THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 14, 1996 TAG: 9610120059
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DIANE TENNANT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 138 lines
PASTOR MATTIE JENKINS believes.
So does Chris Smith.
So do all the members of the Tabernacle Church of God in Christ in Norfolk.
They believe that the crosses of light which appear in their church windows are miracles, divine signs that Christ is coming again.
Skeptics say it's just a bending of light in the frosted glass windows, but no one can deny that the crosses are there. White, gold, purple, red, there are crosses of light that shine in the windows of Tabernacle Church.
``The crosses are real. They're there. It's the glory of the Lord,'' Jenkins said. ``I had my doubts about this cross. I really had my doubts. At first, I thought it was the lights. I said, `Wait a minute, I know there's no lights during the daytime.' I said, `Lord, I'm sorry, I will have no more doubts.' ''
Around the world, more and more crosses of light are being reported. Scholars say the increase coincides with the end of the millenium, and is predictable. The devout simply believe.
``It's so beautiful,'' Smith said. ``Once you see it, you're not going to believe it. The different colors and how they change. Oh, it's so beautiful!''
Tabernacle Church of God in Christ is a tiny brick building, crammed between two houses on Tidewater Drive. It is a Pentecostal church, and its Wednesday night services feature pounding, hypnotic music that plays for hours, enticing the members to dance wildly until some collapse in the aisles. But the crosses are not mass hallucination. They are there for anyone to see.
They look like holograms, suspended in the air a few feet outside the church. There are definite formations, sometimes one, sometimes three, in their many colors.
Looking in from outside, they are white, and appear to hang randomly suspended throughout the church.
At night, the neighbor on the right side of the church turns on a porch light. But Jenkins says the crosses also appear during the day.
``You know it's not man-made,'' she said.
On the side of the church where the red cross appears and disappears, there is a house. On the far side of that house is a street and a stop sign where cars must brake, flashing red taillights. The church members do not believe that is what causes the red cross to appear, to change to white and green and then streak away.
But other cross manifestations around the world are readily acknowledged to appear only with an outside light source. It is the shape the light takes that is miraculous, believers say, not the source.
Buddy Piper of California has traveled the world looking at crosses of light for Share International, a New Age publication. Most have appeared in the windows of homes. He has only heard of two churches with crosses of light, and one of them is Tabernacle in Norfolk.
``They are appearing around the world,'' Piper said. ``I have seen scores and scores of cross manifestations in the United States. They generally come in depressed areas of cities and they generally come in bathroom windows.
``The most dramatic occurrence of this is in a little church in Knoxville, Tenn.,'' he continued. ``The sun coming up was creating these incredible formations of crosses in all of the windows.''
Those crosses appeared last November, he said. The Tabernacle crosses appeared around the same time.
Skeptics point out that frosted glass is often used in bathroom windows, and that the Knoxville crosses appeared after a new street light was installed. But nearly 50,000 visitors have trekked to Copper Ridge Baptist Church to see the crosses, and many report healing and visions of angels as well.
``People see what they want to see,'' said Dr. Stjepan Mestrovic, a professor of sociology at Texas A&M University. ``Whether it's real or not real, trying to explain it scientifically, I think, is irrelevant. You have a group of people who are bound together by a belief and faith.''
Mestrovic has studied reported sightings of the Virgin Mary and other religious manifestations around the world for his book, ``The Coming `Fin de Siecle' '' (End of the Century). Such sightings increase as centuries close, he said.
``I think it's a double whammy this time, because it's also the end of the millennium,'' he said. ``All this follows very predictable patterns. It's a collective belief.''
He predicted that non-members of the church would be unable to see the crosses. He was wrong.
The crosses have four arms of equal length, and a haze that extends from tip to tip.
``Scientists look at this and say it's just the windows,'' Piper said. ``Tell me where they're manufacturing windows like this that manifest these beautiful crosses. No matter what they say, they can't prove what they say. All we can say is there they are.''
The first person to see the Tabernacle crosses was Brenda Riddick.
``They just appeared there,'' she said. ``I looked out the window and I saw them. It was so bright and beautiful.''
Riddick helped with Wednesday's praise service, dancing at times with a cordless microphone in her hand. Smith stood at the front, clapping her hands and calling, ``Hallelujah! Praise Jesus! Praise him! Thank you, Jesus!''
Periodically, she would point to the front window, left. The red cross had appeared, then vanished.
``If people are inside the church praising and you go on the outside and look through the frosted windows, you can't see the people but you can see huge crosses, all through the church,'' Smith said. She was right.
Smith points to Exodus 40:39 for those who don't believe in the lights: ``For the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, before the eyes of all the house of Israel at each stage of their journey.''
Piper said that the crosses and other signs are promises that the world will continue, that the Messiah all religions have been looking for is on Earth and will soon reveal himself. The Knoxville Baptist church had trouble accepting them as signs, he said.
``This is a fundamentalist church that thinks the world is coming to an end,'' Piper said. ``They're inclined to poo-poo it, but there it is.''
He finds people's reluctance to accept divine signs to be contradictory.
``There is no religion today that's ever seen the person they're talking about,'' he said.
For example, he said, Christians profess belief in a spirit whom no currently living person has ever seen, but they reject the idea that this spirit manifests himself.
Jenkins believes.
``He didn't just show wonders and signs 2,000 years ago,'' she said. ``It's a miracle church. His glory is upon this church.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]
PHOTOS BY VICKI CRONIS
The Virginian-Pilot
Starr Smith and Charlene Jenkins, daughter of Pastor Mattie Jenkins,
look out one of the church windows at the lights that form a cross.
LaVerne Warren rests in the aisle after praising God with dance - to
pounding music that plays for hours - at the Tabernacle Church of
God in Christ on Tidewater Drive.
Yvonne Nixon worships at an evening service at the Pentecostal
church. Members say crosses can be seen at night as well as during
the day.
VICKI CRONIS
The Virginian-Pilot
The light crosses at the Tabernacle Church of God in Christ in
Norfolk are also visible from the outside looking in. by CNB