Repeating a Theme: Beauty as Theology.

March 2013.

The nature of blog writing is episodic.

The theme of this particular blog is spelled out in the name. Religion. Belief. Cosmos. Within the limits of that broad theme, I write following no preconceived outline. Yet what emerges does have something of a flow, following whatever it is that has struck a resonant chord within me these days.

My thoughts weave around the various aisles of thought in these general areas, sometimes influenced by a particular reading I've encountered, sometimes by a dream or a personal encounter or a vision that smacks me in the head.

Leaving Estes Park.

Despite the wandering, my deepest feeling these days is that the notion I'm exploring is the experience of Beauty as a source of spiritual nurturance and nourishment.

Within that context I've been looking generally at the differences between the Roman Catholic and the Protestant Christian religions, pondering whether the Catholic traditions don't aim more at the sublime, at least in intention, than the Protestant, which are explicitly and aggressively bounded by the cognitive and intellectual.

Glenfinnan Viaduct, Scotland.

More specifically, in recent writings I'm returning to the profound and preverbal connection I've long felt for well-designed physical spaces--landscapes, engineered structures, buildings. And that building form that captures the essence of all spirituality, the Cathedral.

Most closely identified with the Catholic tradition, the Cathedral finds its home in those Protestant religions most closely associated with liturgical practice: the Church of England, or as it is known in the United States, the Episcopal Church, and the Lutheran Church.

Ferrell Jenkins tells the story of the Church at Wittenburg.

The irony doesn't escape me that the church named after the instigator of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther, is one of the churches most closely aligned with religious practices most similar to those of Catholicism. Nor is it incidental that the doors on which Fr Luther chose to post his 95 Theses were magnificent. (Beauty is not always simple and inexpensive.)

This blog entry occurred to me as a helpful reminder to myself and to any prospective reader who might wander this way: there are themes afoot here.

The Mission, a film of Beauty and Theology.

This is an epic film, unsurpassed cinematography, archetypal musical themes, powerfully charismatic people, in a slice of life telling of the exploration, exploitation and settling of the Americas by the Europeans.
















I never stopped to think that in this film, the Mission undertaken in the middle of the wildest of South American forests was the building of a cathedral. With the resources and the immense complexity of such an undertaking amidst a native population, clearly this was seen as the essential task of missionary work.



This was the pattern for the Catholic Church throughout much of its history, as I understand it. Preaching the gospel as they understood it took place within the context of the building of a cathedral. The cathedral was all-important. Historic maps of Italy in the Vatican Museum show scattered hilltop villages, each with its own cathedral at its center.

In Protestantism the place of worship may be an abandoned warehouse, a neighbor's house, a storefront. Simplicity and humility are the order of the day. My little mountain church is typical, Nederland Community Presbyterian Church.



In the world of the Catholic Church the place of worship is the very center of the community life, grand and eloquent in its statement, built for the ages as a tribute to a powerful God. In even the simplest of small-town church buildings, architectural and aesthetic beauty are primary.

In the world of Protestantism, the worship space is incidental. Is it correct to say that in the world of Catholicism the cathedral is of prime importance?


With changing membership and attendance patterns in Protestantism, I've been present in conversations, serious considerations, about the advisability of maintaining large (read: expensive) church facilities. Something important is being omitted in these conversations.

Tiny beauty.

Here's yet another example of a Truth hiding in plain sight.

Until being introduced to the concept of Beauty as Theology, I never stopped to think about the differences between Catholic and Protestant places of worship.

Especially evident in Italy, where even the smallest towns are centered around cathedrals, in America the earliest settlements by missionary priests were marked by the building of community jewels.

Those precious architectural masterpieces continue to inspire. And unlike most American architecture that disintegrates with age, these Places remain as inspiring today as the day the were built. The loving craftsmanship of construction has carried over to deep dedication across generations to careful and passionate caretaking.

In recent travels through southern Colorado, my son and his family stopped to enjoy the splendor of this tiny Catholic Church in Pagosa Springs.