Something I’ve been thinking about quite a bit recently is church buildings. What should we do with them? This is question that gets asked from time to time in the newspapers, but is a daily source of concern for many people who do the work (usually voluntarily) of looking after them.
On the one hand, church buildings are among our biggest resource. They are often iconic, historical structures that have been preserved and cared for over hundreds of years. They give a space to gather, and this space becomes holy simply by the act of gathering. They are recognised as important places, even by many people who don’t go to Church regularly. And financially, there is a tremendous amount of value in the land, although probably less so in the buildings themselves.
On the other hand, church buildings are a tremendous drain on resources. If we’re focusing on keeping the church roof from leaking we’re not focusing on feeding the hungry or sheltering the homeless. There is an ambivalent materialism to churches, and a danger that we might start to care more about the structure than the community inside it and outside it. Largely as a consequence of being so old churches often have problematic histories, such as associations with empire or slavery.
For me, there is often something very sad about a closed or repurposed church. This feeling isn’t particularly rational and goes against my more pragmatic nature. But it’s important to acknowledge that this feeling exists. There’s a lot more thinking to do on this…
Religion, Environment, History 