Senate Chaplain Seeks `Stairway To Heaven' In Capitol Building.

U.S. Senate Chaplain Lloyd Ogilvie has proposed posting a series of religious paintings and images along a stairway leading to his third-floor office in the U.S. Capitol, a project some have dubbed the "stairway to Heaven."

Ogilvie first floated the idea last September but it was only recently disclosed in an article in The Wall Street Journal. In a formal proposal to the Senate, Ogilvie suggested raising $30,000 from private sources to hang pictures depicting "major themes in America's religious history" along the wall beside the 43 stone steps that lead to his opulent third-story office.

Reported the newspaper, "African-American churches and Jewish settlements were included in the proposal, but the exhibit would be a largely white Christian display, built around a `back-lighted replica' of a stained-glass depiction of the first prayer in Congress."

In his proposal, Ogilvie asserted that the Founding Fathers believed in the separation of church and state but added, "They did not believe in the separation of God and State."

Ogilvie sent the proposal to the Senate Rules Committee leadership but now says he doubts it will come to fruition. Still, The Journal noted that Ogilvie has a knack for raising private funds to pay for public projects. Shortly after he took office in 1995, Ogilvie persuaded the Senate to create a revolving fund to accept private donations to underwrite religious projects coming out of his office.

According to The Journal, more than $52,000 has been donated to the fund from Dunamis Christian Ministries, an evangelical group based in Hollywood. Ogilvie said he uses some of the money to pay for Bible study lunches and to buy copies of his own books for free distribution in the Senate. (Ogilvie, a former TV preacher, has written more than 40 books.)

Ogilvie defended the fund, pointing out that it is private money. "I would never do that if it were budgeted funds from the Senate," he said. "Because it is additional funds given for the work of the chaplaincy, I feel different about that."

Ogilvie said that even though money from the fund is often used to buy his own books, he will not accept royalties from his publisher for those sales. The Journal reported that Ogilvie received $632 in royalties from one of his publishers recently for books bought with fund money, but Ogilvie called that a mistake and said he would reimburse the fund.