Huge Religious Statues Can Be Iconic

By Nick Gier, Unfiltered 6-23-10





The more notable a statue is, the more people will hear of it,
see it, and have the chance to benefit from it.

--Justification for a 500-foot Buddha in Northern India

The 62-foot Jesus statue erected by Monroe, Ohio’s Solid Rock Baptist Church went up in flames on the night of June 14. It is not the first religious statue to be hit by lightning, but complete destruction, as in this case, is rare.

For their story in The Washington Post the two reporters found that in 2008 the world-famous 130-foot Christ the Redeemer above Rio de Janeiro was just “singed on the eyebrows and fingers.” In 2007 a heavenly bolt severed the arm and damaged the feet of a 33-foot Christ outside of Golden, Colorado.

In Asia there are 69 Buddhist, Jain, and Hindu statues taller than Ohio’s “Touchdown Jesus,” so named because of his triumphant, up-stretched arms. The Spring Temple Buddha in Lushan, China is the highest at an imposing 420 feet.

Except for a large Thai Buddha that was destroyed by lightning in the 16th Century, all of these colossi have successfully braved the elements in a climate just as prone to violent thunder storms as the American Mid-West.

The Washington Post story on the Touchdown Jesus opened with: “It appears God has sacrificed his only son. Again.” Two readers objected that this lead was “tacky, tasteless, and mocking” and did not belong in the “On Faith” section.

Darlene Bishop, co-pastor of Solid Rock Baptist, appears to reject this charge of blasphemy. She told her parishioners that “Jesus took a hit for you last night.” Her view is that Jesus, in the form of the $250,000 structure, sacrificed himself so that the church could survive.

The insurance company involved will of course declare the strike an “act of God.” A pious reader of the Washington Post article agrees: "God is real! He had this statue made so he could destroy it and awaken the nation whom he and he alone founded!”

Another person on the Post’s blog believed that this was punishment for the church’s hubris, the overweening pride made famous in the Greek story of Prometheus, the Titan who dared to challenge Zeus.

Early in my academic career I started a 20-year study of hubris and the world religions. The result was a book entitled Spiritual Titanism, which I define as an extreme form of humanism in which humans take on divine attributes and prerogatives. For the book’s cover I chose an image of a 59-foot statue of a well endowed and naked Jain saint in Southern India.

Some Hindus, Jains, and Buddhists believe that human beings, on their own initiative and power, can make themselves into pure spiritual beings. As one Jain philosopher states: “Our saints attained fullest self-realization and absolute perfection, bringing out to the full the divinity and godhood inherent in man.”

The Jain statue on my book cover has stood unmolested for a 1,000 years, and an even taller 82-foot statue of a Jain saint in Northern India has stood unharmed since the 12th Century. Evidently, the heavenly powers do not seem to be angry at such displays of extreme humanism.

There may be no supernatural powers and the relatively few Asian statues destroyed may just be the result of nature’s roll of the dice.

If there is, however, a God who intervenes in nature and history, there is one theological lesson that we could draw. It is not so much uppity humans that God dislikes; rather, it is a religion that describes God as vindictive and wrathful, as the Washington Post blogger wrote above.

There is also one practical lesson that we can draw. The Asian statues are made of stone or concrete, and one would have thought that the Solid Rock Baptists would know from Jesus’ teachings that a statue built mostly of wood, styrofoam, and fiberglass would simply not last.

The Solid Rock pastor reassured a distraught parishioner: "Honey, it's just some fiberglass," so a Washington Post blogger may be forgiven for exclaiming “He is Resin!”

Solid rock Buddhas stand the tests of time, but a fiberglass Jesus is no match for the great forces of Mother Nature, blessed be her name!

Nick Gier taught religion and philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31 years. Read the full version with pictures at www.home.roadrunner.com/~nickgier/JesusStatue.pdf Read a summary and reviews of Spiritual Titanism at www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/steab.htm