Over at The Daily Beast, I have my first piece (“A Non-Believer’s Road Trip Through God’s Country”) for the new travel section, which merges my usual focus (religion and politics) with a road trip through the Southwest. How does the very religious Southwest look to a nonbeliever like me traveling through it? Check it out.
“…Approximately, 150 miles South on I-75 from my Ohio home is the former site of what we call “Touchdown Jesus”—a massive 62-foot statue of Jesus from the waist up with his arms outstretched. It often serves as a road-marker for family or friends traveling to Ohio; a text with “at Touchdown” or “at the Jesus statue” means they’re almost here. During a storm a few years ago, Touchdown was destroyed by lightning; ironically, the Hustler store just down the road remained unscathed.
Touchdown Jesus’ demise did not last long. He was eventually replaced with a tall and more huggable lord and savior, this time with a complete body. As a recent road trip across the American Southwest reminded me, monuments to Christian fetishisms (like Touchdown) dot America’s landscape, and reinforced that being a secular humanist—an atheist—in America remains a minority “religious” demographic….”