Visitors pay homage at a statue of Jesus at the Tierra Santa theme park in Buenos Aires. (AP Photo/Ande Wanderer)

Young girls pause next to a statue of Jesus. (AP Photo/Ande Wanderer)

Tourists take a moment of silence. (AP Photo/Ande Wanderer)

Twin girls no taller than Jesus' chest squeal with delight, fingers pointed at the figure of the Son of God being lashed by a Roman soldier a few feet away.

Across the dusty courtyard from Pontius Pilate's administrative complex, Jesus crouches pathetically inside a minuscule prison cell. Elsewhere, Jesus is betrayed, crucified, condemned, worshipped. His head is crowned with thorns, his dead body cradled by the Virgin Mary. And twice every hour he is resurrected -- all 50 feet of him.

At Tierra Santa, billed as "Jerusalem in Buenos Aires," Jesus is quite literally everywhere. And the faithful come in droves, with 10,000 visitors on Easter weekend alone and more than 2.5 million since the park opened in 1999.

It is a Holy Land made almost entirely of plastic, from the camels to the temples to Jesus himself. The effect approximates the original "Batman" TV show, with the surf-rock theme replaced by choral music and Arab dirges blaring from speakers hidden in fake palm trees.

Costumed sentinels (security guards) mingle with tourists guided by robed men and women through the history of the savior's days in Jerusalem. Arab vendors peddle keffiyehs and ceramics in the park's souk.

From the top of Mount Olive, where Jesus is permanently nailed to the cross, you can glimpse a disused water park. Planes from the adjacent airport roar overhead every couple minutes, tactlessly reminding visitors which century they are in.

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GOD IN 3D

Buenos Aires does not seem like a crucify-Jesus-every-hour-on-the-hour sort of city. The Argentine capital is better known for attracting plastic surgery vacationers and steak connoisseurs than religious pilgrims, and while it is predominantly Roman Catholic, few attend Mass regularly.

Tierra Santa's mastermind, Fernando Pugliese, is a plastic artist whose studio has also worked on bars and discotheques in Buenos Aires. Though he is simply a religiously inclined entrepreneur, the park has received the imprimatur of the Roman Catholic Church.

Edgardo Conta, who is 30 and has been working as a guide at Tierra Santa for six years, says visitors are often moved to tears by the scenes from the Passion.

"People are trying to seek transcendence, something higher than themselves," Conta says. "They see that the world is so materialistic and come here as an escape."

Yet it's the machinery of popular culture that activates Tierra Santa's transcendence, a fusion of Disneyland's interactive landscape and Hieronymus Bosch's histrionics.

This is nothing new -- Roman Catholics have used icons to connect with God for 2,000 years. Across the globe, religions are wielding popular culture to lure followers, whether that means rock music in church; T-shirts with cheeky Christian slogans; or theme parks like the Holy Land Experience in Orlando, Fla., Israel's prospective Holy Land Christian Center for Evangelical tourists, and Gangadham, a Hindu park scheduled to open on the banks of the Ganges in 2007.

Even the Marians, the Catholic sect that disavows the Vatican II decision to allow the Mass to be conducted in languages other than Latin, hope to welcome modernity by opening Marianland in League City, Texas. The theme park will feature a cinema dedicated to screening Marian Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" in glorious 3D.

Still, until recently it would have been hard to imagine the famously doctrinaire Roman Catholic Church lending its brand to a theme park with effigies memorializing Martin Luther, Mother Theresa, and Gandhi in the same courtyard.

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HE IS RISEN

Sitting on the faux-limestone bleachers that offer the best view of the resurrection, 61-year-old Esther Martina says she and her friends are not quite sure why they have come, or why others flock here.

"Because they like it, that's why they come here," she shrugs, slightly exasperated. She and her friends have attended Mass every week since childhood. "We're not learning anything new," she says. "We've known about everything here for all our lives, but we come here."

Conversation ceases as the resurrection begins, a hush falling over the suddenly rapt crowd. Handel's "Hallelujah" chorus blares from the palm tree speakers as a colossal head emerges from Mount Olive.

Sculpted hair falls to His shoulders, rigidly extended arms forming a perfect cross. A sparkling pink heart is affixed to the chest of His white robe. Eyes open deliberately -- He is risen.

Members of the audience snap photos, pray, cross themselves, giggle awkwardly. Jesus turns His head like an owl from left to right and the string section crescendos: "Haaaaall-elujah! Haaaaall-elujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hall-eeeee-loooohhh-yaaaahhhh!"

Then horns fall mute, chorus retires, halo blinks off and Jesus descends. The crowd disperses until the next resurrection, at 6:45. Martina and her friends sit still for a few moments, visibly impressed, then continue on to witness the animatronic reenactment of the Last Supper.

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IN THE SEVENTH MINUTE...

From atop a plastic camel, Joel Nicolas Caseoli, an 8-year-old from Guernica, Argentina, says he likes Tierra Santa better than Church because "they have a lot of games here."

His mother asks what he has learned today. "Jesus was a baby, and he even wore diapers," he says.

If all the schisms and Papal Bulls are lost in the fray, at least the Creation will remain lucid, thanks to the lasers.

Tierra Santa manages to reduce the six days of God's work to a vigorous 20-minute spectacle, and it begins with emerald lasers shining from the dark recesses of a manmade cave, forming a penumbra of light -- the world before it was the world.

A deep, Godly voice fills the room, where 200 people are seated on bleachers. Deafening claps of thunder shake the stage as the narrator recounts the emergence of light and the fashioning of the sky. Stars materialize, then water, plants and animals.

Finally, the sixth day: two perfect plastic figures appear front and center, loins neatly covered. Adam and Eve swivel from side to side, trumpets blare, spectral lights flash, a gorilla beats its chest in celebration. Gradually, the music fades out, the stage darkens, and a fluorescent light is switched on.

Visitors snap pictures of the Biblical panorama on their way out and, until the next show, God takes a rest.

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FURTHER READING: Jerusalem's biblical zoo , and Will Jesus come to LA on 7/7/07?

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asap contributor Alexander Provan is a freelance writer.

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