In many ways, the distinction between Evangelical entertainment and secular entertainment appears arbitrary. Silver Dollar City and Six Flags both feature rides, games, and shows targeted toward families. Why then, is Silver Dollar City considered to be a place of Christian entertainment, while Six Flags is denounced (or at least not praised) for being secular? Why are the feats of the Power Team more valid as a form of Evangelical entertainment than what happens on the professional wrestling circuit? The easy answer to these questions is the fact that Silver Dollar City and the Power Team are marketed by Christians to other Christians, but what’s more telling is the way that this marketing is framed. Evangelicals are able to distinguish between religious and secular entertainment because religious entertainers deliberately market themselves as an alternative to the secular establishment and secular values.
The Power Team is fairly transparent about its role as religious foil to secular entertainment. The Power Team television program was broadcast on Saturday mornings to directly compete with secular children’s programming. The image of the power team is very reminiscent of secular programs featuring strongmen, particularly professional wresters and American Gladiators. In, The Power Team: Muscular Christianity and the Spectacle of Conversion, Sharon Mazer quotes team member John Jacobs as saying, “What attracts people to our shows is the same thing that attracts thousands of people to Wrestlemania… It’s a good way to get their attention.” (Mazer 7). Once an audience is attracted, the Power Team establishes their religious bonafides by explicitly putting themselves in contrast to secular entertainers. Mazer quotes team leader John Jacobs as saying, “And I tell you, Mr. Prince, there isn’t going to be any Purple Rain. There’s going to be a reign of power from Heaven.” Unlike their secular counterparts, the Power Team uses spectacle as a spiritual metaphor. A man breaking a pair of handcuffs takes on more significance when it is seen as a man symbolically breaking the chains of sin. All of the Power Team’s feats are positioned as expressions of the working of the Holy Spirit. By ascribing spiritual meaning to their actions, and distinguishing themselves from secular entertainers, the Power Team is able to establish a form of entertainment that is properly religious.
The marketing of Silver Dollar City is slightly less transparent. While Christians run the park at least partly for the purpose of proselytization, it is not as open about its spiritual mission as the Power Team. Instead, Silver Dollar City relies on the promotion of Evangelical values to foster a culture of religiosity. Silver Dollar City promotional literature draws upon a romanticized vision of the historical Ozarks and the family values that settlers of the era ostensibly adhered to. There are appeals to the transcendent power of nature, which carry the implicit understanding that this power comes from the creator. The annual old-fashioned Christmas is another appeal to an idealized vision of the past, one safe from the nefarious influences of secularization and the War on Christmas. In the words of Mary Herschend, “My job is to keep the modern from creeping in.” (Ketchell 70). The proprietors of Silver Dollar City insist that their park is a theme park, as opposed to an amusement park, because the term amusement park is associated with base places like Coney Island. This distinction between a sacred place, like Silver Dollar City, and a secular place, like Six Flags, is picked up on by the park patrons. In an online post, a Silver Dollar City patron recounts a story about how she recovered a lost wallet from the park and concluded it by saying, “I would like to add that there was nothing missing, not even a dollar, do you think that would happen anywhere else?... I went to Six Flags St. Louis recently and was really grossed out by the conditions of the park.” (Ketchell 85). She goes on to lament the presence of half-naked and half-drunk women cavorting around the Six Flags. While it’s never made explicit, the binary worldview espoused by Silver Dollar City is clear, there are good, clean places, like Silver Dollar City, and base, dirty places like Six Flags – and the reason the two are different is because one has religion and the other doesn’t.
The Power Team and Silver Dollar City both show how Evangelicals distinguish between religious entertainment and secular entertainment. For something to be religious entertainment it need not be overtly religious, instead, it must merely set itself apart from the secular.
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