American spirit: from the Old Ship Meeting House to the Crystal Cathedral, churches reflect the country's core values

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Feb 11, 2002 | by Julia Duin

In her new book, Churches, cultural historian Judith Dupre of Mamaroneck, N.Y., portrays 59 edifices from around the world, all on full-color plates with floor plans and interior and exterior views. Her choices for this country's houses of worship vary from the tall granite towers of the Salt Lake City Temple, the spiritual home of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to the black-paneled Rothko chapel in Houston, whose creator, Mark Rothko, committed suicide before its completion.

Most telling of America's core values, writes Dupre, is the Old Ship Meeting House, a venerable Unitarian building in Hingham, Mass. Formerly a Puritan church built in the 17th century, its basic, simple style reflects the indomitable spirit that settled this country and the way Americans perceive themselves as plain, hardworking folk.

Both business and worship were conducted in such meetinghouses, which were stark alternatives to Baroque European churches from which Americans had fled. God's word, not stained glass or sculpted images, was their way of communicating with God.

The 18th century saw construction of additional plain buildings, such as the Meetinghouse at Sabbathday Lake, Maine, built by the Shakers. This Protestant sect, whose community at Sabbath-day Lake was founded in 1783, shaped the future of American design. Their clean-limbed chairs, chests, built-in cupboards and oval boxes exuded clarity, forthrightness and efficiency, all hallmarks of American design.

Churches were springing up all over the American landscape by the 19th century. One of those was the Great Auditorium, a huge, clunky Methodist chapel in Ocean Grove, N.J., a beachfront town 60 miles from Manhattan. These were places where worship and play combined in the pursuit of holiness. Gatherings were known as camp meetings, or open-air religious gatherings where participants camped for weeks in tents pitched around a central worship area.

One of Dupre's choices for a typical 20th-century American church is the Crystal Cathedral, a 21-year-old venue in Garden Grove, Calif. The structure is a super studio for televised Christian worship, she says, and the typical Latin cross plan of the traditional cathedral was inverted to bring the worshippers closer to the stage. There is no altar. The church has become one of many service providers: state-of-the-art entertainment, full-service outreach programs and celebrity guests.

Newer churches avoid such sensory overload, Dupre says. "They're more abstract, more minimal in their use of materials" she says. "This is an audience overwhelmed with information. They do not want any more input. This is a contemplative group. So architects are trying to create a container for transcendent exchange between the individual and God."

Many images jettisoned after the transformative Vatican II, the 1960s-era Roman Catholic Church council that ushered modernity into that denomination, are returning, Dupre says. Votive candles, saints' images and stained glass are sought by a younger generation tired of technology. Despite this rush toward sanctuaries geared toward intuition and silence, the author does not envision great architecture nor art for the nation's churches.

True art, she explains, sometimes is incendiary, and few church administrators are willing to commission artists whose work inflames instead of soothes. "The great artists are not being called to be in service of the church like they once were," she says. "Giotto, Gaddi, those artists who introduced the Renaissance into the church; those were the most forward-thinking artists of their time."

GABRIELLA BOSTON AND JULIA DUIN WRITE FOR Insight's SISTER DAILY, THE WASHINGTON TIMES.