Have you been to a modern church or "worship space", and have you found it at best anodyne, two dimensional and somehow cheap, like a small but Ikea clean shopping mall? Perhaps you have, even worse, have you been to a modern church and found it offensively, actively ugly?
Sure you have, we all have, though I tend to avoid those places like the plague, which is hard in this part of the world. By way of aside, if you live in N Central Texas, everything's pretty much new, and that includes churches, which are built new style, and new style's not attractive, at best it's an ersatz simulacrum of the higher aesthetic of yesteryear.
"So what went wrong," I exclaim in disgusted wonder at varnished blonde pine, faux stained glass, shiny faked up wood plastic floors, water feature font and all the rest, "Two thousand years of Christian art and architecture reduced to this." At that point, I usually walk out of the grossly ugly HVAC temple and enjoy a cigarette, only to return again in repentant humility.
Please don't laugh, it's true, I do. Still, what went wrong, and it's a serious question, because something did go wrong, got broken, and within living memory for the most part. Why, dear friends, did this happen? Big question, with more than a few answers, but let's try and narrow it down.
Why? Because society went godless, rejecting in its promethean pride the classical forms of beauty, truth and goodness, such utter bourgeois oppression, and the Church, in a fit of apostasy, followed suit. Then, after the initial revolt, ugly became the new normal and there you have it.
To put it another way, Satan hates beauty which elevates the soul to God and salvation, and encouraged trite at best, bestial at worst ugliness in our architectural norms, which the Church embraced, being foolishly married to the disbelieving spirit of the age.
Net result? Ugly churches which no one wants to go to. And guess what, they aren't, attendance's in free fall. The same rule, not that we believe in "rule" here at the Compound, applies to liturgy, the public work of the worship of God.
Make that as banal, polyester and ugly as the building you're attempting to worship in and wonder, aghast, at your lack of converts to a Faith you don't believe in anyway. I say again, what went wrong? Apostasy on a grand scale.
This is discouraging to faithful Christians and others, no one wants to live in an ugly world, life's too short for such a thing. But perhaps people are starting to wake up, to reclaim their heritage and their faith, the Faith on which the West is founded. Stats, notoriously deceptive but there nonetheless, suggest younger people are doing just that.
And well done them, they're perhaps beginning to see through the miasma of the last fifty years or more. Part of this realization will involve a thoroughgoing rejection of atheistical Socliaism, to say nothing of the Liberal project of, ahem, radical personal autonomy, and an embrace of the Faith, without which Europe and by extension us, are nothing.
That's my call and I'm sticking to it, my monkey's in the ring. Do feel free to pit your ape against mine. Guinea take it, what?
Your Best Pal,
LSP
24 comments:
I've been to some of those "churches", Parson. They're all sizzle and no steak.....
Totally agree, drjim. And "sizzle" at best.
Ahh, sizzle,, the Old Eternal " Sizzle"..
Most of the boring industrial architecture starts in the 1960's and can be linked to the removal of the mysteries and majesties of the mass. Soulless. All the interest of a warehouse. Which makes sense as the same architectural firms and building manufacturers that build these churches also build warehouses.
And a lot of the newer ones are modified steel buildings.
At one time, churches and cathedrals were places of wonder and awe, a place that physically inspires. Just look at any of the great cathedrals or even smaller chapels or churches built in the dark ages or middle ages and then carefully cleaned of centuries of smutz and dirt. Suddenly grey walls and dark windows are replaced by light stonework and bright windows.
Why don't new churches look majestic? Well, partly because majestic costs. Costs a lot. Wood carvers, stone carvers, concrete casters, metal workers, plasterers and tilers all are skilled jobs and cost plenty. It's far cheaper to have a crew of illegals do it right after they finish that ugly semi-Soviet looking apartment block monstrosity.
Why don't churches look majestic? Because of asshats like Frank Lloyd Wright, the Bauhaus and minimalist movements. Seriously, asshats all who ruined architecture for the masses. I've seen churches that have less soul and greatness than the Obama-mahal in Chicago.
Why don't churches look majestic? Because westerers have abandoned 2,000 years of ecclesiastical art. Go into any Orthodox church or a primarily central/southern American church in the USA and the art is historical looking. Statues of saints and martyrs, metalwork, gilding, tapestries and embroideries, frescos and friezes. Walk into one of those churches, built 1,500 years ago or 5 years ago, in a stone building or a strip mall, and you are transported into... a place of mysteries and majesties.
Go to any other 'western' style modern church and the atrium of most modern hospitals have more soul.
Ugly, cheap buildings. Ugly, cheap 'art.' Ugly, cheap furniture. Ugly, cheap church services.
No soul. No mysteries. No majesties. No inspiration. All which leads to soulless, mystery-less, majesty-less priests and pastors. And parishioners.
That's my rant. And you know it's true.
Which is why the Latin Mass, with all its pomp and circumstances, mysteries and majesties, and old-school altar cloths and vestments and banners and flags and accoutrements and priests are what are bringing people back to Mother Church. It sure isn't the average left-leaning politically-charged mass.
Well, original Christian’s in Rome ended up in the catacombs for mass and I understand that in England during the Protestant persecution of Catholics there were places called priest holes and mass was where ever the people could get together secretly. Our church in Glennallen Alaska wouldn’t win a beauty contest but it gives us a place for mass at least once a month and communion service on other Sundays. We may have mass at least three times a month if roads are passable starting the first Sunday of advent!
Unchurched, my views may not be pertinent. In my Sunday travels I see numerous storefront type churches with a fair amount of vehicles parked outside. Some of the 'established' churches have partially filled parking lots. Also, in this area, are numerous churches advertised as "Cowboy Churches" that seem to have full parking lots.
Though earthly joy and prettiness is a good thing, it's the joy and spirituality of the congregation and the priest/pastor that matters.
It's just harder to have joy and spirituality in a soulless building, let alone a dark and soul-sucking church like the one my wife was converted in. All dark wood and dark brick and nothing spiritual nor sacred about any of it. A dark hell-hole of a church. Even the acoustics were borked so bad it felt like the very sound was being darkly twisted. And the people were darkly twisted, not full of the Holy Spirit at all.
We switched to a 'steel frame building' that was built in the pattern of a great church (not a cathedral with naves and side chapels, though that would have been cool.) The roof was way up, the windows were tall and were slowly being replaced by real good stained glass and the interior was painted white, so it was an airy and light-filled space. Acoustics were great, whether if empty or full, not needing rock-concert speakers for the priest to be heard. Totally different vibe, the people were joyous and full of the holy spirit.
I've felt the same way at the open-sided church on Kwajalein. Or on various beach/ocean side services. Or in the hallway of a hospital praying for my wife with a priest who sought me out because he saw I was troubled-looking. (very good priest, got moved out of the area right after by the diocese.)
It doesn't matter where you are if there is spirituality and the mysteries and majesties are invoked. It does help, though, to have a House of the Lord that doesn't feel like you're in a poorly cleaned and converted slaughterhouse.
What you are seeing is what we've been talking about here on this blog for a while. The Establishment (no matter what style) seems to have gone all progressive and gay and leftist while the storefront churches and cowboy churches and such are more based in The Old Ways of the mysteries and majesties, whether it be a Baptist revival style or a small hispanic-Catholic church or whatever. You can feel it when you are around those that are touched by the service, there's a spiritual closeness and oneness with the upstairs that is lacking in the more 'modern and progressive' churches.
Part of what I said is a repeat of LSP's sermon. Why? Because it bears saying and I riffed off of his unintentionally.
Holy Mother Church (and her English variant, and all other Christian churches need to quit worrying about appeasing the 0.01% that aren't going to be appeased anyways. She (HMC) and they need to focus on all the souls that feel lost because the Church (and churches) left them, not the other way around.
It's not a comfortable feeling sitting in a mass or service and going... "Why am I here? What do I get from this? How come I don't feel the Holy Spirit in this church when I feel it elsewhere?"
Me, the first time I saw the Smoky Mountains with my wife-to-be, that was a religious experience. Me, Mr. Flatlander visiting my wife's old haunts and I felt a level of comfort and spirituality in Cade's Cove that I haven't felt in Catholic Mass in years.
That's what's missing in most churches. That feeling of spirituality and communion and community.
Don't forget "ugly" preachers as well (at least in the Protestant world). I sometimes wonder what spirit called to them. The buildings may be ugly, it may be beautiful - but it's the man up front that makes the difference.
The Cubs couldn't even make the World Series with the Pope praying that they win. It's a sobering thought when the Viccar of Christ on Earth can't muster up the punch to get his team through the play-offs. The cowboy churches cheat - endure a boring sermon and then gorge on delicious BBQ and sides. But will the Cowboys win the SuperBowl this year?
Mont St Michel (first pic) has amazed me since I was a child, it was the subject of a research paper I wrote in Jr High School (Yes, that was a thing in the 70’s, we wrote papers before attending college and didn’t have Chat GPT to do the work for us).
Oops! I accidentally commented as anonymous about Mont St Michel and not by my full title of Reverend Doctor Swankenstein PhD M.F.I.C.
Justin, observe their fingers touching Holy Water.
Beans, we've been shortchanged, badly.
Anon, more power to you!
Right on, Beans, and my shallow point was this -- 2000 years of Christian aesthetics shouldn't have come to this risible excuse for architecture. Life, my friend, is way too short.
Cowboy Churches are big here too, WSF, and I've ridden with some of them. TBH, I don't like the cowbiy schtick, it seems fake, and it mostly is. Some good people though.
Did you know, Anon, that officer candidates to the Wehrmacht failed if they weren't attractive and spoke poorly? Not unlike the Biigade of Guards, when you think on it. We can imagine the standard slipped as the war went against the Austrian Corporal.
My dear LL,
One of the things I always do is leave a church during a boring sermon. I typically smoke outside the building.
Then I return for the Offertory and Holy Communion.
Cowboy Church? I like some of those guys and used to ride with them. Their people? A lot of fairground pony, follow my leader stuff. So I'd gallop alongside the column and be all Lucan ADC :)
It's incredibly beautiful, Anon. We are, evidently, incapable of building an equivalent today.
Herr Doktor, you might enjoy this:
https://x.com/witte_sergei/status/1982899324230221858
Life is, indeed, too short to deal with borkiness.
On a side note, I've dealt with people raving about that 'wonderful' Cathedral Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, about how wonderful and beautiful it is.
I get them shut up by showing that one cathedral, the Saint-Chapelle de Paris, you have shown with all the glass. Or the cleaned up Chartres cathedral. The beauty and majesty of real stonework and glass, surviving fires and wars and asshat socialists. True beauty, not that dribbled mud POS that was Gaudi's fevered nightmare.
It's not that we aren't incapable, it's that the powers-that-be don't want to.
Look at the reconstruction of Notre-Dame de Paris, all the new stonework that matches the lost stonework. Rebuilding of damaged windows. The woodwork behind it all. We can build in that historic and epic style. It's just that our 'betters' won't.
Remember the horrors of Trump's first administration when he put out an EO basically saying no federal buildings to be built in anything but the Federalist (and basically neo-Greco-Roman/Romanesque style)? https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-promoting-beautiful-federal-civic-architecture/
No more FBI ugly cubic building, right? But the above EO was rescinded on Day 1 of the Joetato reign of terror.
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