Friday, August 21, 2009

From Aesthetics to Theology: Church Architecture

As a relatively new resident of New York, walking around the city remains a conscious activity because there is always an abundance of sights that I am unfamiliar with. Older, gothic-style churches on the Upper East Side have particularly caught my eye in recent days. While the cathedrals of New York don’t hold a candle to those of Europe, there are still many more here than in the Midwest where I grew up. Having ventured inside several, I believe they offer an opportunity to think about the way aesthetics are bound up in systems of meaning.

An overwhelming majority of the churches built by mainline Protestant evangelicals in recent years do not have windows in the sanctuary and tend to have lower ceilings that create a horizontal architectural dynamic. In the worst cases, they look similar to an indoor basketball court. More generously, the churches might be said to resemble theatres. Gothic-style churches, by contrast, have stain glass windows and high, vaulted ceilings that give the sanctuary a decidedly vertical orientation.

The lack of windows and low ceilings create a spatial environment that is inward, unconnected to the outside world and usually focused around a central stage. The connection I made in the previous paragraph to indoor basketball courts and theatres is not incidental. Generally, buildings constructed in this way focus the attention of those who inhabit them towards the stage where the performance or contest takes place. This setup inherently distinguishes active participants from passive spectators. Everyone but the actors is there to see the show. The architecture, both in its formal dimension and as a result of what other buildings it most closely resembles, encourages the congregants to behave passively and brings to mind events that are not useful analogues for worship, which is the orientation of a community toward the divine.

The architectural features of gothic-style churches are the inverse of contemporary churches. For all the ornament and otherness of a sanctuary done in the gothic style, light enters from the windows. This light serves as both a reminder and a connection to the world outside. The high ceilings dwarf and decentralize the altar area from which the service is conducted. These two architectural features encourage a congregation that is aware of its sanctuary as a place that is distinct from but connected to the world around it and that is reminded that while they are charged with the care of creation, it is much more vast than they frequently imagine.

It is easy to name any number of factors that account for the contemporary shifts in church architecture. Defenders of recently built churches will point to the relative economic efficiency of the construction methods and materials of newer churches. I imagine they will also be quick to speak of the positive aspects of many people’s personal experience in contemporary churches. These aspects will include a sense that God/religion is not so distant or obscure, a focus on giving individuals a sense of purpose in their daily lives, the sheer number and diversity of the congregations that make up the churches, and the presence of prominent church leaders in the society. Most pointedly, they will assert those who build and inhabit modern churches simply don’t care how they look—its just about saving souls.

I take most of these objections, whatever their merits outside of this aesthetic dialogue, to be irrelevant. My argument is one that assumes aesthetics have theological implications and vice versa. Suggesting that such a concern for aesthetics is invalid doesn’t hold water where there is an assumption that the way we design buildings, among other things, has relevance to our life in God. The building is a physical sign of and for the community that meets in it. As such, its physical and symbolic structures are inherently important. To suggest that it does not matter what a church looks like is to sound an awful lot like a Gnostic, the heretic of the early church who fails to account for the physical dimension of knowledge. Such a failure is one that theologically serious congregations cannot afford.