The future of religious spaces (VI)

 

Every year about this time, Faith and Form produces its worldwide survey of the best in religious art and architecture--mostly architecture, because "[f]or the second year in a row, the jury was concerned about the low number of Religious Art entries" (Crosbie 2019). It's fascinating, eye-catching, and an opportunity to reflect on the roles religion and religious places play in our common life.

It's also the time when Christians like me celebrate the birth of Jesus. We have appropriated Jewish prophecy like that of Isaiah, who may or may not have been discussing the Messiah when he wrote:

A shoot shall come out of the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.... He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. (Isaiah 11:1, 3b-4, NRSV)

Hearing these familiar verses again this year, I was struck by the seemingly casual reference to the killing that needed to happen to achieve the peace and justice of the "holy mountain" eventually proclaimed in verse 9. Again with the killing! which seems to be a prerequisite for Biblical promises. God's ways are beyond the scope of this blog, but it altogether too tempting to believe that things will be great once we (the hands of God?) first get rid of all the wicked/idiots/haters/evildoers. This is a prime example of what philosopher Martha Nussbaum (The Monarchy of Fear, Simon & Schuster, 2018, pp. 81-84) calls the "just world hypothesis"--the belief that I would get what I want if I weren't thwarted by bad guys--a worldview that leads to destructive, retributive anger. Instead of anger we need to affirm a common life, right this very minute, to deal with all humanity has to deal with. Excising the other only saps our energy and most likely adds to the evil instead of solving it.

The Christian apostle Paul offers us a rhetorical way out of this trap. In his letter to the Roman church, he writes of the believer dying to sin (see esp. ch. 6). How this death is accomplished seems to be a combination of divine grace, individual effort, and good old-fashioned Christian orthodoxy (see O'Brien 2012). That need not detain us here; we need only to accept that religious language about killing the wicked can apply to the evil within each of us, rather than some definitive expulsion of some individuals for the ultimate happiness of others.

Back to this year's award-winners. Leaving judgments about art and architecture to the professionals, and recognizing that what happens within places is as important as how they're designed, we urbanists can ask: How do the physical features of religious places help us achieve connection in a disconnected world?

One way is to bring us, for a time, away from the world into a place apart. Spectacular sanctuaries, like Boston's Cathedral of the Holy Cross, can achieve that by creating its own world of wonder.

Cathedral of the Holy Cross won an award for renovation

Usually these grand sanctuaries have spectacular acoustics as well, so those who raise their voices in song or prayer become part of a greater whole. Through our encounter with the divine, we are re-centered for life in the world.

Another way is to arrange seating in a circle around the altar, rather than having everyone in the congregation facing the same direction, as in Seattle's St. Anne Church.

St. Anne Church won an award for renovation

Author James F. White (Protestant Worship and Church Architecture, Oxford University Press, 1964) argues this older form, abandoned for awhile, emphasizes communal worship rather than individual emotional reaction in a hierarchical setting. (See especially chapters 4 and 5.) Shifting from my experience to our action also re-orients us to a world of diverse people.

Most urbanist of all is the religious building that is accessible to the street, such as St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church, which fronts directly onto Park Avenue in Manhattan--a block from the #6 subway line.

St. Bart's Church won a restoration award for its dome, which is not relevant to this post

This is the "meaningful destination easily accessible on foot" commended by Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zybeck and Jeff Speck (Suburban Nation, North Point Press, 2010 rev. ed., p. 64). In fact, it contributes to all four of their prerequisites for the street life--meaningful destinations, safe streets, comfortable streets, interesting neighborhood--needed to support community. Contrast that with the award-winning new church, St. Luke the Evangelist in suburban Ankeny, Iowa...

St. Luke the Evangelist Catholic Church

...which opens onto a parking lot accessible from Weigel Drive only by a long driveway. Neither it nor the school next door will ever be walkable. (It's not even clear how you would walk from one to the other.) No one will ever happen by.

Jane Jacobs (The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Random House, [1961] 1993, pp.72-73) waxed eloquent about the social utility of public spaces like sidewalks that are building blocks of connected neighborhoods.

They bring together people who do not know each other in an intimate, private social fashion and in most cases do not care to know each other in that fashion....

The trust of a city street is formed over time from many, many little public sidewalk contacts. It grows out of people stopping by at the bar for a beer, getting advice from the grocer and giving advice to the newsstand man, comparing opinions with other customers at the bakery and nodding hello to the two boys drinking pop on the stoop, eying the girls while waiting to be called for dinner, admonishing the children, hearing about a job from the hardware man and borrowing a dollar from the druggist, admiring the new babies and sympathizing over the way a coat faded....

The sum of such casual public contact at a local level--most of it fortuitous, most of it associated with errands, all of it metered by the person concerned and not thrust upon him by anyone--is a feeling for the public identity of people, a web of public respect and trust, and a resource in time of personal or neighborhood need.

The intentional design of religious places, new and old, architectural wondrous and humbly utilitarian, can contribute substantially to the public identity that will sustain us all through whatever lies ahead. Or not.

Primary Source: Michael J. Crosbie (ed), "2019 International Awards Program for Religious Art and Architecture," Faith and Form 52:4 (2019). All photos are from the article, and are used without permission.

Last Year's Model: "The Future of Religious Spaces (V)," 28 December 2018