Courtesy of Rollins Riggs for the NYTimes

From the Memphis Times via the NYTimes:

On Independence Day, Lady Liberty was born again

As the congregation of the World Overcomers Outreach Ministries Church looked on and its pastor, Apostle Alton R. Williams, presided, a brown shroud much like a burqa was pulled away to reveal a giant statue of the Lady, but with the Ten Commandments under one arm and "Jehovah" inscribed on her crown.

And in place of a torch, she held aloft a large gold cross, as if to ward off the pawnshops, the car dealerships and the discount furniture outlets at the busy corner of KirbyParkway and Winchester that is her home. A single tear graced her cheek.

It was not clear if she was crying because of her new home, her new identity as a symbol of religion or, as the pastor said, America's increasing godlessness.

You were maybe expecting Martin Luther King Jr? Or the modern equivalent?

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They killed Martin, remember?

Apparently, the unveiling wasn't an instant hit.

Most of the customers at the Dixie Queen food counter near the church viewed the statue as a cheap attention grab, said Guardia Nelson, 27, who works there.

"It's a big issue," Ms. Nelson said. "Liberty's supposed to have a fire, not a cross."

Elena Martinez, a loan officer visiting Memphis from Houston, said her family was speechless at the sight.

Me too, Elena.

"The Statue of Liberty has a different meaning for the country," Ms. Martinez said. "It doesn't need to be used in a religious sense."

At the pizza place next door, Amanda Houston pronounced the combination of the Statue of Liberty and Christianity "ridiculous," though her co-worker Landon Condit was far less critical: "I can't see anything wrong with it. This is the Bible Belt."

This born-again Lady Liberty, btw, has been given a new name, "The Statue of Liberation Through Christ." Good one, that.

The statue measures 72 feet from her base to the tip of her cross.

Don't comfort yourself with any notion that this is the work of some fringe congregation. Pastor Williams' ministry rates as a mega-church.

Still, in keeping with that African-American tradition of telling it like it is, Mr. Williams isn't shy or evasive about his central message.

The statue, inspired by a Memphis church that has three giant crosses, strikes him as "a creative means of just really letting people know that God is the foundation of our nation," he said.

Mr. Williams has written several books and pamphlets analyzing a variety of matters, among them patriotism and the original intent of the founding fathers.

In "The Meaning of the Statue of Liberation Through Christ: Reconnecting Patriotism With Christianity," he explains that the teardrop on his Lady is God's response to what he calls the nation's ills, including legalized abortion, a lack of prayer in schools and the country's "promotion of expressions of New Age, Wicca, secularism and humanism." In another book, he said Hurricane Katrina was retribution for New Orleans's embrace of sin.

Mr. Williams said his statue's essential point was that Christianity should be the guiding ethos of the nation. (my emphasis)

See what I mean about telling it like it is.

This misbegotten statue, in its riotous vulgarity, in its insistent desire to erect a permanent covenant between patriotism and one version of one religion, in contradiction to everything held holy by the people who founded this country and framed its constitution, is a true and honest vision of what this country will look like if the Christian right and its Republican enablers get their way, finally and completely, once and for all.

And yes, Senator Obama, I am uncomfortable with this version of Christianity.

Please note, no one here is suggesting the good pastor doesn't have a right to his statute, or to say and publish what he will. But that right is not a gurantee against criticism, and everytime someone on our side makes that clicking noise, nods his head, and concedes "our" progressive, liberal, secular "discomfort" with religion, more confusion is sewn as to the difference between reasoned dissent from and critical analysis of the role of religion in our politics, and brute hostility, dumb prejudice, and impatient intolerance toward all things religious.

My own problem with organized religion is the nearly universal assumption of each that it is in sole possession of "the truth." That doesn't mean that I am uncomfortable with religious persons or with religious language and imagery. I have, in my life, been deeply influenced by both. Nor are any of my "secular" friends pressing to have God removed from our money, or even from the Pledge of Allegiance, although it strikes me that it's presence there is patently unconstitutional.

No religion in the public square? Where do Jim Wallis and Senator Obama think that you'll find all manner of churches, synagogues, and mosques? Was Bishop Sheen denied a place in the public square? Is Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell, and let's not get started on Ralph Reed, shall we?

What is almost amusing about "Apostle" Williams is his ethno-centric rewriting of history:

In "From Slavery to Lady Liberty: Lady Liberty's African Connection: The Key to Black America's Liberation," he pointed out that the real Statue of Liberty wears a broken shackle around one ankle, and revisited evidence that the statue, a gift from France, was originally intended not to welcome immigrants but to celebrate the emancipation of slaves."

Isn't that exactly the kind of identity-driven history so widely mocked by right-wingers of all stripes?

And what of our civil religion, the one we all share as Americans, the one we practice when we go to vote, or wait up for the returns to find out who is our next President, the one we practice when we sign a petition, or vote for school funding, or participate in the PTA, or write to the editor of our local paper, or celebrate the Fourth of July?

How perfect that this Frankensteinian version of the Statute of Liberty should have been unveiled to celebrate the Fourth.

How perfect, and how depressing. And yes, how enraging, too.