Why Did They?
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.” Luke 2:14 NASB
Glory to God – The Duomo in Orvieto[1], Italy, is but one example of amazing human architecture in dedication to God. Taking nearly 300 years to build, its original purpose was to substantiate a miracle witnessed by a priest in a nearby village. But even though that was the official reason, the true motive might simply have been this: God deserves glory and we humans should do all that we can to give Him that honor. Of course, all the religious paraphernalia including Mary are incorporated in the design. We may object to this syncretism today, but it’s hard to believe that men and women who spent their lives involved in this construction didn’t feel that they were honoring God in the process. And that’s an important lesson. It’s easy to criticize their mistaken theology today, but it’s more than likely that we would have done exactly as they did if we had been alive in the 13th Century in Orvieto. And we would have said, “Glory to God in the highest,” noting that He was pleased with our efforts.
What’s the lesson? Perhaps we need a bit of historical tolerance in order to understand why they did it. Or for that matter, why our neighbors, friends, relatives and others continue to hold on to their version of “Glory to God in the highest.” Maybe we are to quick to be right. One of the damning presuppositions of Western thought is that Truth must first be rational. In other words, the world is viewed as a cognitive investigation rather than a form of divine embodiment. But what if Truth is first emotional and then becomes rational as we find ways to fit our feelings into a cognitive explanation? What if the world simply arrives for us and we are asked to embrace it before we try to manipulate it? If you entered this Duomo with a heart turned toward God rather than a critical mind searching for all that is “wrong” in the symbols, wouldn’t you experience the awe of all that Man does to honor, to search for, his Creator? Would that be such a bad thing? [and after you feel all this, then we can go ahead and critique the dogmas].
Topical Index: Orvieto, tolerance, Glory to God, Luke 2:14
[1] for some history of the Duomo, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orvieto_Cathedral
Good day to you all. When I think of a church building with all of the detail that this has I think of people saying we have worked hard and we have done it right follow us this is the only way.. determination through the years. Confirms the long-lasting Endeavor remains because our God was with us we will show you what is right.
Shalom everyone
I question whether the position of tolerance is a righteous endeavor. The notion that I can decide that the grand temples of Hinduism is man’s heartfelt attempt to glorify ___ or that a Buddhist temple, the Crystal Cathedral or the arena full of worshipers on a Sunday morning is man’s heartfelt attempt to put in to physical motion a declared ‘glory to ___’ seems to be a position of exalting myself to the declarer of what is just such. Let’s just be honest and fill the blanks in with god.
I can’t find in the Scripture that the God of Israel’s ‘tolerance’ of attempts to worship Him in forms other than what He has instructed is anything other than actual Mercy and we know that Mercy can and is withdrawn. His patience is Merciful in that we are mercifully given the opportunity to be resurrected from our ‘rest’ every morning and given another day to grow towards Him; but there is a day that comes when those opportunities cease.
I don’t think I want to waste the few precious days I have carving images or building/funding grand casinos of religion. Someday I may share the photos of such grand places I have seen in Latin countries and express my deep sadness that these kinds of ‘works’ were surrounded by intolerance, hunger, and abuse where they stood.
Yes, being in the inner city, and all the buildings of old that were erected, no one can afford to keep them going. Having monthly offerings that are under $100, we can’t even pay our rent without outside givers and many of these old buildings are falling apart. Then I look in places like Africa, where people have the natural, relational gifts to do home churches in villages but then outsiders get money to have buildings built to hold services that again, the indigenous people can’t afford over the long run. Why are we so afraid to have authentic relationships with others?
I am not disagreeing with you. What I want us to think about is the the construction of these buildings were attempts by those in the past who were also SEEKING GOD within the confines of their own culture and understanding. That doesn’t mean we have not progressed. It means that we are not in a position to judge them since we do not know their hearts. IT also means that we too are subject to our own views of seeking God, as most of us have discovered along the way. For me, this means I am much less critical and must more attentive to heart motivation rather than propositional discussion. And I suspect that God is also looking at the heart, and noticing how much each one of us is still a product of our birth.
Skip, I say yes. “Why DID they?” Good question. I agree, “we need a bit of historical tolerance in order to understand why they did it” or maybe to NOT know why they did. Also, “Maybe we are too quick to be right.” We are, or at least I am! I do appreciate your love and mercy to others in matters as important as this. It is to be esteemed. But I would like to ask some more questions about this.
You may rule out or reprove this reply because of the length of what is written, and other readers here are welcome to do the same. However, to respond to it in whole I must, even with my weak efforts to be succinct, appeal that I be allowed to “go on”, a bit. The time it would take to be more succinct is likely much greater than one’s time to read it. Regardless, please consider it a matter of “body” economy of time, or otherwise, please forgive me. Either way, thank you for the benefit it is to me to work things out here myself and invite with you along with others to do the same.
WOULD we have “done exactly as they did…”? WOULD we “have said, ‘Glory to God in the highest,’ noting that He was pleased with our efforts”? I know I have contributed prayers and money to such works and I thought my intentions and efforts were at least in part for the glory of “God in the highest” (though now I believe they were mixed and also for the unrighteous esteem of man), and I would quite possibly not have wanted someone to judge me otherwise. Though I may have still considered such judgments, if they had been shared with me, even if without mercy or compassion. That, in part, is how I left the Christian church. The Truth gets through to those who have received a love of the Truth, though even for such ones it is at best, for us, progressive. Even if I wouldn’t have been receptive, it doesn’t mean that someone so moved should not have shared those judgments with me. What’s at issue here seems to be the matter of mercy and grace vs Truth. Or better yet, not one or the other but both, mercy and grace AND Truth.
First, though, don’t we need to ask, who are the “they” about whom we are asking this question, “Why did they?” Such as, are “they” the religious hierarchical powers, the eloheim of this world, maybe especially the religious world, but possibly also the political world, or are “they” the poor in spirit, the meek, even the weak in faith? Because I don’t think we can answer the question on an individual basis by merely assessing it based on the whole, the building of a building nor the building itself, no matter how “amazing” it looks, nor the “worship” practices of the community of people associated with it, whether in one generation or another.
But why DID “they”, individually, spend their lives building such buildings? Is the individual to be judged based on the whole? Some conceived the ideas to build them. Some planned the buildings. Some requested, coerced, collected, and managed the finances to build them, I’m quite sure. Some built them for pay. Some just paid to have them built. Some sought power to be gods, eloheim of this world. Some worshiped those powers, those gods, those eloheim, and even bowed down and served them and even the building themselves, as well as the elements of those buildings. Yet I’m also quite sure some sought to worship the One True Eloheim of Israel, somehow coming to know Him in part, even despite all the lies, false doctrines of men, and forms of the religions of men.
It is good to know that the ultimate judgment belongs to the Eloheim of Israel. And we do well to be humble in our judgments, to be merciful in our judgments toward others in their beliefs and in their living and doings, and possibly even to esteem some for their good intentions and efforts. But won’t He ultimately somehow judge us all both as nations and, separately, as individuals?
Zec 7:9 Thus says Adonai-Tzva’ot: ‘Administer true judgment and practice mercy and compassion each to his brother.
Some of my concerns with your line of thinking here is that you start with, “the true motive MIGHT simply have been this…”, and then you progress to, “it’s hard to believe that men and women who spent their lives involved in this construction didn’t feel that they were honoring God in the process”, and then somewhat more dogmatically to your conclusive exhortation, “And that’s an important lesson.” I agree there is to be a lesson here, but what exactly is the lesson. And there may be more than one. A significant one may be, “What god did they feel was being honored?” Is this “Glory to God”? Maybe only He knows and maybe that is your point and a good one at that.
You also say, “One of the damning presuppositions of Western thought IS that Truth must first be rational.” And then you say, “But WHAT IF Truth is first emotional and then becomes rational…”. The damning presupposition may be that one would think that Truth is either first rational OR first emotional, OR even both WITHOUT SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT. Regardless, to be exact regarding the dynamics of the emotional and the rational (cognitive), I believe, whether conscious, pre-conscious, or sub-conscious, that the emotional is always a result of first the cognitive. However, I agree that we should seek to be and remain experientially engaged on an emotional level, as well, in our search for and living according to the Truth. Though I believe that spiritual discernment must also be integrally included.
You ask, “What if the world simply arrives for us and we are asked to embrace it before we try to manipulate it?” By “the world”, I’m not sure what you may mean here. Do you mean any experience we have in life at any moment, we are to embrace it on an emotional level first? Does that mean we are not to constantly seek to have spiritual discernment first, even with our also first embracing it on an emotional level, and that to not embrace experiences on an emotional level first, possibly without spiritual discernment, means we are just being manipulative of the “Truth” and wrongly critical of the mistaken theology of others (“easy to criticize their mistaken theology”), having “a critical mind searching for all that is ‘wrong’ in the symbols”? And finally, I find myself somewhat recoiling in reaction to your suggestion, even encouragement, “wouldn’t you experience the awe of all that Man does to honor, to search for, his Creator?” I see how you may mean the “awe of YHWH” in creating man to have such a hunger to search for, know, and worship his Creator, but is there not also the, maybe” dishonorable works of man in keeping with the yetzer hara that is to be discerned and righteously judged, even though with mercy and compassion? I wouldn’t judge the individual without sufficient personal knowledge of the individual, but as a whole I would possibly judge even the religious works of such an “amazing” building as this one. And I think the Creator might do the same, especially if the motivation was known to be one of “Come let’s make a name for ourselves” (which I’m quite sure has been and continues to be done, even in the religious world where some in those communities are truly seeking the Truth) and when considering the following text:
Gen 11:3 They said to one another, “Come! Let’s make bricks and bake them until they’re hard.” So they used bricks for stone, and tar for mortar.
Gen 11:4 Then they said, “Come! Let’s build ourselves a city, with a tower whose top reaches into heaven. So let’s make a name for ourselves, or else we will be scattered over the face of the whole land.”
Gen 11:5 Then Adonai came down to see the city and the tower that the sons of man had built.
Gen 11:6 Adonai said, “Look, the people are one and all of them have the same language. So this is what they have begun to do. Now, nothing they plan to do will be impossible.
Gen 11:7 Come! Let Us go down and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand each other’s language.”
Gen 11:8 So Adonai scattered them from there over the face of the entire land, and they stopped building the city.
Gen 11:9 This is why it is named Babel, because Adonai confused the languages of the entire world there, and from there Adonai scattered them over the face of the entire world.
You’re right. It’s long. 🙂
But a few shorter remarks that hit me. Not a commentary on all of course. First, the “they” that I had in mind is not the religious hierarchy or the clergy but rather the scores of poor and unknown craftsmen who spent their lives building structures that took 300 years to finish. These are people like you and me. Not famous. Just dedicated. And in most cases, I imagine, devoted to the God that they knew (for which I fault the teachers, not the people). So, yes, it is inspiring to see what men can do in the honor of God even if they were mistaken about who that God is. I don’t believe this is simply pagan humanism (although certainly some used it for those ends). I believe most of the people who built it, and most who attend today for spiritual reasons (not tourists) are just like us – trying to connect with God in places where we have been taught to find Him. Sure, nature is magnificent, maybe better, but why throw these away when they are really YOUR history too.
Second, it’s not about the “awe” of what men can do APART from God. It is about the amazing fact that men try to SEEK Him everywhere. That there really is no culture without an attempt to connect to the divine. And here it is all around me, my history in my culture, trying to reach out – failing maybe – but still trying. That is important. Here is it not DOCTRINE that impacts me. It is human desperation and need. I’m not sure I would feel any differently if I had a chance to go to the Temple in Jerusalem.
Third, the world does assault you before you THINK about it. You are BORN into experience and emotion. Your cognitive abilities develop later but they are always already influenced by what happened in your experience BEFORE you were born and BEFORE you became rational. So, yes, emotion comes before rationality, even if we are arrogant enough to think otherwise. Or maybe we just don’t like thinking we aren’t IN CONTROL.
Finally, to keep it short, the LESSON here is just how arrogant we are to think that these poor souls of years past were so deluded and wrong and pagan and sinful and etc. but WE, on the other hand, have it all right now. We are doing the right things because WE have the true understanding of the text and God and etc. Don’t you suppose they thought the same thing? And someone will come along in 100 years and say of me, “Oh, that Skip, he thought he had it figured out, but now we know . . .” Let’s start with humility. Today I see it like this, but I MIGHT BE WRONG, so I’ll keep looking and listening and maybe you will come along and correct me. Thanks.
Is it not HUMILITY to acknowledge that, at least ultimately, GOD is the One to judge the motives of men’s hearts, and not we ourselves, whether for evil OR for good, and to be merciful and compassionate? (And this is what I am trying to say, though yes, I may do better to communicate more succinctly, and carefully, so that you may “read” more carefully : ) I have agreed with you from the beginning that we ought not judge the motives of others, at least not without sufficient knowledge, and we often do not have sufficient knowledge. I am only saying that because, as you have agreed, we cannot (at least, scarcely can we otherwise) judge the motives of another man’s heart, and that, I say, whether for evil OR for good! Yet you seem to imply that I (and/or people you reference by implication, who you maybe think are like me) am arrogant, because you think I am implying a judgment of the people to whom you are being merciful, though I am not actually judging them. I am questioning and even, at least in part, suspecting them. Nevertheless, I agree we ought to be merciful.
However, do you not judge the motives of “most of” men’s hearts in “seeking God”, in this case through their perseverance in building such a building, as GOOD, when you can not know what there motives were/are, and even then isn’t it to be an individually based judgment? Nevertheless, I am open to considering that SOME people’s hearts MAY have been good in their seeking of God. To be clear and affirming again, I agree with your intent here to call into question the attitude of some who may judge prematurely and harshly in such matters. I just personally choose to neither credit nor discredit them or their works, for in doing otherwise we may error by doing one OR the other. And I think it may even be a responsibility to question and maybe even suspect them (lest we wrongly flatter or exalt man and his works), while acknowledging that ultimately judgment belongs to Him, and ALSO to be merciful and compassionate. I say honor and affirm what we KNOW is right, good, and true, and otherwise do not be quick to judge, judge harshly or judge beyond the measure that is deserved.
So yes, I WILL continue to come along and I WILL question and probably even correct you at times, even as I have tried to affirm and express appreciation for almost everything you say, at least in good part, even as I appreciate our relationship here where you have done the same with me. Thanks to you, too. (Thus ends my essay, thesis, or dissertation; or whatever it is, you decide : )
Amen to all that!
My wife and I went to see the movie “The Shack” (having read and enjoyed the book). We were both very moved by it. Clearly it’s an allegory of sorts, and not intended to be ‘theologically correct” (whatever that means!). It was an emotional experience for us, and so “Godful” as John Muir might have put it. Because of physical abuse by his father, the central character was unable to receive the Father as a ‘He’, so He appeared to him as an African-American woman, and Jesus and the Holy Spirit were separate personages, all quite exquisitely characterized. Imagine my wife’s discouragement when she shared her enjoyment of this movie with her ladies’ Bible study group. No sooner had she done so (the next day actually) she was given material on how unsound and heretical such a movie was, and one article by a critic who didn’t even see the movie because it was so heretical, but nevertheless commented extensively on it! How sad: everything had to be forced into the little God-box that her evangelical/fundamentalist friends had constructed!
Interesting discussion. As an architect I think God cares about what we build, perhaps more importantly why and how we do it. Ruskin the instigator of the English arts and crafts movement suggested “have nothing in your houses that are not both useful and beautiful”. That I think gives Yahh glory don’t you? We need tools and objects to support our life, we must make them with our own hands or they will not be. Yahweh determined to do things without hands and use ours did he not? That’s part of His mysterious commitment to an intimate, interdependent relationship with his creation. I have been musing on life and doing of late. It’s not so much what we do that matters, it seems than why and how and to who’s glory and honor it is done. Is it not? St. Irenaeus was quoted as saying “the Glory of God is man fully alive” part of that life is to make and do. Is it not? So making things beautiful from a heart of quite submission no matter what it is we make I think gives God glory. In my walk since the age of nine I was going to “be” a minster or and architect. Yahweh never lead me to be a full time minister but I would like to think my architecture does minister. I would like to think my life words and actions minister to others. Yahweh alone knows for sure and with that I am content. For he also said to me years ago after I had competed my architectural education and was considering going into the peace core to use my training for service he said “Go where you will your mine I will use you”. And so I just follow as best I can and trust he get’s the glory because it’s no longer about me. “in him I live and move and have my being”.
Have mercy on typo’s (“is not both”…competed=completed) by the way it was Isiah who said “you will hear a voice behind you saying this is they way walk in it whenever you turn to the left or right”. I choose to believe the word is true so I trust that voice to be true and act on it (most of the time). As Dr. Del Tackett Creator of Focus on the Family’s “the truth Project” say’s (in his awesome but very Greek course on a biblical world view) “. “Do we actually believe what we say we believe is really true”. I say if so just do it…
I like your humility, Mark, as an architect and as a man, and I am sure that humility shines in your work, too, clearing the way to that proper glory to God which should show in all we do and are. Amen.
What is the purpose of this discussion? Define that, and confusion will be less likely to happen.
Is it to allow others the best they know, whether it be how they worship or who, vs. requiring them to answer to how we do it or whom (“tolerance” vs. “intolerance”)?
Is it to establish conformity (or not) – synchronicity or non-synchronicity – with others as a way of identity for ourselves or towards those around us?
Is it to ask “what is truth” using examples of what others left us, and measure what we think and how we behave vs. what they did?
Is it to personally experience what we BELIEVE others experience(d) with these places? Do we personally seek God in this way as a way of identifying with others who have, or are we merely sympathizing with the best they had?
If we do not establish exactly what, where, whom, how and why, we may well be having reactions around and past each other. Confusion. Hello, Babel.
And, please, while you are asking for kindness, also be kind to those of us who have the genetic and spiritual inheritance of the Protest against the force to ONLY seek glory to God in such places. It wasn’t that long ago that, to ‘defend’ the supposed “glory to God’ in these exact structures that millions were tortured, denied “tolerance” (can we be fair, here?) and slaughtered. That is my personal emotional reaction before thinking, as you asked, and I also found that was all I could think about when I had the opportunity to stand in such places myself.
I found It had very little to do with architecture (which is another subject entirely, to me, anyway than what God established to give glory to Him: namely, nature). Architecture, as magnificent as it can possibly be, like all art, can only be a poor imitation of nature, and all its ‘glory’ is either borrowed, copied or stolen (not given proper credit to the true Designer) from that source. The magnificent groves of trees on “high places” used to be the same thing. From what I read, YHVH kept having to order those “cut down”, too. And I, for one, could not help but get the creeps from knowing that all such places were deliberately built over pagan shrines and, incidentally (not), ALL of them have dead bodies somewhere in or under them, too. Glory? To whom?
I guess – perhaps it is because I am from the South – but the Protest is still not over for me! Apologies for any offense.
Thank you dear sister for your insights, encouragement and perspective. No offense taken. It is from our paradigms and interpretive grids that we glean what we determine to know. This I think is Skips first and foremost point. An example Germaine to this topic and subject. I went to the Roman Colosseum as an architecture student in my 30’s with another architecture student. I am a messianic jew, he was a Roman Catholic. His impression was basically what a glorious structure I can hear the cheering crowed. I’m thinking of those Christians torture here. It got real quite and somber then…Most things are largely about perspective.
While I always enjoy the various thoughts and don’t comment, I am making an exception today. In my lifetime, I have been blessed to have travelled around the world and seen the religious houses of many faiths. The one that popped into my thoughts after reading Today’s Word involves a visit to an amazing structure built by the Catholic church to glorify G-d. I was in awe at the beauty and workmanship until we learned that a body had been buried in front of the threshhold with the incorporation of a skull and crossbones in the floor tiling to keep keep out the _____ Jews. It was, apparently, the standard in Europe and exists today in those ancient edifices created to glorify G-d. The discovery forever tainted the beauty and workmanship of what was meant to show man’s love for The Almighty. He is Worthy to be worshipped with incredible beauty but, distinguishing between the intent of the heart and it’s works shows that the intent is not always the result.
What a sad commentary on the history and bigotry of the Church. I am sure not all the people who worked on that building did it to slight the Jews, but it is really tragic that much of Christian history reflects such animosity on the part of the early Church fathers. We have a lot of work to do to repair this damage. It must start with glorifying God, not denigrating His chosen people
I couldn’t agree more. The sad thing is that it was a practice all over Europe. Anti-Semitism is a pain in my heart. My prayer is for all who are told of such a horrific practice that fosters such hatred. If they claim to be Believers and have a hatred for His Chosen People, how will they ever serve a Jewish KING?
Excellent piece today, and stimulating comments. I believe all Skip is asking is a little charity of spirit, a little broadening of our horizons. At the very least, if we are uncertain whether an individual’s artistic endeavors were directed toward God, we can remember Paul’s admonition–What have we to do with judging those who are outside? And if we concede that an artist/workman was trying to honor God with the production, but we feel they fell far short, remember, we must all appear before the Judgment Seat. And in the end, all the elements shall burn, and a new Heaven and a new Earth will appear. In the meantime, this life is messy. Into such a life was Yeshua born. His example shows us what kind of attitude to have toward art, work, and worship.
My daughter studied for a year in Orvieto and wrote a paper on the panel paintings in the Duomo. Incredible depth and history and artistry and devotion in every detail of these paintings.
Mark Parry: This may be incidental to your point but I thought you might like to recheck your quote’s authorship. “Ruskin the instigator of the English arts and crafts movement suggested ‘have nothing in your houses that are not both useful and beautiful’”.
I believe it is from William Morris not Ruskin.
“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”
(Quote by: William Morris, British craftsman, early Socialist, Designer and Poet, whose designs generated the Arts and Crafts Movement in England. 1834-1896)