This is a picture I drew circa 1971. In those days, aged 19, I still carried with me the modernist optimism that had attracted me in my school days of the 60s. During that decade I marveled at the high shiny steel and glass concrete structures that were being thrown up even in Norwich with its awkward medieval lanes and street lines. It made me feel that the future had arrived. To quote (once again) H. G. Wells' The Time Machine:
I saw great and splendid architecture rising about me , more massive than any buildings of our own time....
So, the above was my attempt to raise up a piece of architecture of my own; on paper at least! The idea was to create an impression of height, and a rising up into the clouds; notice the unfinished look of the upper most cylinder - yet more units could be added (As it stands the building is about 70-80 stories high). The twisting cross shaped units created a perspective problem that I solved using freehand rather than technically correct vanishing points - the upshot is that a careful check reveals the perspective to be rather awry!
I think I'm still a modernist, but perhaps a little less optimistic. To finish Wells' quote:
.....and yet as it seemed built of glimmer and mist.
Not long after I drew my picture I took an excursion into Christian evangelicalism. Mine was always a fairly moderate version of evangelicalism, but even that did not fit well with me; I always felt uncomfortable with it, a square peg in a round hole. Over the years I've moved away from straight evangelicalism, but retained what I consider to be the real essence of Christianity, the Open Gospel (See link below). Also, my modernist tendencies don't sit well with the stuffy conservatism sometimes found in evangelicalism..... and neither do some of my personality traits which wouldn't be out of place on an Asperger syndrome check list. But far worse than all this, I found that evangelicalism is just too close to fundamentalism: For the fundamentalist high buildings and high achievement signify the rebellion of Babel and thoughts of man. And yet in spite of high spiritual pretensions fundamentalism itself has characteristics that are so transparently part of a very human complex of conceits, self-deceits and run of the mill failings common to all (wo)mankind.
The over optimistic humanism of some modernism, when set against the dowdy oppressive observant based religion of fundamentalism, reminds me of that episode in Red Dwarf when Lister's ego is reified into two characters; a flamboyant optimist and a recessive critical pessimist. A balance needs to be kept between optimism and pessimism.Modernist Christianity may be the balance needed in these days of extremist polarisation. As it is with my imaginary architecture so it is with my Christianity.... the cross is central, twists to face in many directions, rises up to a great height and above all, is unfinished.
Some relevant links:
