Everybody's a critic

Pity: during my one cross-country trip I missed I-75 and therefore "touchdown Jesus," who really belonged at Notre Dame. And here we have an affront to the power of faith over the laws of nature: Touchdown Jesus has been torched by a lightning strike.

Centuries before "the American religion" tried to corner the market on religiosity, observing Christians were troubled by the frequency with which lightning singled out church steeples and roasted houses of worship, with or without worshippers. Had to be a punishment from god, of course. Even after Franklin's experiments with electricity, and his promotion of lightning rods, the faithful who stuck to faith instead of physics saw that it was their steeples that got fried. The churches of their impious, but more practical, neighbours who installed lightning rods remained standing.

And yet touchdown Jesus apparently had no lightning rod, nor was the steel frame apparently grounded in any other way. Apart from blind faith, the name of the church—the Solid Rock Church—offers a hint. They were solid rock from the neck up.

Of course, maybe it wasn't the christian god who took exception to the statue. Maybe it was Thor.