{"id":62928,"date":"2016-05-03T10:48:30","date_gmt":"2016-05-03T15:48:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?p=62928"},"modified":"2016-05-01T08:49:53","modified_gmt":"2016-05-01T13:49:53","slug":"does-church-architecture-matter-i-think-so","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2016\/05\/03\/does-church-architecture-matter-i-think-so\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Church Architecture Matter? (I think so.)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Screen<\/a>Lisa Anne Auerbach<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n

The architecture of modern megachurches \u2014 which is to say, box churches \u2014 is deserving a fair inspection, not least by those in Europe who know the grandeur of cultures and cities and nations who vested their money in worship-centered architecture.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u00a0<\/span><\/span>started photographing megachurches<\/a> as an oppositional idea,\u201d explainsLisa Anne Auerbach<\/a>, a California photographer and artist. \u201cI had been doing a series about small free-standing businesses [encapsulating] this idea of America: you\u2019re an individual, you hang up your shingle, you pick yourself up by your bootstrap, and become your own fantasy. I was thinking about megachurches being another part of the American dream \u2013 faith and family and community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Using a database published by theological college Hartford Seminary<\/a> in Connecticut, Auerbach catalogued megachurches \u2013 \u201cand I use their definition for this,\u201d she stresses \u2013 in Christian Protestant denominations, which claim to have weekly congregations of over 2,000 people. Auerbach also subscribed to Outreach magazine<\/a>, a publication aimed at those who run churches, which has listings of megachurches. The top 50 in the country have more than 10,000 worshippers a week\u2026.<\/p>\n

Auerbach\u2019s megachurch megazine is currently on view in a Paris exhibition calledWasteland: New Art from Los Angeles<\/a>, a reference to the famed TS Eliot poem<\/a>. The relationship between architecture, landscape and religion seems particularly strange from a European perspective. The conception of the cathedral is not only where one goes to be spiritual or commune with God, but to feel awe through the grandeur of the architecture and the building\u2019s history. Comparatively, the US megachurch buildings are stripped wholesale of that sense of wonder and connection to the past; they are also far from the focal point of a city.<\/p>\n

\u201cNotre Dame is a cathedral in the center of the city,\u201d says Auerbach. \u201cWhereas these churches, although they\u2019re very powerful, are hidden. The reason they\u2019re hidden, I found, is that they\u2019re camouflaged. They look like places we just drive by. They\u2019re in office parks, they\u2019re in former big box stores. I thought that was fascinating: I don\u2019t even know what to look for. That was the impetus to say: whatis<\/em> this thing?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lisa Anne Auerbach: The architecture of modern megachurches \u2014 which is to say, box churches \u2014 is deserving a fair inspection, not least by those in Europe who know the grandeur of cultures and cities and nations who vested their money in worship-centered architecture. \u201cI\u00a0started photographing megachurches as an oppositional idea,\u201d explainsLisa Anne Auerbach, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nDoes Church Architecture Matter? 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