Retracing (Sort of) Jesus’ Footsteps

If Jesus ever visits Costa Mesa, he might notice a few discrepancies between the narrow Jerusalem street that led to his crucifixion and the replica open to the public at Trinity Broadcasting Network’s international headquarters.

The original didn’t have electrical sockets in the walls or fire sprinklers in the “sky.” Nor was there a virtual reality movie theater outside Christ’s empty tomb. But aside from these minor concessions to the 20th century, TBN claims it has created a reasonably faithful copy of the Via Dolorosa, or Way of the Cross.

“The only thing we don’t have are dirt floors and beggars,” a guide says.

The ersatz Via Dolorosa is a stone’s throw from another famous pilgrimage site--South Coast Plaza--in a building that is lit up at night by thousands of tiny white lights strung across every tree and shrub. Beyond the smoked-glass doors of the lobby--past a swooping marble staircase, two mirrored vestibules and a gift shop that sells Holy Land Anointing Oil--lies the 1990s version of Jesus’ fateful path. Visitors begin the free journey in a darkened anteroom.

A movie screen descends and TBN evangelist Paul Crouch’s white-haired image appears. “If you feel the room begin to shake a little, don’t be alarmed,” he says, referring to simulated earthquakes from the nearby virtual reality theater. After a brief history of TBN and Southern California’s early Christian pioneers, Crouch invites visitors to “step back 2,000 years to a little street in Jerusalem, the Via Dolorosa.”

The screen rises and the curtain opens onto a winding hallway designed to resemble an ancient Middle Eastern street, complete with taped Hebrew voices chattering from hidden speakers. Some visitors knock on the sandstone-colored walls or caress the metal fixtures on doors and windows as they navigate the dimly lighted path.

One woman gushes, “I feel like a little kid going to Disneyland.”

The short stroll ends at a small diorama of Calvary that features lightning bolts flashing along the wall. It then spills into a chamber that is supposed to be Christ’s empty tomb, our guide says. In the theater, however, high-definition videos about Jesus and the apostle Paul play in bone-rattling, 48-channel surround-sound.

“If you’re wearing a hearing aid,” warns the guide, “you may wish to turn it off.”

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Trinity Broadcasting Network, (714) 708-4805