Cruciform dildo-swords decorate church lawn in Tennessee

Those are not crosses on the lawn of Grace Baptist Church in Murfreesboro, Tenn.

The man in this photo, Mack Richards, explained that to reporter Scott Broden of The Tennessean.

Richards, photographed here by the newspaper’s John A. Gillis, explained that these giant cruciform objects on his church’s lawn are actually anti-crosses.

“It was more or less to make a statement to the Muslims about how we felt about our religion, our Christianity,” said Mack Richards, a Middle Tennessee Baptist Church member who built the crosses at the request of Grace Baptist member and friend Bobby Francis. “We wanted them to see the crosses and know how we felt about things.”

Richards’ erections there on the lawn are thus symbols of hostility — assertions of power over and power against the neighbors of the church.

That’s the opposite of a cross, just as surely as power is always the opposite of love. A vampire could stroll the lawn at Grace Baptist and hug each of Richards’ cross-shaped creations without fear.

Those are not crosses. Those are swords.

Or phalluses. Or gun barrels, or missiles, or Roman spears, or whatever objects of that sort you prefer as symbolic assertions of aggressive, hostile, brute power. The horns of the beast from John’s Apocalypse, perhaps, if you want an apt biblical description.

I just think of them as giant dildo-swords, since they were placed there both as threatening weapons and as naked symbols of the alleged potency of the Baptists of Bradyville Pike.

Contemplating the sight of these 13 giant anti-crosses on the lawn of an allegedly Christian church one has to ask: Doesn’t anyone in Murfreesboro understand the meaning of the cross?

Well, Broden was able to find one citizen there who did.

If you’re ever stuck in Murfreesboro, Tenn., and you want to understand what Jesus was all about, look for the church with the 13 giant cruciform dildo-swords on its lawn. But don’t go there, obviously.

Go next door, to the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, and talk to Saleh Sbenaty:

“We love our neighbors, all of them, including the church next door,” said Sbenaty. “As Muslims, we believe in Jesus, as well. Jesus said love thy neighbors. They are our neighbors, and we must love them.”