Six Flags Over Jesus

Bible Park USA is coming to Nashville. This is no joke. The developers have already spent a lot of money on design and options on the property. The remaining hurdle is to get the County Industrial Board to authorize the use of tax increment financing. The Park would cost $150 million to $200 million and would be located in adjoining Rutherford County. The developers are SafeHarbor Holding and apparently a company with deep pockets who are currently developing a $400 million theme park in South Carolina.

Bible Park USA would be on a 75 acre site and developers estimate that it will draw 1.3 million visitors a year. It will feature a Disney-like “Bible Fly-Through Ride” using an IMAX screen and seats suspended in mid air to give visitors an overview of the Holy lands. It will feature a recreated working Galilean village. There will be a walk-through “Exodus Experience” featuring 25-foot high walls of water which will serve as screen to depict the Exodus story.

Pardon me, but I just don’t think this will fly. Far be it from me to tell the investors not to risk their money, but I do not see how this can succeed. Quite frankly it sounds kind of boring. I don’t see many families buying season tickets.

The developer has been quoted as saying, "It's not a crazy amusement park, It's not Six Flags over Jesus." To succeed I think it will have to be “Six Flags over Jesus.”

We used to have a great amusement park in Nashville called Opryland, but it couldn’t make it and eventually folded. An amusement park has to offer bigger and better every year. Can you imagine Mom and Dad saying, “Kids, we are going to take a vacations. Would your rather go to Disney World, Dollywood, or Bible Park USA?”

Not everyone is happy with the idea of Bible Park USA coming to our community. Some are unhappy for the same reason people are always opposed to development: traffic, quality of life, water runoff, etc. Other do not like the image it creates for our city. They do not want to give the Lettermans and Lenos more reason to ridicule us.

The Apostolic Ark of the Covenant Choir, a group opposed to the project put out this hymn to the tune of Bringing in the Sheaves. This is good. You can hear it here (link). Below are the lyrics.


To add to the “Walk-on-Waterslide”, I suggest they have a “Holy Roller Coaster”.

I guess it could be worse; we could have gotten the Creation Museum (link)

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