c. 1998 Religion News Service

MOBILE, Ala. _ For millenniums, people have been constructing sacred spaces, carving them out of clay and stone, decorating them with glass and wood.

They have marked them with symbols _ steeples and towers, stones and trees. Inside, candles and water evoke a divine presence.

A church _ or any house of worship _ is about people and transcendence. Yet there’s no denying the structure has significance.

“Ideally, a (sacred) structure communicates sacred space,” said the Rev. William F. Fields of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception here. “It takes you out of the normal, earthly realm and you’re in between. Liturgy transcends time and space as we normally know it; the structure should communicate that.”

Religious communities throughout history have considered the construction of their sanctuaries important. Europe is filled with the centuries-old religious creations of architects, painters and sculptors. Then, in a backlash against the ornate cathedrals and basilicas of old, simplified structures became the vogue.

Now simplicity in line and structure continues, but there’s nothing generic about many of the new structures. Instead, many say there’s been a resurgence in the attention given to religious art and architecture in recent years.

“Religious groups are much more sophisticated in what they’re accepting,” said Douglas R. Hoffman, chairman of the Washington-based Interfaith Forum on Religion, Art and Architecture. “They’re expecting architects to be more liturgically savvy.”

Congregations, in other words, expect their builders to understand the multiple functions that today’s sanctuaries serve. They are still meant to evoke a sense of the transcendent and otherworldly. But for modern congregations, that sense is not limited to a daily or weekly service of prayer and preaching. Many congregations now want their sanctuaries to include space for activities ranging from liturgical dance to choir performance. Some sanctuaries may double as meeting halls.

More and more, architects say, congregations want their worship areas to reflect and to facilitate connection and involvement with the divine.

When members of Our Savior Catholic Church in Mobile began thinking about building a new sanctuary in 1989, they called architect Bruce Knodel. They also sought direction from liturgical consultant Marchita Mauck, an art history professor at Louisiana State University.

“We wanted to concern ourselves with the rituals for the church,” said the Rev. Russell L. Biven of Our Savior. For that reason, he said, things like the baptismal bath (an immersion pool atypical for Roman Catholics), the church plaza and the chapel of reconciliation receive emphasis in the sanctuary’s design. Few icons and little stained glass are present.

Biven said there’s a reason for that.

“The more you multiply symbols, the less effective they are,” he said. “It was fine when people couldn’t read much,” Biven said, but such things are no longer necessary to teach the Gospel.

Instead, he explained, a church should be inviting and foster community, as well as inspire a sense of divine mystery. Architecture and art can do much to accomplish that, he said. But in the end, the people prove space sacred or profane.

Knodel agreed.

“I don’t think we create sacred spaces,” he said. “That’s something each person has to find for himself. We create a building that functions as a church. The important part of what we do happens when people occupy the church.”

Clergy, of course, want their sanctuaries filled. Some believe their houses of worship have a role to play in accomplishing that. People have different preferences for architectural styles as well as worship styles; consequently, each church structure is likely to reflect its congregation’s theology and sensibility, as well as its economic status and locale.

Watching the shape of religious architecture across the country, Hoffman said he sees one common denominator.

“The thing that will characterize churches is the diversity,” he said. “There’s something that appeals to everyone’s needs, from mall-like megachurches to small clapboard churches.”

Sprawling megachurches are housing a growing percentage of the Christian population. And while their large congregations are tributes to what takes place inside, some architects say their popularity also has to do with what passersby-turned-members first saw outside.

With a philosophy that advocates reaching people “where they are,” many megachurches have structured themselves to look a bit like malls or corporate headquarters. The thinking is that previously unchurched baby boomers feel comfortable in those places. So if a church is built to look more like a shopping center or corporate office and not a church, it might seem less threatening and more appealing, said Peter W. Williams, author of “Houses of God: Region, Religion and Architecture in the United States.”

“There are different strategies,” he said. “In the South, especially, the colonial revival motif reflects very well the politics of many evangelical groups. It’s an attempt to give political values a religious character. Americans tend to think of the time around the Revolution as a powerful period for the articulation of values. It also may be a way in which groups that are new can anchor themselves in a sense of history.”

In the end, buildings are tools _ for evangelism, for worship, for shelter. As elaborate or mundane as they look on the outside, they must evoke some sense of awe and mystery on the inside.

“You can worship anywhere,” Fields said. But, he added, “I think there’s something implicit in beholding the beautiful that draws us to the transcendent. God is not ugly.”

IR END CAMPBELL