'Bred Crumbs
05.04.04
Memories of Nashville II: Godsprawl
12:04 AM
Growing up in the Greater Ohio/Tennessee River Valley, I never thought about how many churches were around. But during our trip to Nashville last week, we were amazed. You can't spit there without hitting a church.
No, we didn't spit at churches. We're not hea– oh wait, we are.
Further consideration revealed that there aren't really more churches there than in San Francisco. There just isn't as much variety. (Temples? Mosques? What?) And in Nashville, the churches are much, much larger. Many of them ramble for blocks, like Texas ranch houses with tumors.
And there was the one really pointy one.
With all those idolatrous edifices, it's kind of fitting that one of the few non-Opry attractions in Nashville is a full-scale replica of the Ancient Greek Parthenon, complete with giant statue of Athena, goddess of migraine headaches. As we wandered among its massive columns, we wondered: did the local Xians raise holy hell when the thing was built? Probably not; they probably just went out and built more of their own staggeringly expensive shrines. And unlike the Parthenon, theirs have changeable signs that say things like THE OBEDIENCE FACTOR and GOD KNOWS THE LAST TIME YOU WERE HERE. Take that, Cradle of Democracy!
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