Old church buildings and cathedrals inspire at least some affections from the most hardened sceptic. Communities are willing to raise a lot of money to keep these community centres of the past still standing. It’s because there is a certain visual aesthetic that possibly allows a certain connection with a mythic past or even a certain sense that in those grey moss covered walls something good happened once. However the sound environments of these buildings for me are off putting. Voices get lost. They echo. They seem bigger than they really are. They seem distant. What kind of a theology does this reflect? A divinity that is far away, aloof and a lot bigger than it actually is?
This sound is me walking in the church and walking outside where the sounds seem warmer and closer. It might be the sound of war or celebration but old church sound enivironments seem intent to move divinity away from humanity when the core of the principle of Christianity is that Jesus is what makes divinity and humanity commune in ultimate intimacy.