Crumbling Dreams
9/21/2005
No, this isn't the result of Hurricane Katrina. This is a pile of rotting remains left over from Heritage USA, the religious-themed park/resort built by Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker back in the '80s (with great, albeit temporary, success). I wish to praise the nameless photojournalist at illicitohio.com for providing this second look at a fuzzy memory of my childhood. Check out this amazing, sad, pitiful journey into modern-day Heritage USA and touch base with another slice of my past.I'm not exactly proud to have visited the headquarters of PTL (Praise The Lord) Ministries.
According to Frances FitzGerald in an April 1987 New Yorker article, "They [the Bakkers] epitomized the excesses of the 1980s;the greed, the love of glitz, and the shamelessness;which in their case was so pure as to almost amount to a kind of innocence." (wikipedia article)I was mostly oblivious to the corruption and greed at the time. I was just a kid, and I don't think ANYONE had a clue as to the fate of Jim Bakker back then.
Like many other evangelical kids of the '80s, I was dragged along by my parents to Heritage USA with promises of a good time. The christian-themed resort/theme park built mostly on donations to PTL, Jim Bakker's "ministry," was a great attraction for happy, white families that could afford to go, as well as unhappy, poor folk who really couldn't afford to go but probably felt the need to take 'a pilgrimage' of sorts. My parents were terribly excited about it, that's for sure, and they wanted my sister and I to be equally excited. And we were - at least on the ride up to the resort - anticipating great fun and wonderful adventures!
However, when we arrived, I remember being terribly unimpressed with the park. I was too young to enjoy watching sexy, bikini-clad girls by the poolside - and too old to be thrilled by miniature train rides. The water park wasn't built yet, so the only 'fun' to be had was the multiple olympic-sized pools scattered around the resort. They had the 24-hour prayer room, the ampitheater, and the main offices, but little more than that.
The religious veneer of Bakker's resort didn't phase me. I was 8 years old, caught up in thoughts of Star Wars, He-Man, Transformers, riding my bike at the 'snake track' (a home made dirt bike track by our neighborhood), and playing with my friends in the thicket behind our house in Ladson, SC. (as well as sneaking midnight movies on cable TV). Spiritual pursuits didn't impress me then - unless of course I was on the receiving end of an unhealthy dose of praise for reciting a bible verse or raising my hands during worship service.
Reviewing the photos of Heritage as it stands today is a rare treat. In some twisted way, I can empathize with Jim Bakker's sad, unfortunate life. The photos of abandoned buildings damaged by hurricanes, weathered by time, and taken over by weeds provide an amazing metaphor for my perspective of Evangelical Christianity (as well as any 'religion' that promises great material wealth for your sacrifices).
Some day only buildings will remain, and the Christian Rock Music, Christian Clothes, Christian Dating Clubs, Christian Resorts, Christian this and Christian that will all be in a pile like the photo above. All of the materialistic crap that Evangelical Christianity promises will someday be worthless garbage in empty fields, and the human race will have left yet another quiry, silly series of relics to sift through by future men trying to touch base with the past.
How surreal is that?
UPDATE: Jim Bakker's back - The man Jerry Falwell himself once called "the greatest scab and cancer on the face of Christianity in two thousand years of church history," is back in the saddle again. After spending several years in prison on charges of fraud, tax evasion and racketeering, he was released and begun a career writing Christian books. Recently, however, he has revived his career as a minister in Branson, Missouri!
One vacation weekend back in 2003, I saw an advert for his new show on a large billboard on our way to Silver Dollar City. I almost ran off the road because I just couldn't contain my laughter. I don't know the man personally, but it seems a little odd (and tacky) that ex-con Jimmy Bakker and his ex-drug-abuser new wife could be taken seriously as a 'ministry team' by anyone. But, as they say, the Lord works in mysterious ways.
And if you donate $200 to Jim Bakker Ministries, you can get this really cool Sword of the Apocalypse to smite the Lord's enemies! See Jim holding it here! Wowie Zowie!
Buy The Eyes of Tammy Faye on Amazon.com
Buy Jim & Tammy Faye Bakker (1980) on Amazon.com
posted by Edward Svengali @ Wednesday, September 21, 2005,
