09 April 2007

Ecclesiastical Architecture

"Every age gets the ecclesiastical architecture that its social and political concerns warrant, and it's worth remembering that the great churches of pre-Reformation Europe, which [Andrew] Sullivan loves, look and feel like towered and battlemented military fortresses. Then, churches were built like castles, to intimidate; now, like shopping centers and sports arenas, they take entertainment rather than war as their model, which some might construe as a humanitarian advance of sorts."
~ Jonathan Raban, "Cracks in the House of Rove"
(a review of Andrew Sullivan's The Conservative Soul, in the 12 April 2007 edition of The New York Review of Books)

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How should a church look?

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