Spirituality not sole claim of Christianity
REV AR Wintle’s debunking of Richard Dawkins’ lament on the waste of artistic genius on the religious nature of architecture and art is well founded.
You can’t change history and who would deny the Renaissance? However, the Reverend can’t restrict his view to the Christian faith. He belongs to one of many belief systems including Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism and Islam that have created architectural and artistic wonders around the world.
Since the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason, along with Darwin and science in general with the development of universal education, western Europe has become secular, with the majority in the UK stating they have no religion and only 9% attending church regularly. Many of those who say they are Christian don’t actually believe in its tenets.
The metaphysics and spirituality, to which Rev Wintle refers, again, is not the sole claim of Christianity where Moslems are inspired by the Qur’an and Jews by their Torah, while Christians find truth and beauty in the Bible. Or should I say truths, as the Bible is a source of many branches of Christian faiths, confirming its ambiguity. We have the American fundamentalists, most of whom believe Earth is 6,000 years old, African Christians who jail homosexuals, among scores of other Christian sects.
Islam is currently engaged in a
savage holy war between Sunni and Shia Muslims costing hundreds of thousands of lives and mass refugee evacuation. It is similar to the Christian bloody Thirty Years’ War of the 17th century which has its flickering embers in Northern Ireland. Hopefully Islam will eventually experience its own age of reason, the sooner the better.
To assume that humanists and secularists are devoid of spirituality is extremely condescending. They are often deeply spiritual; this spirit being free, not being psychologically fettered by a closed mind of received religion and indoctrination.
I’m sure Professor Dawkins’ aesthetic sensibilities have been pacified by the increasing “changes of use” where abandoned churches have been transformed into utilitarian use in “the narrow confines of the present world”... and mosques, of course. Dennis Coughlin Llandaff, Cardiff