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This photographer went to a Biblical theme park in Florida, so you don’t have to


Going through the metal detectors… just like Jesus used to to do
 
Photographer Daniel Cronin traveled far from his secular home of Portland, Oregon to the ancient and sacred land of Orlando, Florida to visit The Holy Land Experience, a Biblical theme park owned and operated by the Trinity Broadcasting Network (the station now run by that half-assed, pink haired Tammy Faye knock-off, Jan Crouch). It’s is about as chintzy as you’d expect—lots of suspiciously Nordic-looking Jesi, a disorienting sense of anachronism with costumed employees running the snack stands and metal detectors, the gory crucifixion reenactment, a slightly Rococo color palette—the works, really.

As with all televangelist ventures, The Holy Land Experience (which is legally a non-profit) has been mired in controversy. Founded by Marvin Rosenthal (who was born Jewish before his conversion, if you hadn’t guessed), the park attracted the ire of the Jewish Defense League who protested its opening believing it to be a ploy to convert Jews to Christianity. Of course it wouldn’t be Christian edutainment without some alleged misappropriation of funds—the HLE manages to avoid paying property taxes (amounting to $300,000 a year) by reclassifying itself as a “museum,” as opposed to, you know, a theme park. Also, HLE Director and CEO Jan Crouch has been accused (by her own granddaughter, no less) of ripping off both the Trinity Broadcasting Network and the park. For two years during The Holy Land Experience’s construction, her two pampered pooches (both Maltese, a toy breed) got their own luxury hotel room adjoining her own.

You know… just like Jesus’s pups!
 

 

 

 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Amber Frost
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10.20.2014
09:29 am
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Music transcends hate: video master Kutiman does it again with ‘Thru Jerusalem’

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Israeli musician, composer, producer and videographer Ophir Kutiel does his art as Kutiman. You may recognize his name from Thru-You, the hypnotically rhythmic collage of non-pro musician YouTube videos from across the globe that he made in 2009, and which scored 10 million views, sent him to the Guggenheim, and made it into Time magazine and landed him at the Guggenheim.

Welp, he’s got a new one, and it’s a burner. With sectarian and ethnic tensions in his Jerusalem birthplace at what seems a permanent high, Kutiman has given the city a similar and very necessary visiosonic treatment with the help of 15 of its Arab and Jewish musicians. Check it.
 

 
After the jump: Kutiman’s mega-video-mashup from late last year Sue You...

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Posted by Ron Nachmann
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06.14.2011
09:52 am
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Liber Chronicarum
12.17.2009
07:49 pm
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Impressive illuminated manuscript overload from BibliOdyssey. Check out manuscript versions of the destruction of Jerusalem, the geocentric model of the universe and all kind of other goodies. Most excellent.

(BibliOdyssey: Liber Chronicarum)

Posted by Jason Louv
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12.17.2009
07:49 pm
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