Does church architecture matter? Does it do anything more than house people and programs at the lowest possible cost with the potential side goal of attracting new members? Or should we be aiming higher and deeper? Justus and Michael discuss what our architecture says about our priorities and why we should be giving greater leadership to visionary artists in this crucial area. Stay tuned at the end for another excellent track from Warbler off of Sea of Glass called “Zombocalypse.”
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Hey guys – thanks for the thought you put into the podcasts; you definitely make me think beyond my basic understanding of the Christian’s relationship with the arts. For this podcast, I anticipated discussion on how church architecture should reflect the glory of God and the commitment to longevity. Instead, I believe I understand your view on church architecture to be as follows:
– Neo-Gothic/cathedral design churches, like Church of the Apostle, are beautiful or not beautiful not based on any standard of beauty but based on the amount of time they take to build
– It is actually better to covert a warehouse into a church than to build a cathedral-style church
A couple of questions:
– Is the notion of how long it takes to build a church an objective Biblical standard or a personal preference?
– If I think a church, like Church of the Apostles, is pretty but someone doesn’t because of some personal preference, how do we decide if it really is pretty?
– How long should it take for a church to be built before it meets your criteria?
Thanks!
Hi, Tom. Thanks for the comment!
I think you may have misunderstood our examples as being essential (i.e.) rather than explanatory (e.g.). We should have been clearer about that, so I’ll try to be more explicit here. I attempted to focus and refocus on two major issues that I think should be our priorities in building churches: first, glorifying/being an ambassador for God and second, serving the needs of the church.
That manifests itself differently in different contexts, which is why we didn’t say a church building needs to look like anything in particular, and also why we didn’t prescribe any length of time for building it. I said that the “cathedral spirit” may not even be exhibited in a building at all! We’re trying to address principles in these podcasts far more than particulars. We bring up particulars to explore principles. But we usually do not intend our examples to be taken as normative unless we say so. It seems you took our descriptive explanations as prescriptive rules. I did not intend for them to be taken that way, and I am sorry for the confusion.
To reiterate, the “cathedral spirit” doesn’t necessitate time, but commitment and humble self-sacrifice. How long it took to build actual cathedrals, in my mind, has to do with a commitment to quality and a humble submission to a lasting legacy one might not live to enjoy. It is representative of a spirit of self-sacrifice that I think is extremely telling, but the actual time itself does not really matter to me. It’s not the literal length of time that matters. It’s the spirit of humble self-sacrifice and commitment to authentic quality. Again, we tried to be very emphatic about that in the podcast. The literal time is not an objective biblical standard, but the commitment to self-sacrificial quality for the honor of God most certainly is quite biblical—even from the very first offerings of Cain and Abel.
As for the “subjective” quality of beauty, I’ve written much about that in my book at some length, but to touch on it briefly: beauty does have an element of subjectivity, but subjectivity is not arbitrary. In Scripture, something is appropriately subjective (“fitting” and even “beautiful”) when it is well-ordered to its context for the honor of God and the need of the audience. Since audiences are different, beauty will look different in different contexts. This is subjective in a very important sense. But it is not arbitrary.
Because the principles undergirding relationships stay the same, even if the applications differ. This is why Justus said he really appreciates the spirit of hopeful renovation that’s involved in the urban warehouse church. It’s not necessarily the aesthetic itself (its outward appearance) that he loves. It’s what the aesthetic says and does in that context. That aesthetic is not intrinsically beautiful in every context, as we pointedly made clear. When building committees go for the warehouse/distressed/urban/coffeehouse aesthetic merely because “that will bring the young folks in,” this exhibits priorities and commitments that are decidedly ugly, even when they look very similar on the surface to the converted warehouse downtown. Again, we said this in the podcast.
Beauty, in other words, requires wisdom in application. Its appearances must shift even as its relationships are maintained, and a mere superficial tokenism or arbitrary enslavement to a particular historical aesthetic (however trendy or classic that historical aesthetic is) will never be able to address those shifts appropriately. Such a disembodied aesthetic is like a wise saying hanging limply from the mouth of a fool. And that is why we emphasized the need for church leaders to invite people with God-gifted artistic wisdom to create a building with fitting visionary authenticity particularly for their congregations. This also has biblical precedent, as we mentioned at some length. The reason we gave no rules for what is properly “pretty” is because that should be determined in context by someone with artistic insight. It won’t look the same in one place or another, but it should most certainly NOT be left in the hands of the church’s Moseses and Aarons, as gifted as those people might be in other areas.
So, just to be clear, if I were to give a one-sentence expression of a church building project done in the “cathedral spirit,” it would be this:
A church building project exhibiting the “cathedral spirit” …
1. … incorporates the best available techniques, craft, and materials
1. … under the primary leadership of a God-gifted and church-confirmed artistic visionary…
2. … fully committed to both the incisive expression of God’s glory in his particular cultural context
3. … and service to the needs [not always the same as the wants] he perceives in his particular church community
4. … as a visible witness
5. … both of the church’s humble commitment to God and sacrifice for His long-term glory
6. … and of God’s majesty and beauty to a watching and incredulous world.
I hope this helps to clear things up a little, but let me know if you still have things you want to discuss. I really appreciate you taking the time to listen to the podcast and interact with us here!
(P.S. There were two similar versions of your comment on the website. I picked one and deleted the other. Just FYI.)
The statement of the building design and construction is a tough one for me. When I first toured Italy all the amazing cathedrals and basilicas is how can one walk in and not immediately be immersed in the need to worship.
Well, after talking to the Italians I was working with at the time, what they see is how the church used power and slavery to build an oppressive symbol.
I just visited Peru. There were similarities there with the Spanish neo-Gothic architecture which blends elements of Gothis with some Baroque, arches that “point” to heaven, but are also adorned in Baroque embellishments. This makes sense since it took so long to build the cathedral in Madrid that it spanned both eras.
But then you learn that the stone to build those cathedrals were “salvaged” from the native buildings and temples of Peru. The same way the marble used in ancient Rome for structures such as the Colosseum being “redeemed” to build and adorn St. Peter’s Basilica.
There is a painting of the Lat Supper in the Cathedral in Cusco where 11 of the apostles are painted as white, Spaniards, but Judas was painted with dark skin and native Andean features.
The humorous part in the painting is that guinea pig was served at the Last Supper instead of lamb, as a way to appease the local inhabitants and provide a cultural context to the event.
It is difficult to separate the plying of power invoked in the architectural provisions of the time.
Such as the Basilica in Bologna and its painting which contains the prophet Mohammad burning in hell.
What we are left with today is what should the building actually be and why? Frances Schaeffer, in his essays on “Art and the Bible”, points out a great deal of the Temple’s decoration as being simply ornamentation with no actual utilitarian significance that we can ascertain.
I am currently left with the idea that the building, if there is to be a building, should reflect the local culture and the aspirations of the body it serves. And I do think it should be funded prudently. Without debt is cool, but not a requirement to me. But certainly with an understanding of the available, local resources.
Beyond that I am pretty agnostic as to what the actual building should be. Or even if there has to be a building. Obviously, this was not a concern with the early Church.
Motivation. That’s the big question for me. Why build what you want to build? To what end? Brooklyn, NY, is littered with shuttered, but beautiful churches on just about every corner.
Joe
I think these are very good thoughts, Joe. These are worth meditating on further. I agree that the motive is extremely important, and that the building will say something to the viewer no matter what you intend. I don’t think Justus or I would recommend building anything for the church through theft, slavery, or involuntary giving. That is absolutely against what we are attempting to build.
On another point, I don’t think any of the temple was strictly for ornamentation. The beauty there was significant. It pointed to something, and we should be encouraged to meditate on what that was. I agree that it may not have served a utilitarian purpose, but it wasn’t just arbitrary and gratuitous pleasantry either.
Thank you for your comments, and for engaging with our podcast so faithfully. We’re extremely grateful!
Oh, and even God waited until the right time and location to build the Temple.
Joe