Cross-Roads

Writing in the Chicago Tribune, David McGrath says he doesn't like the giant cross in Effingham.

The idea of heading south on Interstate Highway 57 evokes a comfortable monotony for millions of Midwestern motorists: hours of flat farmland rolling by at 65 m.p.h.

But there's a different kind of feeling as you approach the Effingham interchange, about 225 miles south of Chicago, when you first catch sight of the 198-foot white cross that scrapes the sky. You get a chill. It's a reaction to power, or what might also be called intimidation.

Having been raised a Catholic, I don't usually find crosses scary. Their historic use for execution notwithstanding, crosses have connoted hope, compassion and the triumph of good over evil, or over vampires, at the least. You see lots of them poking unobtrusively above the neighborhoods as you drive the Dan Ryan and Kennedy Expressways and the feeling you get is a positive mix of reassurance and community.

But the steel "Cross of the Crossroads" punctuating the junction of I-57 and Interstate Highway 70 in the center of Illinois, does not induce the same warm feelings. Rather than beckoning from the distance, it towers as close to the highway as the Illinois Department of Transportation would permit, hovering over passing motorists, its white sheet-metal panels reflecting the glare of sun in order to command attention, to shout and to bully with its message of Christian morals.

Its intent is starkly different from what used to be called debate in this country, when individuals and groups would profess and explain their views and beliefs. They'd show their earnestness by clinging to those beliefs and attempt to persuade through example.

He goes on to berate absolutists of all stripes (he really isn't picking on just in-your-face Christian tactics).

I've always thought the Effingham Cross is a bit tacky at worst. I, personally, don't see it as an imposing act of prosetylization, though that may be it's purpose.

Besides, the Effingham Cross isn't unique in the state. The Bald Knob Cross has been a Southern Illinois landmark since 1963. So maybe the Effingham Cross isn't the best example for McGrath on which to have hung his argument.