Touchdown Jesus Burns to the Ground

I took this picture one of the times we drove to Ohio/Michigan with the intention of blogging about it... but never did. (It's not the greatest picture- but consider we were going at least 70 mph). This morning I was stunned to pull up Yahoo and see the first news story was that the thing had been struck by lightning and burned to the ground!

We have driven by this thing on I-75 twice a year since it was built (in 2004, I just learned) in Southern Ohio- somewhere between Dayton and Cincinnati- at The Solid Rock church. It was pretty tacky (my opinion). But since there is nothing much else to look at on that stretch of highway, it was always good for a laugh.

What I had been going to say about it was that one time I stumbled on someone else's blog on the subject (which I cannot find now- it was a couple years ago) that had made me laugh. Apparently the price tag on this thing was $250,000. His blog had read something like this....

From the Bulletin of Solid Rock Church, "The Deacons have had a meeting to discuss what to do with the $250,000 in surplus we have accumulated. It seems that all of the hungry have been fed, all of the lost have heard the gospel message, all of the homeless now have homes, all of the jobless now have jobs, all of the prisoners are free and reformed, all of the widows and orphans are taken care of.... there seems to be nothing left to do with the money except to build a great big tacky statue of Jesus out in front of our building."

Someone probably had good intentions... but I would have to agree (and, again, this is just my opinion).... it seems like a colossal waste of time and money to build such a thing.

I guess God thought so, too! (Or He was tired of his son being laughed at and referred to as "Touchdown Jesus" and "Sinking Jesus" and "Big Butter Jesus").

I'll miss seeing it... I was never laughing at Jesus, just these crazy humans he created.

P.S. Touchdown Jesus has a Facebook page, in case you are interested.