ABSTRACT

“SHALOM, GOD BLESS, AND PLEASE EXIT TO THE RIGHT:” A CULTURAL ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE .

by Stephanie Nicole Brehm

This thesis explores the intersection of evangelical , entertainment, and in America through a cultural ethnography of the Holy Land Experience theme park in Orlando, . This case study examines the diversity within the evangelical subculture and the blurring of the line between sacred and secular in American popular culture. In this thesis, I begin by discussing the historical lineage of American evangelical entertainment and consumerism, as well as disneyfication theories. I then classify the Holy Land Experience as a contemporary form of disneyfied evangetainment. Finally, I delve into the implications of classifying this theme park as a sacred space, a pilgrimage, or a replica, and I explore the types of worship and material objects sold and purchased at the Holy Land Experience.

“SHALOM, GOD BLESS, AND PLEASE EXIT TO THE RIGHT:” A CULTURAL ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE HOLY LAND EXPERIENCE.

A Thesis

Submitted to the Faculty of Miami University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of Comparative by Stephanie Nicole Brehm Miami University Oxford, Ohio 2011

Advisor______(Dr. Peter W. Williams)

Reader______(Dr. James S. Bielo)

Reader______(Dr. James C. Hanges)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES ...... III

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... IV

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

CHAPTER ONE ...... 10

HISTORY OF EVANGETAINMENT ...... 10 DISNEY THEME PARK MODEL ...... 22

CHAPTER TWO ...... 28

“JAN CROUCH PUT HER STAMP ON THIS…” ...... 28 “SHALOM, GOD BLESS, AND PLEASE EXIT TO THE RIGHT” ...... 34

CHAPTER THREE ...... 47

“NO PASSPORT NECESSARY” ...... 47 “JUST A TRAINING ZONE, AN AREA TO WORSHIP HIM” ...... 53 “ THEME PARK ADVENTURE” SHOPPING BAGS ...... 65

CONCLUSION ...... 75

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 78

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Crowd at Passion Drama ...... 32

Figure 2. Crystal Waters Lake ...... 34

Figure 3. Front Entrance/ “Gates of Jaffa” ...... 35

Figure 4. Directional Sign ...... 36

Figure 5. Model ...... 38

Figure 6. Scriptorium ...... 39

Figure 7. Passion Drama (Roman Centurions beat Jesus) ...... 41

Figure 8. Passion Drama (Roman Centurions drag Jesus) ...... 42

Figure 9. Passion Drama (Christ’s return and defeat of Satan) ...... 43

Figure 10. Smile of A Child Adventure Land ...... 45

Figure 11. Miracle Moment ...... 54

Figure 12. Last Supper Communion with Christ ...... 55

Figure 13. Cross with Prayer Requests ...... 57

Figure 14. Audience at Passion Drama ...... 59

Figure 15. Tallit ...... 66

Figure 16. Books ...... 68

Figure 17. Silly Bandz ...... 69

Figure 18. Gift Shop Items...... 70

Figure 19. Erasers ...... 71

Figure 20. Cardboard Jesus and Umbrellas ...... 72

Figure 21. American Flag and Cash Register ...... 73

Figure 22. TV, ATM, Cardboard Jesus ...... 74

Figure 23. Sign on I-4 ...... 77

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Projects as extensive and all-consuming as these require help from many “outside sources.” First, this project would not have been possible without the support and encouragement of my thesis committee and Miami University’s Department of Comparative Religion.

To my advisor, Peter W. Williams: thank you is an understatement. I am eternally indebted to you and I aspire to be as kind, generous, and intelligent a professor. By your example, I will always sing to my students.

To James Bielo: thank you for encouraging me to see this project in the bigger picture of its place in the academy and my career, while never forgetting the smaller details – I have enjoyed our Kofenya meetings.

To Jim Hanges: thank you for challenging me to make this work great and for humoring me during my time at the Old Manse.

To Myev Rees, my friend-tor: thanks for discussing every idea and reading every draft. Your excitement, knowledge, and kindness have helped me more than you know.

To Jim Bigari and Olivia Mote, my Miami cohort: thank you for listening, venting, and laughing.

To the Holy Land Experience theme park: thank you for allowing me to conduct my research.

To the Florida State University Graduate Symposium and the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association National Conference: thank you for the honor of presenting my work to eager and excited colleagues.

To my consultants: thank you for joining me on the “Bible Theme Park Adventure.”

Jordan Mike Faith

Alyssa Rosemary

To Mike Graziano: thank you for your indispensible assistance from the first visit to the last page.

To Faith and Jordan Doles: thank you for graciously permitting me to relive freshman year.

Last, but definitely not least, to my family: Dani, Mom and Dad, thank you for the encouragement and the questions – I love you all.

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INTRODUCTION

On February 5, 2001, the Holy Land Experience theme park opened in Orlando, Florida. This multisensory and performance-focused attraction exists, in part, as a Christian-based alternative to other “Disneyfied”1 amusements in . Along with its alternative appeal, the Holy Land Experience marks the intersection of evangelical Christianity, commodification, consumerism, and entertainment on the American cultural landscape. American culture creates an arena for such a religious invention to succeed. This attraction integrates sacred messages with popular culture by capitalizing on a contemporary theme park model. The Holy Land Experience is very much a product of the late twentieth and early twenty- first century American religious culture, but the intermingling of evangelical Christianity,2 commodification, and entertainment is not new. Rather, this amalgamation predates the founding of the of America. In this thesis, I discuss the historical lineage of American evangelical entertainment and consumerism, classify the Holy Land Experience as a contemporary form of evangetainment, and explore how evangelical Christianity is purchased at the theme park. Evangetainment is a term that, until now, has not been used by scholars for an analytical purpose. It was coined by ex-country musician and current evangelical editorialist Paul Proctor as a negative critique of evangelicals’ tendency to combine entertainment and Christian faith. I adopt the term analytically, with no normative intent. There are many expressions of evangetainment through all forms of media and entertainment – from revivals and in the eighteenth century to and in the twenty-first century. In many cases, that combination is subsequently marketed to the public as a religious-entertainment product. Throughout American religious history, evangelists such as pre-revolutionary era George Whitefield, the ’s Charles Finney, and Aimee Semple McPherson of the 1920s have commodified evangelical Christianity, often through entertainment. American evangelical Christianity is a diverse religious subculture, so much so that one popular comparison paraphrases Potter Stewart’s definition of pornography, “I know it when I

1 “Disneyfied” will be explicated in a later section of this thesis. 2 For this thesis, I will be following Randall Balmer’s use of capitalization for the terms evangelical, fundamentalism, charismatic, pentecostal, etc... as these terms are all describing a type of Christianity found in the American subculture, they will not be capitalized. 1

see it.”3 A broad classification incorporates any person who self-identifies as a “born-again Christian.” According to religious historian Randall Balmer, “born-again” refers to a spiritual rebirth, or being “saved.”4 These terms reference the experience of repenting for sins and declaring salvation through God’s grace, which stems from Christ’s blood atonement. Being “saved” or “born-again” relies on the concept of self-identification and includes those who self- identify as evangelical, fundamentalist, charismatic, or pentecostal Christians.5 These different groups often debate who should rightly be considered Christians; thus self-identifying allows scholars to be inclusive when researching such a porous subculture. In my fieldwork with the Holy Land Experience employees and patrons, individuals were far more likely to simply identify as “Christian,” defined as someone who has a “relationship with Jesus Christ and God,” developed through Bible reading, usually a Protestant version, and eventually experiencing conversion.6 While individuals may not always label themselves as “evangelical,” their language in describing their faith often places them in the evangelical subculture. Also, in places like the Holy Land Experience, different Christian denominations, for example those in pentecostal or Reformed traditions, are more likely to disregard denominational and doctrinal differences for the sake of a common goal: entertaining and enjoying broader evangelical Christian messages. The core theological beliefs of include the atonement of sin through Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, the authoritativeness of scripture, the necessity of personal conversion, and the biblical imperative to covert others to Christianity (in other words, to evangelize). While these beliefs are widely accepted, the fluidity of the subculture allows for diversity and flexibility.7 The ability to adapt and evolve, coupled with the focus on evangelizing non-Christians, allows evangelicals to compromise with secular methods. These compromises do not have any negative connotation because innovative adaptability is a historical tradition of evangelicalism. The quintessentially American aspect of evangelical Christianity is what religious historian Mark Noll defines as “culturally adaptive biblical experimentalism,” that

3 Randall Balmer, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subculture in America, 4th ed. (Oxford University Press, USA, 2006), xiii. 4 Ibid., xiv. 5 Mark A. Noll, American Evangelical Christianity: An Introduction (Wiley-Blackwell, 2001), 30. 6 Michael Job, July 16, 2010. 7 Noll, American Evangelical Christianity, 14. 2

is, a form of religion that incorporates biblical messages and culturally relevant innovations to attract more individuals to Christianity.8 Beyond theological and self-identification lenses, evangelicalism also exists in a realm of practices. While the term “ritual” may seem anathema to evangelical Christianity as it was labeled as “Catholic” during the sixteenth century , evangelicalism in America includes certain practices. Many of these are associated with David Bebbington’s evangelical quadrilateral: conversionism, activism, biblicism, and crucicentrism.9 At the Holy Land Experience, for example, conversion is marked by salvation reports, activism is demonstrated through altar calls, biblicism is displayed at the Scriptorium, and crucicentrism is performed during the Passion drama. Visitors at the park engage with the materials created by employees and designers of the Holy Land Experience. It is with these three definitions of evangelical, self- identification, theological claims, and worship practices, that I will discuss the producers and of the Holy Land Experience. This opens evangelicalism up to a form of Christianity that becomes evangetainment, the use of secular entertainment techniques to communicate and commodify sacred messages, and illustrates the “persistent mixing of innovation and tradition” distinctive of American evangelicalism.10 From current American discourse, one might reasonably assume that in contemporary American thought, an item, idea, or person must be either sacred or secular – the assumption of binary oppositions. Defining the terms sacred and secular is a project in and of itself, so for the purposes of this thesis, I draw on the definitions of others. Often, “sacred” describes an object or concept that is set apart for a special purpose, one that usually deals with religious or consecrated functions.11 In contemporary American usage, the term is often used to invoke a sense of holiness, of or pertaining to a deity or supernatural higher power. Secular, on the other hand, becomes the opposition to sacred; it becomes profane or base because it does not relate to a deity or higher power.12 Secular may be natural or man-made; it belongs “to the world” and thus is

8 Ibid., 2. 9 David W Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s, New edition. (Routledge, 1989). 10 Noll, American Evangelical Christianity, 15. 11 "sacred, adj. and n.". OED Online. November 2010. Oxford University Press. 28 February 2011 . 12 For the purposes of this thesis, secular and profane are used interchangeably. 3

separate from religion. 13 Early theologians and scholars of religion found it easier to divide the world into sacred and profane (secular).14 American culture appears to have capitalized on this definition. In today’s society, “sacred” seems to refer to religious institutions, communities, or beliefs and secular refers to non-religious equivalents.15 More contemporary scholars, including Colleen McDannell and R. Laurence Moore, disagree over the segmentation of these two words into binaries, claiming that it is difficult, if not impossible, as Moore states, “to find a reliably clear line to demarcate these different spheres.”16 McDannell asserts that limiting scholars’ focus to the binary between sacred and secular/profane “prevents us from understanding” how religion operates in America.17 While scholars have worked hard to theorize the utility of sacred/secular distinctions, the binary remains attractive in popular thought. Much of this stems from early American religious ideas. As Gretchen Buggeln explains in American Sanctuary, American Protestants began to distance themselves from Puritanical views of sacred space, in which services were held in meetinghouses instead of churches to illustrate the sacrality and purity of scripture as opposed to specific buildings or spaces. Meetinghouses were used for a variety of purposes, including government, civil, and social events, contributing to their non-sacred character. Post- Revolutionary American Christians disagreed with the earlier ’ views, instead believing that secular business should not be done in the same space used for religious worship.18 This remains a paradox for Protestants, who simultaneously make explicit claims about being “people of the Word (logos),” but who also rely on various material spaces and objects. This creates exciting ethnographic opportunities to see this tension in practice. For example, during my research at the Holy Land Experience, an evangelical Christian woman sat next to me on the floor during a Wilderness Tabernacle performance. I saw her fidgeting and asked what she was

13 "secular, adj. and n.". OED Online. November 2010. Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/174620?redirectedFrom=secular (accessed February 28, 2011). 14 For more on 19th and early 20th century definitions of secular, sacred, and religion, see Mircea Eliade and Max Weber. 15 Religion, for many Americans, only consists of traditions such as Christianity, Judaism, , Hinduism, Buddhism, or Paganism. In general, most Americans do not classify Harry Potter fandom, for example, as religion, even though many of the practices, beliefs, and institutions surrounding it help popular cultural scholars categorize it as possessing “religious” elements 16 R. Laurence Moore, Touchdown Jesus: The Making of Sacred and Secular in American History, 1st ed. (Westminster Press, 2003), 2. 17 Colleen McDannell, Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 8. 18 Louis P. Nelson, American Sanctuary: Understanding Sacred Spaces (Indiana University Press, 2006). 4

doing. She explained, “I’m trying not to let my thong show at the Holy Land Experience.”19 Here, an item perceived as banal and secular, underwear, is taken by this woman to be out of place at a religious attraction. Similarly, a Christian theme park sparks cognitive dissonance for many religious and non-religious people because, given popular assumptions, the sacred (Christianity) and the secular (theme park) should be kept separate. And yet, these places exist, even thrive, in contemporary American life. Many Americans have trouble accommodating the idea that sacred and secular are intertwined, and that sacred messages are embedded in popular culture. In actuality, there is a natural connection between the media and the message. Since both a theme park and evangelicalism focus on family values, the incongruity in question becomes null and void.20 This thesis explores the idea of “lived religion” in America, specifically the experiences of “lay” participants in blurring the lines between what scholars and practitioners deem secular or sacred. 21 In this case study, lived religion asks how the Holy Land Experience incorporates religious messages into a theme park model. Lived religion functions in American life in many ways, including the commodification and consumption of religion. Evangelical Christians building religious theme parks are no exception. It is because of the American marketplace’s focus on commodification and consumption that evangelicals look to entertainment techniques to “sell” their sacred messages in popular, albeit secular, forms. As R. Laurence Moore explains in Selling God, religion in the United States became a commodity when it had to vie for a spot alongside competing cultural productions. Moore posits that the First Amendment’s prohibition of a unified “state” religion forces American to “appeal to all consumers.”22 In an effort to sell their messages, American religions and religious leaders embrace commercialism, innovating and commodifying religion to become a “competitive item for sale.”23 While many in contemporary America view the commodification of religion as a result of the current “problem of modernity” or increased twentieth-century secularization, in actuality it has been seen throughout the history of the

19 Faith Doles, July 31, 2010. 20 Eileen Luhr, Witnessing Suburbia: Conservatives and Christian Youth Culture, 1st ed. (University of California Press, 2009). 21 David D. Hall, Lived Religion in America: Toward A History of Practice (Princeton University Press, 1997), vii. 22 R. Laurence Moore, Selling God: American Religion in the Marketplace of Culture (Oxford University Press, USA, 1995), 6. 23 Ibid. 5

United States.24 Evangelical Christianity is perhaps more easily paired with consumerism and entertainment techniques because of efforts to sell their products. The imperative to evangelize is fulfilled just as well, perhaps more easily, when people are attracted to the Christian religion through popular and entertaining methods. Evangetainment transforms religion into a commodity to be sold in the public marketplace. But on what secular media is the Holy Land Experience modeling itself? I argue that the Christian theme park is patterned after the quintessential theme parks, and . But why are Americans so attracted to theme parks? Beginning with industrialization and urbanization in the latter half of the nineteenth century and continuing into the twentieth, American middle-class workers and families have had more leisure time. Commercial amusements emerged in the twentieth century to occupy vacation and weekend time for the “new mass culture.” Amusement parks, like those in Coney Island, New York, brought together a “variety of popular attractions and pastimes.”25 By the 1950s, Disneyland, with its variety of themed “islands,” enthralled American travelers who visited the park en masse. As a business model, theme parks have flourished in the United States. Other groups would later appropriate Disney-style theme parks as the original prototype. Subcultural groups, such as the Holy Land Experience, have imitated this theme park model and rebranded it specifically for evangelicals. The Holy Land Experience, however, was not the first Christian theme park. Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, televangelists in the 1970s and 1980s, created Heritage USA in South Carolina.26 Attracting over six million guests in 1986, the park promoted pentecostal Christianity in a 2,500-seat church. A mall, a hotel, and a water park all surrounded this theme park dedicated to the American ideal of “nostalgic Main Street USA,” perhaps an homage to the profitable Disneyland Main Street USA.27 While Heritage USA did not last long after ’s scandals in the late 1980s, the concept of a Christian theme park lives on at the Holy Land Experience. At its inception in 2001, the Holy Land Experience was built to be a condensed reproduction of Jerusalem. Most previous research on the park occurred prior to Trinity Broadcast Network’s purchasing the park in 2007, and those researchers theorized about the

24 Ibid., 7. 25 John F. Kasson, Amusing the Million: Coney Island at the Turn of the Century (Hill and Wang, 1978), 4. 26 Tom McNichol, “FALSE PROFITS.,” New Republic 196, no. 15 (April 13, 1987): 11-12. 27 Aaron K. Ketchell, Holy Hills of the Ozarks: Religion and Tourism in Branson, Missouri, 1st ed. (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), xxiii. 6

park’s pilgrimage and replica creations.28 This ethnography focuses on the park after Trinity Broadcast Network bought it, a moment where the Holy Land Experience became more “disneyfied,” or more theme-oriented. This change in ownership problematizes the direct connections with replica or pilgrimage theory as the rhetoric of the park suggests. The park is a “Bible Theme Park Adventure” with performances and attractions meant to symbolically and anachronistically represent the locations and subjects of the Bible through the interpretive lens of a theme park. The theme is the Holy Land, not an actual representation, but a distorted, selective nostalgic recreation. However, some of the attractions are supposedly literal representations. For example, the Wilderness tabernacle, according to the performer who plays High Priest Aaron, depicts the Yom Kippur sacrifice exactly as it was conducted thousands of years ago. This ethnography complicates earlier research by treating the Holy Land Experience as an American theme park akin to Walt Disney World and Universal Studios, not primarily as a pilgrimage or replica.29 For me, this project began in March 2006. My freshman college roommate at Florida State University had visited the Holy Land Experience as a chaperone for her younger sister’s evangelical Christian school field trip, calling me from the park to say that I would find the site fascinating. In July 2009, I was able to visit the attraction myself with another scholar of religion and was impressed with the research possibilities of a Christian theme park. Approximately two years before I visited, comedian and documentarian arrived at the park, interviewing actors and participants for his film Religulous. My research has been influenced by Maher’s film, not because of any personal interest in debunking or promoting “disbelief,” but because of the Holy Land Experience’s negative reception of the film and the surrounding press and media circus.30 Despite my presentation of Institutional Review Board paperwork, Religulous is the reason why, for the first three weeks of my ethnography, many employees at the park thought I worked for CNN.

28 For purposes of this thesis, a pilgrimage is defined broadly as a journey to a sacred place, or traveling to a specific location as an act of religious devotion and a replica will be defined broadly as a reproduction or representational copy of an item; basically not the original item. 29For more on earlier discourses on the Holy Land Experience, please see Timothy Beal, Roadside Religion: In Search of the Sacred, the Strange, and the Substance of Faith (Beacon Press, 2006); Joan R. Branham, “The Temple That Won’t Quit: Constructing Sacred Space in Orlando’s Holy Land Experience Theme Park,” Cross Currents 59, no. 3 (Fall2009): 358-382; Ketchell, Holy Hills of the Ozarks. 30 “RELIGULOUS,” http://www.religulousmovie.net/. 7

Of course, I do not work for CNN. My project is an ethnography; I received permission from the Miami University Institutional Review Board to conduct interviews and surveys of participants and employees, along with my observations and performance analyses. As I have discovered, however, no matter how well prepared one may be, everything can change once an ethnographer arrives on site. I had emailed, phoned, and mailed inquiries to the Holy Land Experience and Trinity Broadcast Network asking permission to conduct interviews and surveys and had received confirmation. When I arrived in Orlando, Florida, to begin my research in July 2010, my latest contact informed me that I could not interview or survey participants so as to not “upset their vacations.”31 My contact, Guest Relations Director Jane Wilcox, did permit three formal interviews with employees: herself and two actors, Andre (who plays Jesus) and Michael Job (who plays a Roman centurion). I purchased an annual pass to conduct my observations, and in the course of more than twenty days at the park, employees started to recognize me. Often, they would ask why I was visiting every day with a camera and notebook. Once they found out, they struck up casual conversations with me and told me personal anecdotes from their work at the park, providing a corpus of approximately seven informal interviews. Visitors were also talkative, striking up conversations in line, since I did look like a knowledgeable person with my notebook and audio- recorder, asking me directions. These encounters were some of the most profitable research moments for me. Since I could not formally interview visitors, I brought my own consultants to get non-Holy Land Experience-related opinions on the park. Altogether, I brought five consultants: two non-denominational evangelical Christians, a male hotel manager and a female elementary school teacher both in their early-twenties, living in the Orlando-area; one female mainline Methodist, a nurse from Gainesville, Florida in her early-twenties; one mid-fifties female Catholic, a business consultant from Clearwater, Florida; and one early-twenties male scholar of religion from Tallahassee, Florida. I purchased my consultants’ tickets and provided them with a map of the park for them to choose the activities of the day. None of my consultants would have chosen to attend the park before my research, and none of them seemed interested in visiting the park again. Due to my short timeframe, I was unable to bring a larger or wider demographic. My consultants’ insights, my own observations, materials produced by the theme park, photographs, recordings of performances, three employee interviews, and informal

31Jane Wilcox, July 21, 2010. 8

interviews with visitors and employees constitute my data and serve as the basis for my analysis of the Holy Land Experience. The ethnographic experience places the insider (religious adherent) in conversation with the outsider (scholar/non-adherent). As I have discovered through my ethnographic experience, almost all those who enter the Holy Land Experience are asked about their religious faith by either employees or visitors: “Are you a Christian?” I am no exception. When asked the question, I informed them that I am a Jew, or in their words “a Jewish believer.”32 Since most, if not all, of their conversations with me occurred after learning that I am Jewish, some of their responses may have been constructed with contemporary evangelical preconceived notions of me as a religious “outsider.” My primary goal for this thesis is to examine an aspect of American evangelical Christianity in order to understand another’s point of view – the view of the evangetainers and evangetainees at the Holy Land Experience theme park.33

32 Jane Wilcox, July 16, 2010. 33 Part of my ethnographic goal is to portray the Holy Land Experience as accurately as possible while walking the fine line between offending and placating my subjects. 9

CHAPTER ONE

History of Evangetainment

The Holy Land Experience is neither new nor unique in its use of evangetainment; it is one current cultural manifestation. What makes the Holy Land Experience different from earlier evangelical entertainments is its use of the theme park model and its niche as an evangetainment destination. Forms of entertainment change with the times. In the eighteenth century, Whitefield’s impassioned sermons were the height of entertainment. Today, some consider such sermons boring and many evangelical look to attract worshippers with PowerPoint slides and -and-worship bands. Popular culture and popular entertainment changes, similar to the way evangelical Christianity adapts to the times. There are no fixed or trans-historical definitions of the terms evangelical or entertainment, as such: the notion of evangetainment also constantly evolves. This chapter tracks the historical trajectory of evangetainment from the eighteenth century to the twenty-first century by examining several case studies.34 The goal is to see where evangetainment has been so that we can discuss where it is today, from sermons to tent revivals to television programs. According to Moore in Selling God, “public religion and public entertainment” were inextricably linked in America as early as the eighteenth century – beginning with George Whitefield.35 George Whitefield was arguably America’s first evangetainer. In the eighteenth century, Whitefield (1714-1770) was a revivalist in England and Scotland, but it was the lack of an established church in North America that made the colonies more receptive to his techniques and evangelical messages. Whitefield became the “itinerant ” for the American colonies, not confined to a specific church or branch of Christianity. Whitefield’s revivals in the 1740s began a paradigm shift in American evangelicalism. His methods ushered in a new standard of ministry that fostered participant involvement. Whitefield’s revivals challenged the concept of parochial allegiance. Instead of people merely listening to sermons in local meetinghouses and churches on Sundays, Whitefield’s itinerant preaching style brought together individuals across denominations and across the colonies. Whitefield’s revivals were not explicitly tied to any

34 This is not a comprehensive list of evangetainers. People such as Dwight L. Moody, Billy Sunday, and Norman Vincent Peale are other examples; however, the people I chose represent different eras and various subgroups of evangelical Christianity. This overview of evangetainment throughout the past three centuries, demonstrates the historical lineage and evangelical subcultural formation of the Holy Land Experience. 35 Moore, Selling God. 10

specific denomination; he focused on the individual hearing his message. Thus, he can be regarded as a predecessor to the leaders of the porous evangelical subculture of today. By being outside the confines of the institutional church, this secular setting was conducive to his “improvised and extemporaneous response.”36 He was a pioneer for “extra- ecclesiastical” movements by being simultaneously inside and outside the Anglican tradition.37 His revivals deconstructed denominational parochial institutions, but his theology was not affected by his popularity or techniques. Whitefield held strongly to his Calvinist and Church of England roots cultivated at Oxford despite his revolutionary evangetaining skills. Whitefield was inadvertently a forerunner of American pan-Protestant evangelical movements in the subsequent centuries.38 Later evangetainers mimicked Whitefield’s packaging: traditional, sacred messages mixed with contemporary secular methodologies. Whitefield’s massive revivals all over the American colonies illustrated the popularity of his evangetainment techniques. The entertainment factor of Whitefield’s emotionally powerful sermons contributed to his mass appeal. Whitefield revised the vision of theater for colonists. The theatrical arts were no longer simply a competitive alternative to churches, but instead a tool to promote and attract people to Christianity. While this revision may have been a subconscious result of Whitefield’s childhood love of plays and theater and not an intentional, conscious effort to integrate secular and sacred, the fact remains that theatrical techniques influenced his rhetorical style and charismatic personality.39 The revivals mirrored the entertainment techniques of interactive theater; Whitefield entertained the masses through powerful myths and storytelling that evangelized his audiences. Whitefield’s revivals and preaching were staged events, bringing people from all parts of the colonies and directly competing with secular entertainments held simultaneously. Whitefield’s success as an evangetaining innovator stems from a variety of factors. As Harry Stout argues in The Divine Dramatist, Whitefield evangelized to “a society in crisis,” American colonists were restructuring politics, economies, and cultures to follow a marketplace

36 Harry S. Stout, The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1991), 68. 37 Peter W. Williams, Popular Religion in America: Symbolic Change and the Modernization Process in Historical Perspective (University of Illinois Press, 1989). 38 Stout, The Divine Dramatist, 204. 39 Stout, The Divine Dramatist. 11

model.40 American colonists were also constructing new religious denominations and attitudes with Whitefield’s influence. Furthermore, Whitefield redefined the term “revival,” according to Stout, as “a mass event in an open setting orchestrated by a skilled performer and geared to raising individual experience.”41 Whitefield’s new revivals place him firmly at the beginning of the trajectory of American evangetainment that combines evangelical religious fervor with entertainment techniques to be consumed by mass audiences. For Whitefield, the production of religious revival through new secular styles was interconnected with his religious celebrity. Whitefield’s popularity coupled with his theatricality created this “new market for religion” in evangetainment. According to Stout, Whitefield was a precursor for modern evangelists because he exploited the secular new media and the “emerging marketplace mentality” of his era to deliver his sacred messages.42 Religion was now a commodified product to be marketed and sold. Whitefield commodified his evangelical Christian rhetoric, printing and promoting his letters and writings in his Journal for the mass marketing of his ideas. Religion could be commercialized as an event and “experience, taste, and attraction” were the measures of marketability for a religious product.43 America’s first evangetainer constructed a commodified evangelical message that crossed denominational boundaries to entertain individuals. Next on the historical tour of evangetainment are the revivals of the Second Great Awakening during the nineteenth century. As Jeanne Halgren Kilde states in When Church Became Theater, churches began to use entertainment-style amphitheaters in the evangelical revivals organized by Whitefield. However, it was Charles Finney (1792-1875) and his systematized revivals that brought evangetainment into the nineteenth century. Finney and Whitefield were both religious innovators, capturing the entertainment factor to attract individuals to their popular revivals. The progression from the to the Second Great Awakening, in terms of evangetainment, shifts from the subconscious to the intentional. Whitefield’s own attraction to theater dramatized his preaching style and revolutionized revivals. Finney’s intentional and methodical approach to creating entertaining revivals characterized evangelicalism in the nineteenth century. Additionally, as Keith J. Hardman states, Finney’s methods of a “broad, undenominational approach” to evangelizing

40 Ibid., xvi. 41 Ibid., 210. 42 Ibid., xxiii. 43 Ibid., 36. 12

brought together individuals from such groups as Methodists, , Episcopalians, and Presbyterians into what, in later centuries, would be called the evangelical subculture.44 The ecumenical grouping demonstrated the need for evangelizing techniques that were entertaining and emotionally persuasive, the characteristics accomplished by Whitefield’s revivals a century earlier. In line with evangelical Christianity, personal experience was heavily emphasized in Finney’s revivals. The audience-oriented amphitheater style of Finney’s Chatham Street Chapel placed value on the entertainment of the individual. His goal was to captivate people by religious revivals. Where Whitefield’s goal was to elicit an emotional individual experience during his revivals, Finney expanded the intensity of that individual experience. The “New Measures Revivalism,” introduced and implemented by Finney, illustrated that individualistic aspect. Finney would search for a group of people at his revival who were on the precipice of a conversion experience and sit them on the “anxious bench.” Then Finney would preach directly and intensely to the selected individual until he/she experienced conversion. Finney wrote his “New Measures” methods in his 1835 Lectures on Revivals of Religion. This manual was a how-to guide for planning a revival. According to Finney, revivalists should not “pursue the same, old, formal mode” of religion when the world was changing and evolving.45 Finney had a different approach; for him, “religion is the work of man” based on the “human ability to do what God wants.”46 Finney and other revivalists felt they were evangelizing in a way that would produce the most Christians. Finney maintained that “a revival of religion is not a miracle,” thus the need to use properly the latest “constituted means,” or secular methods, is necessary to evangelize Americans.47 The book’s wide distribution and popularity at that time contributed to the mass consumption of his commodified revivals. During this time of revivalism and reform, Finney was driven by the marketplace to create events and places that individuals would appreciate and that were “responsive to consumers’ needs.”48 While the revival was specifically centered on the individual, it also

44 Keith J. Hardman, Charles Grandison Finney 1792-1875: Revivalist and Reformer (Baker Pub Group, 1990), 210. 45 Charles Grandison Finney, Lectures On Revivals of Religion (Nabu Press, 2010), 273-74. 46 Peter W. Williams, America’s Religions: From Their Origins to the Twenty-first Century, 3rd ed. (University of Illinois Press, 2008), 190. 47 Finney, Lectures On Revivals of Religion, 12. 48 Jeanne Halgren Kilde, When Church Became Theatre: The Transformation of Evangelical Architecture and Worship in Nineteenth-Century America (Oxford University Press, USA, 2005), 131. 13

grouped various types of people together in a self-defined Christian community. These churches and revivals “embraced progress” and wanted to keep the church relevant by incorporating the latest media.49 Similar to other “new” ideas regarding religion, this idea had its critics. Social commentators, such as Mark Twain, felt that American religion had become “filtered down” through entertainment, making it difficult to differentiate between participants in religion and “patrons of commercial culture.”50 Critics such as Jonathan Baxter Harrison, a nineteenth century Unitarian and journalist, saw revivals as diminishing religion to a “sacred amusement” and “aesthetic entertainment.”51 For Finney, religious participants were seen as three-in-one: souls awaiting individual evangelization, audiences to be entertained, and consumers in the market for specific goods and experiences. In the nineteenth century, designing a successful revival included selling to all three of those characteristics. Revivals were still the most prominent form of evangetainment in early twentieth century, but evangelizing techniques changed significantly with the development of new technology such as radio and film. Beginning in the 1920s, the evangetainer most recognized for employing the latest media trends with Christian messages was Aimee Semple McPherson (1890-1944).52 Inspired by her proximity to Hollywood, California, McPherson’s ministry integrated entertainment media (radio, film, and print) with her revitalized brand of evangelicalism. In fact, she is arguably the first religious celebrity of the mass media era – a Whitefield for the Hollywood Age. Matthew Sutton, in Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America, explains the methods and techniques employed by McPherson at her pentecostal/holiness churches and ministries. McPherson’s methods reflected the 1925 advertising study of Jesus conducted by advertising executive Bruce Barton. Barton’s claim states that Jesus’ success stems from four basic principles: “tell a simple story with a catchy opening, use plain language, exude sincerity, and employ repetition.”53 Like Finney’s staged revivals, McPherson’s Sunday services would employ controlled entertainment, musical performances, and slide shows in amphitheater space to produce performance-centered sermons.

49 Ibid. 50 Moore, Selling God, 147. 51 Ibid. 52 While during Aimee Semple MchPherson’s time, she may not have been perceived by other evangelical Christians to be part of the evangelical subculture, has now been defined by scholars as a part of the subculture. 53 Matthew Avery Sutton, Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America (Harvard University Press, 2009), 77. 14

During the early twentieth century, McPherson was characterized as “The Star,” an allusion to her own popularity and entertaining qualities.54 However, McPherson’s form of entertainment morphed from theatrical preaching to more “sensationalism and spectacle” throughout her life with overly-hyped and dramatized personal, familial, and marital problems.55 Still, McPherson “jazzed up” traditional evangelicalism for a new generation obsessed with mass media, mobility, and new goods.56 It was during her reign as leader of Hollywood’s evangelicalism that she solidified the intermingling of evangelical Christianity and mass- produced entertainment. Now, audiences and religious participants could see the same film numerous times or hear the same radio production across the country. No longer relying solely on live entertainment, American mass communication transformed and with it, evangetainment. McPherson’s model of entertaining religious fervor, which integrated “cutting-edge technology, American patriotism, and social ,” paved the way for similar evangetainers in the latter half of the twentieth century.57 (1918- ) is an evangetainer of the mid-twentieth century, a pivotal character in revitalizing the role of evangelical Americans. Graham taught his neo-evangelical followers that they could be “modern without being a ‘Modernist’.”58 Neo-evangelicalism refers to a movement started in the 1940s that self-identified as a Reformed Protestant revival, a middle path between extremes of fundamentalism and Modernism.59 Graham’s evangelical revivals and boomed in the post-World War II era. The 1950s was a time of increased consumerism: Americans were ravenous to purchase goods, services, and experiences.60 Religion was again commodified to be sold to a population hungry for pro-God, patriotic sentiments. Conspicuous consumption boomed in the post-war 1950s, starting a trend of new products and media that evangelical Christianity capitalizes upon today.61 Furthermore, as suburban middle-class living became the idealized norm, there was a focus on children’s

54 Ibid., 71. 55 Ibid., 65. 56 Ibid., 278. 57 Ibid., 4. 58 William Martin, With God On Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America (Broadway, 2005), 26. 59 Richard Quebedeaux, “Conservative and Charismatic Developments of the Later Twentieth Century” in Encyclopedia of the American Religious Experience” Volume II, ed. Charles H. Lippy and Peter W. Williams. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1988), 963. 60 Elaine Tyler(Author) May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era [HOMEWARD BOUND 20TH ANNIV/] (Basic Books, 2008). 61 Luhr, Witnessing Suburbia. 15

activities, as well as family-centered entertainment. One such example is the theme park that created in 1955 to entertain children and adults in a safe and enjoyable environment. Around the same time that American entertainments began to focus on children, Graham also began to evangetain young people. His neo-evangelical revivals began to focus on providing the youth of America with wholesome and patriotic entertainment, as evidenced in his “Youth for Christ” sermons. Disney and Graham both concentrated their attentions on children and young adults, illustrating their emphasis on one subset of evangetainment – “edutainment.” Edutainment is the use of entertainment to educate people, specifically children. Television programs such as “Sesame Street” are popular examples of edutainment in current society. In the evangetainment world, a parallel to Sesame Street would be “Veggie Tales,” a television and film series that educates and evangelizes children. Evangetainment does not teach letters and numbers; rather, the focus of that education is evangelical Christianity. Graham blends education with evangelical messages. Graham’s preaching style was seen as “spectacular” for audience members because, as Graham states, “we used every modern means to catch the attention of the unconverted – and then we punched them right between the eyes with the .”62 This deliberate technique helped Graham attract thousands to evangelical Christianity, primarily through individuals consuming his entertaining crusades. Neo-evangelical Graham built upon previous evangetainers. Graham pulled his technical inspirations from Whitefield, “dramatizing biblical stories” and theatrically grabbing younger audiences’ attention.63 Similar to Finney, Graham created a commodified message that appealed to an individualized audience. In Graham’s case, the audiences most sought out were the youth and young voters, particularly to sway their political persuasions.64 Graham also followed McPherson’s trend by capitalizing on mass media to broaden his evangetained audience. For example, he created the magazine Christianity Today in 1956. The fact that William Randolph Hearst ordered his newspaper editors to “puff Graham” during the evangetainer’s 1949 crusade illustrates how involved news media was in promoting and advertising his sacred, edutaining messages. Graham’s message for youth was clear and political, as well as religious: Americans were pro-God, pro-Christ, and anti-communist. While in earlier decades McPherson worked with a

62 Martin, With God On Our Side, 26. 63 William Martin, A Prophet with Honor: The Billy Graham Story (Harper Perennial, 1992), 126. 64 Martin, With God On Our Side. 16

Hollywood-influenced audience, Graham met with political leaders to influence America. During the 1952 presidential campaign, Graham believed American Christians had a great deal of political clout and thus religious leaders influenced elections. Although his “Christian anti- Communist apocalyptic” rhetoric may not seem modern, Graham articulated the message specifically for an anti-communist and consumer-driven society.65 Graham’s political ingenuity foreshadowed later Christian political groups, specifically the Religious Right of the later twentieth century. In the decades after Graham politicized evangetainment and evangelicalism, fundamentalists came out of isolation to join mainline evangelicalism. With the rise of political groups such as the Moral Majority in the 1970s and 1980s, fundamentalists joined neo- evangelical and pentecostal/holiness groups in “mixing elements from Christianity and the world.”66 Fundamentalists re-entered American culture and joined with others in the evangelical subculture. As Susan Friend Harding states in her historical ethnography, The Book of Jerry Falwell, Falwell and his parachurch organizations brought fundamentalists out of their self- induced seclusion that followed the Scopes Trial of 1925. Falwell created fundamentalists who espouse “Christian values,” defined by political and religious conservatism.67 In order to “reoccupy the world,” Falwell’s followers were mobilized by his culturally-produced rhetoric.68 Falwell’s fundamentalists, along with other self-identified evangelicals, pentecostals, and charismatics formed the demographics of evangelicalism in the later decades of the twentieth century. Falwell is probably more associated with Religious Right politics than entertainment, but his integration of fundamentalist messages with secular methods encourages a classification that parallels evangetainment. Falwell created a space for fundamentalists “in the world.” Falwell looked to incorporate secular business models with fundamentalist messages. As Falwell expanded his following, his method also expanded to broader evangelical messages. He

65 Anne Blue Wills, “Billy Graham, Man of God, 1949-1954” (presented at the American Society of Church History, San Diego, CA, 2010). 66 Susan Friend Harding, The Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics. (Princeton University Press, 2001), 4. 67 Ibid., 10. 68 Ibid., 15. 17

commodified fundamentalism by packaging and marketing it like a “shopping center.”69 Falwell explains his goal in his own words, The Thomas Road Baptist Church that the combined ministries of several agencies in one church can not only attract the masses to , but can better minister to each individual who comes.70

By opening the lines of communication between the secular world and the fundamentalist world, Falwell marketed his messages to non-Christians and thus non-Christians could influence and market to Christians. The consumption of religious rhetoric and redefining of secular models illustrates how the evangelical subculture and the broader American culture borrow from each other. Falwell’s fundamentalists used secular prototypes, but re-identified them as part of the evangelical subculture. On the historical trajectory of evangetainment, his ideas demonstrate the amalgamation of fundamentalism and the modern world, including state-of-the-art mass media. Falwell brought fundamentalists out of hiding and back into the mainstream American evangelical culture by promoting social action and political reform movements. Much like Finney and Whitefield, Falwell’s generation of post-denominational Christians broke down denominational allegiances to create the demographics of the contemporary America evangelical subculture. One reason evangetainment holds mass appeal in the religiously plural latter part of the twentieth century is Falwell’s unification of a “Christian” identity. Falwell’s motives for a unified American Christianity may have been more for political reasons than purely entertainment, but the result has been a unified and evangetained Christian base. Falwell used media to reintegrate fundamentalists into the modern world, but his time on television was not as significant as that of other televangelists of the 1970s and 1980s. Televangelists are Christian preachers who use television media to promote Christianity and evangelize to viewers. Televangelists such as , , and Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker were national celebrities during the “Electronic Church” era. Like other evangetainers before them, televangelists promote the consumption of religion through entertainment media. Evangetaining televangelists Jan and are two of the most successful examples of the Electronic Church. Raised as pentecostal Christians in the Assemblies of God Church, the Crouches began their evangelical media empire in 1973.71 These

69 Harding, The Book of Jerry Falwell. 70 Jerry and Towns Falwell Elmer, Church Aflame (Impact, 1979), 40-41. 71 Paul F. Crouch and Dr. Jack Hayford, Hello World!: A Personal Letter to the Body of Christ (Thomas Nelson, 2003). 18

revivalists evoke religious enthusiasm for their viewers, using the “appropriate means” of the time to captivate audiences and entice consumers of religion.72 The Holy Land Experience is even a subsidiary of their televangelist corporation, Trinity Network (TBN). Specifically, TBN co-owner Jan Crouch diversified their evangetainment holdings when she purchased the theme park in 2007, making its success a priority. Twenty-first century televangelists, like , operate out of , which also employ evangetainment techniques. Megachurches not just large churches; they are huge religious centers that often attract participants by making evangelical Christianity relevant to their consumer-driven culture and by promulgating entertaining sacred messages. Megachurches like Willow Creek in Illinois or Saddleback in California market to specific target audiences, many times commodifying their religious messages (or actual goods) to sell as a product to twenty-first century consumers.73 Both megachurches and televangelists are facets of the current evangelical subculture, as depicted by Balmer in Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory. Megachurches, televangelists, and evangetainment exist as some components of the subculture, specifically the commingling of evangelical theologies and consumer technologies. Evangetainment media has modeled and imitated broader American consumer technologies, expanding exponentially in the twenty-first century. Scholars, such as Heather Hendershot in Shaking The World For Jesus, explore the “Christianizing” of media for witnessing, promoting, and identifying purposes. Hendershot’s focus fits into a study of evangetainment as it focuses on a textual analysis of books, films, videos, and magazines. Hendershot discusses this expansion in realms such as Christian bookstores and film companies. Christian bookstores offer innovative ways for evangelicals to self-identify with merchandise. Bumper stickers and t-shirts let the world know if an individual is “born-again.” Colleen McDannell also discusses the commodification of Christian symbols in her work, Material Christianity. McDannell describes Christian retailing as the selling of Christian goods and services to a buyer for personal or household use. For some, especially members of the Christian Booksellers Association, Christian retailing is a “positive intersection

72 Professor Razelle Frankl, : The Marketing of Popular Religion, 1st ed. (Southern Illinois University Press, 1986), 4. 73 For more on Megachurches, see Myev Alexandra Rees, A New Purpose: Rick Warren, the Movement, and Early Twenty-first Century American Evangelical Discourse (Oxford, Ohio: Miami University, 2009), http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=miami1247428515. 19

of faith, profit, and goods.”74 Christian items, for identifying, evangelizing, or entertainment purposes, are marketed through secular chain stores to sell evangetaining products on a massive scale. Due to this boom in the consumption of religious products, Wal-Mart sells the latest book in the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and the film The Passion of The Christ by Mel Gibson. Even sporting events are evangetaining, specifically with the Christian Wrestling Federation (CWF). This organization’s mission brings to light its evangetaining goals: The CWF is a group of talented athletes using amazing feats, athletic ability, and entertaining stories to share the gift of Jesus Christ. The CWF uses a unique evangelistic approach to embrace the youth of today…The Bible says we are to use unique and different ways to reach people for Christ. This is what the CWF is all about… reaching people in a unique way. With wrestling’s popularity at an all- time high, many people can be reached, and in turn, our goal is to convert them to Christ’s love.75

Individuals looking to experience more evangetainment can attend a Jars of Clay Christian music concert. Evangetainment provides Christian alternatives to replace or supplement secular events, concerts, and entertainments. Evangetainment explores how evangelical Christians utilize secular media to display sacred messages. As satirized in the 2004 film, Saved!, evangetainment gets people, especially kids, listening to rock music and then, “boom, hits them with the message.”76 While institutional churches and preachers continue to utilize the latest entertainment technologies and methods, participants also continue to look outside institutional churches for religious experiences. Evangetainment must stay current to be competitive on the open market. The twenty-first century’s evangetainment media found their niche in special purpose groups. As Robert Wuthnow asserts in The Restructuring of American Religion, the growth of special purpose groups after the 1950s broadened the role of religion in culture. No longer confined to denominational church worship settings, evangelical Christians can work across denominations to spread and identify Christian messages. Parachurch organizations and special purpose groups imitate secular associations, just as evangetainment examples mirror broader American entertainment techniques. Similar to revivals at Cane Ridge, parachurch organizations, like Women Aglow and special purpose groups, like visitors at the Holy Land Experience, come

74 McDannell, Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America, 223. 75 “Christian Wrestling Federation » Our Mission,” http://www.christianwrestling.com/about-2/. 76 Saved! (MGM (Video & DVD), 2004). 20

alive outside the confines of “church settings.”77 These special purpose groups and evangetainment share a path – one that brings together American popular culture and evangelical Christianity. Evangetainment in the centuries since George Whitefield has changed in method, not purpose, in the hopes of attracting more people to evangelical Christianity. Overall, the commodification and consumption of evangetainment has been present throughout the in American society. As illustrated by this historical trajectory of evangetainment, Americans have been exposed to evangetainment for nearly three centuries. The integration of entertainment techniques and evangelical Christian messages has evolved and expanded through the centuries to encompass a variety of evangelical church and parachurch activities. If anything, the consumption of evangelical Christianity through entertainment techniques has increased since the turn of the twenty-first century, in particular with the success of the Holy Land Experience theme park. Earlier evangelists and revivalists promoted and presented their sacred messages through secular media techniques of their time. The Holy Land Experience is no different – except that the theme park model, specifically Disneyfication, is the technique employed. The following section focuses on the concept of theme park and Disney’s impact on the themed- consumer experience.

77For more on Women Aglow and other current parachurch movements, see R. Marie Griffith, God’s Daughters: Evangelical Women and the Power of Submission, 1st ed. (University of California Press, 2000). 21

Disney Theme Park Model

The Holy Land Experience is a theme park; that is its mode of evangetaining. As American culture became more a “world of leisure” with industrialization and consumerism, amusement and theme parks began to take on leading roles in play and vacation time.78 As Margaret King states in her article, “The New American Muse,” the theme park became an American art form established as a “living museum to our most cherished popular and images” in the entertainment arena.79 King’s further description of the theme park model illustrates its innovative, imaginative, and technological aspects: No single field can by itself be expected to encompass or to explain such a complex production in its rich and mobile mix of artifacts, people, and behavior; human, animal and automated forms, graphics and sculpture, machines of every style and description; artifice and fantasy at every possible level and on every theme imaginable.80

Another way to describe a theme park is in terms of the following characteristics: technological wonders, spectacular buildings, educational presentations, entertaining sideshows, historical pageantry or displays, a fun-filled atmosphere, and food and beverages.81 These characteristics aptly describe both Disney theme parks and the Holy Land Experience. The theme park, in its current inception, was created in 1955 in Anaheim, California, as an extension of the Walt Disney Company brand. Walt Disney’s Disneyland had numerous influences, from Chicago’s “White City” at the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, to an exhibit of “Yesterday’s Main Street” sponsored by General Motors, to Knott’s Berry Farm.82 Disney’s creation is distinct because of the separate themed “lands,” the different sections of the park that each has an overarching idea or visual design that characterizes the specific “land.” This themed land concept revolutionized the amusement and attraction industry. Disneyland and Walt Disney World became places to go, ready-made vacations in a mobilized society that values leisure and fun time.

78 Margaret J. King, “The New American Muse: Notes on the Amusement/theme Park,” Journal of Popular Culture 15, no. 1 (1981): 56-62. 79 Ibid. 80 Ibid. 81 Stephen F. Mills, “Disney and the Promotions of Synthetic Worlds,” American Studies International 28, no. 2 (1990): 66-79. 82 Richard V. Francaviglia, “History After Disney: the Significance of ‘Imagineered’ Historical Places,” Public Historian 17, no. 4 (1995): 69-74. 22

When Disneyland opened in the middle of the consumer-driven 1950s, Walt Disney convened his themed experiment with these opening lines: To all who come to this happy place; welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past ... and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America ... with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.83

From that day forward, Disney was transformed from the original theme park to the “definitive version” of a theme park for American society.84 Americans embrace Disney theme parks because of the innovative techniques, attractive amusements, and spectacular marketing. The Disney brand is global and all-encompassing following an expansion into Florida in the mid- 1960s. In 1965, the Walt Disney Company began developing plans to bring a “new world of entertainment, pleasure, and economic development to the state of Florida” with a cluster of resorts and a planned city. 85 One central element would be a theme park, an enlarged version of Disneyland with similar attractions and “lands.”86 Many organizations look to model their businesses and attractions after the Walt Disney Company. In order to understand how and why newer theme parks, like the Holy Land Experience, imitate the quintessential theme park, we must understand the Disney itself. Cinderella’s Castle, Hall of Presidents, and Splash Mountain are all iconic features of Disneyland in Anaheim, California, and Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. These three different amusements and attractions share very little in common, the first is a fantasy palace façade; the second an animatronically-rigged display of United States history; and the third a thrilling roller coaster. What these elements share is a design created by the “imagineering of history.”87 Literally, “imagineering” is a term Walt Disney created, a combination of imagination and engineering.88 The verb “to imagineer” means to create physical manifestations of a Disney narrative or myth that can later be sold as an experience. In contrast to earlier

83 “History of Disneyland,” http://www.disneylandvacationtips.com/history-of-disneyland.html. 84 Alan Bryman, Disney and His Worlds, Ist. (Indo American Books, 2008), 190. 85Florida press conference transcript, November 15, 1965, Disney Archives. 86 Steven Watts, The : Walt Disney and the American Way of Life (University of Missouri, 2001), 421. 87 Scott Schaffer, “Disney and the Imagineering of Histories,” Postmodern Culture Volume 6, no. Number 3 (May 1996). 88 Karal Ann Marling, Designing Disney’s Theme Parks: The Architecture of Reassurance, 1st ed. (Flammarion, 1998), 30. 23

amusement parks, roller coasters at Disney have a story-focused theme that dictates the fashioning of the ride. Disney imagineering is often referred to as “Disneyfication,” or the idealization of a history and ideas through “mood setting.”89 For example, the myth of Davy Crockett is expressed through creative and innovative “experiential storytelling” in the Magic Kingdom’s Frontierland.90 There are critics of Disneyfication, those who would classify it as artificial or a “synonym for sham.”91 Commentators question the validity of the historical and iconographic images created through Disneyfication, but no one can deny the business success of Disney. Millions flock annually to Disney parks, probably because when people choose how they are to be entertained, they are willing to spend more money as they are “buying time in a special setting.”92 Disney imagineers this special environment in a variety of ways. The first is with a clear and participatory narrative. Rides, shops, architecture, sounds, smells, eateries, and costumes all immerse the visitor into this idealized theme.93 Each land and themed area of a Disney park is constructed from a group of stories or connected attractions. The producers of Disney experiences become storytellers, wrapping their patrons in a consumable theme. Cultural commentators believe Disney defines myth as cultural stories that supply an interactive structure.94 In these theme parks, essences of environments, for instance the architecture and landscape of a faux Main Street USA, are reproduced for experience-making effect.95 This multi-sensory experience is the product sold at a theme park: guests pay a fee to be engulfed in Disney’s idealized vision of life. The framework of a Disney narrative experience aside, what are the images and icons idealized at the theme parks? According to Alan Bryman, in Disney and His Worlds, Disney presents a vision which “mythologizes and steeps in nostalgia a past that never really existed.”96 The Disney brand has its own view of history, known as “distory” to many scholars.97 Distory is

89 Francaviglia, “History After Disney: the Significance of ‘Imagineered’ Historical Places,” 70. 90 The Walt Disney Company, “Imagineering”, 2008, http://corporate.disney.go.com/careers/who_imagineering.html. 91 Marling, Designing Disney’s Theme Parks, 9. 92 Christopher L. Salter, Landscape in Literature (Assn of Amer Geographers, 1976), 26. 93 Bryman, Disney and His Worlds, 84. 94 Schaffer, “Disney and the Imagineering of Histories.” 95 Francaviglia, “History After Disney: the Significance of ‘Imagineered’ Historical Places,” 69. 96 Bryman, Disney and His Worlds, 127. 97 Distory is a term utilized by many scholars, including Stephen M Fjellman, Vinyl Leaves: Walt Disney World And America (Westview Press, 1992). 24

ahistorical and ageographical in nature. There may be a semblance of a time period, but few actual dates are present. For example, Frontierland is more or less during the late nineteenth- century American West, although there are no specific dates. Figures are mythologized and groups are stereotyped. Take the ride “It’s a Small World” as a classic example. While most people will comment on the repetitive nature of the song that accompanies the ride, distorians (producers and consumers of distory) allow for oversimplified stereotypes of world cultures. According to “It’s a Small World,” all little girls from Holland have blond pigtails and wear clogs. Scenes and settings are also generalized and removed from their contexts; India is more than the Taj Mahal and not all Indians are naked and living harmoniously with animals, like Mowgli in The Jungle Book. In this respect, Disney’s version of history replaces sites, politics, and eras with synthetic and idealized renderings “masked by the cuteness and the production of fun.”98 One of the most Disneyfied ideas at any of the company’s theme parks is the concept of America. Disney portrays America the way it “was” or “should have been” according to Walt Disney’s vision.99 In the post-war 1950s, Walt Disney was a pro-American anti-communist; even testifying against other entertainers for McCarthy’s House Committee on Un-American Activities. Disney wanted a vision of America that was much like his Main Street USA, a reshaped, sanitized and idyllically generic small town. Good family values and pro-American sentiments became part of Disney’s “symbolic American Utopia.”100 This utopian American society is almost Edenic in its Disney Realism; a perfect society with fun, food, and activities for all ages.101 Part of this ideal America comes from the concept of American Exceptionalism and the goal of a Christian America. Walt Disney was part of a denomination, some scholars argue a Congregationalist, but for most of his life he did not regularly attend any services. However, Disney’s religious influences were based in ecumenical Christian morality. He wanted his entertainment and theme parks to be examples of the morally-focused Christian America he promoted. This vision of a utopian Christian America illustrates the selective nostalgia Disney employs in its attractions. Disneyfication, in this sense, becomes a production of the ideal, and

98 Schaffer, “Disney and the Imagineering of Histories.” 99 Ibid. 100 King, “The New American Muse: Notes on the Amusement/theme Park,” 68. 101 Eric Mazur and Kate McCarthy, God in the Details: American Religion in Popular Culture, 2nd ed. (Routledge, 2010), 307. 25

thus, the sacred. This is a sentimental environment created for individuals to experience the material culture of a perfect past.102 This remembrance is, however, fabricated and synthetic – the ideal never truly existed. Mircea Eliade would describe Disney’s sacralizing nostalgia as a longing to return to sacred times, a “desire to live in a pure and holy cosmos, as it was in the beginning.”103 The beginning, for Disney, is a Victorian-era America; the illud tempus is a selective past where life is simple and wholesomely perfect. The theme park is an American form of entertainment holding mythical properties and exemplifying the way America should be, in accordance with the Walt Disney Company values. Distory is not the only manifestation of Disneyfication imitated by theme parks like the Holy Land Experience. Other theme parks model themselves after another Disneyfied concept, the re-formatting of the pilgrimage for American citizens. With the increased mobility and income of the consumer-driven 1950s marketplace, parents were more willing to travel farther distances on vacations and interact with their children in leisure environments. Disney theme parks sparked new trends in tourism, recreation, and family activities – all of which involved traveling to Disneyland or Walt Disney World.104 Once the family arrives at the Disney pilgrimage, they pay high fees to enter the themed environment, not including meals, souvenirs, and lodging while at the site. The imagineers at Disney have unintentionally modernized the pilgrimage. The purpose of this pilgrimage is not ritual or religious, but controlled and “routinized play.”105 These visitors enter the site and encounter images and ideas that shift their paradigms. The visitors return home and reincorporate into their lives, slightly changed, perhaps more relaxed and definitely with more photographs and memories (or so Disney hopes). A pilgrimage to Disney solidifies a group identity for middle-class Americans. An American child who has not been to Disneyland or Walt Disney World is seen as an oddity – typical middle-class childhoods include at least one visit to the fantastical theme park. The purpose of this space is to transform the pilgrim, even if only briefly, through the entertainment at a Disney park. The Disney patron may not return with an entirely new sense of reality, but many are transformed into individuals who are engaged in the Disney narratives. Participants at a Disney park walk away with a Disneyfied reality; idealized images of a utopian America.

102 Bryman, Disney and His Worlds, 137. 103 Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and The Profane: The Nature of Religion (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987). 104 King, “The New American Muse: Notes on the Amusement/theme Park,” 59. 105 Alexander Moore, “Walt Disney World: Bounded Ritual Space and the Playful Pilgrimage Center,” Anthropological Quarterly 53, no. 4 (October 1980): 207-218. 26

By creating this middle-class American pilgrimage, Walt Disney biographer Steven Watts argues that Disney helped to foster consumerism in American society by “forging a new creed of leisure, self-fulfillment, and mass consumption.”106 Disney is one manifestation of the link between commercialization and American culture in the latter half of the twentieth century.107 Disney theme parks produce, market, and sell experiences as commodities. According to Stephen Fjellman, the Walt Disney Company meets the needs of Americans living in an “overcommodified world,” a place where needs are generated and met through the marketplace.108 The consumption presented at Disneyland and Walt Disney World is a part of the fun and fantasy, at every corner of the park, something is bought and sold. The goods purchased are symbols of the narratives and distory incasing the theme park.109 Disney is the quintessential American theme park because it sells nostalgic distory to willing consumers in a fun package. Disney is the “market leader” in contemporary themed attractions, but other entrepreneurs have latched onto the idea.110 The evangetainment market is no exception to this trend, as evidenced by the existence of the Holy Land Experience. As the Christian Century magazine observed in the 1933 article, “Is It Progress,” American Christians integrate our amusements with our culture, and with this manifestation of evangetainment, with our religion.111 The following sections will begin with a “tour” of the Holy Land Experience, a look at the performances and aesthetics of the theme park, and a history of the attraction. Subsequently, the focus will become how the Holy Land Experience imitates and adapts Disney techniques and ideas to become a current manifestation in the historical trajectory of American evangetainment.

106 Watts, The Magic Kingdom, 163. 107 Mazur and McCarthy, God in the Details, 312. 108 Fjellman, Vinyl Leaves, 9. 109 Bryman, Disney and His Worlds, 159. 110 Mills, “Disney and the Promotions of Synthetic Worlds.” 111 Marling, Designing Disney’s Theme Parks, 24. 27

CHAPTER TWO

“Jan Crouch put her stamp on this…”

The Holy Land Experience is not unique in its combination of entertainment methods and evangelical messages; it is a twenty-first century example of evangetainment. This theme park has humble beginnings but lofty goals, reorganized in later years by a change in ownership. The story begins with the Holy Land Experience’s visionary founder, Marvin J. Rosenthal. Raised Jewish, Rosenthal converted to Christianity as a teenager and began attending Dallas Theological Seminary in 1965. Ordained a Baptist minister, he began the Zion’s Hope ministry in Orlando, Florida, in 1989.112 The expressed purpose of Zion’s Hope Ministry was to witness and evangelize to the “16 million Jewish people worldwide and, in particular, to the 11 million who now live in Israel and America.”113 Rosenthal believed the best way to reach his audience, and familiarize evangelical Christians with Israel, was to create a replica of the Holy Land in the theme park capital of the United States. The project began with the Jerusalem Model, a miniature replica of the city circa 66 CE, completed in 1996. Rosenthal and his ministry raised funds for five years to create this “world of the Bible” in central Florida.114 The Van Kampen family, the same family who later donated the artifacts for the Scriptorium (a Bible museum), procured the fifteen-acre plot of land along for the park. According to one of the theme park’s early volunteers, divine providence assisted in obtaining that coveted property – “God was in that one.”115 In early 2001, five years after the Jerusalem replica was constructed, the sixteen million dollar theme park facility was finally completed. This “reproduction” of Jerusalem between 1450 BCE and 66 CE was advertised as “a total sensory experience, blending sights, sounds, and tastes to transport guests 7,000 miles away and 3,000 years back in time.”116 The end result included numerous large exhibits, such as the Calvary and Garden Tomb, the Wilderness Tabernacle, and the Scriptorium. Amusement attraction artists ITEC Entertainment Corporation, the company that created the Twister and Jurassic Park rides at Universal Studios, designed many of these themed

112For more on Marvin Rosenthal, see Beal, Roadside Religion. 113 “The History of Zion’s Hope,” http://www.zionshope.org/ZH_ministry.aspx. 114 Beal, Roadside Religion, 52. 115 Peggy, July 27, 2010. 116 Branham, “The Temple That Won’t Quit: Constructing Sacred Space in Orlando’s Holy Land Experience Theme Park,” 21. 28

architectural landscapes. The purpose of the park was threefold for Rosenthal: “to teach Christians about historical Israel and Jewish rituals, to promote a specific theological eschatology, and to lead Jews to convert to Christianity.”117 Volunteers eager to assist in Rosenthal’s ministry flocked from the nearby megachurch, First Baptist of Orlando. While it was Rosenthal’s vision, one volunteer attributed early exposure and success to getting the “right people together.”118 Many volunteered three to four days per week, always unpaid. A volunteer who once portrayed the priest Aaron in the Wilderness Tabernacle attraction said that “everyone wanted to take a picture with him,” and that he and other volunteers would research their roles to “witness” accurately to the visitors.119 That volunteer was even asked to “explain the trinity,” but Rosenthal had “Bible scholars” present to provide resources to answer visitors’ questions.120 After a few months, many volunteers left their posts so that those who “needed the money” could become the full-time employees, and by 2003, only paid employees worked at the theme park.121 Between 2001 and 2007, the Holy Land Experience attracted schools and church groups; it was “a nice place for a bunch of Christians to go, to take the family.”122 Most of the visitors to the Holy Land Experience, according to one employee, were Amish and Mennonites, along with homeschoolers searching for educational Bible-based activities.123 Many volunteers saw the Holy Land Experience primarily as an educational tool, “a visual for the Bible.”124 In 2001, the price of a “Day in the life of the Holy Land” cost seventeen dollars for adults and twelve dollars for children.125 While relatively affordable compared to Universal Studios or Walt Disney World, this theme park had something these other attractions did not – a controversial message that provoked protesters. What impressed, and eventually recruited, many volunteers and employees was the theme park’s “insight into Jewish stuff.”126 The appeal to Christians was to understand the “home

117 Beal, Roadside Religion, 52. 118 David, July 27, 2010. 119 Ibid. 120 Ibid. 121 Ibid. 122 Ibid. 123 Erica, July 19, 2010. 124 Peggy, interview. 125 Erica, interview. 126 David, interview. 29

religion” of Judaism.127 As Rosenthal said in an interview, “All we’ve done is condense everything that’s in the real Holy Land,” even bringing in plants native to the Sinai Peninsula to replicate the fauna of the Middle East.128 Jews, however, were less receptive to the supersessionist implications.129 According to one volunteer, picketers lined the entrance to the theme park, holding signs that argued with Rosenthal’s Messianic Jewish identity.130 Journalists and photographers documented the controversy as Jewish community leaders held banners that read: “Jews for Jesus are not Jews. They are Christians!”131 Demonstrators were upset by Rosenthal’s proselytizing efforts, which appeared to be directed solely at Jews. More moderate Jews accepted that the Holy Land Experience had the right under the First Amendment to produce a theme park based on the Bible, but were offended that false comparisons between Judaism and Christianity were being promoted.132 Whether or not Jews did attend the site, Rosenthal’s barometer for successful evangelization, is inconclusive. There was little anecdotal or demographic data to back up the protesters’ umbrage. However, immediate negative press did not stop other visitors or volunteers from coming to the theme park, and in its first four years, the Holy Land Experience “welcomed more than 1,100,000 guests through its gates.”133 Although moderately successful in attracting participants, the park under Marvin Rosenthal was not fiscally viable. With the Holy Land Experience on the brink of bankruptcy, Rosenthal’s board of directors sold the theme park to Trinity Broadcast Network in June 2007. Trinity Broadcast Network, co-owned by televangelist founders Paul and Jan Crouch, is “the world’s largest religious broadcaster and America’s most watched faith channel.”134 Founded in 1973, this prosperity gospel television enterprise includes many popular programs, such as

127Ibid. 128 Adam Goodheart, “The Way We Live Now: 2-25-01; Theme Park On a Hill,” New York Times Magazine (25 2001): 13. 129 Supersessionism is a held by some Christians that God’s covenant with the Jews as described in the Old Testament is annulled by the Christian covenant and dispensation begun in the and fulfilled by salvation in Jesus Christ. 130 David, interview. 131 “The Holy Land Experience Theme Park Opens - Photo - LIFE,” http://www.life.com/image/737916. 132 Malcolm Brabant, “Jewish Fury at the ‘Holy Land’ Park”, 2001, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1154643.stm. 133 “The History of Zion’s Hope.” 134 “Trinity Broadcasting Network Acquisition Of ‘Holy Land Experience’ Theme Park Seeks To Change More Lives - Announcem...,” http://www.tbn.org/announcements/trinity-broadcasting-network-acquisition-of-holy-land- experience-theme-park-seeks-to-change-more-lives. 30

“Praise the Lord” and “Smile of a Child.”135 Trinity Broadcast Network’s focus on global evangelism explains its many subsidiary stations across the globe and its purchase of the Holy Land Experience theme park. In the Trinity Broadcast Network press release discussing the “marriage” of the network and the theme park, Vice President Paul Crouch, Jr., said that there would be “synergy” between the two organizations and that it would “provide the Holy Land Experience with much needed promotion to bring more people to the theme park and Orlando as a whole.”136 The business-focused tone of the press release marked a shift from educational replica to a more Disneyfied amusement. The purpose, “to inform and inspire the general public and whosoever would like to know about Bible truth,” appears similar to Rosenthal’s original conception, but the aesthetics, performances, and even participant population changed with the new ownership.137 When the Crouches purchased the Holy Land Experience in 2007, the theme park became “a little more Disney, a little more theatrical.”138 While still maintaining that participants could “Visit Jerusalem in Orlando,” the Holy Land Experience de-emphasized replicating Jerusalem.139 These changes could also be attributed to the shifting populations now visiting the theme park. While in earlier years the park was mainly full of white Protestant participants, the newer population drew from Trinity Broadcast Network’s viewers – not the Mennonites or Amish who eschew worldliness by separating from the modern world. The network’s advertising and worldwide exposure brings participants from outside the central Florida region. As a result, in the month I spent conducting ethnographic research, race and ethnicity varied, with approximately forty-five percent African-American participants, twenty percent Hispanic participants, twenty percent Caucasian participants, and fifteen percent Asian or Pacific Islander participants.140

135 For more on Trinity Broadcast Network, see Kathleen Mahoney Hladky, “Modern Day Heroes of Faith” the Rhetoric of Trinity Broadcasting Network and the Emergent Word of Faith Movement (Oxford, Ohio: Miami University, 2006), http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=miami1154624326. 136 “Trinity Broadcasting Network Acquisition Of ‘Holy Land Experience’ Theme Park Seeks To Change More Lives - Announcem...” 137 Jane Wilcox, July 22, 2010. 138 David, interview. 139 As written on pamphlets available at Orlando-area hotels. 140 All of the demographics are compiled from my observations in July 2010. 31

Figure 1. Crowd at Passion Drama

However vast the population differences after the 2007 ownership change, the types of participants stayed relatively the same. There were still many church and youth groups from southeastern states who came to visit the attraction. Before the change, one employee said that more Jews, Amish, and Mennonites attended the park, but now it serves a “different clientele” of Trinity Broadcast Network fans.141 In my interactions with participants, most had seen the Holy Land Experience in a commercial on Trinity Broadcast Network or as the setting for the program “Praise the Lord.” Few visitors had been to the park before 2007. Most weekdays had fewer than 500 participants, although Guest Relations Director Jane Wilcox told me that on weekends they are filled to capacity – almost 1,800 visitors. In order to become “debt-free” and still develop the park, new management also increased the ticket prices to $35, doubling the cost from the Holy Land Experience’s first day in 2001. As Dr. Bill Jones, historical presenter at the park, summarizes, “before Trinity Broadcast Network, there were no funds for extensive advertising…they brought in larger crowds than before and people seem to like it.”142 With the increase of funding available with Trinity Broadcast Network’s backing and increased ticket sales, the Holy Land Experience also began making cosmetic improvements: upgraded buildings, beautified landscapes, and bronze angel statues radically altered the

141 Erica, interview. 142 Dr. Bill Jones, July 25, 2010. 32

appearance of the park. The camels, the petting zoo, and early Christian pottery stations were replaced by “more dramatic and musical” programming.143 Even the colors of the park changed. These changes stem from the Trinity Broadcast Network’s aesthetic. Jan Crouch’s “putting her stamp on it” means creating gilded and extravagant sets, like in “Praise The Lord” programming.144 Vibrant purples and gold draping cover costumes and decorate stages, whereas earlier, neutral colors were used to authenticate the Jerusalem replica set in 66 CE. Instead of its being a ministry that illustrated a ‘Day in the Life’ of the Holy Land during Jesus’ lifetime, Trinity Broadcast Network made it more of a theme park.145 Few employees stayed after the change in management, and those who did were not always thrilled with the changes to the park. Thankful to be still employed during the stagnant Floridian economy of 2010, one employee disliked the changes made by Trinity Broadcast Network. Having worked at the Holy Land Experience for four years, she considers her first year before the change in management to have been her “honeymoon time.”146 She enjoyed the ministry under Rosenthal when each member held numerous roles and positions. Before Trinity Broadcast Network, each employee became a biblical figure, for example “Mary Magdalene” would work the front gates and tell her story to the crowds, which was “emotionally stimulating.”147 Now, that same employee is part of a much larger staff under tighter control. There are approximately twenty character actors in performances and other employees only run the gift shops or control crowds and usher audiences into seats. One Latino employee used to play the role of Jesus, but was, according to him, demoted to maintenance staff because he does not have “blond hair or blue eyes.”148 Disneyfied aesthetics, performances, and the religious consumer experience became the focus of the newly-purchased Holy Land Experience in 2007 and remained so as of July 2010.

143 Ibid. 144 “We Shall Behold Him” (Holy Land Experience, Orlando, FL, July 13, 2010). 145 Erica, interview. 146 Ibid. 147 Ibid. 148 Victor, July 19, 2010. 33

“Shalom, God Bless, and Please Exit to the Right”

The Holy Land Experience houses numerous attractions and exhibits; it is as its slogan says: “A Bible Theme Park Adventure.” Visitors are greeted at the entrance to the Holy Land Experience by a cartoonish statue of a Roman centurion in a horse-drawn chariot. Security guards pass out bright pink note cards informing visitors of the rules of the park: photography is permitted, but outside food and drink is not. Pulling into a parking space, visitors see the whole park from across the Crystal Waters pond. “He Is Risen” is spelled out in the shrubbery on one bank, with the Temple and the Garden Tomb visible from the sidewalk on the other side of the wrought-iron fence that separates first century Jerusalem from twenty-first century Orlando, Florida. Even before purchasing a ticket, visitors encounter an island in the parking lot devoted to telling the story of Jesus’ birth. Visitors walk around the diorama to look at all the sections: shepherds herding sheep, inn manager sending Mary and Joseph to the manger, the three wise men seeing a star, and all parts coming together in a final Nativity scene with the inscription, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.”

Figure 2. Crystal Waters Lake

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Figure 3. Front Entrance/ “Gates of Jaffa”

A typical trip to the park begins by walking through the “Gates of Jaffa” to enter the Jerusalem market where artificial fruit carts and flowers line the path. The song “Hava Negila” plays in the background to represent the Jewish cultural markings on this Jerusalem replica. Of course, this song would not have been played in ancient Jerusalem, since it was written in 1918.149 Navigating through the market, visitors then enter the central area of the park. As with other theme parks, the Holy Land Experience is about controlled and planned choices. Visitors are given a map that changes weekly and provides a list of the performance and attraction options and a timetable. Hebraic lettering and faux-wooden signs engulf participants in the theme of the Holy Land Experience – Jerusalem at the time of Jesus. But the theme park is updated for twenty-first century consumers with attractions like a virtual reality theater. By utilizing already iconic images of Jerusalem and the Holy Land, the Holy Land Experience exemplifies Disneyfication. The theme park invokes biblical time and uses the Bible as a narrative resource.

149 Abraham Z. Idelsohn, Jewish Music: Its Historical Development (Dover Publications, 1992). 35

Figure 4. Directional Sign

However, basing the theme on the Holy Land can become problematic for the authenticity of the attraction. If this is supposed to be just like the “real” Holy Land, the Qumran Caves would not be next to the Calvary Garden Tomb. If it were “authentic,” time would not span three thousand years from the Wilderness Tabernacle to the twenty-first century Legna performance featuring a waiter and a hobo/guardian angel (Legna is “angel” spelled backwards). Time compression goes unnoticed by both producers and consumers, and the anachronisms present within the theme park are ignored, or perhaps, unrecognized. Similar to other disneyfied attractions, space and time are not seen linearly or chronologically, but as condensed for convenience and accessibility. Many evangelical Christians believe that all micro-stories of the Bible tell the same macro-story; thus, the Bible becomes an easily accessed map. Visitors are encouraged to hop around to other locations, regardless of how far away they are in time or locality. Participants and employees do not view this incongruity of chronology or locality as a problem. These are not false claims to biblical literalism because approaching the Bible as literally as possible is an identifying cultural tenet in the evangelical subculture, not necessarily a hermeneutical approach to the Bible. This evangelical Christian identity and the focus on the Word, or any section of the Word, is not challenged but enhanced by utilizing the theme park model of time and location compression.

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The attractions are a perfect example of these historical and cultural anachronisms. Many participants choose to veer left at the central point of the theme park, to the Calvary’s Garden Tomb, where visitors can witness the Passion drama at noon and 5 p.m. daily. Or, if that show is hours away, visitors veer right and enter the Wilderness Tabernacle, a presentation depicting the Yom Kippur sacrifice made by High Priest Aaron while the Israelites wandered through the desert after exodus from Egypt. This presentation, complete with theatrical lighting and fake fires, uses actors dressed in bright-colored robes and headdresses. While historians and scholars do not know exactly what occurred during High Priest Aaron’s animal sacrifices, the Holy Land Experience creates what they believe occurred almost three millennia ago. The actors silently mime animal sacrifice, pretending to decapitate a sheep to piped-in “baa-ing” over the speakers. While illuminated in the shadow of a tabernacle tent, the actor lights a menorah and presents the imagined to a higher power, indicated by a “lightning” strike over an “Ark of the Covenant” tabernacle. The Holy Land Experience created this attraction by imagining what could have been from descriptions in the Bible; thus, accuracy of the ritual is not the focus. Instead, the emphasis is on the topic of sacrifice, as evidenced by the connection of the Wilderness Tabernacle to the “blood sacrifice” of Jesus Christ at the end of the presentation. According to the Bible, the ancient Israelites wandered the desert for decades before entering Israel and centuries later building the temples but, as visitors exit the Wilderness Tabernacle, they immediately enter the Temple Plaza. Six stories tall and approximately one third the size of the historical Herod’s Temple, this white and gold façade is the physical centerpiece of the park, with historical presentations daily. Past the temple, visitors walk toward the Shofar Auditorium, an indoor stage where shows like The Woman at the Well and Forgiven are performed at various times throughout the day. These programs are either biblical stories or contemporary Christian messages performed by the same twenty to thirty employees. All of the performances are interpreted, written, directed, and choreographed by the Holy Land Experience production department, specifically its leader Jonathan Hickey. Many of the attractions at the Holy Land Experience are what one might expect of a theme park or traveling fair of this size. Inside the Shofar Auditorium building is the intricate and detailed Jerusalem Model. This was the first exhibit created by Rosenthal in 1996, on the future site of the Holy Land Experience. The miniature cityscape measures 45 by 25 feet and is a replica of Jerusalem circa 66 CE. The theme park was built because of the popularity of this

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exhibit. A mural on the wall and a velvet rope separate the participant from the material. Visitors are observers – not fully engaged in the experience, but marveling at it just the same.

Figure 5. Jerusalem Model

Other features of the park are more interactive, such as Celebrate Jesus Karaoke in the Theater of Life. Three times a day, visitors are encouraged to demonstrate their talent and sing for Jesus, choosing from an array of classical hymns and popular Christian music. However, the more interactive parts of the Holy Land Experience are rare. More often, the attractions talk at viewers who listen as they tour or sit through the presentations. Another one of the most popular attractions at the Holy Land Experience is the Scriptorium – a museum devoted to portraying the authority and accuracy of the Bible. This attraction brings together the disneyfied elements of technological wonders, spectacular buildings, educational presentations, and historical pageantry.150 According to the Holy Land Experience website, the Scriptorium provides visitors with a “dramatic understanding of the history of the Bible, how it parallels the history of civilization, and the impact it has had upon the world.”151 This walk-through museum holds artifacts from the Van Kampen Collection of biblical materials, scrolls and under plexi-glass casing with notecards stating the artifact’s information – Bible 12th Century. The Scriptorium is not meant for the reading, but rather the

150 Mills, “Disney and the Promotions of Synthetic Worlds.” 151 “The Scriptorium - The Holy Land Experience,” http://www.holylandexperience.com/exhibits/the_scriptorium.html. 38

listening participant; it takes an hour to explore the museum because participants are guided through by audio storytelling. The Scriptorium does not provide differing paths or written signage as you would see at other museums; this is more akin to Disney’s Carousel of Progress sans the people-mover. The projectors, sounds, animatronic figures, and Bible displays illustrate a use of “state-of-the-art” design and technology to transport people through this historical narrative.

Figure 6. Scriptorium

The narrative presents itself as a history of the written word that culminates in the reading of the Bible in present-day America. Participants enter a circular room and are immediately engulfed in darkness as the audio tour tells the Genesis Tale: out of the darkness comes the light of the written word. It begins with cuneiform and hieroglyphics in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. The museum then skips over Roman Catholic Christendom and Eastern Orthodoxy, stopping only briefly to illustrate patient monks writing the words of the Bible by hand. The Scriptorium’s version of history jumps to Guttenberg’s and the Anglican and German . The importance of the written word becomes background for the importance of the “divine word of god,” as those who translated the Bible from the Latin Vulgate into the local vernaculars receive the most prominence. The one artifact that is most notably displayed is the “Martyr’s Bible,” a Bible that supposedly has the blood of a 16th century martyr on its pages because the martyr was killed during a raid on William Tyndale’s workshop. John

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Wycliffe’s animatronic doppelgänger even explains his importance as he guides us through a hidden exit through a brick fireplace into the prison cell that held John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim’s Progress. The history relies heavily on English-speaking Protestants, including nineteenth century British Reformed Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon, with a mural depicting a church audience listening intently to one of his sermons. Spurgeon is at the center of the painting, speaking to the audience via a mini-television. English reformers, though, become the penultimate historical moment in the Scriptorium’s history lesson. Protestant America is the apex of Christianity. With themes similar to Disney’s symbolic American utopia, the Holy Land Experience depicts America as the chosen nation with scenes including that of the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock. Participants then enter a Protestant whitewashed wooden church, equipped with an American flag hanging over the preacher’s pulpit. There is a brief interlude of the theological tenets of evangelical Christianity – a concise tour of biblical leaders, the Ten Commandments, and a lighted cross in the ceiling that explains their eschatological hopes of salvation. It is with this biblical framework in mind that visitors enter the last stop on the Scriptorium’s historical tour – contemporary America. The final room before the entrance to the gift shop brings participants into a twenty- first century middle-class American living room. A couch, a coffee table, and a television have replaced the American church; individual reading of the Bible (placed next to the lamp) has become the ideal form of Christianity in the twenty-first century. Participants are all that is needed in this church at home setting. The television, while turned off, pays homage to the owners of the theme park – the televangelists who operate Trinity Broadcast Network. The narrative portrays a selective history, similar to the type found in “distory” – a story delivered to produce an emotional response in an audience already familiar with the biblical tales and the historical figures displayed. The history focuses on the “American-ness” of the Bible and backs up its beliefs with artifacts like the Martyrs’ Bible and ancient Egyptian scrolls. The authenticity of that response, however, lies in the artifacts presented. As there are no signs giving accurate dates or authentication materials available in the museum, I requested a list of those artifacts from Sola Scriptura.org, the organization that manages the collection. I was denied access. They informed me that in order to look at the materials, or even obtain a list of the collection, my project had to deal with the “affirmation, authenticity, accuracy and authority

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of God's Word.”152 The historical narrative presented is deeply guarded in order to control how it is produced and consumed at the Holy Land Experience, especially in the Scriptorium. The Scriptorium is not only disneyfied, but also an example of the social memory of American Protestants. The nostalgic home of the final room illustrates the Holy Land Experience’s idea of American Christianity – personal and conservative, “family values” oriented. The tour begins with darkness and ends with Protestant American Exceptionalism. From the essentialism of the “ancient” Egypt and Mesopotamia, to the anti-Catholic sentiment that negates the developments of the Middle Ages, this narrative illustrates the perception of history according to American evangelical Protestants. In this attraction, producers and consumers only focus on the social memory of Reform Protestants, culminating in the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock and the early twentieth-century, wooden, one-room American evangelical church setting. It is through this presentation that participants create the image of themselves as part of this lineage; constructing their cultural identities to fit into the Holy Land Experience’s version of history. These biblical narratives are displayed throughout the Holy Land Experience during the performances – the most popular is the re-enactment of the Passion drama.

Figure 7. Passion Drama (Roman Centurions beat Jesus)

152 Dean Tisch, “Research Project on the Holy Land Experience”, July 30, 2010. 41

The Passion drama at the Holy Land Experience is an interpretation of the Gospel stories and is the performance centerpiece of the park – no other performances are shown during that time. The performance itself is violent, with bloody depictions of Jesus being beaten, tortured, and whipped. Participants, often crying while watching the show, still brought their children and encouraged them to watch the brutality; parents rarely shielded the eyes of children or infants.

Figure 8. Passion Drama (Roman Centurions drag Jesus)

Violent “Bible Truth” is on display at both Passion dramas, but the five o’clock performance has an added section – Jesus Christ returns and defeats the Satan character, as illustrated by the actor writhing in pain on the ground. Actors and dancers dressed as angels bow down to Jesus Christ as he walks into the Temple Plaza and through the gates, presumably to heaven. The second half of this performance differs from other Passion plays that are usually performed around Easter and rarely include the second coming of Christ. However, the afternoon We Shall Behold Him Passion play fits well in the daily line-up of performances at the Holy Land Experience because it illustrates Trinity Broadcast Network’s and the Holy Land Experience’s biblical time compression. For both groups, the Bible is central to Christianity and portraying those narratives and themes, even outside of chronological or thematic order, reinforces the point.

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Figure 9. Passion Drama (Christ’s return and defeat of Satan)

Besides the twice-daily Passion dramas there are ten other performances, four different presentations, and five films shown throughout the park at varying times. The themes range from films produced or promoted by Trinity Broadcast Network, such as Omega Code or One Night with the King, to child-centered Parables with Jesus. The presentations of the Empty Tomb and the Injustices of Jesus’ Trial are conducted by a self-described “biblicated” scholar, Dr. Bill Jones. When asked about the term, “biblicated,” he referred to his education; his doctorate in Christian education is from Baptist Christian University in Louisiana.153 These performances evangetain audiences by presenting evangelical Christian messages through entertainment media. After all, as Jane Wilcox described the park’s purpose, “evangelists are entertainers, [and] at the Holy Land Experience, [we are] entertaining with scriptural presentations.”154 The evangetainers themselves, the actors, agree that their purpose is to present “biblical truth” to audiences. One actor who plays Jesus said that before working at the Holy Land Experience, he was “an actor who was Christian,” but since working here he is

153Jones, interview. 154 Jane Wilcox, August 7, 2010. 43

“now a Christian actor.”155 This distinction differs from the Disney model. While I have not interviewed any actors who play Mickey or Minnie Mouse, I feel safe in assuming that they probably do not walk around the park, stopping along the way to talk to people out of character. The Holy Land Experience has a different story – and preaches it to visitors. A Roman centurion stops for photographs with a family of four while the security guard taking the picture shouts, “1, 2, 3, say Jesus.”156 However, after the picture, the Roman centurion talks to the family about their relationship with Christ. He even tries to explain the trinity to the teenagers using the symbol on their Pepsi drink: “How many circles? One. How many colors? Three – red, white, and blue. All different, but one circle.”157 The performance narratives continue throughout the park and are a starting off point for evangelizing entertainers. For the employees and owners of the Holy Land Experience, these biblical narratives they present and evangelize must be protected and enacted in specific ways. There are only museums and performances, methods of reenacting and repeating their interpretation of the biblical stories. Most of the attractions are categorized as either “live shows” or “historical presentations.” According to one employee, the distinction lies in the performance aspect of the attraction: “live shows” are theatrical performances and “historical presentations” are educational exhibits.158 Both types of shows are disneyfied attractions, akin to Disney in its artifice: “where nature or history is manipulated and manufactured into entertainment rather than preserved.”159 At the end of Last Supper Communion with Christ, the actor-employee actually says, “Shalom, God bless, and please exit to your right.”160 The next area is less focused on constructing a historical narrative; fun is the key word. The Holy Land Experience “disneyfies” itself through its children’s area: Smile of a Child Adventure Land. Families with young children tend to begin their adventure here. It consists of animatronic and stylized representations of biblical narratives. Most of the options in the children’s area relate to biblical heroes. Visitors walk into the mouth of the whale to listen to Jonah and his under-the-sea friends, a starfish, a flounder, an octopus, and a crab, tell their tale.

155 Andre, August 2, 2010. 156 Security Guard, July 26, 2010. 157 Michael Job, July 13, 2010. 158 Erica, interview. 159 Elizabeth McKinsey, “Review: American Wanderlust; Sacred Places: American Tourist Attractions in the Nineteenth Century; The Tourist: Travel in Twentieth-Century North America,” American Quarterly 43, no. 4 (December 1991): 681-687. 160 “Last Supper Communion With Christ” (Holy Land Experience, Orlando, FL, July 24, 2010). 44

Participants and employees do not seem concerned that these animals, who have a remarkable resemblance to Disney characters like those in Finding Nemo and The Little Mermaid, are not part of the biblical narrative of Jonah. The recorded voice of a plastic Jesus figure invites people to walk on water with him for a photo opportunity. Moses’ sea parting mists groups as it connects the adventure land to the Wilderness Tabernacle. Noah’s ark and Samson’s pillars are next to the rock-climbing wall, a draw for the “tween” crowd uncertain if they want to attend a theme park based on the Bible. On an AstroTurfed “kids only” section, children are encouraged to wear Roman shields and fight lions as martyrs. The Holy Land Experience even models part of the Smile of a Child Adventure Land after Disney’s “It’s A Small World” ride. Instead of a ride, this “Go Down, Moses” singing performance is meant to illustrate the global reach of evangelical Christianity, a fundamental component of Trinity Broadcast Network’s mission. Just as Disney stereotypes world cultures, so does this display: inclusivity may be the goal, but nuances are lost to selective idealization.

Figure 10. Smile of A Child Adventure Land

This area juxtaposes advanced animatronic technologies with summer camp crafts. Unlike the more passive areas of the park, the educationally-focused Smile of a Child Adventure Land incorporates interactive arts and crafts with Christian messages. According to one employee, just “like women in the first century,” employees teach participants how to weave potholders. Another employee who calls herself “Anna the prophetess,” from the character in

45

the Gospel of Luke, teaches the children how to make Gospel bracelets with plastic lanyard string and colored beads representing different parts of the Gospel story. While Disney’s designs may be more technologically and artistically advanced, it is evident that the Holy Land Experience models its children’s area after the quintessential Orlando and Anaheim theme parks. The Holy Land Experience is certainly not identical to Disney World. As one African American teenage participant exclaimed as she glanced at a map searching for the rides, “I thought there’d be rollercoasters to heaven or something.”161 Amusement rides are not part of this themed experience; therefore participants often attend both Disney World and the Holy Land Experience in the same vacation, as evidenced throughout my ethnographic research by the Disney baseball caps, t-shirts, and bags worn at the park. One young boy I observed skipped through the Holy Land Experience singing, “Disney World, where I get to go tomorrow.” For many participants, Disney and the Holy Land Experience are not in competition; both sets of narratives are explored and beloved on trips to Orlando. Both narratives encourage family fun activities. Other arenas of American life put religious competitors in the ring as “decent surrogates,” but in this instance, Disney is also decent.162 Decency, purity, and innocence live, and are consumed, alongside one another. Throughout American history, religion has been placed on the “cultural shelves as another commodity.”163 Christian evangetainers, like the Holy Land Experience, would say that at least it is on the shelf, promoting itself and available for people to pick up. Being one of many does not lessen the Holy Land Experience’s impact for visitors. Rather it becomes the “Christian” alternative; one niche theme park among many. A deliberate choice is made by consumers looking for Christian spirituality in a Mickey-dominated world. Religious narratives are consumer commodities alongside the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and Aladdin’s Magic Carpet Ride.

161 Teenage Girls, July 23, 2010. 162 Moore, Selling God, 183. 163 Ibid. 46

CHAPTER THREE

“No Passport Necessary”

The Holy Land Experience exists as Disneyfied evangetainment, a theme park imbued with Christian stories. But the biblio-centricity, the focus on “The Word,” is not the only way in which this site can be classified as “religious.” This chapter identifies The Holy Land Experience as an example of synergy between Christian worship, entertainment, consumption, and business. The first step in order to understand this collaboration is to discuss the sacrality of the site itself. Is it a sacred space, a replica, or a pilgrimage site? This section makes clear the complicated intersection of these terms and how The Holy Land Experience can be classified simultaneously as all, some, and none of those religiously-imbued items. For the Holy Land Experience participants, visits to Orlando now include religious narratives which lead to questions about the sacrality of the theme park. In order to discuss how producers and consumers view the Holy Land Experience, the next section will define the theme park in terms of sacred space. In the first six years of the Holy Land Experience’s existence, the park had a dual purpose: to educate participants about the Jewish aspects of Christianity with a specific focus on the land of Israel at the time of Christ, and to replicate the experience of visiting modern-day Israel for those who cannot travel there for fear or monetary reasons. Rosenthal’s goal was to provide a condensed Israel in America, “you’d have to go about 30 miles to get from the Western Wall of the Great Temple to the Qumran Caves, but we’ve got it just about 75 yards away.”164 A broad definition is required to analyze the Holy Land Experience as sacred space. The theme park is “sacred” as it is set aside for a religious purpose. This attraction is an example of Lindsay Jones’ “ritual-architectural events.”165 The sacred purpose is not solely worship or community; it also exists for participants to purchase and consume sacred messages of biblical narratives and replicated experiences. The Holy Land Experience can also be explained through Louis P. Nelson’s definition of sacred space as a “historically specific cultural construction with powerful yet unstable meanings that are embedded in the identity of the culture.”166 With the Temple Plaza as its axis mundi, this park can be read as sacred space, creating a collective

164 Goodheart, “The Way We Live Now: 2-25-01; Theme Park On a Hill.” 165 Nelson, American Sanctuary, 10. 166 Nelson, American Sanctuary. 47

identity and shared experience for evangelical Christians who attend.167 The theme park can be considered sacred space because it is inscribed with Trinity Broadcast Network’s Christian theology, but what of its representations of the Holy Land two thousand years ago? Can a location be deemed “sacred” and “real” because of the selective replication it produces? The Holy Land Experience is one in a line of Protestant re-creations of Jerusalem at the time of Christ; inscribing evangelical Christian theologies on Jewish and early Christian histories and locations. Religious replicas are found throughout the history of Christianity. According to Colleen McDannell in Material Christianity, “the production of religious replicas was, curiously enough, the production of authenticity.”168 The religious person, in order to engage with sacred history, creates something that is real for the individual. McDannell asserts, “the real is achieved not by appealing to a natural experience but rather to an experience associated with the sacred.”169 Through the production and consumption of the replica, the religious person’s desires to connect with the sacred are fulfilled. As one mother pointed out to her son while looking at the Holy Land Experience’s Jerusalem Model, “this is exactly how it is in Israel.”170 For participants, accuracy is not necessary; but religious sentiment regarding the replica is essential. Although more commonly associated with Catholicism, selective and “authentic” replication is nothing new to Protestant Christianity in America. The Holy Land Experience can be easily compared to Catholic shrines, particularly Lourdes replicas in the United States, which McDannell explores. Both forms of Christianity create “Christian landscapes.”171 According to McDannell, while historians focus on the “rootedness” of sacred places, there is also “mobility” to that sacrality.172 In the case of Lourdes ghetto replicas and the Lourdes healing water, holy objects can be “reduced and transferred from one place to another.”173 Similarly, the memory of a pilgrimage visit or the representation of the location in visual imagery also moves the holiness of the original location to wherever the individual chooses. The exportation of objects, water,

167 Eliade, The Sacred and The Profane. 168 McDannell, Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America, 161. 169 Ibid. 170 Mother to Young Son, July 16, 2010. 171 McDannell, Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America, 133. 172 Ibid., 136. 173 Ibid. 48

and memories from Lourdes to a new location does not disrupt its sacrality; rather, the sacred visual and material cultural objects allow more Catholics to interact with a distant site. For the Holy Land Experience, it is torn between symbolic replica and the literal sacred. Within the evangelical subculture and beyond, Protestant Christianity in America has been debating the functionality of material culture for centuries. This focus on replicated Holy Lands may seem incongruous considering Protestant Christianity’s emphasis on sola scriptura, “scripture alone.” In many ways, it seems incompatible with Protestant Christians’ “antidote to gesture, sacrament, and action in [Protestantism’s] presentation of words, ideas, and personal faith.”174 However, according to Amos Ron and Jackie Feldman, Protestant pilgrimages provide a catalyst for the religious experiences rooted in the “interaction between believer and Bible.”175 The authenticity of the materials and the replica does not sacralize the site, yet the engagement with the Bible through materiality allows for tangibility of the sacred messages. During the nineteenth century, simulated “Holy Lands” began being reproduced in America.176 These replicas became a “surrogate for travel,” a way to stay close to home or see other, less religious-centered, tourist sites in the same vacation. Some of the earliest examples were in Ocean Grove, New Jersey, and Chautauqua, New York. In 1869, Ocean Grove began as religious pilgrimage to a “Jerusalem by the Sea.” Residents and summer visitors came to this Methodist leisure community in search of perfectionism, Victorian cottages, and recreational activities. Though not a replica of Jerusalem, per se, there were photographs and other material culture that provided enough of an experience for the leisure activities near the “living waters” of the New Jersey shore to possess similar effects. In New York, Chautauqua’s scale model, Palestine Park, allowed visitors to take a simulated walk along the Holy Land landscape and participate in lectures and biblical dramatizations. Leaders at Palestine Park sought to transform visitors into biblical people who lived the “geography and topography of biblical narratives” and, thus, sacred history. Contemporary examples include the “New Holy Land” in the Ozarks and the Holy Land Experience in Orlando. Pilgrimages to sites in the Holy Land incorporate visits to the physical locations associated with Jesus, so even replicated sites are important when trying to understand how an individual would feel in the original place. For Protestants, the Holy Land

174 Branham, “The Temple That Won’t Quit: Constructing Sacred Space in Orlando’s Holy Land Experience Theme Park,” 28. 175 Jackie Feldman and Amos S. Ron, “From spots to themed sites – the evolution of the Protestant Holy Land,” Journal of Heritage Tourism 4, no. 3 (2009): 205. 176 Ibid. 49

was an everlasting “Land of the Bible” and while the original site of two thousand years ago can never be literally revisited, the sacredness of the place may be replicated in any location – America included.177 These examples illustrate the sentiments of one woman who commented on the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair Jerusalem exhibit: “You cannot go to Jerusalem, so Jerusalem comes to you. To American energy all things are possible.” The Holy Land Experience reinforces this American Exceptionalism view of replicated-Jerusalem throughout the park, especially in the Scriptorium. The interweaving of America and the Holy Land is a centerpiece of this theme park, but marks an important point for the interconnectedness of replicated sites and pilgrimages. In the nineteenth century, the accessibility of travel to the Holy Land (now associated with the State of Israel) as well as an increase in disposable income for the middle class led to an “upsurge” of Protestant Christian pilgrimages.178 The Holy Land Experience, on the other hand, was created in 2001 to act as a safe “substitutional pilgrimage,” a sentiment solidified in the wake of the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center attacks when Americans were afraid to travel.179 With fewer people traveling outside the United States, especially to the Middle East, the Holy Land Experience became a replicated destination; a “living museum” to the Bible that should elicit a “transformative experience” for participants who wanted to visit the Holy Land.180 As pamphlets distributed at the Holy Land Experience exclaim, there is “no passport required” to visit this version of the Holy Land. In the subsequent years, more Americans have traveled to Israel, so the theme park has become less of a substitutional pilgrimage. Even in the twenty-first century, evangelical Christians comprise a growing segment of Israeli tourism. The Holy Land Experience may attract both pilgrims and tourists, but it “looks and acts more like a theme park than a shrine.”181 This is especially true after it was purchased by Trinity Broadcast Network, as the televangelizing organization altered the park to focus on performances rather than replicated sites. The park even promotes Trinity Broadcast Network’s sponsored trip to Israel in their ticket booth, signs and pamphlets let visitors to the park know that they can travel to the Holy Land

177 Burke O. Long, Imagining the Holy Land: Maps, Models, and Fantasy Travels (Indiana University Press, 2002), 2. 178 Feldman and Ron, “From spots to themed sites – the evolution of the Protestant Holy Land.” 179 Mark Fafard and Ronald Lukens-Bull, “Next Year in Orlando: (Re)Creating Israel in Christian Zionism,” http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2007/2007-16.html. 180 Ibid. 181 Annabel Jane Wharton, Selling Jerusalem: Relics, Replicas, Theme Parks (University Of Chicago Press, 2006), 193. 50

with the Crouches and Joel and Victoria Osteen on “a trip of a lifetime” exploring “the world of the Bible.”182 The cross-promotional marketing may make good business sense, but it complicates the consumer’s vision of the theme park. Visitors confront an underlying issue: is this a literal and tangible sacred space, or a symbolic location? Producers of the Holy Land Experience claim that it is not the “actual” Holy Land, but since the religious sentiments are real and the biblical performances are real, then visitors are encountering the sacred Word. At the Holy Land Experience, the sacred is re-created in a bricolage of themes and places associated with the Holy Land and Jerusalem. According to Joan Branham in “The Temple That Won’t Quit,” this is a form of “typological mapping of Christian belief systems and symbols onto Jewish sacred and sacrificial history.”183 The proximity of these attractions is incongruous chronologically and graphically; it subliminally asserts that Jewish sacred space and early Christian sacred space are connected as one intertwined category. The Jewish landmarks, such as the Wilderness Tabernacle exhibit and the Temple Plaza, become backdrops for Christian dramas, a theme park version of supersessionism. Early Christian sights are also reworked to benefit the Holy Land Experience’s interpretation of history. At the Scriptorium, the architecture of the building is reminiscent of Byzantine ecclesiastical structures more easily imagined in ancient Constantinople than today’s evangelical megachurches. The focus is on the Bible, not the Eucharist; the “Word of God” theology is American evangelical, but the building is a replica of Eastern Orthodox sacred space.184 The Scriptorium sacralizes a “logocentric historical narrative,” a message about the origins of the written word and the Bible that overlooks nuances in Christian history and traditions.185 The sacrality of the original locations and the interpreted stories presented inscribe the Holy Land Experience as sacred space. Complicating replication, pilgrimage, and sacred space theories is the disneyfication of the park. Just as Disney creates “distory” with selective nostalgia, the Holy Land Experience creates a selectively-replicated Jerusalem. Only aspects that relate to certain biblical narratives are presented. The Qumran Caves and the Temple Plaza are the few replicas of specific places. The Shofar Auditorium, for example, is not a reproduction of a site visited by pilgrims in present-day Israel. The theme park purifies and condenses the landscape it replicates, a way to

182 “Article-307 - Announcements,” http://www.tbn.org/announcements/?nid=307. 183 Branham, “The Temple That Won’t Quit: Constructing Sacred Space in Orlando’s Holy Land Experience Theme Park,” 30. 184 Ibid., 28. 185 Ibid. 51

control the images and narrative presented to visitors, just as Disney controls the images of Pirates of the Caribbean or the Haunted Mansion. However, Rosenthal believed that creating the Holy Land Experience in 2001 gave consumers something Disney does not; the “real experience of a space that is somewhere else.”186 Where Rosenthal misses the mark is in the interpretations of those “real” places. The locations themselves may have the same names and distinguishing features, but they are still replicated spaces in a Protestant ethos historically wary of material sacrality. The complexity of classifying the Holy Land Experience does not diminish its purpose or relevance in the evangelical Christian community. Rosenthal’s purpose may have become more disneyfied and less “authentic” under the Trinity Broadcast Network’s management, but his sentiments explaining the sacred nature of the theme park remain the same: We recognize that media changes – from scrolls, to the Gutenberg press and printing,[sic] to television. We have a message from the Bible that is fixed. The truth doesn’t change. But we recognize that the medium changes. We are attempting to realize the medium that most effectively conveys the truth now.187

It is through this idea that the Holy Land Experience becomes sacred. The producers and volunteers quantify it as “one of the most spiritual things I’ve done in my life.”188 The biblical narratives re-created and the biblical locations replicated turn this theme park into sacred space that participants visit. Disneyfied evangetainment is the goal at the Holy Land Experience, regardless of its replicated, pilgrimage, or sacred space classification, and the performances and attractions encourage worship for both producers and consumers of this theme park.

186 Wharton, Selling Jerusalem, 195. 187 Ibid., 196. 188 David, interview. 52

“Just a Training Zone, an Area to Worship Him”

Participants at the Holy Land Experience are “religious tourists” who both visit and worship on their journey to this symbolically themed, though artificially simulated, environment.189 In contemporary society, people consume “symbols and environments along with goods and services.”190 Theme parks and other “cathedrals of consumption” commodify worship environments and material symbols to sell a religious experience to evangelical Christians.191 The worship space is created through Disneyfication, but the next question becomes what types of worship occur at the Holy Land Experience when a participant purchases a $35 ticket? For the purposes of this thesis, worship is defined as the rites or ceremonies associated with expression “the feeling of reverence and adoration” directed toward the sacred.192 This ethnographic research observed this formal definition through a variety of practices and presentations devoted to Jesus Christ, God, and the Holy Spirit, including communal practices, individual prayers or devotions, sermons, and performances. The first step is to examine what worship practices are presented at the theme park. Bringing the Bible to life, as in “a picture is worth a thousand words,” is one aspect to this worship.193 Audience members can read about these ideas at home or at their local church, but choose to attend the Holy Land Experience because the Bible can be re-created “right in front of you.”194 The types of worship practiced here also help to classify the Holy Land Experience within the evangelical subculture. While the park’s roots are fundamentalist with messianic Jewish leanings from Marvin Rosenthal, the theme park became decidedly more pentecostal in worship style when purchased by Trinity Broadcast Network. Glossolalia and faith healings are promoted by various employees, but charismatic worship is only one option at the park. Visitors uncomfortable with speaking in tongues do not have to interact with that worship style. One purpose of purchasing this worship experience is the availability of worship choices. Options

189 Noam Shoval, “Commodification and of the Sacred: Changing Patterns of Tourist Consumption in the ‘Holy Land’,” in Mark Gottdiener, New Forms of Consumption (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2000), 254. 190 Ibid., 283. 191Mark Gottdiener, “Approaches to Consumption: Classical and Contemporary Perspectives,” in Ibid., 20. 192 "worship noun" Oxford Dictionary of English. Edited by Angus Stevenson. Oxford University Press, 2010. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Miami University - Ohio. 2 June 2011 193 Job, interview. 194 Ibid. 53

abound and participants individually choose which performances and worship events to attend with their daily passes. One example of worship at the Holy Land Experience is Miracle Moment; beginning immediately after the second Passion drama, an actor who traditionally plays Jesus is dressed in a tight, black, button-up shirt and fitted, dark jeans and begins an obviously rehearsed, but extemporaneous-sounding presentation. Half singing, half speaking, this evangelist passionately explains to the diminishing crowd that the Holy Land Experience is “just a training zone, an area to worship Him.”195 As Miracle Moment commences, people are divided into worship groups and separated throughout the park. In these subgroups, employees lead specific prayers. One of the most popular groups is Salvation, where approximately sixty people gather at the entrance to the Calvary Garden Tomb, accept Jesus Christ as their Savior, and receive a wooden cross made in Israel. After prayers are said over the group members, people tell conversion stories or pray over individuals. In the Holy Spirit subgroup, a Roman Centurion actor and the actress who plays Anna the prophetess lead approximately ten adults into the Qumran Caves. In this room, the evangetainer excitedly describes the holiday of Pentecost, raises people’s hands, and asks participants if they are looking to receive the “gift of tongues.”196 When I joined this group, participants had their hands raised, were repeating prayers, and many were weeping.

Figure 11. Miracle Moment

195 Les, “Miracle Moment” (Holy Land Experience, Orlando, FL, July 30, 2010). 196 Michael Job, July 30, 2010. 54

This is an example of the type of worship here, what Jan Crouch, the owner of the theme park and co-owner of Trinity Broadcast Network, refers to as the “miracle here called the Holy Land Experience.”197 While Marvin Rosenthal did not approve of pentecostal or charismatic Christianity, the Crouches not only welcome those sentiments for employees, they are actively attempting to create pentecostal worship moments for visitors.198 According to Crouch, having Miracle Moment as the closing event is how the Holy Land Experience goes from merely a performance or a show to a training ground for charismatic worship, described as the “Holy Spirit meeting everyone…”199 Miracle Moment is not the only worship experience participants purchase with their $35 ticket. A relatively new worship attraction, Last Supper Communion with Christ, is built into the Qumran Caves façade. As employees dressed as disciples hand out bite-size matzah crackers and mini-cups of grape juice for communion, they softly say to entering participants, “Please keep this cup as a souvenir because it was made in Israel.”

Figure 12. Last Supper Communion with Christ

197 Jan Crouch, “Praise the Lord” (Holy Land Experience, Orlando, FL, July 29, 2010). 198 Mark I. Pinsky, A Jew Among the Evangelicals: A Guide for the Perplexed (Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), 136. 199 Crouch, “Praise the Lord.” 55

An actor dressed as a disciple enters the painted-marble column room and announces that Jesus is coming for the Passover meal. The actor playing Jesus tells the story of the Last Supper and prepares communion, “This is my body which will be given up for you.” When I interviewed an actor who plays Jesus, he said that the Holy Land Experience is basically a church, and cited this attraction as part of the ministry. Some participants are skeptical of the legitimacy of this communion experience. While waiting in line, I overheard three teenagers discussing this attraction: “We probably ain’t going to get no communion – they’ll just show us.” As we entered the Qumran Caves, one of the teenagers said to her friends in earshot of an employee, “Are we getting communion for real?” To which the employee responded, “for real.” The question of reality goes back to the authenticity of the Holy Land Experience. How can it be “real” if it is a fabricated place? “Made in Israel” is an important part of the Holy Land Experience, a way to engulf participants in the themed experience, as well as authenticate these replicated performances and attractions. The Holy Land Experience employees would say that since the theme park acts like a ministry or a church, having communion multiple times a day with a Spanish version on Saturdays is merely reinforcing the ideas promoted in other churches. This “extra-ecclesiastical” type of worship is common in evangelical Christianity.200 Extra- ecclesiastical phenomena are complementary and supplementary to “primary” church settings, such as Sunday mornings hearing a . These are a form of popular or lived religion; a way of meaning-making that is outside traditional or institutional settings. The visitors’ hesitation, however, stems from the location of the worship – there is a cognitive dissonance associated with receiving communion at a theme park. This stems from the disconnect between production and consumption at the Holy Land Experience. The participants in the worship vary from day to day, so consistency only exists for employees and season pass holders, the latter probably visiting less than once per month with few exceptions.201 Visitors may come in pre-made groups, but the worship they are consuming is created by employees of the park and pre-packaged for their disneyfied consumption.202 While this daily rotation of participants works for other events, like the revivals of Charles Finney or the sermons of George

200 Williams, Popular Religion in America, 5. 201 I did meet an individual who came every day during his yearly trips to Orlando for the summer months. 202 Due to the constraints of my research (not being allowed to formally interview or survey participants), I cannot accurately classify denominational or doctrinal differences amongst consumers, only the producers of the theme park. Subsequently, I cannot discuss the weekly or monthly attendances of participants at their home churches or organizations. 56

Whitefield, expressions of worship at a theme park seem incongruous for participants adhere strictly to the scared/secular binary. From my observations, it appears that participants have trouble categorizing the Holy Land Experience: authentic religious experience or performance of another’s experience. This question becomes the burden of the medium – a theme park is not the usual location for the type of worship presented at the Holy Land Experience. Another worship site at the Holy Land Experience is a huge wooden cross facing the Crystal Waters pond and wedged between the Oasis Palms Café and the Chick-Fil-A food booth. Next to the cross is a stand holding slips of colored paper, on which participants can fill out prayer requests, or salvation, praise, or re-dedication reports. Every morning I would enter the park to find a clean cross full of pushpins, and throughout the day participants would fill out these reports asking God to heal the sick, save a friend’s soul, or take away debt. Every evening the prayers were removed and prayed over by a group of volunteers – “prayer partners.”203

Figure 13. Cross with Prayer Requests

203 Wilcox, interview. 57

Beyond written prayers, one employee told me stories of healing miracles that happened at the Holy Land Experience: I’ve seen people…that couldn’t see…come out seeing. We’ve seen people who were, you know, on crutches walking out without crutches. We’ve seen God’s healing touch…204

These examples of healing and the glossolalia-focused Miracle Moment firmly place the Holy Land Experience within pentecostal and charismatic traditions, but because of the variety of choices the theme park offers, individual participants who do not look for gifts from the Holy Spirit are still welcome. Pentecostal and charismatic devotion is one worship option amongst many. Emotional worship is evident in both the production and consumption of the Holy Land Experience. The evangetainers passionately perform live shows that describe trials and tribulations of early Christians. Actors playing the High Priest Aaron show immense reverence when demonstrating the responsibilities and tasks of Jews of Moses’ time in Wilderness Tabernacle. Even contemporary performances create joyous or awe-inspiring reactions for audiences. One of my consultants, Faith Doles, an evangelical Christian from the surrounding area, was shocked at the public displays of emotion: “people are like, crying!” 205 The Holy Land Experience presumably markets itself to people like Faith Doles, a young teacher from an evangelical family, but she felt no emotional response, just skeptical astonishment at the other participants’ reactions. Faith’s response differs greatly from other visitors. One woman expressed her delight in the theme park, “How can you not enjoy this? And I hope that the people doing this are not actors. That they are Christians…”206 As she clearly states, verifying the validity of the producer’s religious fervor is an important aspect in assuring that the emotions felt are “real.” Once that reality is authenticated, however, participants demonstrate their delight and wonder at these worship attractions.

204 Job, interview. 205 Doles, interview. 206 African-American Woman, July 13, 2010. 58

Figure 14. Audience at Passion Drama

Participants are not the only people searching for the “real” and the “true” at the Holy Land Experience. For performers like Michael Job who plays a Roman centurion among other characters, the search ends with evangelism. Most of the evangelism in the Holy Land Experience begins as an altar call during or immediately after a performance, or during Miracle Moment. Jane Wilcox calls Michael Job’s form of evangelism “street evangelism,” going up to a group or a family in full costume (usually as a Roman centurion) and entering into a conversation about personal relationships with Jesus and God.207 Michael Job sees his role, and the Holy Land Experience, as a facilitator, “I’ve seen them, God coming into their life, totally transforming their life and their heart and give them the relationship.”208 Michael Job brings Bibles and props into his evangelism, drawing on repetitious evangelical Christian rhetoric to make his point: everyone can have a relationship with Christ and God. His passion overflows and his mouth can barely keep up with his one-to-one preaching. This fervent evangelism is part of the experience at the theme park. Participants purchase the possibility to experience this emotional and personal evangelism with their entrance fee. Purchasing worship seems counter-intuitive, as Leigh Eric Schmidt states in Consumer Rites, commercialism and consumerism are thought to “erode” religious aspects, “displacing

207 Wilcox, interview. 208 Job, interview. 59

their ‘true’ meaning.”209 The Holy Land Experience would disagree, both from a consumer and a producer vantage point. The religious aspects are not diminished, according to one employee, because “how many places can you go to work and talk about your faith?”210 According to Michael Job, “God is real and alive here.”211 From my observations it appears that participants value the Holy Land Experience because they are paying for the services provided and the experience felt. 212 Entering into this themed world is religious because of the religious themes presented and performed, not necessarily because the location holds specific meaning or because they bought entrance. The Holy Land Experience makes it very clear to participants purchasing tickets that this money goes to the upkeep of the park. Visitors buy their tickets to continue the services of a theme park with Christian messages, a supplementary and complementary counterpoint to Walt Disney World and Universal Studios. Just like other communities and ministries, the Holy Land Experience sees the entry fee as off-setting ministerial costs, not producing a profit. As stated in the exempt status section of the theme park’s 2007 tax forms, the purpose of the park is: to graciously proclaim to all people, in harmony with the Bible – the word of God – and using all appropriate means, the need for personal salvation through Jesus the Lord and to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all individuals regardless of race, religion, gender, education, or national origin. In concert with these purposes, the Holy Land Experience seeks to bring the Bible to life and to educate believers and present the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world. [grants and allocations are for] the operation of the Holy Land experience biblical museum. The museum illustrates, with exhibits, lectures, demonstrations, teaching by ordained ministers, drama, worship services and other activities, the history and significance of the Christian faith.213

The park itself is debt-free, according to Guest Relations Director Jane Wilcox. However, one would not be wrong to assume that the theme park is “self-sufficient” because its parent

209 Leigh Eric Schmidt, Consumer Rites: The Buying and Selling of American Holidays (Princeton University Press, 1997), 7. 210 Gina, July 30, 2010. 211 Job, interview. 212 The Holy Land Experience limited my access to participants and many staffers; most of my material from them comes from casual conversations and observations – nothing systematic. 213 Holy Land Experience 2007 Tax Forms. Internal Revenue Service. 3. 60

company, Trinity Broadcast Network, defrays many costs and promotes the park in its programming.214 The way the Holy Land Experience discusses ticket purchases, participants think the money is keeping the lights on and paying actors. The onus of the work belongs to the employees at the Holy Land Experience. The park provides a performance and participants pay to view it. Many participants expect to purchase an experience that will elicit an emotional response. It is a “cash for experience” economy, although credit cards are accepted.215 Other theme parks cost money; so promoting a relatively inexpensive attraction that has religious significance is actually a solid business model. And in mimicking the Disney model, new attractions are being built to entice visitors. As of July of 2010, a 2,000-person auditorium was being constructed. It will be a replica of a Roman Coliseum and is said to contain a baptismal font for visitor immersions. The Holy Land Experience differs from the Disney model in being a non-profit, according to Florida tax forms. So while the Holy Land Experience claims that this economic transaction does not produce a profit, it is following a theme park model that in every other instance is only successful if a profit is produced. In order to keep their non-profit status, however, the Holy Land Experience must have one day a year with free admission. In the past few years, it has been on a Tuesday in early autumn – not prime vacationing time, another fact that questions whether the Holy Land Experience sees itself more as a business or a worship and performance center. Visitors do not seem to question this balancing act. From the consumption side, one participant, an annual-pass holder who self-describes as a “regular,” says that he comes here most days because it is a “peaceful place to spend time with the Lord.”216 In the garden areas near the Scriptorium, a woman remarked that “there are some beautiful places here for people to pray.”217 Participants seem willing, if not eager, to spend money on individual prayer time and Christocentric programming, regardless of the institution’s primary motives. Parts of the Holy Land Experience are free all year long. For example, Trinity Broadcast Network films episodes of their “Praise The Lord” television program monthly in the Shofar Auditorium. The event is free for those willing to wait two hours in line. People from local

214 Wilcox, interview. 215 Again, because of my restrictions of surveying participants, I cannot verify the personal views with data. 216 Gilbert, July 19, 2010. 217 Caucasian Woman, July 26, 2010. 61

churches are invited in large groups and given special passes to ensure that they will be admitted to the show. For the taping I attended, there were several different church groups in the audience with participants ranging in age from ten to seventy years old. Some people were dressed in their “Sunday best,” while others were in jeans and t-shirts. The Shofar Auditorium seats 350, but the cameras and sound equipment make it feel more cramped than usual. The mirrored walls help enlarge the room, an effect the woman next to me calls, “a little bit of Hollywood.”218 Jan Crouch hosts the show with well-known Christian singer Carman as the main event. The program starts with an international call to evangelize, continues with praise and worship musical performances, and ends with an altar call. The Holy Land Experience performers are also part of the show, each spends approximately five minutes giving their testimonies and telling their conversion stories. This taping has a two-fold purpose for Trinity Broadcast Network. One, it invites people in Orlando to come to the Holy Land Experience for the taping to promote the “Praise The Lord” programming. Second, it promotes and markets the theme park to millions of people via the television program; encouraging them to visit the park: “Now you see why the Holy Land Experience is so special?” says Jan Crouch.219 And even though the attractions and performances of the theme park are closed by the time the taping begins at 6:30 p.m., the concession stands and gift shops are still open after the taping ends at 9:00 p.m. Like the “Praise The Lord” taping, no tickets are necessary for Sunday services held in the Theater of Life. Eerily, all of the music still plays as participants walk through the empty park to get to the theater, located inside the Temple Plaza façade. People trickle in for the services at 10:30 a.m. every Sunday. By 11 a.m., there are seventy people in the theater seating, half of whom respond affirmatively when asked if they are first time visitors. This church, Acts of Fellowship of Ocoee, has no official affiliation with the Holy Land Experience.220 Since the leader of the church is Dr. Bill Jones, one of the theme park’s historical presentation lecturers, the church is able to rent the space for Sunday mornings at a very low cost. Dr. Jones and his female song leaders begin these evangelical Christian services singing hymns. The words to all the songs are projected to the film screen in the theater in a PowerPoint presentation. Throughout the service, Dr. Jones makes references to the distinction between the Acts of

218 Nitzah, July 29, 2010. 219 Crouch, “Praise the Lord.” 220 Acts of Fellowship of Ocoee has no affiliation with a specific denomination, but the service and Dr. Bill Jones’ background lean towards Southern Baptist evangelical Christianity. 62

Fellowship of Ocoee and the Holy Land Experience theme park: “don’t make the checks out to Holy Land Experience because they are different entities.”221 In many ways, he is correct. There are no flashing lights, no pre-choreographed routines, no performances to illustrate stories in the Bible. The Acts of Fellowship of Ocoee is a group focused on the Bible, but through a thirty-minute sermon rather than a Passion drama. However, there are similarities. Both have altar calls to conversion and reaffirmations of faith. Both send out prayer requests. Both have participants who bring their own Bibles and quote from scripture. Both attract a wide population of participants; young and old, all races and ethnicities, and varying socio-economic groups. The difference lies in the entertaining factor. This Sunday morning worship is not meant to entertain participants – a fact that many newcomers may not have known before attending the service. While participants at the services utilize technology such as microphones, projectors, and Kindle Bibles, the purpose is not to show technological prowess through visual or audio displays. But that is the point of allowing Dr. Jones and his small congregation to worship in this theme park every Sunday. Both ministries believe that the sacrality of the place is due to the Bible, the logos, presented through performance, exhibit, or sermon. Both a theme park and Sunday services can exist in the evangelical Christian subculture, but for the Holy Land Experience they cannot overlap, “no sightseeing on the way out.”222 While a few of the worship programs are free-of-charge, most of the attractions and performances at the Holy Land Experience require purchasing a ticket. The Holy Land Experience is similar to many other religious and sacred sites in requiring one to contribute funds because while it is not primarily a commercial operation, the site functions “in a commercial world where customers have become more discerning and more critical, can choose between competing destinations and have easier access to information.”223 There are more choices in the American theme park, and religious site, landscape. The Holy Land Experience competes in the market as a “specialized venue” because while other religious re-creations may have biblical themes and performances, few have replicas of Jerusalem 2,000 years ago.224 The Holy Land Experience also does not see itself in competition with the other theme parks in Orlando, Florida.

221 Jones, interview. 222 Ibid. 223 Bruce Prideaux et al., Managing Visitor Attractions: New Directions, 1st ed. (Butterworth-Heinemann, 2002), 164. 224Wilcox, interview. 63

According to Jane Wilcox, some participants come to the Holy Land Experience as a Christian alternative to Walt Disney World and Universal Studios, but a “whole lot” come because they are in Orlando visiting other attractions.225 Wilcox says all theme parks in the Orlando area are “benefitting each other,” but that rhetoric could be construed as an official line, a polite way of

226 acknowledging the other attractions that reach a broader audience. The Holy Land Experience is the only theme park in the area where a $35 ticket buys participants Disneyfied worship space and evangetaining performances, but just as with other theme parks, there is more to purchase.

225 Ibid. 226 Ibid. 64

“Bible Theme Park Adventure” Shopping Bags

Purchasing material culture is an integral part of visiting theme parks and the Holy Land Experience is no exception. Gift shops help categorize individuals; the materials consumed help to identify people. One person is not going to buy everything in the store and so the choices made explain what the individual thinks is aesthetically pleasing or useful. This theme park has three separate gift shops, all with varying materials and themes. The first concerns authenticity. The Old Scroll Shop supplies participants with materials to transport them back in time to Jerusalem around 30 CE. According to Charles Lindholm, authentic materials “are what they purport to be,” and are considered real, conveying an originality and a purity.227 At the Old Scroll Shop, these items and the ambiance attempt to validate the substitutional pilgrimage experience. The ambient music and wooden displays are meant to evoke a first-century Middle Eastern market, according to its designer ITEC Entertainment Corporation. However, the symbolic pilgrimage and replication that visitors associate with the theme park complicate a literal authenticity. Most of the items for sale in this shop could be classified as Judaica, materials associated with Jewish holidays and ceremonies, although in the search for authenticity, these items would probably not have been sold at an open market the way they are displayed at the Old Scroll Shop. Mezuzahs for Jewish households and menorahs to commemorate Chanukkah line one display wall, each with a description of the item and its use by ancient Jews. A replica of the Ten Commandments tablets sits on a table, for sale amongst other items that claim to pay homage to Hebrew Scriptures. One section of items illustrates the connection between the Holy Land Experience and the present-day Holy Land – a sign says “Imported from Israel” next to wooden candle holders and ram’s horn shofars. Colorful Seder plates made in Israel are displayed to encourage participants to have their own “Last Supper” during the holiday of Passover. While visitors intellectually understand that these materials are not relics from Israel 2,000 years ago, they purchase the items to connect to Christian origins, a material form of Christian primitivism. While mezuzahs and menorahs have solely “authentically” Jewish purposes, other items in the gift shop re-appropriate and adapt Jewish materials and symbols to construct Messianic Jewish meanings. Since its creation by Marvin Rosenthal in 2001, the materials for sale at the Holy Land Experience have been integrating Jewish and Christian symbols to illustrate

227 Charles Lindholm, Culture and Authenticity (Wiley-Blackwell, 2008), 16. 65

Rosenthal’s Jewish-heritage, Christian-religion perspective. A tallit (prayer shawl) for sale in the Old Scroll Shop has the Hebrew prayer for wearing the garment, but with an additional prayer acknowledging Jesus as Messiah and Savior. On the front of the tallit bag is a symbol seen throughout the gift shops: a Menorah vertically atop a Star of David vertically connected to a “Jesus Fish” (Ichthus) symbol. The symbol illustrates a linear connection between Judaism and Christianity that could be interpreted in many ways. It could mark a supersessionist evolutionary stance towards the connection between the two religions; a feeling that Christianity evolved from Judaism and while ancestrally connected, Christianity is the more “true” religion. This symbol could also reflect American evangelical Christianity’s political and cultural connection to the State of Israel as the home of Jesus of Nazareth.

Figure 15. Tallit

Other symbols also depict an interconnection between Judaism and Christianity. A silver charm in the shape of a Star of David has the word Jesus written inside in a stylized font. The symbol implies that Jesus of Nazareth is in the lineage of King David and the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant. It also symbolizes that Jesus is at the center, or heart, of Judaism – a concept anathema to modern Jewish thought, but definitely a component of Messianic Judaism. Overall, these symbols portray the connection to the Holy Land that links Jews and Christians. Beyond contemporary attitudes toward Judaism, the Old Scroll Shop also focuses on re- creation and re-enactment of first-century Jerusalem. Participants can obtain the “Beduin [sic]

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Look” with beaded purses or create their own Second Temple with a model-building set. Roman centurion shields and swords and a Crown of Thorns replica allow visitors to re-create the Passion drama at home, or at least to have a souvenir from the Holy Land Experience performance. By re-creating these biblically-historical moments, visitors participate in authenticating the narratives and re-inscribing them on the Holy Land Experience theme park. Biblical narratives become material possessions at the Old Scroll Shop, but it is at the Scriptorium’s Ex Libris Shop that the biblio-centricity of the park is in full force. Themed after a medieval scribe’s workplace, this gift shop holds a wide variety of consumable objects. Even Bernardo the Scribal Bear is dressed as a monk. Cross-promotion is evident, a Trinity Broadcast Network parallel Bible, the and the New Living version, is the most popular Bible for sale at the gift shops. Bibles are everywhere, different versions, sizes, and colors are part of the consumer’s choice. The Bible is the most popular book sold at Ex Libris, with supplementary materials such as highlighters, covers, and DVDs of the Gospel of John “spoken word for word.” There are even resources that encourage reading the Bible: The Bible in 40 Days: Discover God’s Plan for Your Life and Every Day with Jesus Daily Devotional. Of course, other books are commonly found, ranging in topics and authors from clergy such as Finney and Spurgeon, to historical works on the Azusa Street Revival, to self-help books like The Maker’s Diet. One corner of the store is devoted to C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia series, paying homage to the Christian allegories inherent in the books. Spanish resources are also available because a growing percentage of the Holy Land Experience population speaks Spanish as their primary language. Most of the books available are written by authors associated with or promoted by Trinity Broadcast Network.

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Figure 16. Books

Books are not the only media available to purchase; and material diversity is most evident at the Shofar Auditorium gift shop, where music and DVDs are as popular as traditional “Christian Bookstore” materials. As explained earlier, evangelical Christianity has a long history of hybridizing “secular” media models and sacred messages, and one example is selling portable forms of evangetainment (Christian rock music and Bible action figures) within a larger evangetaining site (the Holy Land Experience). A long display of Christian music lines one wall of the gift shop presenting a variety of music styles – everyone from to Jars of Clay. The CDs seem to be the most popular materials for teenagers, but there is an entire section of the gift shops devoted to children. Filled with animal puppets, stuffed animals, dolls, and Silly Bandz228, this section promotes Christian identity development for children. While scholars debate whether play can be considered play if there are “educational or utilitarian purpose[s],” the producers of The BibleQuest action figures and Creation Story laminated posters would

228 Silly Bandz are rubber bands bracelets formed into shapes including animals, objects, numbers, letters, etc... and sold in themed packaging (i.e. princesses, animals, or sports). 68

disagree.229 These materials help the children visualize the biblical narratives presented throughout the Holy Land Experience. The theme park gift shops are evangetaining the young through these imaginative and playful toys.

Figure 17. Silly Bandz

Of the three gift shops, The Shofar Auditorium gift shop has the most contemporary focus. It reminds visitors of the Christian bookstores found throughout the United States and sells similar products. Motivational and inspirational items crowd the display tables; one sailboat statue has a quote from Joshua 1:9 written on the sail: “Be Strong and of good courage for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” Therapeutic items are available for more than just the soul. There is an entire lighted display case devoted to selling homoeopathic herbs and vitamins from a Christian pharmaceutical company. Larger items are also available, for example a framed print of Raphael’s School of Athens costs a few hundred dollars at the gift stores. Christian artists are most prominent, specifically Thomas Kinkade’s idyllic landscapes and Stephen Sawyer’s Undefeated “Jesus-the-boxer” paintings. Many art critics have called such pieces “Christian Kitsch,” though compared to some of the other items available for sale, these pictures are tasteful. Most of the display cases in this gift shop are devoted to jewelry. One could call this type of jewelry gaudy with silver crosses placed on bedazzled jean jackets. Bright platinum handbag hooks are for sale next to stained glass earrings. Rings cover the inside

229 Nikki Bado-Fralick and Rebecca Sachs Norris, Toying with God: The World of Religious Games and Dolls (Baylor University Press, 2010), xv. 69

of an estate jewelry case, one employee observed me looking at the case and said that he was planning on purchasing one of the engagement rings for when he became engaged.230 The contemporary artwork and ornate jewelry in the Shofar Auditorium places the gift shop firmly in the twenty-first century, an anomaly compared to the rest of the park, but continuing to complicate the symbolic versus literal replication and pilgrimage theories. Overall, these gift shops place the Holy Land Experience in the category of consumable theme park.

Figure 18. Gift Shop Items

Participants are encouraged to purchase souvenirs from the themed gift shops for a variety of reasons. First, these souvenirs act as material objects that help participants connect with a sacred message while at the theme park. When a participant purchases an item at a gift shop at the Holy Land Experience the object becomes a link, a reminder, and a signifier of a visit to the theme park. However, these materials do not, on their own, appear to possess sacred powers for those having faith in evangelical Christian beliefs. Unlike Lourdes water that becomes sacred for Catholics who believe in its curative power, the Holy Land Experience gift shop items adhere to the Reformed Protestant tradition’s belief in the power of the Word, less so in material objects. During observations at the Holy Land Experience, participants do not appear

230 Shofar Auditorium Employee, July 17, 2010. 70

to treat the material objects with special reverence and there is little distinction between purchasing objects at the theme park versus at a local Christian bookstore. The function of these materials appears to be more about constructing the identity of the consumer. According to Colleen McDannell in Material Christianity, purchasing “Christian kitsch” or “holy hardware” is a way to identify as a Christian.231 For the Holy Land Experience, there is a dual purpose. The water bottles, bumper stickers, postcards, mugs, yo-yos, and erasers all carry the Holy Land Experience and Trinity Broadcast Network symbols.

Figure 19. Erasers

These material items are promotional devices for the park, reminding previous visitors to return and encouraging people who see these materials to visit the theme park. If evangelists are entertainers, then identifying purchases are also marketing tools. As McDannell asserts, “advertising and witnessing become interchangeable.”232 In the synergistic Disney model, the movies, theme parks, and stores are all connected in promoting the narrative. The Holy Land Experience operates similarly; the theme park, Trinity Broadcast Network, and the goods at the gift shops are all consumed with the intention of creating more Christians or reminding Christians of their beliefs. The biblical narrative is woven throughout all elements, but both participants and employees believe that this evangetaining is the “medium for the message.”233

231 McDannell, Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America, 223. 232 Ibid., 266. 233 Ibid., 261. 71

The message can become ambiguous, however, when images of Jesus Christ act like mascots for the park. Cardboard cut-out Jesus’ selling umbrellas becomes the message, not the medium. I interviewed one actor and asked whether he witnessed or evangelized around the theme park, as many other actors do during their breaks. Ironically, he said he does not evangelize while in costume as Jesus because he does not want to be “a physical distraction from the spiritual aura of the park.”234 But by being both Disneyfied and commodified, the spiritual aura is not distracted by the consumerism or representations of figures. Rather, it is part of the price of admission.

Figure 20. Cardboard Jesus and Umbrellas

While all three gift shops are different, they are all a part of the Holy Land Experience Ministries, Incorporated, technically a non-profit venture. According to a poster in the gift shops, all of the proceeds from the consumption of these materials go to support the ministry. The money from concession stands also goes to support the ministry, including proceeds from the selling of Chick-Fil-A chicken sandwiches. The combination of Chick-Fil-A and the Holy Land Experience is not coincidental. Chick-Fil-A is an organization founded on Christian

234 Andre, interview. 72

principles and even enforces Blue Laws; both the Holy Land Experience and Chick-Fil-A are closed on Sundays. For participants within the evangelical subculture, this synergy reinforces the “Christian-ness” of both organizations. Brand-tying and synergy-creation illustrates how closely the Holy Land Experience follows the Disney business model. Just as McDonald’s restaurants are the only outside-run eateries at Walt Disney World, so Chick-Fil-A holds the monopoly on the Holy Land Experience. This reiterates a point about the consumerism at this theme park; making purchases through capitalism is seen, in many instances, as God’s way in America. Certainly, many of the consumable materials have patriotic messages: CDs such as American Glory by Pat Boone and Tim Kaufman Sings I Believe in America. Beyond that, however, there is a connection between the cash register and being an American. At the Holy Land Experience, they even go so far as to have small American flags nestled in the cash registers, next to the sticker that says “Visa Accepted Here.”

Figure 21. American Flag and Cash Register

An important point is that the Holy Land Experience deliberately chooses to be anachronistic, shattering an illusion of Jerusalem in 66 CE. By bringing in the consumer culture of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, this theme park equates Christianity with

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American consumerism. This attitude draws on the views of America as seen in the Scriptorium – that the apex of Christianity is consumer-focused Protestant America. The subtext apparent within the synergy of twenty-first century materiality and a first-century Jerusalem replica is clear. Purchasing materials and worship are an important way in which Americans demonstrate their religious beliefs and practices. The Holy Land Experience is an experiment in mixing the secular and the sacred. It imbeds a sacred Christian message in a secular Disney theme park model. Participants and employees alike regard this as an innovation that will bring more people to evangelical Christianity. The goods and experiences purchased are symbols of the narratives promoted by the theme park and Trinity Broadcast Network. Unconcerned with criticism of commodifying religion, the Holy Land Experience does not avoid consumerism of materials and worship experiences. In many ways, one photograph summarizes my ethnographic experience – in the ticket booth, there is a television showing Trinity Broadcast Network above a cardboard cut-out Jesus with his hand outstretched, inviting visitors to use an ATM.

Figure 22. TV, ATM, Cardboard Jesus

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CONCLUSION

In American evangelical religious history, the Holy Land Experience theme park is one in a long line of evangetainment media. From revivalist George Whitefield to today’s Christian Wrestling Federation, evangelical Christianity continues simultaneously to entertain and evangelize the American public. The Holy Land Experience differs from other evangetaining methods by modeling itself on the “secular” theme park. Following the archetypal Disney theme parks, the Holy Land Experience presents a consumable narrative, a selective nostalgia that condenses Jerusalem at the time of Christ to a few acres. Trinity Broadcast Network updated the park when they purchased it in 2007, following more clearly the Disney model. This attraction commodifies religious messages for visitors to consume through worship experiences and gift shop purchases. While the Holy Land Experience is just one case study, the larger trend of integrating evangelical messages with consumer culture affects the evangelical subculture and, subsequently, represents broader American culture. The Holy Land Experience models itself on secular theme parks – Disney in particular – to engage and entice an experience-oriented twenty- first century audience. While other evangelical theme parks, such as Heritage USA in South Carolina, have failed due to financial, administrative, or construction issues; the Holy Land Experience has weathered many of those storms and is arguably the most successful Christian theme park to date. The Holy Land Experience continues an evangelical tradition of forming distinct institutions that reflect both the evangelical subculture and the broader discourses and practices of American society. A common evangelical strategy, as Randall Balmer argues in his work on Christian bookstores and Christian rock music, is to integrate evangelical messages into elements borrowed from American consumer culture. This strategy is one of many instances within the evangelical subculture in which secular and sacred, in their traditional and opposed senses, are intermingled. The Holy Land Experience, like many of its subcultural counterparts, combines teaching (evangelism) and religious enjoyment (entertainment). Again, Guest Relations Director Jane Wilcox summarizes it succinctly: “evangelists are entertainers…and at the Holy Land Experience, [they] are entertaining with scriptural presentations.”235

235 Wilcox, interview. 75

Within the evangelical subculture, the Holy Land Experience fits as one of many “Christian alternatives” to secular locations and messages. The variety of evangelical Christians in attendance, from charismatic and pentecostal to fundamentalist, mirrors the larger evangelical Christian community. The focus is on inclusivity, making everyone feel welcome in a “happiest- place-on-earth” manner. Similar to other evangelical Christian rhetoric, the focus is less on doctrinal differences among denominations, but rather a non-denominational atmosphere that enhances the evangelical subculture. One employee who works at the Rock Climbing Wall stated that he likes the Holy Land Experience because “it’s not about religion, it’s about spiritual. Religion is about rules and blocking you in, this is about faith and they show you and it’s your choice to believe.”236 This inclusive, personal-relationship-with-God language deserves more exploration in the study of evangelical Christian rhetoric, because many evangelicals use it to divorce themselves from denominational churches and focus on individual conversions. There are other interesting avenues of study for a religious attraction such as the Holy Land Experience. A gender-focused project could examine how men and women are portrayed in the biblical performances, or why women and female-dominated groups and families are the majority of the park’s visitors. The visual balance between a “pretty” Jesus and a masculine Jesus could fit well into larger works on gender and muscular Christianity in American media and culture. In addition, future research could look at the re-appropriation of Israel and the Holy Land by American evangelicals for the accuracy of representation. Also, more work could be completed on the American evangelical fascination with living in biblical times and locations, using the Holy Land Experience as an excellent example of engulfing participants in the “Bible.” Furthermore, research that focuses on American evangelicals bringing Christian education and entertainment together could benefit from the Holy Land Experience as a case study. All of these lenses and further projects I leave for subsequent works – this thesis focuses on the consumption, commodification, and disneyfication of the Holy Land Experience. Overall, the Holy Land Experience is a performance-focused attraction that immerses visitors in a world of the Bible, as interpreted by employees of Trinity Broadcast Network. It is not just a Christian alternative to other amusements in central Florida; it is supplementary and complementary to other theme parks. American evangelicals have fully entered the secular world, found profitable and pleasurable aspects, and modeled their own subcultural media after

236 Adolphus, July 20, 2010. 76

the secular versions. Instead of making visitors choose between Walt Disney World and Christianity, the Holy Land Experience theme park encourages participation in both. Christianity is one option, not the only option for twenty-first century evangelical consumers. Off the I-4 exit, there is a green highway sign marking two attractions: one arrow points to the “Mall at Millennia” shopping plaza; the other points to the Holy Land Experience. The arrows may provide opposite directions for American evangelicals, but they are alternatives on the same road. In the twenty-first century, evangelical Christian entertainment lives alongside other consumable options. Today’s Americans have a plethora of choices in Orlando, Florida.

Figure 23. Sign on I-4

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