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Tuesday, July 7, 2009, 11:07 AM
Sally Thomas

Bad Church Art at The Crescat

Yeesh. And I’m not one to point fingers, either, because my own parish church, though I love it dearly, looks like a prefab office plaza dropped from a helicopter into the middle of a pasture. The Angel of the Perpendicular Style passed it right on over, and then some.

The lesson of course is that ugliness is not in itself an absolute impediment to holiness. But then, neither is beauty, a truth lost on an awful lot of architects circa 1972, not to mention whole worshipful companies of makers of tabernacles, baptismal fonts, Stations of the Cross, or crucifixes, all of whom seem to have said to themselves, “Let us give them this hideous thing, and dare them to think about God.”

2 Comments

    Josef
    July 17th, 2009 | 4:12 pm

    Oh my! I will never make fun of the ugly statues in my Church again. If these don’t make you renounce your religion, you are probably safe from any arguments someone may try on you.

    Icons & Curiosities — A First Things Blog
    July 28th, 2009 | 10:45 am

    [...] As I’ve said before, the Angel of the Perpendicular Style managed to forget Saint Dorothy’s somehow. Fortunately for us, however, there are things about this church which aren’t obvious to the naked eye, at least not from the highway. [...]