Pastor defends 150-foot cross that cost $200,000 to build as ‘message of hope’

BROOKHAVEN, Miss. (WLBT/Gray News) - The newly constructed Haven Cross stands in Brookhaven, Mississippi. At 150 feet, it is the state’s tallest, but it has not come without controversy.

The cross towers over Easthaven Baptist Church, where Dr. Hal Kitchings started as senior pastor last year. After being at the church for only a few months, he says he decided to share what he called a “tentative vision” - a big cross.

“You know, our world today has a lot of challenges,” he told WLBT. “Everybody is going through something. You’re either going into a storm or coming out.”

Hutchings had seen other large crosses, either along a highway or on a church’s property, and liked the idea of constructing one, too. He wanted it to be a symbol of hope.

Once his congregation agreed to the idea, things happened “pretty rapidly.” The cross garnered financial backing, and the community got behind the idea, as well.

In under a year, the cross was up. It stands 150 feet tall, weighs 52,000 pounds and shines a bright white in the sunlight. A dedication service was held for it on Good Friday.

However, the cross has not come without its controversy, and Kitchings is aware of that.

“We’re excited about it,” he said. “I know that in the Bible, we shouldn’t be surprised that people push back because in 1 Corinthians 1:18, it says, for example, ‘The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved, it is the power of God.’”

The controversy can best be summarized by this Facebook post about the Haven Cross and Easthaven Baptist Church, more specifically:

“The money spent erecting their gigantic cross (largest in Mississippi) might have been better spent on meeting the needs of people like JESUS said in the book of Matthew.”

“Those things are just a monument to themselves,” another Facebook user commented. “‘We have the largest in Mississippi.’ So what? It does nothing good whatsoever.”

Perhaps there has been amplified scrutiny directed at the Haven Cross due to its being the tallest in the state, yet Kitchings said they did not set out to hold that record.

“There [are some crosses] in other states, or at least one in another state, that is taller than 150 feet,” he said. “So it’s not like, ‘Hey, we’re gonna get the tallest cross in the world ‘cause we want attention.’”

The height of the cross is due to the fact that the church wanted it to be seen from Interstate 55, the pastor said, explaining that with the factor of tall trees and the distance of about half of amile, 150 feet was the height needed in order to achieve that goal.

The criticisms are a misunderstanding of the church’s motives, Kitchings said, adding that “some people are concerned about the money.”

The cross’s cost is $200,000 - and that is just for its construction. There are also plans to light the cross so that it can be viewed 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“Why would you spend thousands of dollars [on that cross]?” Kitchings asked, imitating his critics.

He would use as his answer the Great Commission: Jesus’ command to his disciples to spread the gospel around the world. He said his cross can do that.

“It’s not just for Easthaven,” he said. “It’s for anybody and everybody.”

OTHER LARGE CROSSES IN MISSISSIPPI CAUSE CONTROVERSY

The Haven Cross is not the first big cross in the state to court controversy.

As recently as 2021, when a 120-foot cross called the Cross of Prentiss County was raised, the website The Friendly Atheist wrote a blog post about it.

That post begins with, “You’ll be happy to know that people in Prentiss County, Mississippi, are using $240,000 in donations to help the citizens struggling most during the pandemic. I’m just kidding. They blew the cash on a Giant Christian Cross.”

That same blog post would end, “Here’s a thought: More people would be drawn to Christianity if the money that was raised went to, say, a children’s hospital instead of [a] roadside monstrosity. But who knows. I’m no businessman.”

But perhaps the greatest uproar came with the Cross at Brandon - a cross that never was. The year was 2013, and the 110-foot cross was to be placed off Interstate 20 on the property of the First Baptist Church.

The church’s pastor, Dr. Scott Thomas, was behind the idea, telling WLBT at the time that he believed the cross would be “an encouragement for not only the 50 million people that pass by us, but it will also be an inspiration and encouragement for people that fly over us from Jackson International Airport.”

However, the city’s planning commission eventually struck down the idea of a giant cross in a 4-3 vote, saying that the structure would simply be too tall. Under the law, the city said, the cross could only be 20 feet high.

The city’s squabble over an 11-story cross became national fodder. Soon, a Fox News article was written, entitled “Town Objects to Church’s Cross Over Fear It Might Offend Muslims.”

In the article, Thomas was quoted as saying that the city’s board of aldermen “asked other questions that indicate to me that there’s something else that concerns them. They asked, ‘What if the Muslims, the Buddhists, want to build a sign?’”

The city’s vote against the cross was also construed as an attack on the Christian faith.

Brandon’s mayor called both assertions “hogwash,” adding that all of those on the planning commission and the city’s board were “without a doubt, 100-percent born-again Christians.”

In the end, Thomas called a cease-fire, giving up his dream of the big cross before the battle went before a public hearing in the city. The cross, he said, had become too divisive.

Years later, the cross that was too big for Brandon would be constructed in Florence, Mississippi.

Controversial or not, the big crosses keep going up.

MAN BUILDING MISSISSIPPI’S GIANT CROSSES SPEAKS

If you see a giant white cross in Mississippi, odds are Mike Rozier is the man behind it. In fact, he has just constructed his 14th big cross in the state, which is in Aberdeen.

The first cross he was involved with was in Winona, Mississippi. This came when a retired Baptist preacher had a vision to put it there. Over the course of two years, the preacher was able to raise the money needed to build it.

A Tennessee man named James Potter was the original mind behind the giant white crosses, building many across the country. It was while he and Rozier were constructing the Winona cross that he told Rozier that he was getting old and needed someone to pass the baton to.

“I said, ‘Mr. Potter. I’m your man,’” Rozier recounted.

Most of the crosses are a financial effort by an entire community, Rozier says, and are built on private land.

The average cost of one of his crosses is $200,000, but Rozier says that they are all built at cost, meaning his company doesn’t make “one nickel” off of them.

“A lot of people ask me, ‘Isn’t $200,000 a lot of money to put up there when you could be spending it on a lot better places?’” Rozier said. “But if one person drives by that cross in Brookhaven and stops and thinks what Jesus Christ did for me, you and everybody else [...] and they have a conversion moment, it changes eternity for that person. It’s worth every penny. I have not found anybody that can put me a value on one person’s soul.”

Copyright 2024 WLBT via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.