Interesting article in USA Today, 26 April 2010 on using church buildings for commencement ceremonies. The ACLU is threatening to sue a school board in Enfield, Connecticut for using an area megachurch as the location for the Enfield commencement. Here's the relevant quote:
"Greg Stokes, a pastor who chairs the Enfield school board, says The First Cathedral, a Baptist megachurch in nearby Bloomfield, Conn., is a generic space. 'If you...walked into the main auditorium, you would not recognize yourself as being in a church.'"
I was reminded of the Orthodox cathedral in Almaty, Kazakhstan--the second-tallest wooden building in the world. When the Bolsheviks took over, they couldn't figure out what to do with the space. They tried it as an art gallery...a lecture hall...but it was made to be a church, and is useless for any other purpose.
What does architecture confess about theology?
"One hears that, in foreign lands, people are now learning to swim, lying on the floor, with the aid of equipment. In the same way, one can become a Catholic or Protestant without experiencing life at all--by reading books in one's study. But to become Orthodox, it is necessary to immerse oneself all at once in the very element of Orthodoxy, to begin living in an Orthodox way. There is no other way."--Fr. Pavel Florensky
1 comment:
Great post! I remember when I was in high school and the mega church movement was just hitting my hometown--our congregation was getting ready for a building program and I insisted to everyone who would listen that by all means our church should not look like a school.
I ended up in seminary before it was built. Guess what?
Thanks again!
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