Flying high: I don't know. Her husband was no kind of heavy. I guess someone on the RBC thought they were purdy!
The KINGDOM HALL topic.
by nicolaou 53 Replies latest social entertainment
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jws
I agree that KH's are UGLY! Can't recall seeing one as beautiful as some Catholic or Baptist churches I've seen. Plain, and not to mention, often horribly decorated. I did see a few nicer ones in the more affluent areas. And I have seen some pretty plain churches as well. Saw one a couple weeks ago looked straight out of a small rural 1800's community.
I remember watching some documentary about how churches are often designed to essentially hypnotize. It's been a while, so I don't remember all the details, but the jist I got out of it was the things like the lights, the stained glass, the music, can more-or-less hypnotize people or put them into a certain state of mind to be more open to suggestion. This is how some of the healing preachers work their magic.
Certainly the more beautiful and majestic a church is, the more chance you might feel a sense of the divine, through nothing more than showmanship on the part of humans to set the atmosphere. Not unlike a restaurant, theater, or even a Vegas casino might use theatrics.
I'm sure the 1st century Christians didn't have mega churches or anything fancy. They probably met in plain brick or clay homes. Problem is some Kingdom Halls seem to look barely a step above that nearly 20 centuries later.
I suppose if I were to want to believe, the theatrics might help all the religious BS go down a little easier.
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breakfast of champions
The biggest stretch is thinking that Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia on a 99F summer day is the house of god. . . Hell is more like it!
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Band on the Run
I would truly believe that anyone raised an Anglican, whether Anglo-Catholic, High, Broad or Low, would just keel over and die having to be visit a KH. This past Sunday I attended my local rural, resort parish. The electric organ drove me bonkers. Much better to have an excellent piano. I went from KH to Cathedral. I did not appreciate it at all but living in NY, my parish shopping was enhanced by great aesthetics. The parishers are so literate.
I can't imagine a reverse process. Of course, I must admit that few Episcopalians can tell you the essentials of dogma or doctrine. Focusing on being a good Christian should be enough.
My present church is landscaped right out of the English countryside. I could not believe how distracted I was by the cheap organ. Relatively cheap organ. I stepped whole hog and had no clue.
I love Rite I with incense. Adore it. But not enough to make an 8am service.
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NVR2L8
In one of the halls I attended there was a mural of a paradise scene on the wall behind the speaker, with curtains bordering each side and a white picket fence applied to the wall...often the speakers would point at that fence to illustrate how close we were to entering into paradise....that was 30 years ago....
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FlyingHighNow
Band, are you Episcopalian? I like the Rite 1 with incense, too, but they do them at the later morning services here. Did you see my childhood church on page one of this thread. The church we attended in Mobile, also called Trinity is the big old gothic church with scissor beams. I went there from 0-nearly seven years old. I very much missed the beauty of the Episcopal services and churches when I was a JW.
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Band on the Run
It sounds as though you had as much choice about being involved with the Witnesses as I did. I had no idea such beauty and intellectual rigor existed. My first church of any kind was the Episcopal Cathedral in NY. Most of the acolytes were seminarians at Union Theological. The entire area by Columbia University is often called the Protestant Vatican. The Rockefeller built Union to make the Baptist religion have more status. Riverside Church is nondenominational. Offices abound for various Protestant groups. The Episcopal cathedral, technically the largest cathedral in the world, is down a few blocks from Columbia.
I graduated from Columbia and never noticed much of the surrounding church culture.Jewish Theological seminary is also in the area. MY prof. at Barnard specialized in Gnosticism and taught a graduate course at Union. I wanted to take it so much but you had to learn Koine Greek. I had to visit the campus and the subway was not working so I had to walk down to the next station. I passed the Cathedral. A big placard was announcing that Cesar Chavez would give the sermon so I drive in from Jersey. It was all the splendor of Catholicsim with a progressive theology.
If the subway were not out, I would prob. still not know anything about churches. I parish shopped all over town. Grace, St. Marks in the Bowery, Peter Stuveysant's Church, St. Thomas, very English, and St. Bart's, society and young professionals. I thought every church had museum quality paintings and landmark status.Your church looks very well maintained. I have some photos I took but they did not turn out very well. The Cathedral is unfinished. I don't think it will ever be finished. People want the funds to go to homeless, AIDS, and poverty ministries rather than build a tower. The income tax stopped a lot of the building.
The Cathedral veers to Anglo-Catholic. I think I would still tend in that direction if my first church were broad. My neighborhood growing up was 98% Catholic.
When I became very ill and near death, I volunteered at the Cathedral, serving as a tourist aid. Madeleine L'Engle and the director of volunteers spent hours with me to keep me alive. I needed the structure. My mom and the Cathedral are the reasons I am alive now. We had the coolest rock concerts.
The church is ecunmenical. We have treasure troves from Shinto, Buddhists, part of the altar from Runnymeade, the Magna Carta church. Shinto priests still visit. There is all this colloboration with monasteries around the world.
Sometimes I pinch myself that the girl who was imprisoned in the KH can worship the way I do now.
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nicolaou
FHN, sorry for the late reply. The church I visited is St Swithuns in Swanbourne . .
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/821413
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steve2
If the cynics (including the JWs) decry the manipulative grandeur and splendour of "manmade" cathedrals, arguing for brain-dead plain buildings, then they ought to decry the claimed grandeur of the Biblical passages about "heavenly" splendour, including those tirelessly zealous angels encircling the throne of the true "God", crying "Holy, Holy, Holy" ad infinitum. How spiritually manipulative is that?
Whether we believe it or not, religion has always attracted larger-than-life physical representations - and if these representations enable people to get into the head space of what their spirituality is about, well and good. Move aside cynics and give me the tranquility and/or splendour of these visionary buildings any day over the mind-numbingly uninspiring and lifeless buildings distastefully called Kingdom Halls.
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FlyingHighNow
Nic, that is so beautiful. I have longed to visit the British Isles and see the villages and churches since I was a kid during the British Invasion and Mod Times. Is that Anglican? I guess I could look it up.
