God's judgement had it happened to anyone else, or what anyone with a science background would call the natural consequence of building a really tall foam statue with a metal skeleton out in the middle of nowhere, pledged to rebuild. Two years later...Its new nickname is hug-me Jesus.
Only in Ohio.