wfn.org | Britain's Millennium Dome

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CONTACT: 	Linda Bloom
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		New York (212) 870-3803		            March 17,
1998

Britain's millennium dome
to include religious component

by Kathleen LaCamera*

GREENWICH, England (UMNS) -- When Britain opens its massive millennium
dome, religion will play a part.
 The Greenwich Dome here will be the world's largest structure of its
kind, twice the size of the Georgia Dome in Atlanta and representing a
cost of more than $1.2 billion.  
The contributions of religion -- especially Christianity -- will be part
of the major exhibit, called The New Millennium Experience. The exhibit
will be housed inside the 80,000-square-meter space throughout the year
2000.
Officials say the dome is meant to embody the spirit of Britain as a
forward-looking nation with a long and important past.
But some, including religious leaders, have expressed mixed feelings
about this huge undertaking, citing education, health and Third World
debt as more worthy recipients of such a substantial investment of
funds. About half of the dome's funding will come from the United
Kingdom's national lottery.    
The Rev. Brian Hoare is the British Methodist representative to the
Churches Together in England Millennium advisory group.
"I wouldn't have started with the dome," Hoare said. "But the plain fact
is that the money would not have been spent on the world's poor, so
let's make the Christian contribution to the dome as effective as we
can."   
The Millennium Experience exhibit will be divided into nine major zones
covering body, mind and spirit. While admitting plans are still vague,
Hoare added that the "Spirit Level" will be a "a major place of
reflection on Christian faith as well as other religions."  
	Under discussion are possible plans for construction of a
monastic garden and a great pyramid as well as a center where visitors
can use interactive computer technology to learn about the life,
ministry and teachings of Jesus.  
Initial plans for the dome contained no explicitly religious component,
a situation that Hoare and others are delighted has changed.  
"We recognize that the year 2000 is a Christian anniversary," he
explained, "and the dome must reflect Christian faith in some central
way, as long as it's not triumphalist and done sensitively in a way that
doesn't attack other faiths."
More than 12 million visitors from all over the world are expected to
visit the dome, which will accommodate up to 35,000 at any one time.
 	Visitors will pay as much as $35 daily, a fee that some
observers -- especially from outside the London area -- believe is too
high.  
Phil and Judy Bland and their two teen-agers, Claire and Steve, live in
Knutsford, near Manchester and more than 200 miles from London. They
said they probably will visit the dome but that travel and possible
overnight accommodation costs put such a trip out of the range of many
families, even in their own local Methodist church.  
Judy Bland said she would have preferred to see special millennium
projects in all the capitals of the United Kingdom -- Edinburgh,
Cardiff, Belfast and London.
Phil Bland isn't sure a plastic dome is the right choice for marking the
millennium.
"I think it says something more about the transient nature of our
country than (about) the millennium," he added.
     In the initial stages of the dome's development, government
minister and dome official Peter Mandelson looked to the Disney Corp.
for advice, a move that raised eyebrows in Britain. The Rev. John
Kennedy, Methodist secretary of political affairs, fears the dome could
become an example of the "worst kind of official state culture."  
"It will be pretentious and unimaginative -- give us Disneyland
anytime," he declared. 
Hoare pointed out that the dome would not be the sum total of what
churches will have to say about the millennium.  
"We want to do things in our own locality that communicate faith and the
mission of the Church," he explained. "The main thing in marking the
millennium is to forge a link in people's minds between the name of
Jesus Christ and the possibility of public hope."     
The dome, to be built on 300 acres of reclaimed wasteland, will open on
Dec. 31, 1999. The site will be "car-free," and subway trains and
riverboat service will transport visitors from London.
				# # #
*LaCamera is a UMNS correspondent based in England.

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