Doing Well By Doing God

The AH Trust, a group of businessmen who are "alarmed by the direction in which they see society heading", plan to build a Christian theme park in Lancashire. Apparently Orlando, Florida has already been blessed with something of the sort: the Holy Land Experience, where patrons "can see a bloodied Jesus forced to carry his cross by snarling Roman soldiers". However, this Gibsonite view of Christianity is not that of the AH Trust, whose website explicitly draws a connection between sex and violence in the media and binge drinking. Denying themselves the joys of bondage and flagellation, the Trust's members hope to produce "a halfway house for youngsters" who, according to one of the theme park's trustees, do nothing but binge drink and, as a result, require the curative effects of "a multi-media case that God created the world in seven days". The Trust's website, whose designer seems to have a slightly unnatural affection for the word "project", also promises that God will provide breaks for any workaholics who may have wandered in among the alcoholics: "Are you working more and relaxing less? Doing more but never getting everything done? Running here and there but only running yourself down? Maybe it's time you listened to God and took a break!"

The project is also intended as a "response to what the trustees identify as a sense of drift within the Church of England". This sense of drift is, of course, the fault of the theory of evolution, which "has falsely become the foundation of our society". Well, that makes things clearer, to be sure. Hence, the AH Trust promises "to advocate Genesis across this land in order to remove this falsehood, which presently is destroying the church foundation". The Observer's reporter, Jamie Doward, employs the useful journalistic faculty of determining noble motives by rhetoric alone: it is clearly self-evident that "concerns about the direction of modern society are the trust's main motivation for building the theme park". It's true that a "business plan available to prospective investors suggests the park could bring in £4.8m a year - apparently 10 times its estimated overhead costs"; but obviously no group of businessmen, even Christian businessmen, would be interested in such crass and worldly matters.