"an Internet Cross for those disenchanted with the church"

This is a 313 meter (1027 foot), mirror-finish, stainless-steel Cross to be built at or near Mt. Jesus in southwestern Kansas ranch country.  The Cross is to be 50 meters (164 feet) wide, 30 meters (98 feet) deep.  The name "American", as a first reason, implies America's version of hope to the world.  Immigrants have come here from all over the world because it is a place of hope.  People who are down on their luck, who are even losers, can be given a second chance.  "You're finished, nobody wants you," is not what this country is all about.  This is an American idea - that inside an individual is potential that is untapped and undiscovered.  If we are not reminded of it, we will lose it.  The project is a 21st century Cross for 21st century problems - a "message of hope" for those traumatized by situations like the 9/11 attack, the Asian tsunami, the Katrina hurricane, the Virginia Tech massacre, the Haitian earthquake and many other disasters.  People wonder, can things turn out right.  The answer is, to those who have prayer and faith, everything will turn out alright, in the end.  Reaction can replace frustration.  So why do these awful things happen in God's universe?  Perhaps because He has given us custodial rights over the planet.  We cannot fully understand why these things happen, but to hate the Creator of the universe only makes it worse.  It leads to a possible forfeiture of paradise forever, and instead, eternal prison.  As Rhianna sang: "Are you going to stand there and watch me burn?"  Thousands upon thousands of people wonder if someone even cares about their eternal destiny.  The Cross is for people who are very spiritual, but not very religious.   

The USNS Comfort was dispatched to Haiti on January 13, 2010.  Six days into the ship's mission in Haiti, more than 450 patients were on board - people who were crushed under rubble, who were sick with infections and nursing diseases made worse by neglect.  What about the long term?  How are these people going to pick themselves up, dust themselves off and recover.  To do so, they must be inspired to better their condition.  Will throwing money at them in the long term, alone, work?  While it helps, they need to have more faith in themselves that good things can again happen for them.  When people lose their hope they can live off the government, friends, neighbors, family members.  They prey on kind-hearted people with whom they "sponge".  If a Cross can shake them out of their lethargy and remind them that "life is still worth living", and "paradise is still there when you're dead", maybe they can recover.  Some people are broken, not having been through a traumatic event aforementioned, but something bad has happened to them.  A beautiful woman is a newspaper reporter, traveling extensively in Europe.  She lives the high life in New York City and Chicago.  The roof caves in - she has a nervous breakdown, then sits in a mental hospital for a year, then becomes an alcoholic, having trouble getting up in the morning.  Circumstances broke her spirit.  She was not suicidal, but lost hope that good things could happen for her.  She dies from smoking in bed, in middle age.  This scenario plays itself out in other situations all over the world.  Once broken, she, and many like her, cannot seem to put the pieces back together.  They may not die prematurely, but live in misery.  A Cross can help them break out of the cycle - those who have been discarded by society as social "lepers".  While it's not going to solve everyone's problems, if it helps just one person, then it is worth building it.

These tragedies are the "tip of the iceberg".  What about 60,000,000 dead in World War II, millions of Russian peasants who starved to death under Stalin in the 1930s, millions of Africans who starved to death over the past two thousand years, AIDS, the Black Plague in the Middle Ages, various forms of genocide and slavery down through the years such as Rwanda in the 1990s when almost one million perished, ancient epic battles where thousands died, potential thermonuclear holocaust and on and on.  Is God to blame, or something else?  To believe in a good God, the question should be answered.  The answer...Satan is the culprit, who reeks havoc all over the known world.  That given, why does God allow Satan to run amok on the planet.  Being Almighty God, does He sleep?  Or is He unaware of what is happening.  He is aware, but He is also a benevolent dictator and operates for reasons we are unaware of.  Satan is on a leash.  Certain people react with "FORGET GOD".  This only makes matters worse, because it lays them open to being locked up forever.  So where is the "message of hope" in all this.  That as Americans we have virtually nothing to worry about until the day when America chooses to establish some form of "empire".  That move will short circuit the whole country.  Good things will continue to happen for us, and we can continue to benefit the world, until then.  This Cross is an Internet Cross in that its focus is online.  It is not really that important if people come to see it in the flesh - the key is that they can log on anywhere in the world and get some spiritual benefit from it.  A book, Horse Creek, on this web page explains what the Cross means.  There is enough information in the book to get anyone who is interested online into paradise when they are dead.

Starting in the 1960s, there was a concept of "God is dead".  It was an era of Jimmie Hendrix, Janice Joplin - by some "God" was looked upon as being an historic relic.  The gospel era of "a sower went forth to sow" seemed to be over.  People, at that time, did not understand that the world was in a transitional period from the gospels to Revelation - and still is.  As it says concerning the not-too-distant future: "The angel poured out his vial upon the sea - and it became as the blood of a dead man, and every living thing in the sea died."  God is not dead, just marking time.  Revelation is a story of weapons of mass destruction, if an individual will study it carefully.  It is entirely possible that new weapons of mass destruction will be developed in the 21st century that can make the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, sixty-five years ago, look like a glorified firecracker.  The "transition" has changed people's attitudes.  "Young adults less devoted to faith: study shows steady drift from church life" is the title of a front page article on April 27, 2010, U.S.A. Today.  "Most young adults today don't pray, don't worship and don't read the Bible, a major survey by a Christian research firm shows.  If the trends continue, 'the Millennial generation will see churches closing as quickly as GM dealerships,' says Thom Rainer, president of LifeWay Christian Resources.  It surveyed 1,200 members of the 18- to 29-year-old Millennial generation and found 72% say they're 'really more spiritual than religious'.  The survey has a margin of error of +/-2.8 percentage points.  Among the 65% who call themselves Christian, 'many are either mushy Christians or Christians in name only,' Rainer says.  'Most are just indifferent.  The more precisely you try to measure their Christianity, the fewer you find committed to the faith.'  Key overall findings in the survey, released today: 65% rarely or never pray with others, and 38% almost never pray by themselves either; 65% rarely or never attend worship services; 67% don't read the Bible or sacred  texts."  The masses in the great metropolitan cities of the world are not properly reached by the church. 

The chapter "The Second Death" from the book Horse Creek sheds some light on an issue.  "There are many near-death accounts that verify that there is 'something' beyond the grave.  From At Death's Window by A.S. Genova: 'I looked up and saw an incredible light - crystal-clear and brighter than the sun, but you could look right into it without hurting your eyes.  Inside the light was the figure of a man with his hand held out to me, radiating so much love.  It was the most beautiful feeling I've ever experienced.  I never wanted to leave.'  From Heading Toward Omega, by Kenneth Ring: 'As I reached the source of the light I could see in.  I cannot begin to describe in human terms the feeling I had at what I saw.  It was a giant infinite world of calm, and love and energy and beauty.'  From Return from Death, by Margot Grey: 'I went forward towards the light and as I did so I had such a feeling of freedom and joy, it's beyond words to explain.  I had a boundless sense of expansion.'  Are these people lying?  Some, maybe, but not all.  The Tibetan Book of the Dead, a 12th century Buddhist work, comments, 'Be not fond of the dull, smoke-colored light from hell.'  A lot of people say, 'I don't want to be in heaven with those church hypocrites.'  Unfortunately, those church hypocrites will be in hell, where they will torment and vex you forever.  From Beyond Death's Door, by Maurice Rawlings: 'The only thing I remember was passing out into blackness and then I saw these red snakes crawling all over me.  I couldn't get away from them.  I would throw one of them off and then another one would get on me.  It was horrible.  Finally, I was dragged down to the ground by something and then other crawling things started getting on me.  Some looked like red jelly.  I screamed and cried out, but no one paid any attention to me.  I had the impression there were many other people in the same fix all around me.  It sounded like human voices and some of them were screaming.  It was reddish black in there and hazy and hard to see, but I never did see any flames.  There wasn't any devil, just these crawling things.  Although my chest hurt real bad, I remember how glad I was to wake up and get out of that place.  I was sure glad to see my family.'"         

The present church system has had some troubles.  Newsweek, November 19, 2007, quoted from a Pew poll taken in August 2007 which stated that while 40% of Americans attend church, 84% believe in God.  There is a higher percentage of Americans who don't go to church, but believe.  Too many money, sex and satanic scandals have had a corrosive effect on the reputation of the clergy, compounded by their judgmental manner.  Too many in the church are "neurotic flakes" who reject those whom they deem "undesirables".  They go on petty moral crusades against those who have done virtually nothing to them.  They indulge in their cheap, cruel behavior with the "we judge and deal, you forgive" mentality - how long can they make you walk?  This is a good moment to remember that authentic belief in God is a personal matter, and almost half of Americans can't find God in church.  Cathy Lynn Grossman wrote an article in U.S.A. Today, December 10, 2009 entitled Mixing the Religion: "Going to church this Sunday?  Look around.  The chances are that one in five of the people there find 'spiritual energy' in mountains or trees, and one in six believe in the 'evil eye', that certain people can cast curses with a look.  In a Catholic church?  Chances are that one in five members believe in reincarnation in a way never taught in catechism class."  The Cross is for people who are distracted when it comes to religion.  Also, 7% attend religious services in someone's home.  Lisa Miller comments in the January 11, 2010 edition of Newsweek: "For so many Americans to be praying at home is more evidence not just of greater religious pluralism but of what so many Christians have been saying recently: the established ways of worship aren't working anymore."  Many have grown indifferent to the missteps of organized religion.  The Cross reminds them that "life is short, paradise is forever".  It is a skyscraper with angel wings.

It is called "American" Cross, as a second reason, because it embodies America's form of religion.  If it was called International Cross it would embody Russian Orthodoxy, Italian Catholicism, American Protestantism and etc.  If it was called Millennium Cross it would embody 2000 years of Christianity, to include the Crusades of the Middle Ages where hundreds of thousands of innocent people were slaughtered.  If it was called Our Lord's Cross it would embody the Biblical story, only.  America has a very peculiar form of religion.  Some find God on a hike in the wilderness.  Many find God in a church, almost as many find God somewhere else.  In America we have so many denominations, they cannot be counted.  Now, we even have non-denomination.  So, the American Cross celebrates our own peculiar form of Christianity - past, present, future.  Other countries can do their own cross, i.e. - the Russian Cross, the French Cross, the South African Cross and etc.  Wikipedia comments: "During the American Revolution, the legal separation of the American colonies from Great Britain occurred on July 2, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress voted to approve a resolution of independence.  After voting for independence, Congress turned its attention to the Declaration of Independence, a statement explaining this decision, with Thomas Jefferson as its principal author.  Congress debated and revised the Declaration, finally approving it on July 4.  A day earlier, John Adams had written to his wife Abigail: 'The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America.  I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival.  It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.  It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of the continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.'  Adams' prediction was off by two days.  From the outset, Americans celebrated independence on July 4, the date shown on the much-publicized Declaration of Independence, rather than on July 2, the date of resolution of independence was approved in a closed session of Congress."  For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, the destiny of the United States seems to be inexplicably tied to Almighty God.  

The root of the American Cross is the belief system of the Founding Fathers.  George Washington: "Although guided by our excellent Constitution in the discharge of official duties, and actuated through the whole course of my public life solely by a wish to promote the best interests of our country; yet, without the beneficial interposition of the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, we could not have reached the distinguished situation which we have attained with such unprecedented rapidity.  To Him, therefore, should we bow with gratitude and reverence, and endeavor to merit a continuance of His special favors (letter to John Adams, 1797)."  Thomas Jefferson: "God who gave us life gave us liberty.  And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God?  That they are not to be violated but with His wrath?  Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever (Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia)."  James Madison: "A watchful eye must be kept on ourselves lest, while we are building ideal monuments of renown and bliss here, we neglect have our names enrolled in the Annals of Heaven (letter to William Bradford, November 9, 1772)."  John Adams: "Without religion this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company.  I mean Hell (spoken to Thomas Jefferson, April 19, 1817)."  Benjamin Franklin: "I have lived a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth - that God governs in the affairs of men (address at the Constitutional Convention, July 28, 1787)."  Patrick Henry: "The great pillars of all government...(are) virtue, morality and religion.  This is the armor, my friend, and this alone, that renders us invincible (letter to Archibald Blair, January 8, 1789)."  Thomas Paine: "The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.  Where say some, is the king of America?  I'll tell you, friend, He reigns above (Common Sense, 1776)." 

Abraham Lincoln stated in his Gettysburg Address given November 19, 1863 after the battle of Gettysburg in the Civil War: "...that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom..."  Dealing with the hate of the world toward the United States is a rough assignment.  It contributes to family breakups, student shootings, illegal drug usage.  We lashed out at that hate by invading other countries, but that can't stop the currents of malevolent spite.  Hate, like love, is something you can't see, can't feel, but it has its effect.  Americans, by and large, are good people.  These foreigners wish to destroy that.  In Iran there is hate because the poor died in a frigid winter, when here the Salvation Army gives a hot meal and a cot.  In Russia there is hate because the press is restricted, when ours is free.  In South America there is hate because of raw sewage in an alley, when we have dumpsters.  There was a day when two oceans isolated America from the hateful.  But in the 21st century Internet, jet travel, telecommunications have removed the natural boundary.  "Winning hearts and minds" doesn't work with hard-core haters, and you can't bomb everybody.  A Cross tells people there is another side to the United States, that this country does have core values. 

The name "American" Cross symbolizes the soul of America, as a third reason for the name.  That thing which makes America "tick".  That which causes Americans to move on after adversity.  That which causes us not to lose heart in time of war.  That which motivates us to achieve greater goals.  The American Indians labeled that "something", the root of the soul of America, the Great Spirit.  Our money labels it: "IN GOD WE TRUST".  Stephen Prothero, chairman of the Department of Religion at Boston University, said, "A survey released in 2006 by Baylor University found that almost two-thirds (63%) of Americans who claim no religious affiliation believe in God...The data tells us that Christians are increasingly likely to describe themselves as spiritual rather than religious, that they are increasingly wary of labels and institutions, and that they identify their faith less and less with 'organized religion'."  A hymn says, "I'll never know much it costs, to see my sin upon that Cross."  What does this mean when you take the religious vernacular and translate it into English.  First, what is sin.  Not a religious definition, just a definition.  It is "an offense against moral law", "an action that is highly reprehensible", "an often serious shortcoming".  We all fall short.  What does it mean to take offenses against moral law, actions that are reprehensible, serious shortcomings - and put them "upon that Cross".  People can liquidate these things, these problems from the past that drag them down in the present.  They can have a New Beginning.

The soul of America has been under attack since Vietnam.  Indirectly, the Chinese harmed it.  Directly, China did nothing, but America landed in its backyard.  In that war, America feared doing a 100% offence (occupying North Vietnam) so as to not antagonize the Chinese.  So, the young people's spirit was sapped fighting a defensive war that never could be won.  They went from being "gung-ho" to "hell no, we won't go" and "hey, hey, LBJ how many kids have you killed today".  Although China is America's trading partner today, damage was done then.  Russia, under communism, did attack with Marxism.  While today Russia and America are at peace, under the Cold War which went on for forty years, Russia attempted to sabotage the system.  Al-Qaeda continues it today with its chants of "Death to America" and "the Great Satan".  The idea is to cause people to become indifferent.  A purpose of the American Cross, then, is to preserve the soul of America.  A century ago Americans were excited about being Americans.  As Theodore Roosevelt said in his speech The Right of the People to Rule given on March 20, 1912 at Carnegie Hall, New York City: "We, here in America, hold in our hands the hope of the world, the fate of the coming years; and shame and disgrace will be ours if in our eyes the light of high resolve is dimmed."  Almost a century later Fareed Zakaria wrote in Newsweek (December 14, 2009): "By staying focused on the large objectives of peace and stability, by maintaining our vision of an open, free world, we help sustain positive trends in the world that are broad and deep and lasting.  In other words, our role as a strong and successful superpower is to make it possible for good things to happen - not just for Afghan schoolgirls, but for millions around the world."

Lincoln stated in that Gettysburg Address: "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."  Adam Smith, in 1776, described the natural force that guides free market capitalism through competition as the "invisible hand".  The soul of America is the combination of the political (liberty), the social (all men created equal) and the economic (free markets).  In other words, the system that the world, off and on, keeps trying to destroy.  The Cross breaks the power of evil - it's a weapon capable of destroying evil.  Evil commits suicide at the Cross.  The Cross becomes the instrument of light and life, a decisive blow to evil.  To say that evil is more powerful than the Cross is an insult to the Cross - Hell has no power.  The power of good that triumphed on the Cross is the power of good we can possess in these days when evil spawns war and terror.  So a Cross protects the system because it wards off "evil forces".  That is, the spirits of those few evil people around the world who plot the downfall of the United States.  Meaning, the forces that drive them can be stopped.  While the Cross cannot offer 100% protection, it is similar to locking a house.  While that cannot offer 100% protection, it hinders the thief.  It defends the freedom and dignity of Americans from small existential (serious enough to eventually destroy the whole entity) threats, which can in time wreck the system.  In other words, it preserves that system from certain forms of "satanic attack", which can come from bizarre, disjointed people.  What is a satanic attack.  Did Genghis Khan do it in 1200 A.D.  Did Hitler when he invaded Poland.  Did the Romans when they conquered the world.  Hitler did do it with the Jews.  Mein Kempf initiated a satanic attack against them.  The Roman Emperor Nero did do it with the early Christians - torching Rome, blaming the Christians, throwing them to the lions.  Accusing America constantly of being the "Great Satan" is one 21st century tactic of initiating a satanic attack, as was the 9/11 terrorist attack - one psychological, one physical.  Not only did 9/11 strain the political system, it cost the economic system hundreds of billions of dollars.  Satanic attack can be linked to "conspiracy to murder".  Do you ever find yourself having a wonderful day when something suddenly comes from out of nowhere to ruin it?  When it's big enough and bad enough, it can be a satanic attack.

U.S.A. Today did a story September 11, 2009 on the Shanksville, Pennsylvania memorial: "People have been coming to Shanksville - a hamlet in the middle of mining and farming country about 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh - to pay tribute to Flight 93 since the day it crashed.  The permanent memorial, as planned by the Park Service, is expected eventually to encompass 2,200 acres, including the crash site, land for an access road and buffer areas to protect the view.  The cost to build the entire design is estimated at $58 million, of which $30 million is to come from private donations...'It used to be you visited memorials, you paid your respects, and you left,' says Flight 93 Memorial Superintendent Joanne Hanley.  That changed with the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a spare, dramatic roster of names that was designed and built in less than three years and opened in Washington within a decade of the war's end."  Here, out in the middle of nowhere, over 130,000 people yearly come to pay their respects to those men and women who thought it better to fight, than just to die.  A heartland Cross encourages people to do likewise - to fight for positive things in this life, rather than just glide through life toward death.  Joanne Hanley stated that "visitors expect to be transformed, to have a life-changing experience [when visiting a memorial]."  Ninety-nine percent of the people this Cross will benefit will never see it.  They can be in China, in Russia, in Europe, in South American, in India, in Africa, or in Australia.  They do not have the time, the money, or the energy to come into the middle of nowhere in southwestern Kansas where range cattle roam.  But they need a symbol for their faith, so they can have assurance that at the end of life on this planet, it will be paradise for good.  Given the marvels of modern technology, the Cross can come right into their living rooms and help them help themselves. 

A fourth reason for the name "American Cross" is that America can be seen as being "God's Country".  It was "God's Country" since the beginning of time.  The Star Spangled Banner: "Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven rescued land praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.  Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, and this be our motto: 'In God is our trust.'"  America: "Our father's God to Thee, author of liberty, to Thee we sing.  Long may our land be bright with freedom's holy light; protect us by Thy might, great God, our King."  God Bless America: "Stand beside her and guide her, through the night with a light from above."  America the Beautiful: "America, America, God shed His grace on thee."  Battle Hymn of the Republic: "In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, with a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me.  As He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free."  This renders the United States somewhat invincible.  However, the drawback is when Americans become too wicked, they may be the first to be obliterated in the seals and plagues period of history yet to come.  "American" corresponds to "Country", "Cross" corresponds to "God's".  In a sense, "American Cross" is synonymous for "God's Country".  A lot of church people will "burn" others, living in "God's Country", but that does not make it any less God's Country.  They think they can act real bad - a mockery to those who served and died in America's wars.  In the nineteenth century, there was a concept of a "Manifest Destiny": "And that claim is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us (John O'Sullivan on December 27, 1845, New York Morning News)." - the American Cross could be a rebirth of some sort of a neo-Manifest Destiny.  There is no absolute proof that America is God's Country, but then there is no absolute proof that Jesus Christ exists either.

The size of the Cross can be a problem.  Some think it bizarre because it is big.  A big Cross for a big world.  It's not geared just for the United States, but has global reach.  Through the Internet it can positively affect people worldwide.  The church has trouble reaching all of them - the Cross will try to reach people the church missed.  There are other huge monuments - the Great Pyramid in Egypt, the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Crazy Horse Memorial in the Black Hills of South Dakota and the Maitreya Buddha in India.  The Great Pyramid was built around the year 2560 B.C., taking twenty years to complete - 139 meters (455 feet) high, 230 meters (696 feet) at the base.  It is a tomb for an Egyptian pharaoh, built for a world leader - a dead man.  The Statue of Liberty, 93 meters (305 feet) high, was finished in 1886.  It may have drawn its inspiration for the design from the Colossus of Rhodes.  The Eiffel Tower was constructed from 1887 to 1889 (twenty months) - 312 meters (1024 feet) high, 125 meters (410 feet) at the base.  It was built to glorify the Industrial Revolution - 200,000,000 visitors since 1889.  Like the Great Pyramid, which was the tallest structure in the world for 3800 years, the Eiffel Tower was a bold experiment in its day.  The Crazy Horse Memorial will be 172 meters (563 feet) high, 195 meters (641 feet) wide.  It is a monument to the American Indian, a mammoth unfinished mountain carving begun in 1948.  The Maitreya Project, to build a 152 meter (500 foot) statue of the Maitreya Buddha in Kushinagar, India is remarkable in its size and scope - the covering over the internal steel truss structure is proposed to be approximately 6000 aluminum-bronze panels cast from resin-bonded sand molds.  This is to honor the Buddha, to be finished approximately 2012, a $195,000,000 project.  What is wrong with honoring the spirit of the God of the universe?  

U.S.A. Today, April 18, 2008, did a cover story on the spiritual repercussions of September 11, 2001.  "When Marian Fontana saw the south tower collapse, 'My first impression was to drop to my knees and pray.'  Her husband, Dave, was a firefighter; he'd rushed to Lower Manhattan even though he was supposed to have had the day off to celebrate their eighth wedding anniversary.  She knelt before the television in her living room, said 'The Lord's Prayer' and tried to bargain with God for Dave's life - offering, she would recall, 'pacts, treaties, promises and vows.'  In the days that followed, with Dave missing, Marian walked around her Brooklyn neighborhood, going church to church, regardless of denomination, begging God to return Dave to her and their five-year-old son.  When she realized her husband was dead, Marian Fontana stopped talking to God. By the time of his funeral, she writes in her memoir, A Widow's Walk, she wanted to believe in God, but 'something has shifted, and even my limited spirituality seems to have been squashed among the debris.'  She describes feeling 'like a spurned friend' - her relationship with God another casualty of 9/11.  Now, at 41, Fontana says she probably has 'some buried religiosity that's been suppressed since 9/11.  But I'm not in a spiritual realm that is God- or Pope-related.'"  So why does God allow suffering in the world.  The truth is this isn't His playpen, it's our playpen.  Us inhabitants of earth are free to do anything we want, good or bad.  If we choose to slaughter each other, we choose to slaughter each other.  You can't use God as a scapegoat.  So why let God into your heart?  Because He guarantees you paradise at death.  This relieves the pressure of the worry of death.  As the scripture saith: "To rescue those who through fear of death were all their lifetimes subject to misery."  If people understand that family and friends can be with them forever, that changes things.  If this lady understood that she can be re-united with her husband at death, she would not feel lost and forsaken.

A woman raises five kids by herself with no husband, working two jobs.  She has a rough time keeping her children under control and paying the bills, at the same time.  Her kids rebel as they grow up and refuse to attend the church.  This scenario plays itself out in countless hundreds of cases all over the United States.  If she looks at the situation as "my cross", things might not be so bad.  The simplicity of the 1920s, when kids could grow up fishing with a mom and a dad in a godly rural home, has largely been forgotten.  A heartland Cross may not cause the mother aforementioned to win the lottery or marry a millionaire, but it can give her the inner strength to carry on.  Situations become so dire that people need something to help them.  Living "the way of the Cross" may let people down at times, but living "the way of the church" may cause people to go on the "rampage".  The way of the Cross is expounded upon in the book Horse Creek on the web page.  The Second Coming is the perfect "way" and, obviously, it is not here yet.  Problems such as AIDS, famine, war are still with us and will not be completely solved, but by the Second Coming.  God has dumped the mess on us, and while He has not walked away from everything, it is obvious He does not make a horrendous amount of effort to fix everything.

The Cross project will be built, in part, due to that sporadic rampaging of church people.  A Baptist businessman hires a homeless man to hang sheetrock in a house.  He pays him $10.00/day plus a motel room.  The Baptist pays the homeless dirt.  So the homeless steals from the Baptist.  No mercy - the Baptist puts the homeless in jail.  A church woman hires a man to paint the trim on her house.  When he is one day late on completion, he is paid 50% of the amount owed (legalism).  The hypocrisy threads its way up into church leadership.  A minister in the Assembly of God: "Nothing wrong with pronouncing a curse upon a Jew, let them be accursed."  An obscure scripture is used to justify the anti-Semitism: "If any man love not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed."  Another Assembly of God minister falsely accuses a distraught parishioner of accusing him (the minister) of committing adultery with a female parishioner.  Her mother had divorced her father - the mother came to the church, the father didn't.  The daughter (female parishioner) was staying temporarily at the parsonage (minister's home).  In the Church of Christ, a lady bequeaths $100,000 to mission work (the Great Commission).  The money instead is used to pay on the church mortgage (misappropriation of funds).  Another church protects a minister who is a child molester and black witch.  Former Senator John Edwards, a "born again", has an affair with a former campaign aide, while his wife is stricken with cancer.  He fathers a daughter through the aide, asks another aide to get a doctor to "fake" the DNA results, and lies about the paternity for almost two years.  Some think the Protestant church can just ride out the storm, avoiding scandal and preserving its good name.  But there are those who want a modern kind of accountability.

The Catholic Church.  The citadel of Christianity, that can trace its roots all the way back to St. Peter.  In "Today's debate: Abusive priests" April 5, 2010, U.S.A. Today: "The Catholic Church, again reeling from child sexual abuse scandals, has had more chances than most institutions to come clean, purge its problems and make amends.  Yet it has failed repeatedly to do so, leaving a scandal that might have ended in the 1980s to fester for a quarter century.  Priests who molested children and bishops who covered up the crimes - and, in doing so, enabled the abuse of more children - have betrayed victims and parishioners alike.  Now similar scandals are cascading across Europe - through Ireland, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the pope's native Germany.  And in every country, the script has been the same: cover-ups and transfers of priests that enabled more abuse.  Details of the Irish scandal help expose the culture that fostered it.  In 1975, an up-and-coming Irish priest did not report to authorities charges by two boys that they had been molested.  He has since said that was the wish of his superiors.  Instead, the boys were forced to sign an oath that they would not tell anyone - not police, not even their families - about their accusations, which were handled by a secret church inquiry.  The accused priest stayed in the ministry and went on to become one of Ireland's most notorious abusers.  The younger priest became head of the church in Ireland.  In case after case, the church has faced choices between protecting children or protecting itself.  It has consistently chosen the latter, and in doing so has protected neither."  Pope Benedict XVI, at the end of the Roman Catholic Church's Year of the Priest celebrations, 2010: "We...insistently beg forgiveness from God and from the persons involved."  But fifty years of child abuse cannot be erased with some sweet words.  Actions speak louder than words.

Jesus Christ's opinion (to paraphrase): "The prostitutes and drug addicts will get into heaven before you, religious leader."  Jesus' words continue. "Woe to you, religious leaders.  You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces.  You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who attempt to."  The Cross is an emblem of America's religious heritage - back to the Mayflower (Plymouth, 1620).  It is a Methodist circuit rider, a Baptist hell-fire sermon, the "holiness movement" of old.  The project is named "American" Cross, as a fifth reason - America's missionary Cross - because it bottles historical American Christianity, sending the best parts of it to the world.  Horse Creek is a modern version of old-fashioned American Christianity.  The book is a series of sermonettes, 21st century style.  Some reject the Cross as they attack it as a "cult".  These people don't want to read and study the proposal to make a serious analysis.  The dictionary defines the word cult as, "A religion or religious sect generally considered to be extremist or false."  The Cross is a symbol of Christianity, which is neither extremist or false.  Certain of the clergy in South Dakota have labeled this project an "ornament", a "decoration", a "Tower of Babel".  Other projects received their fair share of distress.  As the Eiffel Tower in Paris was being built some said it was a "monstrosity", a "Cyclops", a "skeleton".  The National Grand Theater, completed June 2007, a massive silvery dome in the heart of China's capital, has been called an "eggshell", a "tomb", a "Big Bubble" by the Chinese.  A heartland Cross is an alternative to the games of the church.

"Before Him shall be gathered all nations - and He shall separate them as a shepherd divides the sheep from the goats.  He shall set the sheep on the right, the goats on the left.  Then shall the King say to those on the right: 'Come you of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.  For when I was hungry you gave me food, when I was thirsty you gave me drink, when I was homeless you took me in, when I was sick you visited me, when I was in prison you came.'  Then will the righteous answer him, 'Lord when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink, or homeless and took you in, or sick or in prison and visited you?'  Then the King shall answer and say, 'Inasmuch as you have done it for one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it for me.'  Then will he say to them on the left, 'Depart from me you cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.  For when I was hungry or thirsty or homeless or sick or in prison, you did nothing for me.'  Then will they answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or homeless or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'  He shall answer, 'Inasmuch as you did it not for one of the least of the brethren, you did it not for me.'  And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal (quoted from Matthew)."  A "goat" in, or out, of the church reaps "everlasting punishment".  A "sheep" in, or out, of the church reaps "life eternal".

According to "The End of Christian America" (Newsweek, April 13, 2009): "Then came the point he (R. Albert Mohler Jr. - president, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) could not get out of his mind - while the unaffiliated have historically been concentrated in the Pacific Northwest, the report (2009 American Religious Identification Survey) said, 'This pattern has now changed, and the Northeast emerged in 2008 as the new stronghold of the religiously unidentified.'"  Secularization is on the move; however, Easter has traditionally been a church stronghold on society.  Steven Chu, head of the Department of Energy, said in an April 20, 2009 interview: "Right now, the climate scientists feel that if all humans shut off carbon emissions today, it (global warming) will still glide up by about one degree Centigrade (in a one hundred year period).  In the business-as-usual scenarios, Nicholas Stern (Chairman of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics) says there's a 50% chance we may go up by five degrees Centigrade.  We know what the Earth was like five or six degrees Centigrade colder.  That was called the Ice Ages."  Declining moral values.  Cable television is saturated with sex, gross acts of violence, even poltergeist activity.  Kids watch it as well as adults.  People's moral fiber is eroded by it.  The result is a lot of people living together out of wedlock.  And a lot of people who just don't care.  These are three 21st century dilemmas which some in the church avoid, so may lose the Easter message: "Victory over Death".  That is, the "death" caused by godlessness, an overheated planet, immoral conduct.   

The site will have a visitor center, built out of stone with commercial blue tin for a roof, consisting of: 1) a restaurant serving buffalo, beef, chicken, lamb, venison, fish; 2) a gift shop to include a) various crosses - rings, necklaces, wall hangers, statuettes, b) candles encased in glass with the words "love will triumph over hate" etched on them, c) angel figurines based on a Biblical description, d) plaques with prayers such as "may the grace of God's protection and His great love abide within your home", e) plaques with verses relating to the Second Coming, such as "God shall wipe away all tears" or "there shall be no more death" or "I make all things new", f) scripts of the screenplay I Corinthians 5:5 as well as copies of the book Horse Creek, g) portraits of Jesus based on the shroud of Turin, h) framed photographs of the Cross, and i) many more gifts of interest; 3) a book/video store with books by authors such as St. Augustine, Martin Luther, John Bunyan, John/Charles Wesley, D.L. Moody, Charles Spurgeon, Billy Sunday, and DVDs such as The Ten Commandments, Passion of the Christ, Jesus, Ben-Hur, The Greatest Story Ever Told, Holy Bible, Armageddon, King of Kings, Jesus of Nazareth, Barabbas. A second building will contain: 1) a library with Christian books stemming from 100 A.D. to the present, and 2) a museum displaying Christian artifacts, including an art gallery of historical Christianity.  A third building will contain, using the latest in 21st century technology, a three dimensional rendition of Revelation in the Bible.  Six other buildings will contain eight wedding chapels apiece.  These chapels will be fairly small, but will be set up so that the walls of four chapels can "open up" to produce a large chapel for bigger weddings.  This is a viable alternative to the Las Vegas wedding.  There will also be one hundred one room, Ponderosa Pine log, honeymooner/guest cabins on site.

An hotel and RV park, built by a major hotel chain, will be provided in a small town nearby.  In the honeymooner/guest cabins, as well as the hotel, DVD players will be provided, and people will be able to rent the movies, when they get their room key, that are sold at the video store.  Two fitness centers for the hotel, as well as walking trails around the Cross, will be available.  Bus service 24 hours per day seven days per week, from Dodge City, Kansas (40 miles from site location), through the small town (hotel location), to the Cross will be accessible.  The concept of having all these activities at the Cross site is so that people can have enough to spend, say, a weekend at the site.  In other words, an individual from New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit, Dallas, Denver, Washington D.C., Las Vegas, Phoenix, and etc. can fly in, hop the bus, drop travel bags at the hotel, and absorb what is on site.  But, people have to sit going to the airport, sit in the plane, sit in the bus.  An individual is not going to have any desire to absorb what is on site.  Physical exercise at one of the two fitness centers will crystallize the thoughts.  Someone can fly in, say, Friday night, workout, shower, get a good night's sleep, and be ready to study what is on site.  And the DVDs give an individual something to do in the evening.  The point is, there are all sorts of people with heavy problems that living in their own little world they cannot seem to resolve.  But, being able to get away from it for a weekend, or a couple of days during the week, perhaps they can gain inspiration on how to solve a family problem, career problem, financial problem, health problem, retirement problem, drug problem, relationship problem, landlord problem, neighbor problem, church problem, harassment problem, swindle problem, religious problem, and etc.  They have to be able to relax and unwind, or 80% of what is on site will go in one ear and out the other, they won't get much out of it, they will feel bored after four hours, their problem will not be resolved, and their trip will have been a waste.

Most people will not have the opportunity to see this Cross.  They may simply be too busy with their personal lives, or lack the finances, to come see it in person.  However, as has been said before, it is an Internet Cross, available to 1.8 billion people who use the Internet worldwide.  They can look at it on their cellphone.  A 313 meter Cross is no more bizarre a concept than is an iPad.  The American Cross tries to "bottle-up" historical American Christianity and make it available to all who wish it, as a missionary Cross.  Historical American Christianity isn't necessarily better than some other Christianity, it's just different.  Being initially a nation of immigrants, the United States has a very diverse form of religion.  Near death experiences are surprising with who gets into "heaven" and who doesn't.  "It is noteworthy that the reports of near death experiencers who have wound up in heaven and hell do not follow the lines of belief and doctrine.  In this book we have accounts of Fundamentalist Christians and Unitarians in hell and of atheists, Hindus, and Jews in heaven.  Probably the best description of hell is that it is the absence of God.  When it comes to the message of who God is and what is required of us, there can be not doubt that the message universally is consistent.  The Being of Light has many names that fit the religious frame of reference of the beholder.  This makes sense and was alluded to in the Tibetan Book of the Dead.  How else would God be revealed to us?  All religious revelation filters through we finite beings who are products of our culture, our time, and our symbolic language.  Like the wisdom of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, it would seem from the accounts of the near death experiencers that God is interested in what is in our heart and not what is in our creed.  It is the love for God and one another that is important.  To love others is to love God.  Many near death experiencers have come back disgusted with the religious dogma of their formal religion, but filled with the love for God and others.  They reject dogma, but not the teachings of Jesus and the other prophets.  They reject religion, but not spirituality (from Visions of God from the Near Death Experience, by Ken R. Vincent)."   

Heritage USA was the name of the now-defunct Christian theme park, water park and residential complex built at Forest Mill, South Carolina by PTL Club founders televangelist Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker Messner.  Facilities included the 501-room Heritage Grand Hotel, Main Street USA, an indoor shopping complex, the Heritage Village Church, a 400-unit campground, the Jerusalem Amphitheater, conference facilities, a skating rink, prayer and counseling services, full cable TV network production studios, Bible and evangelism school, staff and volunteer housing, visitor retreat housing and the Heritage Island water park.  So what's the difference between that and this.  The big difference with this project is...it's a Cross.  A fundamental difference is Jim Bakker was a member of a denomination which has certain leaders who use what could be classified as a "voodoo spell" - magic of the psychic arts.  The American Cross was started by someone who had it used on him by this denomination many years ago.  A truly powerful spell was cast because a pastor felt this person, who was a member of his church then, had done him wrong.  The glass shattered, so to speak.  The pastor wrecked vengeance on the individual, who felt the wrath of the pastor's anger and was very sorry he had questioned him.  It could be said this denomination is your number one source for all things magical.  The last difference is this project is not so grandiose.  It is to be built in more of a "Spartan" tradition.  

The big iron Cross is experimental.  The "big iron Cross" is similar to the "iron horse", i.e. the railroads of the late 19th century, in that they are both nicknames.  The "Iron Cross" the Germans awarded as a medal for bravery in battle was more of a medallion.  The Nazi "Iron Cross" was not a true cross, having nothing to do with Christianity.  The Teutonic Knights first used the symbol in the 14th century.  Initially, the Knights aided in the spread of Christianity to eastern Europe, having originated in Acre, Israel as an independent entity.  They were not just Germanic, spreading to Poland, Austria, Italy, and Germany.  The Teutonic Knights believed in the spirit of the God of the universe, but did not bow to church doctrines.  There are some vague similarities to the American Cross since its goal is to deliver the "message of hope" to all the world.  The project is being done by the American Cross Foundation, a Registered Delaware Corporation with a F.A.A. permit.  The Cross will have support cables from the end of each horizontal cross-member to the ground, similar to a television tower.  If the Cross is free-standing, it could become more of a target for Nature and Man.  Due to safety concerns, there will be nothing in the Cross itself.  This is due to the problem of natural disasters (e.g. a tornado leveled the town of Greensburg, Kansas thirty miles away) and the problem of a terrorist attack (planes, attaché case bombs, a biological attack, cutting of support cables in a windstorm [see Utility Patent link, pages 5, 11{lines 12-21}], etc.).  The Cross has power to heal as the spirit of the God of the universe works through it.  The "power to heal" doesn't really mean physical healing - we have in America excellent doctors and hospitals that perform medical miracles routinely.  It does mean emotional healing - we have millions of people in the United States that have been through an emotional trauma and need some form of help.  That is, those who have been through a painful divorce, children who are growing up in one parent homes, a trip in an ambulance, people who have experienced a financial catastrophe, military personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, as examples.  Headlines in the newspaper verify it: "Thousands strain post's mental health system - cases mount as troops need help at Fort Hood" and "Children still can't get past Katrina - study: emotional pain for thousands".

As Americans accept the world of Facebook and blogs, churches are losing control.  A big iron Cross could be likened, possibly, to the flag-raising on Iwo Jima, 1944.  It was symbolic of hope.  Or possibly a Steven Seagal, who always triumphs in his action movies.  Meaning, the eventual triumphing over adversity.  Seabiscuit is a third example.  This was a racehorse in the 1930s who began his career losing races continuously.  A new owner retrained the horse.  He would then come neck-and-neck with another horse in a race, look the horse in the eye, and be gone.  He raced the "invincible" War Admiral horse from the East (Seabiscuit being from the West) and won hands down.  In 1938, Seabiscuit was number one in the news, second FDR, and third Hitler.  He gave people hope they could come back on top.  A lot of people took inspiration from a horse.  Hopefully, a big iron Cross may inspire as the horse did.  It can be argued that the concept of the Cross won't work in real life, but no one will ever know if it isn't built.  If it doesn't live up to expectations, it can always be torn down.  In the maze of the 21st century, it can make sense.  Things seem backwards, they go wrong and they shouldn't go wrong, in today's world.  Strange things are going on that we do not understand.  There is a storm on the horizon, and we do not want to see it.

Some people say, "The money would be better spent feeding hungry children," than on a "dumb" Cross.  The American government will spend over two billion dollars on a "smart" bomb.  According to Global Security.org: "The Small Smart Bomb is a 250 pound weapon that has the same penetration capabilities as a 2000 lb. BLU-109, but with only 50 pounds of explosive.  The 250 pound-class warhead has demonstrated penetration of more than 6 feet of reinforced concrete...The Small Diameter Bomb range is extended to 60 nautical miles by pop-out wings and the speed and altitude of the aircraft using it...With military construction and support costs, the total value of the Phase I program is $2.59 billion if the Air Force procures the 24,000 Phase I weapons and 2,000 carriages planned for the next 16 years."  This engineering marvel will be used to destroy people effectively.  $2,590,000,000 would feed lots of kids.  Paris Las Vegas is a $785,000,000 investment which built a half-size replica of the Eiffel Tower and a hotel-casino on twenty-four acres, located on the Las Vegas Strip.  This costs over three times what it would to build a big iron Cross, promotes gambling and other activities.  Trump International Hotel and Tower located at Chicago was completed in 2009, a $847,000,000 project.  This contains restaurants, hotel and residential sections.  Was this an absolute necessity given the fact there are numerous restaurants, hotels and luxury residences already in Chicago.  Insurance giant AIG gave $165,000,000 in bonuses to some of the executives who drove the company into financial ruin before it was rescued by a government bailout.  The money in each of these cases might have been used more effectively to feed hungry mouths of the young. 

A certain few in the church get mad at this Cross because they think it is an "image".  This comes out of Exodus: "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven (carved) image."  But also in Exodus, Moses is instructed to make an "ark of the covenant" to include two gold Cherubim (angels): "And thou shalt make two Cherubim of gold, of beaten work shalt thou make them, in the two ends of the mercy seat."  So here is a situation in the Bible where images are condemned, and yet Moses is told to make two life-size gold angels.  If the Cross is an "image" then so is the Statue of Liberty, Mt. Rushmore, the Lincoln Memorial, Stone Mountain, and the Crazy Horse Memorial.  At Groom, Texas there stands what some might call an "image", a 58 meter (190 foot) Cross.  This Cross, constructed by Cross Ministries and finished in 1995, has had hundreds of thousands of visitors since then.  They have "Stations of the Cross" featuring various statues of Jesus on His way to the crucifixion and then being crucified by the religious leaders of His day, a replica of the Shroud of Turin, a replica of the Tomb, a gift shop, etc.  It has been very successful as far as a positive impact on people's lives, as various testimonials on their Web page state.  As they declare: "The marvelous story of what God is doing through this nineteen story Cross."  There are other crosses in the world.  The Great Cross, built near St. Augustine, Florida and completed in 1966, stands 63 meters (208 feet) tall.  This is to remember an event four hundred years earlier, in 1565, when Pedro Menedez de Aviles placed a small wooden cross in Florida's soil and founded the Mission of "Nombre de Dios".  The Millennium Cross is a 66 meter (217 foot) high cross situated in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia.  The cross was constructed to commemorate 2000 years of Christianity, finished in 2008.  The cross was built on the high point of the Vodno mountain at a place known since the time of the Ottoman Empire as "Krstovar", meaning "place of the cross".  There is another truly spectacular cross near Madrid, Spain.  The Valle de los Caidos (Valley of the Fallen) contains one of the world's largest basilicas (a Roman Catholic church given ceremonial privileges), which was hewn out of a granite ridge by Spanish dictator Francisco Franco - to honor the fallen during the Spanish Civil War.  Rising above the basilica is, at this present day, the tallest memorial cross in the world - a 152.4 meter (500 foot) high stone cross that took eighteen years to finish, completed in the 1950s.  The American Cross can be "a monolith (suggestive of a large block of stone, as in immovability or massiveness) on the prairie".

Is the project the "cult of an icon"?  The word "cult" applies to groups seen as authoritarian, exploitative and possibly dangerous.  As can be seen with these other crosses aforementioned, there is nothing of the sort with the cross, which dignifies self-sacrifice.  Nor is it a new religious movement.  The report of the Swedish Government's Commission on New Religious Movements (1998) states that the great majority of members of new religious movements derive positive experiences from their subscription to ideas or doctrines which correspond to their personal needs.  The only thing "new" about this Cross is bottling up historical American Christianity.  Cults are seen as inimical to the public order due to their totalitarianism, violations of fundamental liberties, inordinate emphasis on finances, and/or disregard for appropriate medical care.  If a 313 meter Cross is a cult, then are the aforementioned crosses "cults".  How tall does a cross have to be before it becomes a cult?  An "icon" is usually a flat panel painting, generally of wood, depicting a holy being or object such as Jesus, Mary, saints, angels, or the cross.  It is a two, not three, dimensional rendering, and is very common in Eastern Orthodox churches.  Warped people can attempt to twist a "message of hope" into the "cult of an icon".  But these are the same people who will falsely accuse family members, parishioners, neighbors, employers, tenants, etc of things they have not done.  People need to get a life and realize that things are changing rapidly in society.  What is important is to make sure this Cross goes in the right direction and does what it is supposed to do.

Was Jesus Christ crucified on a physical cross?  Wikipedia "Dispute about Jesus' execution method": "Certain writers accept for the gibbet on which Jesus died only the meaning 'a pale, as strong stake, a wooden post'.  Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Jesus Christ was executed on a stake and do not use the cross in their worship.  While the view that Jesus died on a stake has thus been advanced by writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, second century writers, such as Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, speak of Him only as dying on a two-beam cross.  In the same century, the author of the Epistle of Barnabas and Clement of Alexandria saw a two-beam shape of the cross of Jesus as foreshadowed in the Greek numerals corresponding to the present-day Arabic numerals 318, the same shape prefigured in Moses keeping his arms stretched out in prayer in the battle against Amalek.  At the end of the same century, Turtullian speaks of Christians as accustomed to mark themselves repeatedly with the sign of the cross, and the phrase 'the Lord's sign' was used with reference to a cross composed of an upright and a crossbeam.  Crosses of '+' or 'T' shape were in use, even in Palestine, at the time of Jesus...The Epistle of Barnabas, written earlier than 135, witnesses to the shape people of that time attributed to what Jesus died on.  Referring to what Barnabas saw as Old Testament intimations of Jesus and his cross, he likened the cross to the letter 'T', thus describing it as having a crossbeam.  Justin Martyr (100-165) explicitly says the cross of Christ was of two-beam shape: 'That lamb which was commanded to be wholly roasted was a symbol of the suffering of the cross which Christ would undergo.  For the lamb, which is roasted, is roasted and dressed up in the form of the cross.  For one spit is transfixed right through from the lower parts up to the head, and one across the back, to which are attached the legs of the lamb.'...Irenaeus, who died around the end of the second century, speaks of the cross as having 'five extremities, two in length, two in breadth, and one in the middle, on which the person rests who is fixed by the nails'.

 Hippolytus of Rome (170-236), writing about the blessing Jacob obtained from his father Isaac, said: 'The skins which were put upon his arms are the sins of both peoples, which Christ, when His hands were stretched forth on the cross, fastened to it along with Himself.'  In his Octavius (written between 160-250), Minucius Felix, responding to the pagan jibe that Christians worship wooden crosses - an indication of how the cross symbol was already associated with Christians - denies the charge and then retorts that the cross shape (a crossbeam placed on an upright) is honored even by pagans in the form of their standards and trophies and is in any case found in nature: 'Crosses, moreover, we neither worship nor wish for.  You, indeed, who consecrate gods of wood, adore wooden crosses perhaps as parts of your gods,  For your very standards, as well as your banners; and flags of your camp, what else are they but crosses gilded and adorned?  Your victorious trophies not only imitate the appearance of a simple cross, but also that of a man affixed to it.  We assuredly see the sign of a cross, naturally, in the ship when it is carried along with swelling sails, when it glides forward with expanded oars; and when the military yoke is lifted up, it is the sign of a cross; and when a man adores God with a pure mind, with hands outstretched.  Thus the sign of the cross is sustained by a natural reason, or your own religion is formed with respect to it.'  In language very similar to that of Minucius Felix, Tertullian, too, who distinguished between stipes (stake) and crux (cross), noted that it was the cross that people associated with Christianity.  And he indicated that the shape of the cross is that of the letter 'T': 'The Grek letter Tau and our own letter T is the very form of the cross,' and compared it to the shape of a bird with outstretched wings."  98% chance Jesus Christ was crucified on a "T" (St. Antony's) cross, which later church fathers made into a Latin cross - "+". 
 
Hypocrisy of the church, in the late 20th-early 21st centuries, leaves people in doubt.  A pastor desired a needy, male parishioner as his lady, trying to force a relationship with little gifts of food, while at the same time accusing the parishioner of "staring" at one of cattle rancher's daughters in a rural, small town church.  In another incident, a pastor accused a small farmer of coming to the church in "dirty jeans".  This referred to a small amount of mud on the cuffs of the near-new, washed jeans that occurred because the parishioner had to walk three miles to the church on a muddy day, as his vehicle broke down.  Leaders in that denomination told the individual that if he did not forgive the pastor's unforgiveness, his sins would not be forgiven.  In yet another incident, a pastor initiated a satanic attack against someone who called former members of his church, asking why they left.  Leaders in that denomination told the individual concerning it: "Touch not the Lord's anointed."  In other words, church people ask forgiveness for their 10,000 talents worth of sin, yet they do not forgive a 100 pence of it.  The trouble - the church from January 1, 1980 to January 1, 2020 is half black and half white (the color, not the race).  Once upon a time on a cattle ranch in western South Dakota there was a dog that was half black and half white.  This dog would chase the ranch pickup truck as it drove out into the field.  It would run behind the pickup for a while, then stop and run in circles chasing its tail.  Then, it would resume running after the pickup - and continue this pattern of chasing its tail then running after the pickup, endlessly.  So it is with the church today.  It will walk on the "right road" for a season, helping people, then stop and play all kinds of games, destroying people's lives.  And it will continue this cycle endlessly.  The hypocrisy of the church has created a whole new class of people - those who are without the church, "homeless" spiritually.

The spiritual homeless of America are not homeless physically - they choose not to have a church "home".  These people can make $500,000 per year, live in suburbia, drive a Hummer, but they are not involved with a church because they have been burned by and/or are disgusted with the church; or, they are simply too independently minded to come to church.  And, on the East and West coasts of the United States the influence of the church is seldom felt.  It's not that people living in these areas are all disgusted, burned or independently minded, they're plain not interested in coming to church.  On Sunday, other activities crowd out any church affiliation - sailing, skiing, a day at the beach and etc.  These people are "spiritually oriented", but do not have the time to come to church.  This group probably constitutes the bulk of the "spiritual homeless".  College students.  According to Stephen Prothero: "Study after study has shown that American college students are fleeing from organized religion to mix-and-match spirituality...My students' projects suggest that traditional religions are in trouble."  He labels the iPad/text messaging college crowd as part of the "spiritual but not religious" generation.  Christian leaders.  According to D. Michael Lindsay, a member of the sociology faculty at Rice University: "Many of the nation's most powerful believers - presidents, CEOs, entertainers and athletes - won't be found in the pews on Sundays...I spent the past five years interviewing some of the country's top leaders - two U.S. presidents, 100 CEOs and senior business executives, Hollywood icons, celebrated artists and world-class athletes.  All were chosen because of their widely known faith.  Yet I was shocked to find that more than half - 60% - had low levels of commitment of their denominations and congregations."  The church does not reach them. 

The book, Horse Creek, on this Web page explains what the Cross means.  The "Introduction" states, "This book is dedicated to answering the age old question: did God create Man, or did Man create God?  What is to be remembered, if there is a paradise, if there is an eternal prison, the individual who refuses to acknowledge that these things exist is simply out of luck...God has said, 'Behold, I stand at the door and knock - if any man hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and will eat with him, and he with me.'  He did this with the American Indian in 1300 A.D., with the cave man in pre-historic Europe, with the Russian in Siberia, with the Hindu in India, with the European during the height of European civilization, as examples.  Revelation 7:9 says, 'After this I beheld, and lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands.'  This is in heaven.  It says, '...a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations...'  All nations means all nations that have ever existed in history."  Everyone gets their chance - back to the first caveman that ever walked upon the face of the earth.  The chapter "Your Soul" states, "What does it mean to 'gain the whole world'?  To each individual person it means something different.  It can mean anything from a decent job, a house, a family, to owning and controlling a huge business conglomerate.  The 'whole world' means each individual's goals, dreams, aspirations, desires in life.  You can gain the 'whole world' of what you want, and wind up in eternal prison when you die...Coming to God is a form of blackmail.  Basically, God says, 'If you let me into your heart, I will let you into paradise.  If you don't let me into your heart, I will lock you up forever.'"   

There are things that go on in the church that agitate people.  You have the Methodist lesbian minister, the Episcopal homosexual bishop, the Catholic child-molesting priest, the Pentecostal satanist preacher, and mega-churches sending mega-death - attacking and accusing.  The church leadership's attitude toward these lapses:  "We shouldn't get upset over trivial matters."  "I know this isn't what you want to hear, but, you just need to forgive."  "No further action from our office is anticipated regarding these matters."  However, the scripture states:  "And to the church write - 'I know your programs, that you are neither cold or hot.  So then because you are lukewarm, I (Jesus) will vomit you (the church) out my mouth'."  Next, an individual is told to "Give to God".  This causes confusion.  The money is being spent on the multi-million dollar church building.  Is this God?  And, the pastor's suburban home.  Is this God?  And, the church secretary's salary.  Is this God?  Last, they tell you that if you don't come to the church, you're not saved.  But while they're in the process of playing with you, they're doing other things...what really gets bad is when the church starts loosing Satan on you and you have all kinds of bad things happening to you on satanic feast days.  The documentary, I Corinthians 5:5, on this Web page, details the story (these are the first words of the play, on screen):  "What you are about to see is one of the more unusual stories ever told.  If you have no prior belief in the supernatural, this particular story will be dull and uninteresting - that is, using spiritual power to destroy people.  This has to do with a bisexual minister and a cowed parishioner, which occurred in a rural area of the Northern Plains during the Farm Crisis (1980-85).  This will be told, not so much through 'action', but through 'documentation'.  That is, the documentation of a fantasy through narration, legal documents and taped phone conversations concerning maleficia (satanic witchcraft) used by the Pentecostal Movement.  The documents have not been altered - original, exact documentation has been used.  The script is word-for-word.  The Pentecostal Movement does not label it 'maleficia', but, the 'operation of spiritual forces invoked', and, the 'actions of Satan as applied'.  They label this a 'Job trial'.  The Pentecostal Movement has taken full credit, but has little remorse.  You, the audience, are the jury.  Is the pastor innocent, or guilty, of the invocation of a destructive demonic force."  The church works, at times, with smoke and mirrors.  The rape of the poor occurs when the church viciously attacks those who are in need.  So, the spiritual homeless, that is people fed up with the church, independently minded or uninterested in the church, need a symbol.  The Cross provides that for those people in America who believe, but are not involved in a church.  For those people in America who believe who are involved in a church, their church is their symbol. 

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.  He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters, He restores my soul.  He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.  Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.  You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.  You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.  Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever (Psalm 23)."  If the Cross is a message of hope, then why do certain church people oppose it.  Perhaps because they support the "operation of spiritual forces invoked", "the actions of Satan as applied" against a parishioner by a minister.  One of their arguments against the Cross is...it's ten years ahead of its time.  Why not wait until 2020 to build it?  People who say this have some serious personal problems - those are delaying tactics.  They don't want to see others helped, just left out in the cold.  They want people's situations taken advantage of - those who struggle in life to be exploited.  These suffering ones need encouragement, immediately.  Perhaps they can break out of the pattern of being used.  The money is available now, it may not be available then.  It is important to do it while funding is accessible.  A major war, a depression or some other form of calamity could prevent completion at a later date and sabotage the project.    

The Cross is a "Wedding Announcement" for this entity: "...when I turned I saw seven gold sconces (candleholders) and near them a figure that was the Son of man, dressed in a robe with a gold belt tied at the waist.  His head and His hair were as white as snow.  His eyes burned like a flame.  His feet were similar to brass in a furnace, and His voice was as the sound of an ocean."  The Cross could also be construed as an "eviction notice".  Within four hundred years this could take place.  Four hundred years may sound like a long time, but as any evolutionist will tell you, Man has been in existence for millions of years, so this is a relatively short period.  Some in the church think this Cross is a scam because it points people to the following reality.  A reality that in the first two decades of the 21st century some churches abhor - that is, the "grapes of wrath" - "I saw heaven opened and behold a white horse, and He who sat upon that horse was called Faithful...His eyes were as a flame of fire.  He was clothed with a robe bathed in blood...and He treads the torchio (a machine that presses the grapes) of the wrath of Almighty God."  In other words, the church really should immerse itself in the reality of the Second Coming.  Until it does, this problem will continue: "When it comes to religion, the U.S.A. is now a land of freelancers.  The percentage of people who call themselves some type of Christian has dropped more than 11% in a generation.  The faithful have scattered out of their traditional bases: the Bible Belt is less Baptist.  The Rust Belt is less Catholic.  And everywhere, more people are exploring spiritual frontiers - or falling off the faith map completely (U.S.A. Today March 9, 2009)."

The Second Coming is a subject of profound interest.  But who on earth can get excited about the seals and the plagues (in Revelation).  Isn't that a morbid tale?  Do people really get enthralled about one third of the planet being annihilated, or "men gnawing their tongues for pain".  The only people who could really get excited about such things are sado-masochistic human beings.  As Matthew puts it: "For then shall be great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be."  Yet this is what precedes the Second Coming.  Maybe the first question that can be asked is why such a bloodbath?  The answer, and it is only a partial answer, is Sodom.  Sodom was an ancient gay/lesbian community in the Middle East.  Apparently, there were a few other things going on in the town that were abhorrent.  The result (divine judgment) was a firestorm that burned Sodom to the ground.  Apparently, when humanity becomes too wicked, the spirit of the God of the universe unloads.  The Second Coming is about a new heaven, and a new earth.  What exactly this means is unimaginable.  There is talk of a "New Jerusalem", but this causes more confusion than not.  But we do know that the new system will be a vast improvement over the old system, this present world.  "And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God...and on either side of the river was there the tree of life...and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations (quoted from Revelation)."

A sixth reason for the name "American" Cross is that it is an anti-arrogance tool to deflate American arrogance.  It needs a Cross this big to fix it.  Americans could learn to be more thankful.  The story of the Cross is a story of a prince who became a pauper, and loved it.  More of us in this country need to emulate an attitude of gratitude.  "Pride goeth before a fall."  The arrogance, if left unchecked, will in time bring the whole country down.  The Iraq war is an example of when arrogance can cause our leaders to make mistakes.  Then, when some American soldiers went into battle in Iraq, they would hook a CD player to their tank's internal "Charlie box" so that when they put their helmet on, they could listen to Fire Water Burn in the helmet: "The roof is on fire.  We don't need no water, let the mother f----r burn.  Burn, mother f----r."  Another root of the arrogance is the debt load of America.  According to Newsweek (December 7, 2009): "This is how empires decline.  It begins with a debt explosion...If the United States doesn't come up with a credible plan to balance the budget, the danger is a major weakening of American power."  And the luxury.  From air conditioned dog houses to the Forbes Investment Guide to extravagant SUVs, the luxury only feeds the arrogance.  A big iron Cross lets people know that there are things in America other than the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., the Strip in Las Vegas, Wall Street in New York City, smog in Los Angeles, "big oil" in Houston, or vehicle manufacturers in Detroit.  Since people cannot take their money with them when they die, then why be uppity.  Foreigners often complain this country puts on "airs of superiority", but that is jealousy because the U.S. has the best system of government, the freest press, the most diverse religious system.  But the pride is still an issue.  If the ruler of the universe can enjoy being homeless, why can't we?  The Cross is an antidote for American arrogance, as it promotes selflessness.

"If any person builds on the 'foundation' gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw - everyone's work will become clear.  For the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire - and fire will test everyone's work, of what sort it is.  If any person's work which he (she) has built endures, he (she) will receive a reward (quoted from I Corinthians)."  Many people regard the spirit of the God of the universe as a glorified babysitter or a sugar daddy.  "God, please take care of me and give me anything I want."  That is not what it is.  "For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard (quoted from Matthew)."  The "wood, hay, straw" crowd are those who wish God to do something for them.  The "gold, silver, precious stones" crowd are those who wish to do something for God.  The spirit of the God of the universe looks for "laborers" who wish to work in His "vineyard" - the world system.  People who work for the "kingdom of heaven" don't do it for the reward, they do it because they have graduated from the "gimme" stage.  They simply realize that life is short - do something. 

A school, called Horse Creek School, will be on site.  The school will host a thirteen week course that will teach on the principles contained in the book Horse Creek.  Students can live in Spartan-like dormitories in small single rooms (but eating together in a mess hall), where they can concentrate on learning (like a monastery).  There will be a gym, as well as walking trails, and a mandatory physical training class every day for those who are able.  Physical exercise energizes the mind.  A medical staff will be on the premises, plus a little store with snacks, paper and pens, etc.  A security unit will also be on the property.  Spartan living is not necessarily a bad thing - for thirteen weeks it will be good to get away from it all.  The old Outward Bound program had the Spartan-get-away-from-it-all attraction in the area of hiking, and it was very successful.  On the weekends students can go to town (Dodge City/Wichita) to party, or go home, or stay on campus (perhaps workout and visit the Cross site).  There is not enough information in one book to justify a thirteen week course.  Other great books by authors such as St. Augustine, Martin Luther, John Bunyan, John/Charles Wesley, D.L. Moody, Charles Spurgeon, Billy Sunday will be used as textbooks as well.  The books that will be used will be books that relate to the chapters in Horse Creek.  It can be imagined as to the form the classroom discussion will take concerning St. Augustine's comments on the early church, the forces that caused Martin Luther to rebel against the established church of his day, Pilgrim's Progress - written by John Bunyan while sitting in a medieval prison, the Salem witchcraft delusion of 1692, what made the Wesleys start the Methodist Movement in the 18th century, and a rip-roaring sermon penned by Billy Sunday a century ago - these various subjects should produce a lively classroom exchange between students and professors.  Each week one chapter of Horse Creek will be at the focal point of discussion.  Week one: Introduction; week two: Rapture Myth; week three: Four Horsemen; week four: Your Soul; week five: Second Death; week six: Other Religions; week seven: The Trinity; week eight: The Messiah; week nine: Fall of Man; week ten: Church Today; week eleven: Church Tomorrow; week twelve: Mechanics of Salvation; week thirteen: Way of the Cross.  Other books by aforementioned authors will be weaved into the subject matter of each week.  At the end of the thirteen weeks a Certificate of Completion will be issued to the graduates.  The idea is to have four sets of students graduating per year, and, within fifteen to twenty years after opening, 5000 students per quarter.  This should give people a fresh approach to the problems of the 21st century. 

A large ranch in western South Dakota shall be purchased at or near the "center of the nation" - the geographical center of the United States located north of Belle Fourche, South Dakota.  A purpose of the ranch will be to host a "training camp".  This will be a more concentrated effort than the school to teach.  In this setting, really out in the middle of nowhere, students can be more real life monks and learn something, unfettered by the niceties of society for thirteen weeks.  They can receive more of a training, attempting to ascertain what direction the church could go in the 21st century.  Faced with all sorts of problems in the world today - "iniquity abounds, the love of many waxing cold" - that is: couples living together out of wedlock, neighbors mistrusting each other - it will be a lively debate to identify trends.  Trying to make sense of it all will be a challenge.  At this campus, there will be a smaller group than at the school, but a more personal environment.  The same criteria will be taught as at the school, but with more creativity.  The same Certificate of Completion will be issued, but instead of saying Horse Creek School it will say Horse Creek School - North Campus.  Hopefully this can produce some talented leaders for the 21st century church, worldwide.  The church today is somewhat of a mess.  It's been somewhat of a mess since 1980, and it will continue to be somewhat of a mess until 2020.  With its various indiscretions, it believes it has done nothing wrong.  The church-goer, in a certain small measure, is like the clown who lived in a sewer.  Along about 2020, the church will realize that maybe it has done some things wrong.  It will begin to reinvent itself - go through a major housecleaning from top to bottom.  When it's done it will be the "glorious church", by about 2040, as foretold in scripture.  An historical parallel is the church of the Dark Ages which led to the Protestant Reformation.  When everything seemed lost, the church reinvented itself, then.

There has been an explosion in the "spiritual, but not religious" category, over the last quarter century.  "According to a 2008 Pew Forum survey, 65% of us believe that 'many religions can lead to eternal life' - including 37% of white evangelicals, the group most likely to believe that salvation is theirs alone.  Also, the number of people who seek spiritual truth outside church is growing.  Thirty percent of Americans call themselves 'spiritual, [but] not religious', according to a 2009 Newsweek poll, up from 24% in 2005 (Newsweek, August 24, 2009)."  Thirty percent of the population of the United States is approximately 90,000,000 people.  These are the people this Cross is geared for.  This group, serviced by one lone Cross, is three quarters as big as the group (40%) who attend hundreds of thousands of churches in this country.  The Cross gives the spiritual, but not religious segment of society some form of direction.  It doesn't tell them what to do.  They can figure that out for themselves.  All over the world, people have gotten away from the church.  To them, services are vain (having no real value), sermons are corny (tiresomely simple and sentimental) - church bores them.  In Russia over half the population claim to be Orthodox Christians, yet just over half of these (34% of the total population) have been in a church.  In Western Europe church attendance is less than 10% in certain areas.  A Cross doesn't solve everyone's problems, just gives them a hope of paradise when they're dead.

"'Religion is an impediment to knowing God,' says Lotz (Anne Graham Lotz, the second of Billy and Ruth Graham's five children).  'Procedures, rituals, creeds: how in the world can they help you connect with God?'...Like so many other Christians, Lotz 61, had too many bad experiences in church to believe that God dwells there - and only there.  She was kicked out of one church, she says, for insisting on the inerrancy of Scripture.  She left another more recently in a fight concerning a new pastor.  She soon came to realize that she was a 'believer in exile' (Newsweek, September 21, 2009)."  This lady is a daughter of the famous evangelist Billy Graham, whose crusades have been around for most of the second half of the 20th century.  One would think that she would be loyal to the church, given that her father worked with God only knows how many churches.  Yet here is a woman, at least for a period in her life, who was spiritual but not religious.  In a small town southwest of Forth Worth, Texas in the mid-1970s a Southern Baptist preacher drank whiskey and beat his teenage daughter, the daughter also becoming spiritual but not religious.  The preacher got away with it for years before someone finally turned him in.  One begins to understand why approximately 90,000,000 people fall in the "spiritual but not religious" category in the United States. 

Some tough things have been said about the church.  There is a difference between the church itself and the present church system.  The church itself is eternal.  "Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it (quoted from Matthew)."  The present church system is rotten.  "For whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever (quoted from Jude)."  In a certain town the local Kmart does very little business.  So little, it is finally sold to Home Depot which tears everything to the ground and builds anew.  The concept of a multi-faceted store was not being torn down, just this one store that could not work.  The "Kmart" church system should be torn down to the ground and a "Home Depot" church system built anew.  Hopefully this tearing down shall take place in the second decade of the 21st century.  Then in the third and fourth decades of this century a brand new church system can be built.  The concept of a "multi-faceted" store, the church itself, is something that will last forever.  The church's end is awesome.  According to scripture, at the Second Coming, it will be "a glorious church, without spot or wrinkle."  

The "rapture" before the "meltdown" is a fairy tale.  There are those in the church who believe they will "disappear" into the clouds before things turn bad.  The chapter "The Rapture Myth" from the book Horse Creek clarifies this.  "The order of events is given to us in Matthew 24:21-42.  First, verse 21: 'For then shall be great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.'  This of course speaks of the seals and the plagues in Revelation.  Then, in verses 29 and 30: 'Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give its light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.  And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven, and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn - and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.'  So after the seals and the plagues spoken of in Revelation, the Son of man, i.e. the God of the Cross, will come to this world for the second time.  And now, verses 37 through 41: 'But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.  For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and given in marriage until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came and took them all away - so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.  Then shall two be in the field, the one shall be taken and the other left.  Two women shall be grinding at the mill, the one shall be taken and the other left.'  Now, this concept of 'two in the field, one taken,' 'two women grinding at the mill, one taken and the other left,' is used by Pentecostal/evangelical people to show that the 'rapture' will occur.  While it is true that the rapture will occur, it will occur after 'the great tribulation', the seals and the plagues spoken of in Revelation.  Notice that after the great tribulation, the seals and the plagues spoken of in Revelation, our Lord comes back to earth.  Then, at that time, the 'rapture' takes place - 'two in the field, one taken'.  Some argue that 'eating and drinking, marrying and given in marriage' couldn't take place during the seals and plagues.  However, the 'Antichrist' sets up so people can 'buy and sell' during this period.  The coming of the Son of man, after the seals and plagues is the flood, THE END...Revelation 20:3-5 - 'And cast him (Satan) into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled, and after that he must be loosed a little season.  And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them, and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God and who had not worshipped the beast neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands, and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.  But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished.  THIS IS THE FIRST RESURRECTION.'  The first resurrection - the dead in Christ shall rise first.  If the rapture were to occur before the seals and plagues Revelation 20:5 would say, 'This is the second resurrection.'  But it doesn't."

Although this Cross reaches out to many different people - those living in the great metropolitan areas of the world, those who choose to be spiritual but not religious, those who have had a friend, relative, co-worker, or even themselves, burned by the church - notwithstanding, the group who are 20 to 40 years old could be affected most by this project.  In this country, this crowd grew up during Iraq 1 and Iraq 2.  The 20-40 age group doesn't hate the church, just avoids it.  The Nam (those who grew up during the Vietnam era) generation who raised them, really did not push "church" on them too much.  This phenomenon of the 20-40 age group avoiding the church occurs all over the world, not just in the United States.  This Cross tries to give them some assurance that it can be "paradise at death", without having to be involved in a church.  The church system is tied up in the traditional prerogatives of the Apostle Peter, to whom was given the power "to bind and loose" in heaven and on earth - in rough terms, the church's ability to open the gates of heaven to you or damn you to hell.  The individual needs to learn that the church's pretense of a stranglehold is no longer an issue. 

An article in the August 11, 2005 edition of U.S.A. Today is entitled "Religion takes a back seat in Western Europe".  The article makes the point that "attendance is sliding, attitudes toward God and church authority are changing".  If the church doesn't clean house, the consequences will be dire.  The article also notes that "the (attendance) drop is most evident in France, Sweden and the Netherlands, where church attendance is less than 10% in some areas".  An article in the January 9, 2006 edition of U.S.A. Today is entitled "Is God Dead in Europe?" and comments, "In The Prague Post, an English-language weekly newspaper...an op-ed examines why only 19% of the people in this once-religious country believe that God exists."  Eastern Europe doesn't seem to be much farther behind Western Europe.  So, a purpose of the Cross is to give Europeans some form of direction by providing them with the book Horse Creek, which deals with some life issues.  The magazine, Russian Life, has classified certain people in Russia: "58% of Russians classify themselves as Orthodox believers, while 42% of these have never been in an Orthodox Church and 31% said they go to church once a year.  Of those who called themselves 'believers', 60% had never read any of the Bible".  So, these people also need some form of direction.  The efforts to reach the Russian people could be placed on a human being's thumbnail.  Horse Creek gives these people enough Bible to sustain them.  According to the June 2005 issue of Russian Life, 41% of Russians have a home computer.  Many are taught English in school, and later the book will be in Russian.  The Middle East is supposed to be some sort of a "mission field".  But, they already have a religion that works for them - Islam.  So, it is better to leave that area alone.  Pushing Christianity on the Middle East makes about as much sense as pushing Islam on the United States. 

In the 19th century, many were the missionaries to China.  But today in the 21st century, it is hard to conceive of a few thousand missionaries reaching 1.3 billion people.  According to Falun Gong and the Internet: Evangelism, Community, and Struggle for Survival: "Throughout history, technology has often facilitated the spread of religion.  Indeed, it is frequently stated that the most important difference between John Huss and Martin Luther was the availability of the printing press.  More recently, radio and television have assisted the spread of evangelical Christianity in the United States.  It is not unreasonable to posit, therefore, that the Internet may play an important role in the growth of religious movements that embrace it."  Falun Gong is a religious sect within China that has made skillful use of the Internet for information distribution, experience sharing and survival against the pressures of the Chinese government.  If Falun Gong can effectively use the Internet to reach people in China, surely, the Internet can be used to reach people with the "message of hope".  When you have 1.3 billion people across the sea to reach, you need a 313 meter Cross to do it, when 360,000,000 people in China use the Internet.  Many are taught English in school, and later Horse Creek will be in Chinese.  In Australia, India and Africa there are 17,000,000, 57,000,000 and 67,000,000 Internet users respectively.  Mexico is a nation where churches do a two week mission trip frequently.  It is a nation that is in need spiritually.  Unfortunately unlike the Chinese, the Mexicans are not very Internet savvy.  But there are still 17,000,000 people who use the Internet, and they can read Horse Creek, as it is in Spanish.  Central and South America are basically in the same situation - visited by churches, but they need a "message of hope" twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.  Again, the problem is that not many are Internet savvy, but yet in Central America 20,000,000 people use the Internet, and in South America 55,000,000 people use the Internet.  So, if the Internet can be used to reach people across the sea, surely it can be used to reach people on the back doorstep.  Internet usage worldwide has risen from 360,000,000 December 31, 2000 to 1,734,000,000 September 30, 2009, according to Internet World Stats.  A 313 meter Cross gets their attention, the book tells them, the Africans, the Indians, the Australians, the Chinese, the Russians, the Europeans and whoever else, what it means.  A pygmy Cross, 150 meters tall, doesn't cut it.

Shanghai is located on the mainland coast of China.  According to the census, it has over 15,000,000 people, and is an economic, cultural and spiritual center for all of China.  The Shanghai World Financial Center is 492 meters (1614 feet) tall.  It is a mixed use skyscraper which consists of offices, hotels, conference rooms, observation decks and shopping malls on the ground floors.  Is it conceivable that a missionary, with a Bible tucked under his arm, could enter the building, go to a certain floor, talk to one of the elite Chinese businessmen that work there, uninvited, and ask him: "Do you know Jesus?"  Possible but not probable.  The church does not worry about reaching these people in metro areas such as Shanghai.  It's too inconceivable.  Maybe people who work and stay at the Shanghai World Financial Center could get online and check out a mirror-finish, skyscraper Cross.  The Shanghai World Financial Center has a unique appeal: the structural design called for a mega structure consisting of composite perimeter columns, one at each corner of the rectilinear base and six as the floor plan morphs into a six-sided form at high elevations.  Diagonal perimeter braces zigzag up the faces, connecting mega-columns vertically and connecting steel belt trusses horizontally.  The unique design of a mirror-finish, stainless-steel Cross could fascinate them - as well as the message.  In the 1930s, some 30,000 Jewish refugees from Europe arrived in the city, fleeing from Hitler - welcome in China.  Shanghai has seen massive development over the past fifteen years, catching up to the Western world.  It is also an important center of Christianity in China.  When the big iron Cross is done, they will not feel so isolated and alone.  Shanghai is a fast-paced port city where many of the items Americans prize, that are stamped "Made in China", are sent from.  Where are the American missionaries to deal with this 21st century boom town?  Or any other great metropolitan area in the world for that matter.

Moscow, Russia.  This is a city of almost 10,000,000 people, a Russian Orthodox town.  Approximately 50% of Russians claim to be Russian Orthodox, but only approximately 15% of Russians are actively involved in a church.  The Kremlin resides here.  Foreign missionaries are not too welcome.  A big iron Cross doesn't tell them what to do, just encourages them in their personal faith.  Russians don't like to be told what to do by the West.  Paris, France.  This city is located on the Seine River - a town of romance.  The "city of amour" is basically a Catholic town, although not too many go to the few Catholic churches in the city.  There is virtually no evangelical effort being done there.  Nobody ever stands on a street corner, say, on the Champs-Elysees and says to the thousands of sophisticated passersby: "Do you know Jesus?"  Just doesn't happen.  After the child molestation cases popping up all over Europe, people could use some encouragement that a Cross can give them.  Sao Paulo, Brazil is the fourth largest city in the world, with a population bigger than New York City.  Churches in the United States frequently make a "missions trip" to remote areas of Mexico to talk to people.  They don't venture as far south as Sao Paulo, and would most probably feel "lost" in a city of almost 18,000,000 people.  They feel it is best to leave that situation alone.  Online, these people can activate what the Cross is all about and receive some spiritual benefit.  In the United States, to belong to a church costs ten percent of an individual's income.  The Cross is free - Jesus never charged. 

There could be peace in the Middle East.  Going after the Al-Qaeda network is like cutting branches off a tree.  The Jews need a Temple.  There will be no peace, without it.  Otherwise, Israel could be afraid that if they give the Palestinians a state, they could be crushed.  Jews have been through enough oppression for almost two thousand years that they do not want to take a chance.  The Jews need the northern two-thirds of the Temple Mount, the Moslems retaining the southern third.  A wall, "The Jerusalem Wall" should be constructed to separate the Jewish and Moslem sections of the Mount.  The Temple gives them respect, in the Moslem mind.  Moslems have Mecca, Jews, presently, have nothing.  There is a problem of Israeli settlements in Palestine.  The Mexican solution:  Americans live in "gated communities" as American citizens in Mexico.  Israelis could do the same thing - live in Palestine as Israeli citizens.  Palestinian refugees living in camps need Jewish help.  A Temple could make the Jews more philanthropic.  Thousands have been "locked up", perhaps a far cry from Hitler, but there are some vague similarities.  Jews and Palestinians could work together to solve it.  Jerusalem has always been the hope of the Jew.  "Next year Jerusalem!" has been their cry for a thousand years.  Dearborn, Michigan is a town inhabited by mainly Arab Americans.  They control much of the town - under the American flag.  Jerusalem is the Jews' dream.  Arabs living in the Arab section of Jerusalem can do so - under the Israeli flag.  As far as a "right to return", Jews return to Israel and Palestinians return to Palestine.  To keep the peace, the U.S. and NATO can provide peacekeepers.  Palestinians wouldn't fire on Americans who have already dumped billions of dollars into their country.  Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad plan to have all the components of a functioning Palestinian state in place in the West Bank by the summer of 2011.  So, the idea is to exchange one Temple for one Palestinian State, one building for one sovereign nation.   

Secondly, abortion is a form of limited genocide.  But, people say abortion is "pro choice".  That is, it is a woman's "choice" to terminate her pregnancy and abort her fetus.  The question is whether the fetus is actually alive...even though it is not a human being, it could be construed as a "partial" human being.  The United States Supreme Court has said that the word "person" does not include the unborn.  It's not clear what the Supreme Court regards the unborn as - but definitely not as a person.  In Nazi Germany, Jews were regarded as "partial" human beings, and subsequently eliminated.  People in that time frame didn't have a problem with it.  And today, with killing fetuses, people really don't have a problem with it either.  The word genocide means the deliberate and systematic extermination of a cultural group, whether that cultural group is unborn children or whether that group is Jews.  Although the abortion clinics are not attempting to eliminate all unborn children, they are eliminating a limited amount of them.  If the abortion clinics are so proud of what they do, why do they not make posters of groups of aborted babies available to the public, so that people can hang them on their walls in their homes.  If the clinics aren't proud of what they do, why do they do it.  For the clinics to shut down, however, they first must come to the realization that what they do is a form of limited genocide.  Thirdly, the doctrine of the separation of spiritual values and state is unconstitutional.  The First Amendment says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."  In other words, if school district A, composed of parents, teachers, and students, chooses the "religion of atheism", that is to teach evolution, no prayer, nothing from the Bible, the church can do nothing about it.  However, if school district B, composed of parents, teachers, and students, chooses to teach creation, exercise prayer, with a moral lesson from the Bible, no civil liberties group should be able to touch it.  Fourthly, the church needs to begin to go on a crusade against porno on the Internet.  This epidemic is a virus that attacks the concept of the "home".  While porno on the Internet in small quantities is not going to hurt anyone, once an individual becomes a partial addict, then it is going to eat at the concept of the "home".

The war in Iraq was a real fiasco as far as pro and con.  Half the population of the United States was for the war and half the population was against it.  A justification is that for over twenty-five years certain areas of the Middle East, notably Iraq, would accuse America of being the "Great Satan".  While America is many things, that is one thing it is not.  At Pearl Harbor, 1941, approximately 3000 people were killed, causing the war with Japan.  To kill the soul of a nation is more serious than to kill a small percentage of its population.  While the Middle East, notably Iraq, did not kill the soul of America, it did do quite a bit of damage.  So America, alone, was justified in dealing with Iraq.  The European Union was not accused of being the "Great Satan", Russia was not accused of being the "Great Satan", it is strictly an American problem.  The Democrat's way of solving the problem - diplomacy.  The Republican's way - war.  Perhaps a better way would have been to have used stepped-up Cold War tactics on Iraq to have caused that regime to implode within two to five years.  Or Iran.  Or North Korea.  While killing the soul of a nation is serious, having the threat of nuclear annihilation is even more serious.  The larger problem is Russia.  In other words, Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction - Russia has the WMD.  It could have been wiser spending the billions of dollars nurturing democracy in Russia, than having spent it on Iraq.  So while America is involved in Iraq, Russia is rebuilding.  It's democracy, without American support, is falling through the cracks.  In December 2007, Russia sent an aircraft carrier group to the Mediterranean.  Earlier that year Russia resumed long-range flight of strategic bombers and, in January 2008, test-fired tactical missiles off the coast of France and Spain.  According to Moscow News, November 27, 2008: "Twelve Venezuelan warships will take part in a joint exercise with a Russian naval group" on December 1.  "The task force, led by the Pyotr Veliky missile cruiser, is on a planned visit that follows a two-month tour of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, which saw Russian ships visiting Libya, Turkey and France.  The group includes the Udaloy class destroyer Admiral Chabanerko and two support vessels with a total of about 1,600 naval infantrymen onboard."  Russia is again beginning to flex its military muscles.  The Clinton and Bush administrations (1992-2008) did little to nurture democracy in Russia.  A challenge for the Obama administration will be to finally nurture democracy in that country.  

We are living in an era, 1996-2036, that has been described by the 9/11 Commission: "[America should] offer an example of moral leadership in the world, [be] committed to treat people humanely, abide by the rule of law, and be generous and caring to our neighbors."  Constantine, when he attacked Rome back in the 4th century, had a vision of a shining Cross in the sky and heard these words, "IN THIS, OVERCOME".  In 313 A.D. he signed the Edict of Milan, ending the oppression of the church by the tyranny of Rome.  This desire to liberate has been described by President Bush in the January 20, 2005 Inaugural Address: "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands.  The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.  So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.  America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling.  Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom, and make their own way.  We do not accept the existence of permanent tyranny because we do not accept the possibility of permanent slavery.  When you stand for your liberty we will stand with you.  We go forward with complete confidence in the eventual triumph of freedom.  Not because history runs on the wheels of inevitability, it is human choices that move events.  Not because we consider ourselves a chosen nation - God moves and chooses as He wills."  Americans continue to do what they have learned to do since 9/11 - live with uncertainty without succumbing to fear. 

There are three great periods of American history: 1886-1926 when America rose, 1941-1981 when America stood, and 1996-2036 when America moves.  This is the last great period of American history.  In the first period, the rich immigrant blood flowed into America.  The second period was characterized by World War II, the Cold War, the explosive growth of the country, etc.  The third period is when America encourages democracy all over the world, as an example.  It has its troops stationed in 150 countries and its fleets scattered on the seven seas.  This period, 1996-2036, thus far has been an era when America goes "on assignment" against human rights violations, that is the horrifying spectacle of wholesale slaughter and ethnic cleansing in different parts of the world, perpetuated by such actors as Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein.  As with Milosevic, over 7000 Muslims dead in the Srebrenica massacre.  Saddam's methods included electric shock treatments, amputating body parts with chainsaws, breaking of bones, ripping out of fingernails, gouging of eyes, and the use of acid baths.  Or Afghanistan, where a woman could be stoned for showing an ankle.  And the "War on Terror", led by bin Laden who, for example, in January 2006 stated that he was actively planning another terrorist attack against America, but was willing to call a truce if American troops leave Iraq and Afghanistan.  But for al-Qaeda to chant "death to America" is to chant "death to the American Cross".  To the chant of "death to the Cross", the proper response is "God will rock your world".  As President Obama said in the January 20, 2009 Inaugural Address:  "For those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken.  You cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you."  This task is not to be confused with the Crusades of the Dark Ages.  Back then, as an example, when the Crusaders were "liberating" a Spanish city, a sergeant asked a captain, "How will I know the 'faithful' from the 'infidel'?"  The captain replied, "Slay them all, God will know his own."  President Bush said in the State of the Union, January 31, 2006:  "Our nation is committed to a historic, long-term goal - we seek the end of tyranny in our world."  This is a little different than the Crusades of medieval Europe where the Church of the Dark Ages confused and demoralized in order to dominate.  This is a crusade against human rights violations that should last until the year 2036.

The American Cross can be regarded as a "military" Cross.  That is, the Cross is as a tribute to the dead in America's wars, going all the way back to the Revolution of 1776.  Arlington West, located in Santa Barbara, California, has over 3000 wooden crosses placed in the sand on the beach every Sunday.  This honors American soldiers who died in Iraq.  This helps to provide meaning and purpose for those who lost loved ones in the conflict.  Whether people are for or against the war, the memorial touches them.  The Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in Colleville-sur-Mer, France honors American soldiers who died in Europe during World War II for the cause of freedom.  It has over 9000 white marble crosses as markers.  On August 24, 2008 a "9/11 Cross" was erected at Shanksville, Pennsylvania where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed, to honor the over 3000 dead on September 11, 2001.  Hundreds of motorcyclists, many of them current or retired New York firefighters, made a trip from Brooklyn to be there for the dedication.  It is a "War on Terror" memorial cross fashioned out of steel from the World Trade Center North Tower, 4.3 meters (14 feet) high, with a concrete base shaped like the Pentagon.  It symbolizes the 21st century struggle of civilization vs. chaos.  Perhaps the United States uses crosses because many Americans believe these people are in a better place. 

But perhaps even more important, it is a "military" Cross because the Second Coming is, if you would, a military operation.  What precedes the Second Coming is heaven's concept of "shock and awe".  This is from the Book of Revelation. "The first angel sounded, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood which was dumped on the earth - one third of the trees and the green grass burnt."  This may refer to antimatter warfare.  In the book, Horse Creek, the chapter "The Fall of Man" states, "Antimatter is the exact counterpart of matter which has a charge and a spin that is the opposite of all matter.  When combined with any matter in our universe, antimatter reacts and completely converts to energy.  This is called a total annihilation reaction, the 100 percent conversion of matter to energy.  The bombs the United States detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki were called fission bombs.  The immediate area of destruction of such a bomb was 3 to 4 miles.  In this case only one percent of the nuclear material in this bomb actually reacts.  Since that time, a man named Dr. Edward Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb, discovered that a fusion bomb was possible which would create a greater reaction using the same amount of nuclear material.  If such a bomb were dropped today on the same target, the immediate area of destruction would be approximately twenty miles.  This would be caused by a nuclear fusion reaction, in which again, less than one percent of the nuclear material actually converts to energy or explodes.  The other ninety-nine percent of the nuclear matter in this type of bomb is dispersed, but is not involved in the actual nuclear fusion reaction.  So if a bomb was made with the same amount of nuclear material as one of the bombs dropped on Japan, and that nuclear material was antimatter (or the total 100% conversion of matter to energy), when that bomb exploded in, say Baghdad for instance, the area of total devastation would include parts of Africa, Europe, and Asia, with the exact area of total devastation being very difficult to calculate (www.boblazar.com)."  What this dry dissertation means is that the first angel's "sounding" can be fulfilled to the letter with, say, twenty antimatter bombs.  "And the second angel sounded, and a mountain burning with fire was dropped into the sea - one third of the sea became blood red (this most probably refers to some sort of high-tech weaponry).  And the third angel sounded, and a star, burning like a torch, fell from the sky onto a part of the rivers (an asteroid striking the earth)...And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it, and shall desire to die and death shall flee from them."  Revelation seems very poetic, but there is nothing very poetic about antimatter warfare, or an asteroid smashing into the earth.  The Apostle John, living in his Roman world, may have thought it was funny (because he thought it wasn't going to happen to him), but his sense of humor is misplaced.  Some people in the church think Revelation is a fairy tale.  They believe, as did the Apostle John, that it is not going to happen to them, so they are not going to worry about it. 

Things are different in the world, now.  Times have changed.  Different times call for different solutions.  This twenty-nine page synopsis has been a laundry list of reasons as to the "why" of building a 313 meter mirror-finish, stainless-steel Cross out in the middle of nowhere in southwestern Kansas.  It is called "American Cross", as a seventh reason, so that Americans can reprioritize.  Today in most American lives, materialism is first, and spirituality is second.  If a big iron Cross can help switch this so that spirituality is first and materialism is second, then the name "American" Cross is not vain.  Columbus, when he came to the New World in 1492, planted large (7 meter/20 foot) wooden crosses on many of the islands he discovered.  At the first landing of the original Jamestown expedition (April 26, 1607), Captain Christopher Newport took it upon himself to erect the colony's first structure - a large cross at Cape Henry to mark their arrival.  The first Spanish and British expeditions to the New World chose to build the cross.  A Texas newscaster said the Cross is a "heavenly skyscraper".  A lady in Amarillo, Texas: "I can't wait to see it built, take my daughters and go see it myself."  A girl in Amarillo, comparing to the big iron Cross to the Gateway Arch: "I think that's a better purpose than an Arch, a Cross is better than an Arch."  A retired Amarillo doctor: "Be interesting to see that."  Doing things differently leads to something extraordinary.  Dubai, United Arab Emirates has completed a 828 meter (2717 foot - according to the World Records Academy), $1,500,000,000 super-skyscraper called the Burj Dubai.  The amount of funds needed for this project is $250,000,000.  The American Cross is cost efficient in comparison to the Burj Dubai, as it is designed to help people get into the next life (post death) safely.  As the scripture states: "Though an individual is dead, yet shall that person live (quoted from John)."  People spend a lot of time and money to make this life pleasant for themselves and those whom they love.  How about making a little effort to prepare for the next one?  The organization is raising $1,500,000 through contributions to do preliminary design work on the Cross structure, translation of the American Cross web page into a dozen languages, and beginning the concept of the reconstruction of the Jewish Temple through extensive contact with Palestinians and Israelis.  The rest will come through creative financing. 

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Our e-mail address is acf@americancross.org if you have more questions.   

American Cross Foundation
Jacob O. Berry, President
PO Box 9492
Amarillo, Texas 79105

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