Irony Is A Bitch: Christian Festivities and the Amusement Park Business

Just over a week ago at a Christian Festival called Lifest in OshKosh, Wisconsin, a girl fell to her death from a freefall swing ride dubbed "Air Glory." (Read the OshKosh Northwestern report) It is certainly a tragic death, but it does beg the question, what place does a freefall swing ride have at a Christian festival? The answer is that such a ride only serves to tempt an ironic fate. It is a curious challenge to the very faith the festival is meant to celebrate.

Let's just consider the name of the ride, "Air Glory." The term "Glory" seems to indicate a certain divination that can be achieved from the ride, a ride in which two people are attached by harnesses to a string 100 feet in the air and then dropped into a freefall. If only God can provide true glory, then how is such a ride anything but a tempt of fate.

The fact is amusement rides have no religious value, and marketing them as if they do is basically an affront to God because the secular life (of which amusement park rides are certainly a part) cannot, according to doctrine, provide glory or salvation.

Does that make Lifest, or simply the ride, an affront to God? I don't know, but if God has a plan for us all and does not take people in vain, we must then certainly consider the message of such a death in such a place. Suspending activities at Lifest only to resume music and activities only two-and-half-hours later does not seem like a valid consideration of those thoughts.

In any case, irony is a bitch that should not be tempted.