Religion in America is in steep decline, and I know why. Simply gaze upon any church built after 1950, and you will know why too. Modern churches are ugly as sin, and so too is modern religion.
In an age before modern church architecture, every Sunday morning my parents dutifully herded their eleven children into a towering Romanesque church. For the next hour we were expected to pretend to understand a priest chanted Latin in a space bigger and more beautiful than heaven itself. So big it made everyone small, even our parents, our nuns and the gym teachers, who was the biggest guy we knew.
We always arrived early to take our place among a sea of dark wooden pews. Waiting for mass, there was nothing to do but gaze piously aloft at shafts of sunlight radiating through glass stained in colors so rich, they were not of this earth. And all around us, filling a near empty church, boomed an organ in a tone so deep, so loud, it moved clouds around the sky.
Once the service started, we still had nothing to do. The mass was in Latin and after the sixth time you saw the show, there was nothing to get excited about. So we stared around, at the soaring white arches built upon larger arches, and those built on still larger arches.
Between each arch, patrolled a saint. Each saint stood like a grenadier in an arched guard house, and each saint had their own section of the congregation to keep an eye on.
We knew not to mess with these saints. We knew to kneel when everyone knelt, sit when everyone sat and stand when everyone stood. And more importantly we also knew not to whine no matter how hard we had to pee.
If our parents were in a buoyant mood, they settled us in the back beneath the lenient saints. These were the lady saints, mostly moms, who were more understanding of colicky babies and bratty two year old sisters.
If our parents were angry with us, they positioned us in front among the frescoes, corbels, gargoyles and blind galleries. This is where the martyr saints stood guard, the real tough ones.
In short, you had to work your saints. You had to be up on the religion, and if you were up on religion -- you knew enough not fool around anyway.
This was hard-ball faith.
Since the mass was held in Latin, no one gave a damn whether you understood it or not. In fact, the less you understood, the better. The world was deeply religious in those days, so it didn't have to be relevant. It only had to there - so each person could draw from it what they needed.
It is only when Christianity stumbled into the modern search for meaning that faith became meaningless to so many, and church architecture took a turn for the worse.
The church I get dragged to these days looks like a suburban bank with an exceptionally large parking lot. Take down the industrial girder steeple and the I-beam cross and put up a red and yellow neon sign and you got a Wells-Fargo.
Inside it's worse, the pews swirl in a semi-circle around the altar like seating around a camp-fire. And just like a campfire, the music is the same insipidly cheerful guitar strumming we all learned to hate as children.
It is an ugly church but not exceptionally ugly. Out there squatting aside the inter-state are truly hideous structures. Out there in the burbs stand churches architected by people lacking even the requisite aesthetics to design forms for the DMV.
These barns testify to the idiocy of big ideas. Take the universal concept that the sacred should uplift -- that it should soar toward heaven. Now give that idea to a church committee of used-car hucksters and fast-food managers and what do you get? A student project consisting of a 200 foot skate board ramp with a cut out square hole, partially plugged by a stainless steel cross.
They say church architecture should reflect a modern sense of community. All too often it does precisely that.
If I want community I go to a bar. My bars reflect my community. There, you can talk to the guy on the next stool during the sports ceremony. You can show him photos of your kids. You can complain about your spouse. There people are friendly and listen to each other. You get to see their kids, and hear about what a troubling nag their spouse is.
I have seen scary bars. I've seen run-down bars. I've seen pretentious bars, but I've never seen a bar as ugly as an ugly church. I guess this goes to the difference between church and bar people. It goes to the difference between being good and having a good time, but it also goes to the difference between something forced and something real.
Our ancestors founded religion to smooth the edges of a harsh world, to deal with things beyond our powers, like the death and suffering of those we love. They designed great cathedrals and modest country chapels to point toward something beyond ourselves. They built structures to mark the path toward hope. The decline in Christianity came with the contemporary search for relevance, when religion looked to a modern earth rather than an ancient heaven for answers; a mistake that is reflected in the architecture of its churches.
© Greg Schiller, 2007
Author: Greg Schiller
Feel free to rummage around my collection of essays and stories at Greg's Garage
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Comments: 59
Not sure if religious feeling is in real decline, maybe in some of the more moderate Protestant denominations but numbers of church goers overall seems to be increasing.....I think it depends largely on the make up of the community.
But church is not the building. I think you come closer to the concept of church in your comparison to going to a bar for community.
I think the concept made popular in Cheers of that community is somewhat not totally realistic. Yes they know your name and will listen for awhile; but when the chips are down will they visit you in the hospital; will they be able to console you when a loved one dies, will they bail you out in time of trouble?
To an extent maybe. And the church, if it is a loving community I like my chances with the support of my church community compared to people I might party with or even work with.
Church as community is what you put into it also. God gives unconditional love; people, need to get to know you and trust you first, even in church. But we need to give them a chance and take a chance in knowing and trusting them.
A good small town or neighborhood bar DOES rise to support people in need. I have been to many a bar fund-raiser to cover the costs of a medical or natural disaster.
Churches do the same, but the mistake too many churches make is that they try to overlap the function of a bar. When your child or spouse is dying of cancer, a bar can help, a church community can help, but there is a point that is beyond community -- that is beyond the earth and beyond the earthly capacity to endure. It is in that territory where the church should stake its claim
Too much has been lost by moving into the suburbs of human experience where bars do a better job.
Are they producing fruit? (works, truth, sacrifices, sharing, Spirit)
Is it good fruit? (Good works, Is it the truth of God or of Mans opinion, Self sacrifice for others, sharing for the good of others, is the spirit the Holy Ghost or some other spirit like derision or contempt or judgmental,)
Does that fruit fill you up? (do you get filled by the Holy spirit, do you receive personal revaluation, do you learn the truth of god when you partake of the fruit of the tree?)
If the fruit is bad, it matter not at all... (except it is time to cut the tree down and plant another...)
great article Greg...
badda boom!
I think it is mentioned in the Bible.
"build not your church of stone and mortar, build it in the hearts of my children.."
Ducks for deacons, cranes for bishops, kingfishers for preachers, a wonderful service each Sunday.
I think church should be exciting and fun and the building should reflect that too but when it comes right down to it church is about the people and God not about the building.
Very well written and I enjoyed reading your memories of church, far different from mine.
But, that's being an outsider. For those who are members of that congregation, who baked cakes and washed cars and whatever else for years to raise the funds for a house of worship, it's probably beautiful.
Anyway, as we've all have been told, beauty is on the inside.
I remember as a child sitting in church, and couldn't wait for the pastor to stop preaching so that I can get out of there. But couldn't leave because my parents wasn't going for it. The last time I visited the old church, it needs work done on it badly.
Eventually the conflicts got so bad that the church became divided and all were very depressed. After all, it was peace, love, and truth that was the goal of attendance, not what was being experienced. Often there was hope when another authority promised a better condition but it seldom panned out as expected and hoped for ... it seemed that it would take a death to find what was sought.
But a number of years ago now, everything and everyone came together under the leader always sought but never before met in person, of course it was the experience of God and was all about truth and unconditional love ... known really for the very first time ... the Spirit withIN the church being my own body, the temple of God, so ignored all of those years ... the exterior is now showing much abuse but the interior is shining brightly and expected to do so for eternity ...
Another case in point is Europe, which is full of beautiful old churches with all the majestic striving-upward architecture and all the stained-glass saints you want, and all of that art is very much appreciated by the people. They go and admire it, ooh and ahh, and take pictures and videos. But most of them don't go to mass every Sunday, to say the least.
It seems to me that what this is about is how much relevance people find in religion, or to be quite frank, how true they think it really is. And the people who appreciate great architecture these days may not be the most religious--with the usual caveats about statistics and the many exceptions.
Aniko R, I don't think we really disagree. Great churches do not make for great religion, but confused religion does create lousy architecture. We have had many cases of traditional churches being "remodeled" to reflect modern sensibilities with predictable results.
I am not much of a fan of mega-churches, just as I shy away from the Gogo-plex cinemas and the Mall of America. Though these churches are popular, their popularity is often fleeting. It seems more like marketing, than spiritual awakening, but perhaps I am being to harsh. I have not spent more than an afternoon in one, so I am not the best to judge. Though the people scared me. They had a Stepford Wife quality that put me on edge.
You are quite correct about religion bottoming out in Europe. In most of Europe, the churches are goverment supported -- the kiss of death for almost anything. The saddest case is the precipitous drop in church attendence in Ireland, a place that was hard-core Catholic for generations, but it is also a place where the church lost its way.
Sometimes, however, we forget that the church is really just a building. True faith is not manifested within its four walls. It is done, 24/7, by those who believe and are willing to walk in faith and share that faith with others. That is what Jesus commanded us to do - not to have the most architecturally current church.
I think the first one works for me.
Now many years ago I spent far too much time in bars, so now for the past 27 years, I have spent my time in church basements. There are some nice church basements.
Many of the same ones could be made about the music that's played in the modern churches. Inspiring? Uplifting? Noise?
I went to an Easter service in one of those barn-like structures this year & a group of long haired kids with pants hanging below their butts were playing rock music. They switched after a while to a soulful girl who entertained us with a love song about Jesus.
On Easter morning!!
Next Easter I'm going to the Silver Pony and have a beer with the cowboys.
(And I'm a non-believer of many years' standing!)
with lots of history attached. St Lorence and St Sebald are also beautiful.
Post War Churches are dull.
suzanne
I think 3 main reasons for the horribly ugly modern churches are
1. Architects designing after 1950 were trained, even or perhaps especially in the most prestigious architecture programs, and indoctrinated in Bauhaus, that butt-ugly German creation that resulted in the butt-ugly glass and steel flat-topped office and apartment towers utterly devoid of any ornamental relief that curse our urban landscapes and in their worst form are the horrors in Eastern Europe called Stalinist architecture. Bauhaus can't die soon enough for me! Fortunately, it was also an era of dishonest contractors and low-bidder contracting that is leading to the crumbling and demolition of these eyesores in the US.
Bauhaus-indoctrinated artists think ornamentaion, anything not purely functional, is bad art. NOT!!!
2. Church groups often have a hard time raising money to build, so they look for the cheapest functional structure they can get.
3. Congregations able to raise money more easily sometimes feel guilty about spending on fancy buildings in a world where there is so much poverty. Gotta give them credit for caring, even if their structure turns out ugly.
You might want to review your art history. You call a building neo- Romanesque but proceed to describe neo-Gothic. Romanesque churches were characterized by fairly low roofs and round towers (consider the ones built in the Mediterranean region by the Knights Templar before 1100); the soaring arches and gargoyles were inventions of the Gothic era.
I loathe the anonymity and crowds of mega-churches. I even left the congregation where DH and I were married and from which he was buried, an excellent church in many ways, because as a result of how good it is, it has become hugely popular and both the 9 AM and 11 AM services are crowded to the point of skirting the edges of the city fire code; they even put overflow in another room with a video feed and when it fills they send people away. If you want a seat at all during the Christmas Even service, you'd better plan to arrive 1 1/2 hours early! Seriously, last year I arrived close to an hour early and they were already turning away people who did not want to go downstairs to the video feed room. The urban location prevents adding to the building because there is simply no land, just streets, sidewalks and buildings. It is an elegant 19th century structure reminiscent of the cathedrl in Ravenna, Italy and they rightly try to keep it beautiful and in good repair. But I simply cannot deal with the mobs or any group that big. I actually get shaky and once fainted during a service when I felt terribly crowded. I'm now a member of a church with a blah modern building and a manageable sized congregation where I feel like I can know the names of most of the people and they mine.
The reason we had gargoyles was probably because someone back around the turn-of-the-century said. "Hey, where are the gargoyles".
I think there is something other than economics in the selection of ugly church design. I have seen some elegant and inspiring churches built on a dime. Perhaps skimping on an architectural firm is the FIRST place to cut budget.
Historical,traditional beliefs have a long history of art and history and try to implement that in there areas...So many towns in the periphery of big cities have missed out on true art.Is it because of a lack of funds or because of the fact that they might be a minorty in that town...So many towns here in the Adirondacks have beautiful churches..then I see a disadvantaged piece of great property being purchased by the 'I Love Jesus More Than My Family ' group and it is readily available for summer rental.....and I wonder....
How many horses do you own?
Do you have slaves at home?
Do you take a carriage to work?
Then why build like they did 200 years ago?
Horses are prettier than cars, but cars work better.
Well written though: )