There’s been so much sad news from cathedrals, churches, synagogues, and mosques in recent weeks, months, and years. All political sides may find common ground in the idea of protecting sacred spaces.
Indeed, it might be time for conservative former Education Secretary Bill Bennett and former Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Lieberman to reinvigorate a project they co-sponsored more than 20 years ago called “Partners for Sacred Spaces.” Time, too, for Americans of all goodwill to rally to the cause.
The Bennett-Lieberman effort from 1998 was interested more broadly with the quotidian decay of sacred places as community treasures and social centers — not specifically or only with physical safety. Whether by assault, accident, or decay, though, the point is much the same, as those bipartisan leaders wrote: “We now have compelling evidence that sacred places are shared places that serve people of all faiths and of all stations … The history of religious properties in America is also inextricably tied with a broader vision of community. The earliest churches doubled as town halls and village centers. As those villages grew to metropolises, the religious community found new ways to design and use their buildings to serve the changing needs of growing populations.”
Also, of course, places of worship usually are places of exquisite beauty. Consider the April 25 column “Sacred Spaces Matter: Beauty Calls the World to God,” by John Stonestreet and G. Shane Morris of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview.
“The human impulse to beautify spaces, and to mourn the loss of spaces, points to a truth about God and ourselves,” they wrote. “In a time when attacking church buildings has become a favorite means of attacking God, His people, and even cultural order, we should never forget what even arsonists and vandals know: that beauty matters, and stones can sometimes preach.”
The Colson Center columnists report on a worldwide epidemic of church vandalism and destruction, with more than 800 churches targeted in France last year alone, hundreds of churches forcibly shut down in China, and of course all the headline-making stories of similar events in the U.S. Our hearts should be breaking as we consider these reports.
This leads back, by way of art historian Brian T. Allen writing April 27 in National Review Online, to the same points Lieberman and Bennett were making in 1998: “There are many hundreds of churches in America in terrible condition. I have a particular interest in stained glass and other kinds of interior church decoration. This is American art of exceptional quality. Many churches need to raise money for other needs, like new roofs or new furnaces. They actually address poverty, too, not cry about it.”
So – what to do?
Lieberman and Bennett’s report outlined a series of action items to better protect these sacred centers of majesty and renewal. Among them: “New funding vehicles to encourage government and philanthropic support.” And “a coalition of key stakeholders and advocates — representing religion, human services, the arts, community development and historic preservation — charged with developing and implementing a long-term strategy to sustain America’s sacred places.” And “Increased technical assistance and grants to local organizations that can help congregations with the care and use of their older buildings.”
And much, much more.
It’s time to dust off the “Sacred Spaces at Risk” report, update it, and pursue these and any new proposals with sustained and enlightened vigor. These places are our heritage. They should also be our future.
