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Good luck topping that, Burning Man
Across the religious community, and especially amongst members of the 4,000 member Solid Rock (Mega) Church of Cincinnati, Ohio, there has been speculation regarding the meaning of this particular fire. Some argue that god, yay, did smote the statue with much lightning, and much thunder, and lo, the statue did burn, and this pleased the lord. Other people who did not get their science from the fevered scribblings of desert-wandering cave dwellers from 6,000 years ago have reasoned that the statue was the tallest thing on the property, and if anything was going to get struck, then that was it.
Team Smite in turn splits into two categories: modestly-dressed people who think the image was idolatrous or graven, thus angering ol' Elohim and incurring his wrath, and "spiritual but not religious" people who don't like the fact that this 4,000 member McTemple was of the "gay-curing" variety, and they smile smugly when they think of god, who is also Gaia earth mother and The Spirit Manon unsubtly correcting that behavior, as they smoke cheap cigarettes and shout "Karma's a bitch!" over the Creed CD that's been stuck in their CD players since 2004.
Lame - this is just begging for "YMCA"
But me, I'm on team meaningless. I'm a Nihilist, Lebowski, I believes in NOTHING. If there is a god, and I don't think so, he hasn't convincingly or consistently used lightning bolts as a weapon / teaching tool in thousands of years, OR, if all those lightning strikes are god's artillery, I would like to say that god needs glasses, because he's hitting about one in, oh, 64 billion.
Alternately, it's possible that lightning is god's shotgun, and he just spits a bunch of them out hoping that one of them hits a heretic. Either way, not a strong case for omnipotence or divine intervention.
It's possible that god is an aesthete, however - that statue was, frankly, not very good. From the road it looked okay, but up close you could see that it was pretty lumpy, which is odd since the building material was styrofoam, which seems like it would have been pretty easy to smooth out. Second, I'm not sure where this statue rests in its depiction - it's called the "King of Kings" statue, so presumably this is supposed to mark some point in the Ascension, but as so many people have tiresomely pointed out, it really just looks like he's declaring for a successful field goal kick.
It's good!
I did appreciate some of the choices on the statue - the tiny little cross is a symbol (rather obviously) of Jeshuah's triumph over death, but what I really like is that this is a pretty clearly Semitic Jesus. This was not yet another statue of Ted Nealy in a bathrobe - he's got curly hair and a big schnoz - this guy probably came from the line of David. Plus, he's got this sort of desperate, fevered look about him, like a man who really did wander the desert and get tempted by the devil for a few decades and then came back not-at-all crazy to share wisdom and healing.
He's the kind of Jesus that people like me can appreciate - the kind of guy we'd like to discuss philosophy and cosmogony with, the friend we don't usually introduce to our girlfriends because he'd scare them off. This is as opposed to the beatific Jesus, who just makes me want to punch him in the mouth. What are you looking so smug for, huh? Nice lamb you're holding there, Jesus - bring some mint jelly and you can come to dinner.
Lamb = sweater + dinner
But if there's any metaphor we can take away from this fire, I'm sure it has more to do with the statue itself than in its subject, or in the politics of the organization for which it acts as a signpost. Rather, why the hell would you make such a thing out of Styrofoam? That thing cost $250,000! The statue was coated in a protective fiberglass shell, but fuck that - you ever see a 1980's corvette go up? *shwoom*
In a way, Butter Jesus (spread the word) was a truly American icon - a spiritual facade made of so much polystyrene and steel coated in fiberglass, hollow in the middle. For all that expense, it still seems a half-assed effort. A quarter of a million dollars for a big ostentatious cream-yellow monstrosity that drew more ridicule then reverence. Like a Hummer or a McMansion, it exemplified up-in-a-week/down-in-a-day construction and, to be fair, I've no doubt the sculptor and his team worked very hard to get the thing erect (giggidy), but in the end, it seems a smaller statue made of stone would have looked better and lasted longer.
Birds poop on me!
In the end, it hardly matters. Symbols are symbols, and even if they never fall, the things they represent often change or are forgotten. I'm sure that when Obama lets all the terrorists come into the country and make us be Muslims next year they would have torn it down anyway, so big deal. Everything fades, everything turns to dust, and we are all always burning in thefire called life. I think somebody wrote something about that once.
It's the bible, stupid - Ecclesiastes. Read a book, for fuck's sake.
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