Nearly 100-Year-Old Passion Play Continues in Oklahoma's Remote "Holy City of the Wichitas"

Bobby Ross, Jr.-RNS : Mar 29, 2018
Religion News Service via Christianheadlines.com

In the mid-1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the U.S. Agriculture Department granted 160 acres to build the Holy City site, about 100 miles southwest of Oklahoma City.

(Lawton, OK)— [Christianheadlines.com] Oklahoma's version of old Jerusalem—mixing rough stone structures resembling those in the Holy Land with occasional sightings of buffalo and longhorn—provides the setting for what organizers describe as North America's longest-running outdoor Passion play. Although the public is welcome to tour the grounds and visit the gift shop year-round, the yearly performances draw enough of a crowd to disrupt the wildlife. (Photo: RNS-Facebook/via Christian Headlines)

Scores of these religious dramas still occur around the world, including in the U.S., with names such as "The Great Passion Play" in Eureka Springs, Arkansas; "The Thorn" in Colorado Springs, Colorado; and "The Passion of Jesus in Music, Word and Light" in Shakopee, Minnesota.

The Oklahoma play began in 1926—the dream of the Rev. Anthony Mark Wallock of the First Congregational Church in nearby Lawton...

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