Saturday, September 13, 1997

Man on a mission to build a Scripture-based theme park

By Mark Price

Knight-Ridder Newspapers

The brains behind America's first Scripture-based theme park could pass for Santa Claus, except Santa never knew as much as this guy about making a good martini.

Howard Knight Jr. has owned several bars in his day, when he wasn't hawking for a circus, producing country records or serving as agent for a traveling magic show.

But that was before he began a divine mission on 2,022 acres outside Gaffney, S.C., about 50 miles south of Charlotte. It is there, at an abandoned Duke Power nuclear plant, that Knight says he'll make a vision from God reality by Christmas 1999: God's Wonderful World, a theme park based on highlights from the Bible.

"On May 18 of last year, I threw up my hands, signed over my stock and said: I'm going to South Carolina to build a theme park," Knight says. "I realized God was not going to leave me alone until I did."

Knight was a partner in a Lexington, Ky., hotel lounge at the time. Now he's unemployed and trying to raise $500 million the hard way, by selling his park idea one brick at a time.

Donate $100 and you get a brick in the park with your name on it, along with an honorary deed to one square foot of the land.

Five million bricks would have to be sold, but Knight sees a big payoff in giving the world a chance to see the Garden of Eden, the parting of the Red Sea and Christ raising the dead, among other things.

No banks are being approached, Knight says, because God insisted the park open debt-free.

"I've spent all my life in the entertainment business and because of that, I know this can be done. God has had me training for this," says Knight.

"I've seen this built in my vision. It was like someone opened up the top of my head and dumped in a computer program. It was incredible."

The word incredible might also be applied to the idea of raising $500 million through donations.

Tim O'Brien of Amusement Business magazine gets several calls a month from people with similar ambitions, and he has a pat response: call back when you're halfway through your fund raising.

Few are heard from again.

"Whether he can sell 4 million bricks, I don't know," says O'Brien. "The whole concept of a Christian theme park is based on the followings of the Bible, and that is a very strong Bible area there. ... If he finds the right audience, it is feasible.

"I think the real question to ask here is: Are they going to bring in enough people? I think raising the money is the easy part. The hard part is getting enough through the gate every year to support the park."

The first sign of trouble for Knight could come Nov. 5, when $7 million is due for the land. Fall is also when he plans to open an information center and a gospel music theater on the site.

Knight wasn't sure how close he is to raising the down payment, but donations have come in quicker since June, when the Southern Baptist Convention announced its boycott of the Walt Disney Co.

God's Wonderful World couldn't have been more perfectly timed.

Jack Ragsdale and his wife Shirley of Greeneville, Tenn., were among the first to send money.

"Millions of people want to go to the Holy Land but can't afford it. God's Wonderful World will be like bringing the Holy Land here," says Jack Ragsdale, who is helping to recruit donors. "I feel like this will be a soul-saving station."

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Not to mention a nice complement to Carolina Factory Shops, a mall with 60 outlet stores that ranks as Cherokee County's biggest tourist draw. Gaffney logged 1 million visitors to the shops over a recent six-month period.

"I think it's a great combination," says Jim Inman, executive director of the Cherokee County Chamber of Commerce. "We have two national parks, too, so we'll have historical, religious and shopping all together."

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The Genesis-to-Revelation theme park would feature robotic figures, 3-D movies and other technological exhibits.

Some areas will be interactive: children pretending to be David can use a slingshot to knock down Goliath as the Old Testament story plays in the background.

Knight says every detail remains exactly as God dictated it to him in 1991. It was as if a bolt of lightning struck, while he stood on a mountaintop in Pigeon Forge, Tenn. "Then I went back to a hotel room and spent days writing it all down," he says.

Knight also wants to build a hotel and convention center; RV park and campground; miniature golf; movie theater; water park; 18-hole championship golf course; and recreation area with ball fields and basketball courts.

The concept isn't new. In the 1970s, there were plans for parks with biblical themes in California, Ohio, Tennessee and Florida, but none became a reality, says O'Brien, of Amusement Business.

The only one actually built was Jim Bakker's Heritage USA in Fort Mill, S.C. Unlike Knight's plan, it boasted a Christian theme rather than Bible-based amusements. The park shut down in 1989 and is now a family resort based around a Radisson hotel.

Still, God's Wonderful World would have competition.

A group of Hollywood investors announced Aug. 8 that it was looking for 3,000 acres in Nevada to build a $1.6 billion park with biblical themes, called Holy Land.

Like God's Wonderful World, it would feature virtual-reality attractions that would put spectators into scenes from each of the 66 books of the Bible. Visitors would enter the New Testament portion of the holy book by way of a 33-story statue of Jesus.

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Knight's vision is a park that won't play favorites among Christian religions. He is a Southern Baptist, but he hasn't attended church much lately, while stumping for God's Wonderful World.

More than a few people have wondered if he went crazy, Knight says.

Not just because he claims God wants a theme park, but because the messenger is a former bar owner and one-time registered lobbyist in the fight for more equity in South Carolina's liquor laws.

Now, he says he's committed for life to God's Wonderful World. That explains why he hasn't given much thought to what might happen if he doesn't raise enough money. A sketchy contingency plan is to use the money he did get to build a Christian memorial with all those $100 bricks.

"A lot of people go through their whole life and never find out why they were created," says Knight. "Right now, this is my life. This is what I was born to do."

(c) 1997, The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.).

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