Sunday, June 10, 2007

We're going to Praiseland, Praiseland.
In Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

Behind Blackman United Methodist Church, on a low hillock overlooking a freshly mown meadow, wooden benches face a sturdy altar table and a plywood lectern. A plain cross, slightly bowed by weather, towers over the outdoor chapel.

The congregation sometimes assembles here for open-air services, said the pastor, Bryan Brooks, with the trees and pastures across Route 840 for a backdrop. But that view may change, because the land beyond the road has been proposed as the site for a theme park called Bible Park USA on over 100 acres.

[...]

Armon Bar-Tur, managing director of SafeHarbor Holding, a New York company that is developing Bible Park USA, said the project was revealed to officials months before it was ready. Misperceptions and “silly rumors” have resulted, he said.

“This is a very serious undertaking,” Mr. Bar-Tur said. “This is not some hokey park that we’re talking about.”

The location, a former farm with rolling pastures and groves of trees, sits amid rapid residential growth. Hundreds of homes have replaced area farms, dump trucks trundle steadily along nearby Burnt Knob Road, and a new highway interchange is nearing completion a short distance away.

The park, described in promotional material as “edutainment,” would cost $150 million to $200 million. With a Galilean village as its centerpiece, one side of the park would present Old Testament stories like the Exodus; the other side would have New Testament stories like Jesus’ birth and crucifixion. The only displays in writing would be excerpts from Scripture, and parts of the park would be reserved for Bible study.