02 December 2005

Christianity and Architecture

As a contrast to the earlier post regarding the architecture of the mega-church, here's a review of a book describing the subtleties used by Huguenot architects who had been employed by Catholic nobility and royalty to build churches. In protest against the persecution of Huguenots, they inserted Calvinist stuff into the structures. For example: "Scripture verses would often be included on the interior of a building. Calvinists did not expect Catholics to complain about the verses because it would be a complaint against the Bible itself. However, Calvinists were careful to use verses that reflected their perspective. Fellow Calvinists walking into the building would recognize that a Huguenot had built that structure."

Structural modifications were made as well to put forward the Huguenot point of view. Art means something!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

This was a really neat article. It's good to think of how they used symbolism of their faith in everything they did. It got me thinking about what Christians today do in forms of symbolism. I know we have t-shirts with Christian messages and cross necklaces, but maybe we should be incorporating more into our lives to let people know what we believe, especially since some of our symbols are even worn by people who show by their lives they are not true followers. I was also thinking about some of the other symbols we have in our culture- celebrities and store brands. The really popular thing right now is wearing t-shirts with all kinds of logos on it- for everything from cereal to rock bands- and I wonder if that is symbolic of our consumer culture without our really realizing it. This was a cool post, though, Dr. Jewell!