Monumental Jesus: Landscapes of Faith and Doubt in Modern America by Margaret M. Grubiak

Abstract

Reviewed by: Monumental Jesus: Landscapes of Faith and Doubt in Modern America by Margaret M. Grubiak Karen E. Park Monumental Jesus: Landscapes of Faith and Doubt in Modern America. By Margaret M. Grubiak. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2020 Monumental Jesus: Landscapes of Faith and Doubt in Modern America is a fascinating exploration of some of the most iconic American Christian landmarks of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries including Notre Dame's famous, "Touchdown Jesus," Answers in Genesis's Creation Museum and Ark Experience, and Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's now defunct Christian amusement park, Heritage USA. Grubiak's approach to these sites and the others treated in the book, complements the work of scholars of sacred space and material religion including Colleen McDannell, David Morgan, James Bielo, and others who seek to understand the ways in which believers inscribe meaning onto buildings, landscapes, and other material objects and spaces. In Monumental Jesus, landscapes of faith (murals, statues, Christian amusement parks) are interpreted alongside landscapes of doubt—a category which includes all manner of outsider reactions to the religious buildings and sites—reactions which range from good-natured nicknames to outright ridicule, scorn, and derision. This approach recognizes that meaning is not only made or controlled by those insiders and believers who build and then worship at or frequent these sites, but by outsiders who are "involuntarily confronted by religious buildings in the course of daily life." Where do silly nicknames, derisive graffiti, satirical comic strips, and scathing Architectural Digest reviews fit into [End Page 108] the landscape of religious meaning? This is the question Grubiak sets out to address. The book is divided into five chapters of varying lengths ranging from approximately 40 pages to as few as ten. The first chapter explores the phenomenon of "Touchdown Jesus," the enormous Word of Life mural on the Theodore M. Hesburgh Library visible from the football stadium. While this mural and its meaning has been addressed by other scholars, here Grubiak deftly explores the tension between the intended meaning of the mural—a bold assertion of the seriousness and authority of the Catholic intellectual tradition—and the silliness and even blasphemy of the simultaneous assertion that Jesus cares about and exerts an influence over his favorite football team. Catholic insiders can simultaneously believe and doubt when it comes to "Touchdown Jesus'' and this "landscape of doubt" provides Grubiak with a fruitful site for the exploration of religious meaning. The first chapter is the only one which deals with a Catholic setting. The other examples, with the exception of the Mormon Temple outside of Washington, DC, come from various corners of evangelical Protestantism. The lengthy chapter on Heritage USA and Oral Roberts University is particularly strong, as is the chapter on the Creation Museum and Ark Experience. Grubiak's reading of these sites demonstrates her deep knowledge and familiarity with architectural history—her description of the various architectural styles used at Heritage USA and their meanings made me wish the place had survived so I could visit it. Similarly, the chapter on the Creation Museum and Ark Experience could stand alone as an architectural and material exploration of those sites and the controversy surrounding them, and would be useful in an undergraduate class on Religion in America, Religion in Popular Culture, or Religion and Sacred Space. The book is notable for its many illustrations and photographs, and where permission was not granted (for example in the case of MAD Magazine's satirical response to the Creation Museum) Grubiak encourages her readers to look the images up online in order to follow her interpretation, which I did and found very helpful. The bibliography and notes are also particularly strong. The final chapter, on the giant Jesus "Christ of the Ozarks" is quite short and while it raises important questions about the anti-Semitism and racist hatred of the statue's originator, it is unable to adequately engage with these questions, asking whether visitors are "unwillingly complicit in the perversion of Christian beliefs in their consumption of this evangelical theme park" without fully dealing with that important question. Racist and anti-semitic Christian beliefs are, sadly, Christian beliefs nonetheless...