Religion: THE NEW CHURCHES

SINCLAIR LEWIS, that old village atheist, ironically professed to see American skyscrapers as cathedrals; the commercial towers of Babbitt’s home town “aspired above the morning mists.” In the booming cities of the ’50s, it is not only skyscrapers that are rising from the ground. The U.S. is witnessing the greatest church-building boom in its history.

All faiths, all denominations, all areas of the country are caught up in the construction rush. In the last decade, churches have spent $3 billion on new building, as compared to the $1.3 billion spent in the previous peak decade, the ?20s. Estimates for the next ten years run to approximately $7 2 billion. Other facts and figures:¶Last year U.S. churches spent half a billion dollars on new construction, with the Southern Baptists alone accounting for $130 million and the Congregational Christian Churches spending more than $20 million. ¶So far this year, the upward trend has continued. The Departments of Commerce and Labor announced last week that a new monthly record of $69 million in church building was set in August—$3,000,000 more than the previous record month, July.¶Fund-raising for future building is going full force. Last year the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. (Northern) raised $12 million, the Congregationalists $4,500,000. In May, the American Baptist Convention (Northern) had $6,500.000 of its $8 million building-fund goal. The Episcopalians recently raised some $4,000,000. ¶The construction industry also reflects the trend. In the first three months of 1955, 7% Of all nonresidential building contracts, totaling $128 million, went to religious building, a 60% increase over the previous first-quarter record, in 1951.

One out of every four of the new churches is modern (see color pages) Until recently, U.S. congregations and architects favored elaborate copies of older styles, particularly Gothic. But many 20th century churchgoers found American Gothic phony, dark and depressing. Since World War II, designers have kicked over church traditions so completely that one architect has described the state of religious architecture as “anarchy,” with good and bad sprouting together in the search for newness and originality. But the best designers build on the basic requirement of all religious buildings: that they produce in worshipers a sense of closeness to one another and aspiration to God. The parabola has become an increasingly popular form, especially in Roman Catholic churches, which use it to symbolize the open arms of Christ drawing His people to Him, as in St Louis’ Church of the Resurrection of our Lord and the Catholic Chapel of Brandeis University’s Interfaith Center Ihe use of clear glass has become more widespread in the new churches partly for reasons of economy and where stained glass is used, it is of lighter and simpler design. Gables tend to be high, with long, sloping roofs, as m St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Columbus. This “tent” construction lends itself well to expansion by making it relatively simple to increase the length of the nave.

But there still are heated controversies in many parishes about modern church design, and many Americans still feel uncomfortable praying amid all the cold steel, stone and glass. Most important, unlike Sinclair Lewis’ “aspiring” skyscrapers, these churches do not always reach toward the sky. For the most part, they hug the earth and nestle in the landscape. In that sense, like all religious architecture, they may express the faith of their age. Says M.I.T. Architect Pietro Belluschi: “Modern man may not wish his temple to reach to Heaven, which was the sky to the man of the Middle Ages; he may wish, rather, that it be human in scale, appropriate to the inward search and responsive to … the needs of a complex age.”